Saturday, March 13, 2021

Greg Beale on Colossians 1:19, 2:9, and Christians being Filled with the Fullness of Deity like Christ, Part 3: Colossians 2:10 and the "Filling" of the Christian

 

The True Temple in Colossae: The Church at the Temple of Christ in Colossians 2:10 (Continuation of Psalm 67:17-18)

 

If the “fullness” that is “in him” expresses Christ’s divine presence as the true temple in Colossians 2:9, then it is likely that the filling of believers in verse 10 also relates to the filling of the temple by Christ, as the verbal parallelism between verse 9 and 10a demonstrates:

 

Colossians 2:9

Colossians 2:10a

Because in him all  the Divine fulness dwells in bodily form οτι εν αυτω κατοικει παν το πληρωμα της θεοτητος σωματικως

αnd in him you have been filled και εστε εν αυτω πεπληρωμενοι

 

Believers’ union with Christ means that, just as Christ has become the divine temple presence of God, so they have begun to experience being “filled” and identified with that tabernacling presence of Christ’s divine “fullness” (A similar pattern is apparent in Ps 65:4: “How blessed is the one whom you do choose, and bring near to dwell in your courts. We will be satisfied [the LXX (Ps 64:5) has “we shall be filled” (πλησθησομεθα)] with the goodness of your house, your holy temple”) (just as their union with him in vv. 11-13 means they have been circumcised in him, buried with him, and raised with him). Thus verse 10a is to be understood in line with other Pauline passages about the church being identified with the temple because they are in Christ. This is similar to 1 Corinthians 3 and Ephesians 2, built on him as part of that temple (cf. 1 Cor 3:10-17; Eph 2:19-22). In Ephesians 1:22-23, “the church” is “the fullness [το πληρωμα] of the one [Christ] who fills [του . . . πληρουμενου] all things [not only the church] in every way.” This is developed in Ephesians 3:6-19 is a development of the temple text in Ephesians 2:20-22, so that, in light of its parallel with Colossians 2:9-10, it should not be surprising that the “filling” language in the former passage should also be about Christ filling the temple of believers, and that this “filling” is equivalent to the glory of deity filling the church.

 

Many translations of verse 10 have “you have become complete in him,” but this conveys the possible notion of final eschatological perfection. Instead, the idea here is that the church is beginning to be identified and thus “filled” with Christ’s tabernacling divine presence as the end-time temple (The perfect tense πεπληρωμενοι conveys the idea of a condition or state of filling), as is the case in 1 Corinthians 3 and Ephesians 2. In light of the Psalm 67 temple allusion in 1:19, the continuation of that idea in 2:9 and into verse 10 suggests that the church has begun to be identified with the latter-day temple because of its union with Christ (“in him”). Accordingly, this does not refer to an eschatologically consummate completeness, as does Colossians 1:28 (“that we may present every man complete in Christ”).

 

Thus in Colossians 1:9-10, 1:19, and 2:9-10, we have seen references to Christ or believers as the true temple, Paul’s purpose in making these temple allusions is to prepare us to see a contrast with pseudo-temple references in the immediately following context of Colossians 2:16 and 18 . . . (Greg Beale, “The Temple and Anti-Temple at Colossae,” in Craig A. Evans and Aaron W. White, Who Created Christianity? Fresh Approaches to the Relationship Between Paul and Jesus [Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 2020], 411-31, here, pp. 417-19, emphasis added)