Jack Rendel

J & Z Publications

THE FULLNESS OF GOD

Jack Rendel

Abundant Life

Probably one of the most famous verses in the Gospel of John, besides John 3:16, is John 10:10. They are the words of Jesus, The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I am come that they may have life and that they may have it more abundantly (NKJV). Another way of describing the life Jesus gives is to say ‘life lived to the full’.

Grace, Wine, Fish and Books

The introduction to the gospel tells us that the Word was full of grace and truth and that we have received of his fullness, grace upon grace! He demonstrated this  fullness in the physical world by filling 6 large stone jars, each containing about 20 to 30 gallons, with good wine at the wedding in Cana (2:1-12), and, in the conclusion to the gospel, filling a net of fish with 153 large fish, to the breaking point, and yet not broken. In the very last words of the gospel the disciple who is writing says that if all the things Jesus did were written down the world would be so full of books it could not contain them all (21:24 and 25).

 Appear Before The Lord

The Israelites were required to appear before the Lord in the feasts he had instituted (Exodus 23:14). These were times when Jerusalem was full to overflowing! History tells us that at feasts, like that of Dedication, the festival spirit, the sheer numbers of visitors, the lighting in the city and the rejoicing were sights to see. John opens his gospel telling us that his gospel is about the Word, who is God the Creator, and God who became a man and lived amongst us. It is therefore not surprising to find God in the flesh going up to his own festivals in his city, Jerusalem.

God And Man Meet

As John moves with Jesus through his writing Jesus fulfills the meaning of the festivals. In the first Passover recorded in John 2:13 and following verses Jesus cleans the market place out of the temple so that there was room for God and man to meet there. After all, wasn’t that the main reason the feasts were instituted, for God and man to be together? The temple and the feasts were not instituted so that another huge market place could be set up in Jerusalem. Market places are a part of life and Jerusalem had its markets. That is okay! But the temple and the feasts were not the place, nor the time for a market. It was the place and the time for God and man to have a special time of fellowship, worship and rejoicing together.

In the Festival of Tabernacles Jesus cried out that whoever believed in him, out of his belly, or inward being, would flow rivers of living water, referring to the Holy Spirit who would be given to all those who believed. The fullness of God would flow out of us who believed in Jesus. When the apostles preached in Jerusalem the leaders of the Jews marveled at the grace with which they ministered and spoke, taking note of the fact that though they were not highly educated men, they had been with Jesus. They were living life to the full, abundant life, as Jesus had taught them (John 10:10).

People Are The Temple

Today, the Bible tells us, we human beings who believe in Jesus are the temple of God (1 Corinthians 3:16, 17).  We also need to receive ongoing cleansing as 1 John 1:9 points out, and Jesus’ act of the cleansing of the temple in Jerusalem demonstrated his desire for a clean house both a clean temple and a clean people. Ephesians 5:18 says we are not to be drunk with wine … but to be filled with the Spirit. God actually came down in his glory and lived in the temple in Jerusalem (2 Chronicles 7:1, 2, 16). He exhorts us to be filled and refilled with him! Yes, filled and refilled! DL Moody said he needed the filling of the Spirit often because he leaked! George Verwer has said that the filling again and again of the Spirit is not a problem because we know where to get the 'refills'! It is not that we are stupid and just don’t get this thing of being filled again and a gain. When I go to a Chinese buffet I fill my plate; eat the food; and then go and fill it again with food! Have we forgotten about the fullness of God? Have we ignored the fullness of Christ? He gives grace and more grace. John the Baptist said, He does not give the Spirit by measure (John 3:34). God is not stingy. You can receive and receive from him and he gives more and more, as much as we can receive.

The Fulfilling Sacrifice

Let’s also remember that God had said to Solomon that he had chosen the temple as a place of sacrifice. (2 Chronicles 7:12) As the people came to Jerusalem for the feasts they offered the required sacrifices. Sacrifices for sin and for the protection of the people had gone on even before the temple was built. In Egypt the night the nation escaped slavery in that country they offered a sacrifice whose blood was put on the door posts and lintel protecting them from the angel of God who went through the land destroying all the first born. At the last Passover recorded in John, Jesus would give his life as a sacrifice for sin. This would fulfill the prophecies of the Old Testament like Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53, as well as the words of John the Baptist when he cried out, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29).

God Thinkers

As the Jewish pilgrims approached Jerusalem did their thoughts turn to God? Hopefully they did. They thought about the glory of God, the wisdom of God, the power of God, the holiness of God, the love of God, the mercies of God, the salvation of God, the provision of God and so many other wonderful things about God. They were to be consumed with God as a fire burns up the wood, and filled with God as the melting glaciers and rains fill the rivers to overflowing. (All references are (MKJV).

1. God’s full provision for his people. Nehemiah 9:25 And they took strong cities and a rich land, and possessed houses full of all goods, wells already dug, vineyards and olive-yards, and fruit trees in abundance. And they ate and were filled, and became fat, and delighted themselves in Your great goodness. Psalm 65:9  You visit the earth and water it; You greatly enrich it; the river of God is full of water; You provide their grain, for in this way You have prepared it.

2. The fullness of God’s pity, mercies, graciousness and truth. Psalm 86:15  But You, O God, are God full of pity, and gracious, long-suffering, and rich in mercy and truth. Psalm 33:5  He loves righteousness and judgment; the earth is full of the mercy of Jehovah. Psalm 78:38  But He, full of pity, forgave their iniquity, and did not destroy them; yea, many times He turned His anger away, and did not stir up all His wrath.

