The “fulness [_pleroma_] of God,” and the “filling” (or “completing”) of believers in Christ are ideas characteristic of this group of epistles. The first of these expressions we have discussed already in its connexion with Christ, in chapter i. 23; we shall meet with it again as “the fulness of Christ” in chapter iv. 13. The phrase before us is, in substance, identical with that of the latter text. Christ contains the Divine plenitude; He embodies it in His person, and conveys it to the world by His redemption. St Paul desires for the Asian Christians that they may receive it; it is the ultimate mark of his prayer. He wishes them to gain the total sum of all that God communicates to men. He would have them “filled”--their nature made complete both in its individual and social relations, their powers of mind and heart brought into full exercise, their spiritual capacities developed and replenished--“filled unto all the plenitude of God.” This is no humanistic or humanitarian ideal. The mark of Christian completeness is on a different and higher plane than any that is set up by culture. The ideal Christian is a greater man than the ideal citizen or artist or philosopher: he may include within himself any or all of these characters, but he transcends them. He may conform to none of these types, and yet be a perfect man in Christ Jesus. Our race cannot rest in any perfection that stops short of “the fulness of God.” When we have received all that God has to give in Christ, when the community of men is once more a family of God and the Father’s will is done on earth as in heaven, then and not before will our life be complete. That is the goal of humanity; and the civilization that does not lead to it is a wandering from the way. “You are complete in Christ,” says the apostle. The progress of the ages since confirms the saying. The apostle prays that his readers may know the love of Christ. This is a part of the Divine plenitude; nor is there anything in it deeper. But there is more to know. When he asks for “_all_ the fulness,” he thinks of other elements of revelation in which we are to participate. God’s _wisdom_, His _truth_, His _righteousness_, along with His _love_ in its manifold forms,--all the qualities that, in one word, go to make up His _holiness_, are communicable and belong to the image stamped by the Holy Spirit on the nature of God’s children. “Ye shall be holy, for I am holy” is God’s standing command to His sons. So Jesus bids His disciples, “Be perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect.” St Paul’s prayer “is but another way of expressing the continuous aspiration and effort after holiness which is enjoined in our Lord’s precept” (Lightfoot).