For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power. (Colossians 2:9-10)
Christians believe something remarkable about Jesus Christ – we believe He was and is God. Christians get so used to saying and thinking this that they often forget what an amazing claim it is.
We believe that even though Jesus of Nazareth was conceived by a miracle, He was a man who was born just as others and He grew into adulthood in almost every way just as others. He worked as a common laborer for all His young adult life and at age 30 began a three-year public ministry. We believe that He ate, drank, slept, used the bathroom, and walked on the ground as others did.
Knowing all that, we believe that Jesus of Nazareth was God in human form, the same deity who created the worlds and sits as sovereign God over all creation.
One reason we believe this is because those closest to Jesus believed it. For example, the Apostle Paul here says it in the strongest terms: In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead. This is a dramatic, airtight declaration of the full Deity of Jesus. Since all the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Jesus, He cannot be a halfway god or a junior god. Jesus wasn’t merely inspired by God or touched by God or illuminated by God – Jesus was and is God.
Paul went even further when he wrote that in Jesus is all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. This makes it clear that all the fullness of the Godhead was in Jesus bodily, not only in some strange, mystical sense.
This radical teaching has an amazing effect: and you are complete in Him. This can only be true because Jesus is truly God. If He were not God, we couldn’t be complete in Him. Anything that says we are not complete in Him also takes away from the deity of Jesus. Notice that Paul wrote that this is a fact to be enjoyed, not a status to be achieved.
If all the fullness of God dwells in Jesus, and as believers we are united to Him in a faith relationship, then we are also complete in Him. Ultimately, you won’t find completion in anyone or anything else
Let it sink down deep into your heart: Jesus is God, and by faith I am complete in Him.
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David’s weekly devotional is also translated into German.
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