3.1 Filled with God
© 2017 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
The Second Most Important Verse
Ephesians 3:17-19. That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may 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 passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Everything always begins with Christ Jesus in Person dwelling inside our hearts. Anything that does not arise out from Jesus alive in our own hearts is of no interest to us. Jesus, in all that He is, in all of His present glory, fills my heart to overflowing! How? – Through my faith. I am confident that Jesus Himself is inside of me, even against the sight of my eyes or my human judgment – because God says.
Out from Jesus. Paul does not use the word, “that” in these lines to lay out levels of achievement. “That” means the necessary and obvious result of what came before.
Then Paul gives us three initial things coming out of Jesus in us. Being rooted and grounded in love is the first obvious result of Jesus alive inside our hearts. Rooted is a tree’s roots penetrating deeply into the love of God; grounded is a house’s foundation set firmly upon the love of God. This foundation of our lives is absolute and continuous. But more than being rooted and grounded in love, the direct result of Jesus alive in our hearts is that we might comprehend, that is, seize together into our understanding, that vast extent of this God in whom we dwell and who lives in us.
A Bombshell. The third wondrous reality coming out of Jesus alive in our hearts is that we know that which is beyond knowing, the surpassing love of Christ for us.
Now, what Paul is doing is softening us up with all this love in which we live for the massive bombshell with which he is about to hit us, the largest statement in the Bible and in the universe. That you might be – FILLED with ALL the FULLNESS of GOD!
Can you believe that? We must. Are we talking about man? Yes, we are. – All of God in all of His Being and Person and Character is found inside of us, inside our definition of what it is to be human!
Designed for God. Does Ephesians 3:19 blow things right out of the water or not? We must comprehend this! God said it, and He always speaks the truth. When God formed us in the beginning, He designed us to contain all of God. That is our shape. There is nothing found in God that cannot be revealed through man. More than that, God designed our hearts always to be filled with, to know, Omnipotence. Human ambition is the heart of man desiring in all ways the Omnipotence, the All-power of God, but empty of that very God it was designed to contain.
Your heart desires power. It longs to know the God who fills you full. Your heart is filled with Christ; He lives there, it is His dwelling place, His throne, the throne of heaven.
A Paraphrase. Let’s paraphrase this verse before bringing in its companion verses that give it the full depth it must have in our knowing.
The Lord Jesus Christ, ascended above the heavens, dwells in our hearts through faith and not by any outward appearance. We, thrusting ourselves deliberately and absolutely into the Love that fills our hearts to overflowing, seize hold of the extent in every possible direction through which God Himself, Love in Person, reveals Himself through us; we KNOW the love of Christ which is beyond all knowledge. We are filled with all the fullness of God. Everything that is God in Person in all that God is resides in fullness in every particle of our being, spirit, soul, and body.
Seeing God. Is this true? God says “filled with all the fullness of God.” Is it true? If this is true, how is it possible that this truth does not fill and flow through every sermon preached in Christendom? Is God so small in our eyes that we can look at ourselves and fail to see Him? If you were in the presence of God upon the throne of heaven would you not fall on your face and worship? Yet everything that is there upon and around that throne and all of God besides fills you full. How could we possibly “see” anything else?
Filled with Fullness. “Filled” means every particle of who and what I am, spirit, soul, and body. “All” means all. There is not a particle, a dimension, a realm, a place, a character trait, a quality that is God that is not also IN me, filling every particle of me as me.
All of God. Love. The Holy of the Throne.
The “Fullness” of God. Fullness is billowing, it is exploding-ness, it is above and beyond. All of infinity is inside of me, yes, but infinity in FULLNESS, omnipresence in fullness, omnipotence in fullness, eternality in fullness, holiness in fullness, love in fullness, light in fullness, exploding, billowing, rushing mighty rivers of God, all of Him inside of me, all of Him flowing out of me.
Our Purpose. Ephesians 3:19 turns our understanding completely around. Our purpose is not to be “happy forever.” Our purpose is not to showcase God’s workmanship and thereby bring glory to Him. Our purpose is to be God’s body – a body you have prepared for Me (Hebrews 10:5) – so that God Himself in Person can be known by all creation.
Look down at yourself. You contain God. You contain ALL of God. Do you “see” Him? Don’t say, “No way.” God is telling you the truth.
Our Glorious Weakness. What are the primary companion “verses” that must always accompany our being filled as humans with ALL of God?
And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong (2 Corinthians 12:9-10).
God created man with enormous capacity, but no ability. God made us WEAK. It is our weakness alone that allows the power of Christ to be perfect and complete inside of us.
God Made Us Weak. Everything else God created, He made sufficient in itself, able to do what it is by drawing on what is inside of it. God did not make man that way. God made man weak, with all the capacity to contain God, but none of the ability to fulfill our purpose. We were created to contain God in Person, can we do that? We were created to reveal God in Person, can we do that? Animals and angels can do what they were created to do; you and I cannot. Our weakness is our glory; our weakness, as we find ourselves to be, is designed entirely by God SOLELY as the counterpart of His glory in us.
Power through Weakness. Adam hated weak; the hatred of human weakness is rebellion against God. We glory in the weakness of our flesh, knowing that God designed that very weakness entirely as His dwelling place. Perfection, the real perfection of God requires weakness from which to be seen. No human weakness means no perfection of God revealed.
But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed… For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh (2 Corinthians 4:7-11).
One Flesh with Him. Most Christian teachers present a God utterly separated from our human flesh. John said the argument that separates Christ from our flesh was the spirit of anti-Christ already coming upon the church in his day. Paul said that we ARE the very flesh of Christ, of His flesh and of His bones, one flesh with Him (Ephesians 5:30-32).
Filled with ALL the Fullness of God cannot be anywhere else but IN the vessels of weakness He made us to be – forever. And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God manifest in the flesh… (1 Timothy 3:16). – God inside of us!
How? Let’s back up just a bit, however. We have included the entirety of Ephesians 3:17-19 as this second most important verse. Yes, we must grapple with the overwhelming reality of what is simply the largest statement in the Bible, the largest in the universe, a man or a woman filled with all the fullness of God. But how do we get there? And how can we exist in these bodies of weakness knowing that God Himself, All-Consuming FIRE, fills us full?
– Christ lives in your hearts through faith. Everything in the Bible begins with this line; everything in the Bible comes out from these words.
Increase Forever. The implications of this one statement, you and me filled with all that God is, are enormous beyond measure. Our knowledge, our comprehending together the meaning of God in us will increase daily forever. That means that our understanding of ourselves will increase daily forever. We were created to contain God, to contain all of God; that’s what it means to be human.
Now, if God is telling us the truth, then I’m sure you would agree with me, that God filling us full with Himself in Person must be a ruling definition of what God means all through the Bible. If such knowledge is absent from us, we cannot know what God means by any verse.
Even More than Full. Yes, we contain all of God. God fills us full. God designed us specifically to contain ALL of Himself in Person as His body to both heaven and earth. But God is God and God always moves out through us into His creation in two mighty ways both at the same time, always together. Those two mighty ways of God flowing out from us are the third and fourth most important verses in the Bible.
You and I as humans were created not just to contain all of God in Person, but also to reveal God to all as rivers of Spirit flowing out of us and to be the triumph of the Lord Jesus against all voices that speak against the Word God speaks.