Dear Fellow Believers in Christ, (The Father has Chosen All the Fullness to be In Christ in You as You!) 

Why has the Father chosen all the fullness to be in Christ? How did Jesus of Nazareth express the fullness of the Father in this earth? How does Paul's prayer tell the Body of Christ that His fullness will come? How is the fullness of Christ expressed in and through His Body today? How is the Body of Christ being built up into the fullness of Christ? With the Holy Spirit as our teacher and guide, let us look into the Word of God to see the Father's fullness in Christ.

FULLNESS

"For it once then pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should once then indwell" (Col. 1:19, author's translation).

The Father has Chosen that All the Fullness Should be In Christ
In the Father's eternal plan He has chosen that "all the fullness" should be in Christ (Col. 1:19). The word all as used, doesn't leave anything out. Paul is discussing "all the fullness." First, the definition of fullness means repletion or completion; what fills as contents; or what is filled as a container, fulfilling or filled to fullness. Now, let's talk about various facets of "all the fullness."

The Father is Gathering In One All Things in Christ in the Fullness of Times
God the Father begins in His eternal plan, where He chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world (Eph. 1:4). Every part of the Father is in Christ – His love, His grace, and His will (Eph. 1:4-9). The Father plans that in "the fullness of the times, He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth – in Him" (Eph. 1:10). So "when the fullness of the time had come, God the Father sent forth His Son, born of woman, born under the law" (Gal. 4:4). This is Jesus of Nazareth, the Lord and Savior of the world whom the Father sent to us.

Jesus was the Fullness and Express Image of the Father to this Earth
The first fullness of Christ that this earth received was in Jesus of Nazareth. "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth" (John 1:14) – "And of His fullness we have all received grace for grace" (John 1:16). "No one has already completely seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who ever is in the bosom of the Father, He has once then declared Him" (John 1:18, author's translation). The root word for declared in that verse is exago in the Greek. It literally means that Jesus made a full and open show of the Father to the world. He spoke the Father's words. He thought the Father's thoughts. He worked the Father's works (John 14;8-12). "Christ ever being the radiance of glory, and the express image of His essence, and ever supporting all things by the word of His power" (Hebr. 1:3, author's translation). Christ was the fullness and express image of the Father to this earth, to reconcile us to Him (II Cor. 5:19).

The Exchange of Gospels When the Fullness of the Gentiles Comes In
The next part of God's eternal plan past the cross, burial, the resurrection, and ascension, was the beginning of the Church on the Day of Pentecost to start getting birthed sons (Acts 2:1-13, 41). By grace, the Father extended to the Jews additional opportunities to come into the truth for about 27 more years past Pentecost. However, when the fullness of the Gentiles came in, the gospel of uncircumcision through Paul was the only gospel directed by God. The circumcision gospel through Peter and the other Apostles was put aside by the Father to be used no more (Rom. 11:25). The Father's focus now is to birth sons into Christ, and Christ into His Sons by the Holy Spirit (I Cor. 12:13; Col. 1:27).

The Father wants to reveal His Fullness in Us of Himself and His Dear Son
Once we are birthed sons God the Father wants to reveal His fullness in us through Christ. Through the Holy Spirit the Father reveals our union with Christ on the cross (Rom. 6:3,6). The Holy Spirit also reveals our union with Christ in the resurrection (Rom. 6:5,11). Paul prays that we will have the Father and Christ revealed in us and to us (Eph. 1:17-23). Then, Paul summarizes this prayer with the fact that we are His Body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all (Eph. 1:23). This is the Father's ultimate purpose for his birthed sons to be filled with all the fullness of Him and His dear Son and have it revealed to us.

All of the Fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily in Christ and in You
We know that in Christ dwells the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power (Col. 2:9,10). We have the Holy Spirit as the Divine teacher to renew our mind to give Christ a mind to do the Father's will and purpose in us and through us as us. We have Christ to be our very life. It is not Holy Spirit life. It is the Christ-life. He who has the Son has life (I John 5:11,12). I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me (Gal. 2:20). Perhaps you may say that is simply semantics. However, it is important and best to rightly divide the Word of truth (II Tim. 2:15). If the Word makes a distinction, then, we should make the same distinction also. There is always a Divine reason and purpose behind such distinctions. The birthed sons have the Holy Spirit for fullness of teaching in them. They have the Son in them for fullness of expression of the Father's life. They also have the Father in them for fullness of fellowship through the Son, who is their life (I John 1:3).

The Fullness of the Love of Christ in Us becomes the Fullness of God in Us
The fullness of the expression of Christ in us is love. The Spirit of Christ comes forth in us in a self-for-others expression. That is why Paul prayed in that second prayer of Ephesians that we would "be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man" (Eph. 3:16). "That Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith;" and that we be deeply "rooted and grounded in love" (Eph. 3:17). Why? So we might "be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height – to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge" (Eph. 3:18.19). We are literally to be filled with the fullness of the love of Christ. As a result, the Word says that we will be filled with all the fullness of God.

The Fullness of Love Though the Entire Body as the Fullness of Christ
We are birthed individually as sons with individual relationships with the Father. However, the Father has left us in the schoolhouse of this world to let the fullness of the love of Christ in us be expressed to others. We need His light and life, His wisdom, His knowledge, His revelation, His understanding, His fruitfulness, and His glory – with all of His fullness expressed to others in us as us. The members of the entire Body of Christ are being built up together in different interrelationships in the Spirit in His fullness – "till we all come to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ" (Eph. 4:13).