Ephesians 1:23 Commentary and Bible Study

That last verse is one of the most amazing verses in the whole letter. The picture presented to us is Christ the head, the church his body. Now you can’t have a head without a body! Does that mean Christ needs the church? Well, it seems to say that. Paul seems to say – we will put the other side in a moment – that without the church Christ would not be complete. He is given all power to be the head of the body, the church, the fulness of him, the rest of him, the completion of him.But, look, Paul immediately seems to contradict himself. ‘The fulness of him that filleth all in all.’ On the one hand, he is God, he fills everything. He doesn’t need to be completed. He is already complete. He is fully satisfied and needs nothing outside himself. He can therefore do without us. We could be evaporated in a moment – it wouldn’t make any difference to him. He is the self-perpetuating, self-sustaining, self-sufficient God, internally altogether glorious. The church looked at one way, it is just a burden, an incumbrance. The world would be created, mankind would fall, and the church would need to be redeemed. ‘I must go into time and suffer humiliation and die for their sins.’ What a burden the church is for Christ, who is fully satisfied and infinitely happy without us. That is the truth on one hand and yet, on the other hand, without us he wouldn’t be complete. Isn’t that a contradiction? Isn’t that an enigma? It is.You can explain it by an illustration. When I was a little boy and I was at a boarding school and this was in the 1940s, sweets were still on the ration. I remember when they came off the ration, because that was a big date for youngsters, 1951. Anyway, in the 40s there were great shortages and so if a boy at boarding school received a parcel from home, it would have good things in it and there would be all sorts of sweets and dainties that somehow had been collected up. Now boys being boys, are very reluctant to share. But there would be a famous event. Ah, so-and-so has had a food parcel in that particular dormitory, well, the lad would have to share really or face the consequences! But there would be reluctance. There would always be one or two boys, perhaps, who seemed happy to share, who seemed to get pleasure out of sharing. Our Lord and Saviour does not need us. We are a burden in a sense, because he had to do so much for us. But such is the nature of his love, that he wants to share eternity with a people, so he set his love upon them, saved them, provide for them. So great is his desire and so deep is his love that, Paul almost seems to say, if he wasn’t able to share these glorious things with us, he wouldn’t be complete. He is, of course, complete but that is his nature, that is his love. It is like travelling abroad on your own. You have gone abroad on a business trip. You have gone to a nice place, perhaps one of these parts of the world where there are magnificent things to see, but you haven’t had much taste for sightseeing. Why not? You didn’t have your wife with you! You didn’t have much stomach for it. Your instinct, if you love your wife, is that she should be there and you would share these things.