The fulness of Christ is the fulness which belongs to Him, or that of
which He is full. All which He is and has is to be poured into His
servants, and when all this is communicated to them the goal will be
reached. We shall be full-grown men, and more wonderful still, we all
shall make one perfect man, and individual completenesses will blend
into that which is more complete than any of these, the one body, which
corresponds to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.
This is the goal of humanity in which, and in which alone, the dreams of
thinkers about perfectibility will become facts, and the longings that
are deeply rooted in every soul will find their fulfilment. By our
personal union with Jesus Christ through faith, our individual
perfection, both in the sense of maturity and in that of the realisation
of ideal manhood, is assured, and in Him the race, as well as the
individual, is redeemed, and will one day be glorified. The Utopias of
many thinkers are but partial and distorted copies of the kingdom of
Christ. The reality which He brings and imparts is greater than all
these, and when the New Jerusalem comes down out of heaven, and is
planted on the common earth, it will outvie in lustre and outlast in
permanence all forms of human association. The city of wisdom which was
Athens, the city of power which was Rome, the city of commerce which is
London, the city of pleasure which is Paris, 'pale their ineffectual
fires' before the city in the light whereof the nations should walk.
The beginning of the process, of which the end is this inconceivable
participation in the glory of Jesus, is simple trust in Him. 'He that is
joined to the Lord is one spirit,' and he who trusts in Him, loves Him,
and obeys Him, is joined to Him, and thereby is started on a course
which never halts nor stays so long as the faith which started him
abides, till he 'grows up into Him in all things which is the head, even
Christ.' The experience of the Christian life as God means it to be, and
by the communication of His grace makes it possible for it to become, is
like that of men embarked on some sun-lit ocean, sailing past shining
headlands, and ever onwards, over the boundless blue, beneath a calm sky
and happy stars. The blissful voyagers are in full possession at every
moment of all which they need and of all of His fulness which they can
contain, but the full possession at every moment increases as they, by
it, become capable of fuller possession. Increasing capacity brings
with it increasing participation in the boundless fulness of Him who
filleth all in all.