Fullness
- Michael Haldas
- Nov 11
- 5 min read
“Two fundamental truths were incarnate in the Person of Christ: the truth of God and the truth of man. Without Christ, the truth of God would remain foreign to man’s mind and distant from his emotions. God would be an entity utterly removed from man’s experience; the only grounds for extolling Him would be His stark otherness, His sheer separation from our meager, sinful state Without Christ, the truth of man would likewise be obscured. For man would see himself only as a creation of dust, who, by forgetting the eternal status of his soul, would fail to realize his everlasting destiny…in order for us to comprehend the greatness of the mystery that is Christ, who is the perfect union between divine truth and human truth, we must begin by asking the question: What is the purpose of man’s life? Or, toward what final point is humanity moving? And we must repudiate from the outset the notion that the purpose of man’s existence can be explained simply on materialistic grounds; for it would follow that he really differs in nothing from the animals.” (Matthew the Poor)
“Christ’s pure inner content. He was the Word of God. His main goal on earth was to explain what the Kingdom of God is like. It was to explain what it is to be in the image and likeness of God. His mission was to unify us with God. This was His main Ministry, His Service on earth. He was trying to explain what love is all about … He didn’t force His Knowledge on us. He became one of us to approach us from within and to gently guide our hearts. Nothing about authority or titles here. No forcing, no manipulations, no fear, no anxiety. Christ established His Peace, His Holy Spirit in our hearts. This is how He served us, in a peaceful and simple manner, empowered by the heart of a lion. No impressions!” (Bishop Emilianos)
“The Church is the “fullness.” That fullness is nothing less than “all things gathered together in one in Christ Jesus.” Indeed, the fullness is even more than “all things.” We should understand that the Church comes into existence at the words, “Let there be light!” Or, since it is the Body of Christ, it could simply be said that the Church is eternal – it has always existed.” (Father Stephen Freeman)
“It is only when Christ does empty Himself that He takes on being. And this act of self-emptying is His primordial “crucifixion,” as well as his primordial “incarnation,” in some way that we cannot fully understand or describe. It is a crucifixion because it is an act of kenosis, of self-emptying love. It is an incarnation, in a sense, because He enters the realm of being for the first time, solely in order to save us from non-being–in other words, to create. And He enters the realm of being in ten million manifold ways, so that each bit of creation can find that rest in Him which is all of Him that that particular part of creation can handle. We call Christ’s “logoi” these myriad “ways” of His self-offering, “for in Him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17: 28).” (Timothy G. Patitsas)
“All participate in the Word to one degree or another for Christ the Logos is the only source of rational thinking and so all truth comes from Him. The only difference between people and religions and philosophies is the degree to which they participate in the entire Word of God. Justin [St. Justin Martyr] sees all humans as “Christian” if they participate in any degree in the Word. They are not enemies and strangers to Christ or Christians, but rather are people not yet fully participating in Christ. Christians are to help guide all others to the fullness of the truth.” (Fr. Ted Bobosh)
“Fullness (pleroma), occurs a number of times in the New Testament…In Christian usage, it refers to a spiritual wholeness or completeness that is being manifested or revealed in some way. It is more than a Divine act – it carries with it something of the Divine itself (God Himself is the Fullness). It is not simply the action of God, but is itself God. Prior actions and words may have hinted at the fullness, but in the revelation of the fullness all hints will have passed away and been replaced by the fullness itself.” (Father Stephen Freeman)
“Jesus is everything, God in all fullness; and in His human nature, resurrected and ascended, He is the created and glorified Head of all creation. Jesus Christ ends the alienation between God and creation, bringing creation as a sacrament into a living union with God.” (Orthodox Study Bible, Colossians 1:19-20)
“God who is beyond fullness did not bring creatures into being out of any need in Him, but so that He might enjoy their proportionate participation in Him, and that He might delight in His works, seeing them delighted and ever insatiably satisfied with the One who is inexhaustible.” (St. Maximus the Confessor)
“Nothing in this world can bring you the fullness of life that God wants you to know. You were created by God and for God, and your life cannot be full without Him.” (Colin Smith)
“This is the spiritual journey—to live into the fullness of Christ’s life within us.” (Phileena Heuertz)
"In this life there is not a perfection of a person but there can be a perfection of his or her faithfulness that leads to the fullness of grace." (A.K. Frailey)
“The fullness of life is knowing ourselves and giving back to others." (Abbot Tryphon)
“We humbly accept the fact that when we speak of absolute values, we are dealing with truths beyond our intellectual capabilities and experience.... we are at the very least obligated to be open to and tolerate of the views of others. Even the most complete and comprehensive sentence or definition of God can neither appropriate nor approach the fullness of the divine nature which always remains, incomprehensible, indeterminable and unqualified.” (Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew)
“God is perfect, He is faultless. And so, when Divine love becomes manifest in us in the fullness of Grace, we radiate this love...So God is in us, and He is present everywhere. It is God’s all-encompassing love that manifests itself in us." (Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica)
“Christ is born! If we glorify Him, we learn the Way to knowledge. We discover the fullness of Truth that undergirds everything worth knowing, for we shall know Life Himself.” (Dynamis 12/23/2013)
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