The Fullness of God’s Grace
From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. (John 1:16)
-Ephesians 1:3
Fullness is such a great word, is it not? It brings to mind thoughts of satisfaction, completion, entirety, and contentment. When we read the words “fullness of his grace” it speaks to all that is found within Jesus that “causes joy and pleasure, that which creates delight in the recipient or observer. To be sure, grace may express itself in the form of gifts or endowments (the Holy Spirit, spiritual gifts); but they do not constitute grace in the proper sense. Strictly speaking, grace is the favorable disposition of God toward sinners on account of Christ.” (Hebrew-Greek Key Word Study Bible New Testament Lexical Aids)
-Charles H. Spurgeon
I have thought a lot about those four words–“fullness of his grace.” All that is within Jesus–all the blessings of joy, delight and satisfaction, all the gifts and endowments of the Holy Spirit, all the favor of God toward us as sinners because of Christ–all this we receive one right after another. Grace giving way to grace. Just as one wave gets to the seashore and another follows suit, then another and another, in like manner, we receive never ending waves of God’s unmerited favor. His love, giving, joy, and satisfaction contrasts with human love, giving, joy and satisfaction in both nature and degree–while man’s appears as a flicker, God’s shines forth as the brightness of the sun.
-C H MacIntosh,
1860 Notes on Leviticus
Throughout the Bible we find verses that speak to God’s fullness and His desire to fill us:
“Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare. (Isaiah 55:1-2)
On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “If anyone is thirsty let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.” (John 7:37-38)
I am the LORD your God, who brought you up out of Egypt. Open wide your mouth and I will fill it. (Psalm 81:10)
I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, 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. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way. (Ephesians 1:18-23)
Take It to Heart
-Charles H. Spurgeon
“There is a fullness of blessings of every sort and shape; a fullness of grace to pardon, of grace to regenerate, of grace to sanctify, of grace to preserve, and of grace to perfect. There is a fullness at all times; a fullness of comfort in affliction; a fullness of guidance in prosperity. A fullness of every divine attribute, of wisdom, of power, of love; a fullness which it were impossible to survey, much less to explore … Oh, what a fullness must this be of which all receive! Fullness, indeed, must there be when the stream is always flowing, and yet the well springs up as free, as rich, as full as ever. Come, believer, and get all thy need supplied; ask largely, and thou shalt receive largely, for this ‘fullness’ is inexhaustible, and is treasured up where all the needy may reach it, even in Jesus, Immanuel–God with us.”
(Charles H. Spurgeon)