Fullness of Jesus

DEVOTION

THE LETTER TO THE EPHESIANS

FULLNESS OF JESUS

Eph 1:20-23

20 which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, 21 far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. 22 And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.

NIV

We are continuing with the prayer of Paul and he had been praying about the incomparable great power of God for us who believe. Now he explains more about that power which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in heavenly realms. We have to think just about that for a moment before moving on to the rest of this prayer. Because we have been called to have the incomparable great power of God working in our lives, he exerts his power in us as he did in Jesus. That is he raised us from the dead. It is both a future and a past event. First, as a past action, we were dead in our sins. Indeed it was a spiritual death, but also our condition of being dead in our sins was leading us to our final death, even the second death. However, he raised us from the dead, that death in sin and gave us life, eternal life. We are not subject to the death of our spirit, nor the death of our body. Sure, at some point this body will fail us and it will be put in the grave. However, just as the grave could not hold Jesus, it will not hold us either. We are not certain as to just when our bodies will be raised from the dead, but until that happens we will be with the Lord in some form, perhaps just our spirit, perhaps in some other form, we are not sure just how all that works, but we are certain that we will be raised from the dead, just as we already have been. In addition, it is a present condition as with God time does not limit him, He is always present, so all that has and will happen in our linear thinking is being done. We also are going to be seating at the right hand of God in heavenly realms. This might make us think as to how we all can be seated at his right hand, is that not reserved just for Jesus? This may be a metaphor as the right hand is the place of honor. When a king gave a feast, his honored guest sat at his right side. So then, we being in Christ, being given the right to be called sons of God, are all given the place of honor in the heavenly realms. God honors us as his sons. This place of honor at the right hand of God is far above all rule and authority, power and dominion and every title can be given not just in this age but in the age to come surely speaks of Jesus, and yet we are in Christ Jesus. What does that mean for us? What we know is heaven is far above anything we can ever comprehend in our finite minds. We have a glimpse, just a slight image, but have no real understanding of how just how majestic, how magnificent it is. But we know for sure we have been raised from the dead and we will spend all of eternity in the heavenly realm of God, our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. For now, we are content to be his church, his body, as Jesus is the head. We are content to be the fullness of him who fills everything in every way. Wow, we are the fullness of Jesus. What does that look like? Not sure exactly, but we are sure God, who started this good work in us, will bring it to completion and thus we are in fact in the present tense, the fullness of Jesus.