"Strong Son of God, immortal Love, . . . Thou madest Death; and lo Thy foot Is on the skull which Thou hast made."--_In Memoriam._ Ver. 23. +The fulness of Him that filleth all in all.+--"The Church, viz., is _the Christ-filled, i.e._ that which is filled by Him in so far as Christ penetrates the whole body and produces Christian life" (_Meyer_). "The brimmed receptacle of Him who filleth all things with all things" (_Farrar_). "Among the Gnostics the supersensible world is called the Pleroma, the fulness _or filled,_ in opposition to 'the empty,' the world of the senses" (_Meyer_). _MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.--Verses_ 1, 2. _Apostolic Salutation._ +I. He declares the Divine source of his authority.+--"Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God" (ver. 1). The faithful ambassador scans his commission with the utmost care and is solicitous to clearly understand the will of his Sovereign. If he examines his own fitness for the office, it is only to be humbled under a sense of unworthiness, and to express surprise that he should be chosen to such a dignity and be entrusted with such powers. His supreme ambition is to sink his own personal predilections in the earnest discharge of his duty. Paul does not dilate on his own mental capabilities or spiritual endowments. He accepts his appointment to the apostleship as coming directly from the hand of God and recognises the Divine will as the source of righteousness and of all power to do good. This lofty conception of his call gave him unfaltering confidence in the truth he had to declare, inspired him with an ever-glowing zeal, rendered him immovable in the midst of defection and opposition, and willing to obliterate himself, so that the Gospel committed to him might be triumphant. The true minister, in the onerous task of dealing with human doubt and sin, feels the need of all the strength and prestige conferred by the conscious possession of Divine authority. He seeks not to advance his own interests or impose his own theories, but to interpret the mind of God to man and persuade to submission and obedience. The power that makes for righteousness has its root in the Divine will.