The Word of God, The Fullness of God

Those passages in which Christ is spoken of as containing within himself all the fullness of the Godhead (Colossians 2:9), or else all fullness in general (Colossians 1:19); together with those passages which indicate that all things are, in some sense, summed up in him (e.g. Ephesians 1:10), are, by virtue of the mind-bending comprehensiveness of their subject, very difficult to come away from with any grasp of their basic intent, while at the same time disallowing any pantheistic tendency to equate the fullness of the substantial world with the essence of God. But might we not be helped in this endeavor by John’s descriptive title the Word (see John 1:1-18), particularly given the context in which this title finds expression?

While it is obviously apparent in this passage that Jesus may be appropriately called the Word because of his solitary ability to reveal the Father’s nature and will, in a manner greater than the word-revelations given to the Old Testament prophets (just as the substance is greater than its shadow – cf. Hebrews 1:1-3); it is also necessarily true that the title intends more than just that quality by which Christ reveals the Father.

This may be seen at the outset, from the way in which John alludes to creation, and finds its operative principle in Christ. For first, by his introductory phrase, he intentionally echoes the introduction to Moses’ creation account (“In the beginning…”), and thereby draws the reader’s attention, not just to creation, but to the Genesis account of creation, in which the effectual power of God to create is found only in his word (so he speaks, “Let there be light,” in consequence of which, light springs into being, and so forth). Then, he immediately equates the effective operative principle of creation with the agency of Christ – it was through Christ that all things “came into being” (John 1:3).

This intentional equation of Christ with the effective principle of the omnipotent word of God, as it concerns creation, is really just a necessary foundation, on which John is intent to build his derivative idea upon which the remainder of his gospel hangs, that Christ is the effective principle in the Father’s decreed plan of redemption, just as he was with the plan of creation. When God said, “Let there be light,” light sprang into being through Christ. And when God said, “Let there be ‘the light of the knowledge of the glory of God’” (2 Corinthians 4:6), the gospel light, which is the life of men, sprang into being through Christ. That is to say, when God said “I will have mercy upon whom I will have mercy,” the divine faithfulness to that promise, and the essence of the promise itself, free grace, sprang into being through Christ – he, as the effectual principle of God’s word, no less in redemption than in creation, caused the grace and truth which inhere in God’s being to spring into actual existence among mankind (John 1:14).

Now, when we consider the nature of word-efficacy in mankind, we immediately discern this difference: in both cases, the divine and the human, the word is the means by which one’s nature is revealed. And so we find in scriptures that “out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks” (Luke 6:45) and other similar ideas. In fact, we may subsume all self-revelatory activity of mankind, whether through actual speech, the artistic creation of music, poetry, novels, sculpture, architecture, etc., under the general rubric of word-expression (and indeed, both the Hebrew dabar and the Greek logos are manifestly broader in meaning than to indicate a mere vocal utterance, and may include all of the former in actual usage). But the difference between the divine and human logos is greater than the similarity – for the former alone is inherently and substantially creative. With God, to speak is to accomplish, through the agency of the eternal Son of God. With men, to speak is to reveal that which already has existence, but never to bring anything essentially new into existence. With God, the world of substance is acted upon by the exercise of the logos. With men, the world of the imagination is acted upon by the logos.

At this point, it becomes apparent that reality must be seen in at least three tiers. First and foundationally, there is the essence of God’s being; and secondarily, there is the world of substance, separate from God’s essence but entirely supported and upheld by him (see Colossians 1:17), which includes all men (Acts 17:25,28). And finally, there is the world of imagination, which relates to mankind the same way that the world of substance relates to God’s essence. This is likewise upheld by God, just as the second story of a building is held up by a foundation, inasmuch as it rests upon the first story that the foundation supports.

While all the world of substance gives witness to the nature of God (e.g. Psalm 19:1), yet it is primarily man that reflects his true nature: for man alone displays the analogical creative-word property which inheres in God and is effected by the Son. For this reason, which is broad enough to include as subsets such human elements as morality, originally expressed in positive righteousness, but later marred by the fall, man was said to be created in the image of God.

