(1.) Of time (Ga 4:4), the time appointed by God, and foretold by the prophets, when Messiah should appear. (2.) Of Christ (Joh 1:16), the superabundance of grace with which he was filled. (3.) Of the Godhead bodily dwelling in Christ (Col 2:9), i.e., the whole nature and attributes of God are in Christ. (4.) Eph 1:23, the church as the fulness of Christ, i.e., the church makes Christ a complete and perfect head.

FULNESS. "The fulness of time" is the time when the Messiah appeared, which was appointed by God, promised to the fathers, foretold by the prophets, expected by the Jews themselves, and earnestly longed for by all the faithful: "When the fulness of the time was come, God sent his Son," Ga 4:4. The fulness of Christ is the superabundance of grace with which he was filled: "Of his fulness have all we received," Joh 1:16. And whereas men are said to be filled with the Holy Ghost, as John the Baptist, Lu 1:15; and Stephen, Ac 6:5; this differs from the fulness of Christ in these three respects:

(1.) Grace in others is by participation, as the moon hath her light from the sun, rivers their waters from the fountain: but in Christ all that perfection and influence which we include in that term is originally, naturally, and of himself.

(2.) The Spirit is in Christ infinitely and above measure, Joh 3:34; but in the saints by measure according to the gift of God, Eph 4:16. The saints cannot communicate their graces to others, whereas the gifts of the Spirit are in Christ as a head and fountain, to impart them to his members. "We have received of his fulness," Joh 1:16. It is said, that "the fulness of the Godhead dwells in Christ bodily," Col 2:2; that is, the whole nature and attributes of God are in Christ, and that really, essentially, or substantially; and also personally, by nearest union; as the soul dwells in the body, so that the same person who is man is God also. The church is called the fulness of Christ, Eph 1:23. It is the church which makes him a complete and perfect head; for though he has a natural and personal fulness as God, yet, as Mediator, he is not full and complete, without his mystical body, (as a king is not complete without his subjects,) but receives an outward, relative, and mystical fulness from his members.