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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comVincent Word Studies - Colossians 2:9 - 2:9
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Fullness
See on Col 1:19.
Godhead (θεότητος)
Only here in the New Testament. See on Rom 1:20, where θειότης divinity or godhood is used. Appropriate there, because God personally would not be known from His revelation in nature, but only His attributes - His majesty and glory. Here Paul is speaking of the essential and personal deity as belonging to Christ. So Bengel: “Not the divine attributes, but the divine nature.”
Bodily (σωματικῶς)
In bodily fashion or bodily-wise. The verse contains two distinct assertions: 1. That the fullness of the Godhead eternally dwells in Christ. The present tense κατοικεῖ dwelleth, is used like ἐστιν is (the image), Col 1:15, to denote an eternal and essential characteristic of Christ's being. The indwelling of the divine fullness in Him is characteristic of Him as Christ, from all ages and to all ages. Hence the fullness of the Godhead dwelt in Him before His incarnation, when He was “in the form of God” (Phi 2:6). The Word in the beginning, was with God and was God (Joh 1:1). It dwelt in Him during His incarnation. It was the Word that became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth, and His glory which was beheld was the glory as of the Only begotten of the Father (Joh 1:14; compare 1Jo 1:1-3). The fullness of the Godhead dwells in His glorified humanity in heaven.
2. The fullness of the Godhead dwells in Him in a bodily way, clothed the body. This means that it dwells in Him as one having a human body. This could not be true of His preincarnate state, when He was “in the form of God,” for the human body was taken on by Him in the fullness of time, when “He became in the likeness of men” (Phi 2:7), when the Word became flesh. The fullness of the Godhead dwelt in His person from His birth to His ascension. He carried His human body with Him into heaven, and in His glorified body now and ever dwells the fullness of the Godhead.
“O, for a sight, a blissful sight
Of our Almighty Father's throne!
There sits the Savior crowned with light,
Clothed in a body like our own.
“Adoring saints around Him stand,
And thrones and powers before Him fall;
The God shines gracious through the man,
And sheds sweet glories on them all.”
Watts
“What a contrast to the human tradition and the rudiments of the world” (Meyer). What a contrast to the spiritual agencies conceived as intermediate between God and men, in each of which the divine fullness was abridged and the divine glory shaded, in proportion to the remoteness from God in successive emanation.