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Col.
1:9
That ye might be filled.
Col. 1:25
To fulfil the Word of God.
Col. 2:10
And ye are complete in Him.
Col. 4:12
Perfect and complete in all the will.
Col. 4:17
That thou fulfil it.
2 Tim. 1:4
That I may be filled with joy.
It will be seen that the word pleroo is not used by the apostle in the sense of
`fulfilling' a prophecy or a Scripture, so much as `filling full', `completing'
and `perfecting'. Colossians 1:25,26 should read
`Whereof I am made a minister according to the dispensation of God which
is given to me for you to complete the Word of God, even the Mystery'.
The Scriptures may be likened to a pyramid, built up in a succession of layers,
but not being complete until the top stone, itself a perfect pyramid, is added
to the structure. All dispensations that have preceded the present
dispensation of the Mystery have come to a temporary end, have gone into a kind
of lo -ammi period, to be resumed at some future time, but there is no
indication in Scripture that the dispensation of the Mystery will be cut off,
be succeeded by yet another fresh intervention, and be picked up again after a
long interval in the future. See the article entitled Pleroma3 for an extended
examination, with chart, of the term `fulness'.
Fulness (Eph. 1:22,23).
Two writers, one Cunnington who made a
translation of the New Testament,
and Dr. J. Armitage Robinson, have made such
suggestive comments on Ephesians
1:22 and 23, that we feel obliged to let the
reader have the benefit of their
helpful words. The intervening comments are
by A.T. in an article published in
The Differentiator.
`Cunnington furnishes an unusual thought, "the fulness of Him who all in
all is receiving His fulness". The last four words express the Middle
Voice force of "getting or doing something for oneself". Cunnington has
here a footnote, "cf. Phil. 2:7; process of cancelling the Emptying".
Here we have a most beautiful thought. When Christ Jesus (note the term)
emptied Himself, He must have emptied Himself of His fulness. But after
resurrection He got back His fulness -- "in Him delights the entire
fulness to dwell" (Col. 1:19); "in Him is dwelling the entire fulness of
the Deity bodily" (Col. 2:9).
`But the glorious thing for us is not alone that He got back the fulness
He formerly possessed. Even that pristine fulness would be incomplete
without His Body, the Church. We are, as it were, the fulness of His
fulness.
`In his Exposition of Ephesians (1907) J. Armitage Robinson, D.D., states
that verse 23 is perhaps the most remarkable expression in the whole
epistle. He says the Church is described as "the fulness of Him who all
in all is being fulfilled". Paul would appear to mean "that in some
mysterious sense the Church is that without which the Christ is not
complete, but with which He is or will be complete. That is to say, he
looks upon the Christ as in a sense waiting for completeness, and
destined in the purpose of God to find completeness in the Church. This
is a somewhat startling thought".