(2) The unfriiiffi(l. — The other side of the picture can be briefly dismissed. Those who walk in dark- ness are spoken of as unfruitful (Eph 5"). ' What fruit had you then in those things of which you are ashamed?' asks St. Paul in Ro 6-S though we might possibly translate, ' What fruit had you then? — Things (gratifications of sense) of wiiicli you are now ashamed.' In Ro 7* the Apostle describes the unregenerate life as producing fruit 'unto death,' and if we desire an enumeration of these poisonous products we shall find them in Gal r>''''-' (cf. Col 3^""). For the final harvesting we have the picture of Rev 14.
(3) The time of fruit-bearing. — It is the will of Jesus that His disciples should bear 'much fruit' ; in His words on this theme (Jn 15) He does not seem to contemplate the possibility of bearing a little. It is much or none. The trouble is that churches and individuals only too often look like orchards stricken by a blight, and where a little fruit is found it is not so mellow as it might be. We need not be in too great a hurry to see the full fruit in yoimg lives. There is a time for blossom and a time for ripe fruit, and the intervening stage is not attractive though it is necessary. There is a time for the blade and a time for the full corn in the ear, but before we get this harvest there is the period of the green and unsatisfying ear. We sometimes speak of a harvest of souls following on a series of revival or mission services ; but it is only the blade pushing up into the light — the harvest is still far distant.
A daj' now and again with a fruit-grower on his farm will have much to teach the preacher as to natural law in the spiritual world. He will learn among-st other things how vital is the process of priming, and how no stroke is made at random. He will learn how to giiard the nascent life against frosts and chills, its need of nutriment from soil and sun and rain. The wonderful exploits of the Californian fruit-grower, Luther Burbank, will open up a whole universe of possibilities ; the story of what irrigation and scientific culture have done in Australia will show how deserts may become orchards. And as palm trees are said to bear their heaviest clusters in old age, the life that abides in Christ may be confident of escaping the reproach of crabbed and withered senility — it shall bring forth fruit in old age. But it need not wait for old age — it shall be like the tree of life that bears its fruit every month — fruit that is for the delectation and the healing of the world.
A. J. Grieve. FULNESS.— The word to be considered is pleroma (■rrXrjpw/j.a). Nouns of the -fia termination properly denote the result of the action signified
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FULNESS
FUTUEE LIFE
by the cognate verb ; and therefore ir\-qpu}fxa (from TrXTypow = ' to fill,' or, metaphorically, 'to fulfil') primarily means that •which possesses its full con- tent, an entire set or series, a completed Avhole re- garded in its relation to its component parts, or in contrast ■with a previous deficiency of any of these parts. The full crew of a ship or 'strength' of a regiment is a pleroma ; the soul becomes a ' pleroma of virtues by means of those three excel- lent things, nature, learning, and practice' (Fhilo, dc Prcemiis et Fosnis, 11).
This is the sense in Gal 4* : ' when the fulness of the time came,' i.e. when the entire measure of the appointed period had been filled up by the lapse of successive ages. So the ' fulness ' of the Jews (Ro 111-) and of the Gentiles (Ro U-^) is the full complement, the entire number contemplated (however determined — by predestination or other- wise). Lightfoot in his classical discussion of the word (see Literature) denies any other than this passive sense ; but his argument is far from con- vincing. When we think of a pitcherful of water, we may regard the water as a completed entity, which by successive additions has reached its full quantity and become a pleroma of water ; but much more naturally we think of it as that which fills the pitcher, and is its pleroma. This active sense must be accepted in Mt 9^^, Mk 2-\ where rb Tr\r}pwiJ.a can only mean the patch that fills the hole in the worn-out garment ; in Mk 8^", where ffTTvpidujv ir\T]pw/LLaTa inevitably means 'basketfuls' ; in 1 Co 10-", where ' the earth and the pleroma thereof cannot be made to signify anything else tlian ' the earth and all that it contains,' the abundance that fills it. So also in Ro 13^*, ' love is the pleroma of the law,' the context ('he that loveth his neighbour has fulfilled the law ') shows that pleroma is not to be taken passively, as the law in its completeness ; but actively, as that which fills up the whole measure of the law's demands.
The use of the word as a theological term is con- fined in the NT to those closely related writings, Colossians, Ephesians, and the Fourth Gospel. In Col V^ it is predicated of Christ that 'it pleased the Father that in him the whole pleroma should dwell,' and in 2*, with greater precision of state- ment, ' in him dwelleth the whole pleroma of the Godhead in a bodily fashion' (cf. Jn P-*). Here the meaning of the word is beyond dispute. All that God is is in Christ ; the organic whole of Divine attributes and powers that constitute Deity {dedriji) dwells permanently in Him.