At this point in our reflection, several ways in which our first passages must be understood become a little clearer. First, with respect to reality: with regard to the foundational tier, the divine substance, Christ is the fullness of the Godhead, for all the essence of deity exists in him, as the eternal Son of God. With regard to the second, the world of substance, of which humanity is a subset, Christ contains all fullness within himself; for it was through him that this world came into existence and it is through him that this world remains in existence; and finally, with respect to the third tier, Christ alone contains this fullness in himself – for he alone took on human flesh. He alone developed through his human properties the perfect reflection of the divine image within the human world of the imagination. He alone perfectly displayed God’s image within the second and third tiers of reality (which are the human analogy to the first and second tiers, as they relate to God). And of course, as God, he already displayed the divine image in the first tier. Christ alone, then, contains within himself all the fullness both of God and the worlds which derive from God’s creativity.

Second, with respect to time: not only was reality summed up in Christ at the point of creation, but it is continually summed up in him, as he holds it together in time. And in time, he is summing up the divine plan of redemption by bringing it into existence, just as he did in the beginning with creation. Creation and new creation both exist as consequences of the divine word; and the divine word is operative only in and through Christ.

In sum, this title, chosen by the apostle John, is the perfect choice, for it points to the manner in which Christ may truly be said to contain within himself, not just the divine fullness, but more generally, all fullness – without slipping into the pantheistic error which would confuse the different tiers of reality. This title, the Word of God, necessitates a distinction between God’s essence and the substantial consequences of his activity; and it also points to a similar distinction between the substantial world of divine-logos origin and the shadowy world of human-logos origin; but at the same time, it makes clear the manner in which all worlds depend upon and derive from the divine essence, and reflect that essence in an elaborate, two-layered analogy. Thus God’s immanence and transcendence are both established and upheld by an examination of the person and work of Christ, called by John the Word of God.

Two corollary ideas may also be established from this foundation. The first concerns the original dominion mandate of creation: just as God gave expression to his essence through establishing the manifold world of substance, we are to be giving expression to our nature, in proportion as it accords with the divine image within us, through the manifold establishment of the third-tier world of reality. Of course, after the fall Christ alone displays the divine image accurately. So we must be concerned to have the image of Christ re-created in us; and also, we must be concerned to give testimony to this renewed image through all of our logos-activities. All human endeavors are therefore holy affairs, and must be conducted in intentionally Christ-like ways. All that we do, as Christians, we must do to the glory of God – and this includes eating and drinking as well as other, more religious occupations. It includes the writing of novels, the composing of music, the production of theater – in short, the labor to make the third-tier world as rich and diverse in its way as the second-tier world is in its way: for both display the divine image. In the new creation, then, I doubt not that all these pursuits and more will be carried on by redeemed mankind, only then always in perfect expression of the divine image. But until then, this observation must be qualified with the realization that God delimits the pursuit of these goals in various ways; and it is obvious that the primary task of the Church, particularly in this age, is the spread of the gospel (Matthew 28:18-20). It also seems reasonable, from the theology of the pre-flood Genesis account, that throughout history, the pursuit and advance of the preponderance of third-tier, human-logos arts, is more appropriately the task of the city of unbelieving mankind, than the City of God, the Church. However, within the context of the New Creation, these activities will be fully redeemed in Christ, and pursued in a God-glorifying manner. And to an extent, the same may be done here on earth, by the Church, as the effective principles of the New Creation grow by slow degrees.

Second, this foundation illustrates that most difficult teaching of the bible, which men are always prone to balk at – and that is, the absolute, minute, and active sovereignty of God over all things, evil as well as good, without any hint of man’s being lightened of his responsibility for wickedness. This truth is generally understood within the context of the analogous second- and third-tier worlds. A good novelist is able to write about many wicked deeds performed by his character, and, in the end of his story, to requite those evil deeds upon the antagonist’s head. The novelist is more fundamentally the cause of those evil deeds than his character – they were planned out by him and worked together by him to find a place in a harmonious whole which issues in a greater good than could be possible without the presence and punishment of evil. But he is not morally responsible for those things, as if he had done them – although in a sense it may be asked of him (as it was of Charles Dickens) “Why did you kill little Nell?” — for he did in fact kill her, although he was not culpable, as was his villain, albeit with a third-tier sort of culpability. In the same way, God in fact took Job’s camels, had David number Israel, and effected a host of other evil things; most notably, he had his own Son killed, which was the most wicked action in all history. But in all of these things, he is not morally culpable, or able to be reproached with evil. He has never done any wickedness. And those characters of his creation, the Sabeans, David, the Jews and Pilate, are all morally culpable, with a substantive, second-tier guilt. Much more could be said here, but at the least it should be mentioned that Acts 2:22-23 and Acts 4:27-28 affirm all the necessary heads of this doctrine.

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