‘And he put all things in subjection under his feet, and gave him to be head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness (pleroma) of him who fills all in all.'
‘He put all things in subjection under His feet.' Compare Psalms 8:6. The picture is of the great and victorious King and Overlord before whom all His subjects and His enemies humble themselves, prostrating themselves at His feet and acknowledging His lordship. The highest place that Heaven affords is His, and His by sovereign right. And 1 Corinthians 15:26 tells us that the last of His enemies is death, which will also have its power destroyed. This phrase is the climax of verses Ephesians 1:20-21, yet also leads in to Ephesians 1:22-23.
‘And gave him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body.' As head (supreme ruler) over all things, which includes all heavenly powers and all earthly powers, He is given to His ‘church', to those whom He has called out and redeemed so that He might uniquely be their Head. They are uniquely His, and while He is ‘Head over all things', He is their Head in a unique way. Thus in the whole scenario of existence the people of God are depicted as unique and special. For while the remainder are seen as subjects, some even as rebellious subjects, the people of God are seen as in such close relation to Him that they are united with Him in His body.
We can compare here the words of Paul elsewhere in Ephesians where he likens Christ's Headship over the church to man's headship over his wife (Ephesians 5:23). Thus it depicts a position of loving authority and close unity without signifying total merger. They are united in one but do not actually become one. They are, as it were, along with Him, His body, sharing with Him in His bodily resurrection and exaltation, and in His rule, and responding to His direction and control. They are as His wife (Ephesians 5:25-27) to be presented to Him without blemish. Note how in the case of the church as the wife Paul can immediately link it with Christ's relationship with the church in terms of their being members of His body, gliding from the one illustration to the other (Ephesians 5:29-30). This in the same way as the body of the husband and the body of the wife are united so that they become ‘one flesh' (Ephesians 5:31). Thus have we become ‘one flesh' with His body (Ephesians 5:30).
‘Which is His body, the fullness of Him Who fills all in all.' Here being His body means being that which makes His own body complete. Thus His people are the ‘fullness of Him Who fills all in all”. This is, of course, a paradox. He Who fills all in all surely needs no completion. Indeed all things ‘hold together' in Him (Colossians 1:17). How then can His people be His fullness? The answer lies in the plan of redemption. Having become Man in order to redeem man He is incomplete until the redeemed are gathered in. As representative Man He must gather in those Whom He represented. They are the fullness which will make Him whole. He is their Head. He is also the Body, and they are united with His body, making His body full, and as such He ‘needs' and requires them.
We should note here especially that the idea of the Head is only applied to Him as the risen Christ. In His body He suffered humiliation, but in His resurrection and exaltation He becomes both Head and Body. His Headship (divine rulership) was made patent over all, and especially over His people, and in His Body He was united with His people in one body. (We must not think of Him as the head and we as the body from the neck downwards. That is not the idea at all. He is both Head over all things and Body, and we united with Him in His body (see Appendix)). In His body He experienced resurrection and exaltation, and it is in His body, in which we accompany Him because He is both our representative and our substitute (Ephesians 2:1-10), that we are one with Him (see 1 Corinthians 6:17). Thus He Who is ‘the Firstborn of all creation' (the source of all creation) is also ‘the beginning, the Firstborn from the dead', so that He may have pre-eminence in all things (Colossians 1:15; Colossians 1:18). He it was Who began and is the source of that new creation, His people. Thus He is ‘the Firstborn among many brothers' (Romans 8:29). The word Firstborn means the One from Whom they had their new life, the One Who produced all that followed. They were the result of His life-giving activity.
The same idea of Christ as the Head over His people, and His people as His body united with Him in His body is found in Colossians 1:18 where we read that He is over all things and controls all things, and then that also ‘He is the Head of the body, the church.' In both contexts the Headship of Christ over all things is emphasised first and then applied to His Headship over the church, and the church is then likened to His body, because they have been made one with His body. They are one in Him. This is to bring out the closer and more tender relationship there is between Christ and His people. But the idea is not amplified in Colossians. It is allowed to express their unique relationship with Him but not applied in detail. The main emphasis is on the Headship (divine rulership) and on our union with Him.
In Colossians the idea is expanded in Ephesians 2:19 where it speaks of those who do not ‘hold fast the Head, from Whom all the body, being supplied and knit together through the joints and bands, increases with the increase of God'. This adds the thought that the body receives from its Head, its Lord, all it needs for growth. It is given life by His indwelling within each Christian (Ephesians 3:17; Galatians 2:20) and by His presence in their midst (Matthew 28:20). This expansion also appears in Ephesians 4:15-16 (which see). Ephesians 2:15-16 will bring home that that body, which is inclusive of Christ's own body, consists of both believing Jews and believing Gentiles made one in Christ. But this provision of what is needed is in fact also stated in another way, for the thought of the oneness of He Who is the Head with the body, which includes Himself, leads on to Ephesians 2:1-10 where our oneness with Christ means that we participate in all in which He participates (see Appendix below).
In refinement of these ideas in Ephesians, however, we should note that he is more careful in his expressions. He is not just ‘the Head' but ‘the Head over all things' lest we make the mistake (that many make) that he is contrasting head with body. The church is the body of Christ because spiritually it is united with Christ's own body, not because it alone is His body. ‘If we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection' (Romans 6:5). Christ is the body with Whom we are united (1 Corinthians 12:12).
The fullness (pleroma).' In the Gospels the word pleroma is used of the patch that fills up the hole in the old garment (Mark 2:21) and the sufficiency of fragments which filled several baskets after the feeding (Mark 8:20). The word denotes entirety of content and is applied by Philo to the animals housed in Noah's ark. It is also used of a ship's complement. It thus represents the full requirement, the whole body of Christians as chosen in Christ through redemption, so as to make complete ‘the crew', the number of the redeemed, the filling full of the body.
‘Of Him Who fills all in all.' ‘Pleroumenou' could be either middle or passive. The middle means ‘fills for oneself', the passive ‘is being fulfilled'. The latter does not really fit the context for it does not fulfil the grandeur of the previous verses, and it partially turns the eyes away from the main participator, rather than focusing on Him. And grandeur about Christ Himself is what is required to complete this section. The previous verses have built up to the fact that He is all in all. Now it is stated. The thought is an intentional paradox. Christ is the One Who fills all in all, and yet, His people fill up what is lacking simply because of the working out of God's plan and purpose and His redeeming work, which while potentially fulfilled awaits actual fulfilment.
‘Fills all in all.' He is the One Who is omnipresent, Who created all things, Who sums up within Himself all things (Ephesians 1:10), in Whom all things hold together, having the pre-eminence in all things (Colossians 1:17-18), Who is totally self-sufficing. In 1 Corinthians 15:28 we are told that in the consummation God will be all in all. The phrase means the totality of what is being spoken about (compare 1 Corinthians 12:6) and when used of God and our Lord Jesus the totality of all things.