Which is his body, the fulness (πληρωμα) of him that filleth all in all. (Eph
1:23)
[One interpretation of Eph 1:23 proposed] by J. A.
Robinson and followed by R. Yates and the present author, which takes
πληρουμένου as passive, πλήρωμα as a noun with mainly active significance and
τό πάντα έν πάσιν as adverbial and equivalent to the classical παντάπασιν. The
sense is then that the Church is the completion of Christ (πλήρωμα being taken
as in apposition to σώμα and not to the αύτόν of the previous verse). The
objection that this interpretation normally meets, namely that it supposes a
Christ that is in some way deficient, is answered when we further interpret
this verse in light of the Jewish doctrine of Inclusive Personality. The same
theological interpretation can be given to Eph. iv. 13: 'When all the saints
have come to the unity which is their destined goal (that is, to a community
unified in - and by - faith), then Christ will have been completed.' The
thought here is that the Church in so far as it is both the instrument and
medium of the πλήρωμα τοϋ Χριστού is the sphere which serves both to cause the
completion (ληρωμα) of the universe and the increase (τελειος) of the corporate
body. (P. D. Overfield, “Pleroma: A Study in Content and Context,” New
Testament Studies 25, no. 3 [1979]: 393-94, comment in square brackets
added for clarification)
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