3. The fullness of his wisdom. Psalm 104:24  O Jehovah, how many are Your works! In wisdom You have made them all; the earth is full of Your riches.

4. The fullness of God’s righteousness. Psalm 48:10  According to Your name, O God, so is Your praise to the ends of the earth. Your right hand is full of righteousness; let mount Zion rejoice!

5. God’s fullness of power, justice and might in the prophets. Micah 3:8  But I am full of power by the Spirit of Jehovah, and justice, and might, to declare to Jacob his transgression, and to Israel his sin.

6. God’s purpose in creation. Genesis 1:28 …fill the earth.

Full Of Glory

The National Football League runs adds about the glory of the NFL. Another game of football, soccer, claims its glories. But there is a higher glory which we can imagine as we read about how God filled his house with glory!

1. Ezekiel saw the glory of the Lord fill his house. Ezekiel 10:4  And the glory of Jehovah rose from the cherub, over the threshold of the house. And the house was filled with the cloud, and the court was full of the brightness of Jehovah's glory (MKJV).

2. Years later when the remnant sent by Cyrus the Great returned from captivity to build God’s house in Jerusalem he encouraged them with this promise. Haggai 2:7 I will fill this house with glory (MKJV).

Broken Dreams

The band Green Day brought out its first recording in the early 1990s but they are still producing. In 2004 they brought out a song called “Boulevard of Broken Dreams”. The lyrics and music are haunting. The atmosphere hangs empty. There is searching going on. The “thief” has come, stolen, killed and destroyed. A moan of emptiness echoes up and down the lines of the song. We need God and the fullness of God or life becomes meaningless and empty, and just as Green Day articulates it, we “walk alone”!

The palmists echoes some of the sentiments of the song by Green Day. (All references are MKJV.)

1. Psalm 69:20  Reproach has broken my heart, and I am full of heaviness; and I looked for some to mourn with me, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none.

2. Psalm 88:3  For my soul is full of troubles, and my life draws near the grave.

However, God wants to replace the fullness of a heavy heart with his fullness. (All references are MKJV.)

Have we allowed other things and loves to fill us, replacing God’s fullness in us? The Jews in Jesus day had filled the temple with a market. Isaiah at an earlier time cried out against a people full of things other than God. The apostle Paul echoes that cry in Romans 1:29.

1. Isaiah 1:21  How has the faithful city become a harlot? It was full of judgment; righteousness lodged in it, but now murderers. Isaiah 2:6  For You have forsaken Your people the house of Jacob, because they have become full from the east, and are fortune-tellers like the Philistines. And they clap their hands with the children of strangers.

2. Isaiah 2:7  And their land is full of silver and gold. (maybe platinum) There is no end of their treasures and their land is full of horses (or horse power); nor an end of their chariots (or 4 x 4s).

3. Isaiah 2:8  And their land is full of idols; they worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made. Romans 1:29  being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; being full of envy, murder, quarrels, deceit, evil habits, becoming whisperers…

We need more of Jesus who fills all in all with the fullness of God. (All references are MKJV.)

1. Luke 4:1  And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness.

2. Ephesians 1:23 …the fullness of him who fills everything.

3. Colossians 1:19 …to have all his (God’s) fullness dwell in him.

4. Colossians 2:9 In Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives (MKJV).

In the early church there were examples to us of believers full of the fullness of God. (All references are MKJV.)

1. The deacons. Acts 6:3  Therefore, brothers, look out among you seven men being witnessed to, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this duty.

2. Tabitha. Acts 9:36  And in Joppa was a certain disciple named Tabitha (which translated is called Dorcas). She was full of good works and kind deeds which she did.

3. Philip. Acts 11:24  For he was a good man and full of the Holy Spirit and faith. And many people were added to the Lord. The church in Rome.

4. The Roman Believers 15:14  And I myself also am persuaded of you, my brothers, that you also are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, able also to admonish one another.

Just think of some of the “fullness” goals God has for us! (All references are MKJV.)

1. Psalm 16:11 You will fill me with joy.

2. Roans. 15:13 The God of hope fill you with all joy.

3. John 15:11  I have spoken these things to you so that My joy might remain in you and your joy might be full.

4. John 16:24  Before now you have asked nothing in My name; ask and you shall receive, that your joy may be full.

5. Ephesians 4:13  And this until we all come into the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a full-grown man, to the measure of the stature of the  fullness of Christ;

6. Philippians 1:11 …filled with the fruits of righteousness.

7. Philippians 1:9  And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in full knowledge and in all perception; 

8. Colossians 2:2  that their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love, and to all riches of the full assurance of the understanding, to the full knowledge of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ;

9. Philemon 1:6  that the fellowship of your faith may operate in a full knowledge of every good thing in you in Christ Jesus.

10. Hebrews 6:1  Therefore, having left the discourse of the beginning of Christ, let us go on to full growth, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God,

11.  2John 1:8  Look to yourselves, so that we may not lose those things which we worked out, but that we may receive a full reward (MKJV).

Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians is bursting with the fullness of God and includes height, depth, breadth, length and fullness. Ephesians 3:14-19 14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, 16 that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God (MKJV).

God invites us, no, he commands us, to:

1. Psalm 81:10 Open wide your mouth and I will fill it.

2. Eph. 5:18 Be filled with the Spirit (MKJV).

©Copyright 2005-2046 John (Jack) W Rendel. All rights reserved.

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