This verse continues as a justification of all that is said of Christ in the preceding verse: “All this is about him because….” The meaning of what follows is disputed. The Greek may mean: God decided to have his fullness dwell in Christ, or God’s fullness decided to dwell in Christ, depending on whether the neuter phrase pan to plērōma is construed as an accusative, the object of the verb, or as nominative, the subject of the verb. (1) Object: Lightfoot; New English Bible New American Bible New International Version Jerusalem Bible Translator’s New Testament Barclay Traduction œcuménique de la Bible Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch Twentieth Century New Testament; (2) Subject: Abbott, Moule; Phillips Moffatt Goodspeed. If taken as subject, the rendition of it must somehow personify what is, linguistically, an abstract concept, “all the fullness” (of God), which may be quite difficult. To have, as Revised Standard Version does, “in him all the fulness of God was pleased to dwell,” is not very satisfying.
It seems better to take “all the fullness” as object, and God as the (unexpressed) subject of the sentence: “it was God’s choice/decision/ pleasure (for the verb eudokeō compare 1 Cor 1.21, Gal 1.15; compare the noun eudokia in Eph 1.5, 9; Phil 2.13) to have all the fullness dwell in him.” Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch “It was God’s will and plan.”
For it was by God’s own decision may be expressed more simply as “for God himself decided.”
The full nature of God represents the Greek “all the fullness.” The passive noun plērōma has been understood to mean either that which fills or completes, or the resulting state of fullness, completion (compare John 1.16, Eph 1.23, 3.19, 4.13, Col 2.9). (If, as seems probable, this word was being used by the false teachers in Colossae of the intermediary spiritual beings between God and creation, here it is used deliberately to counter that false notion and to assert that in Christ alone was the fullness of the divine nature, not interspersed among a number of intermediary beings.) There are extensive discussions of the word “fullness” in commentaries on Colossians and Ephesians. The view favored here, and expressed by the majority of translations, is that it means God’s complete nature (see also 2.9), undiminished, undiluted, and unshared with any “intermediaries” between God and creation. It seems preferable to say “God’s full nature lives/dwells in him” than to say “God in his fullness dwells in him” (compare Translator’s New Testament Barclay Bible en français courant), as though the person of God were exhausted by the incarnation.
Has in himself represents the Greek katoikeō, “to live,” “to be at home” (oikos, “house,” “home”).
A literal rendering of the Son has in himself the full nature of God can lead to misunderstanding, for it might suggest that Christ simply possessed God inside of himself. A more satisfactory equivalent in some languages is “the son is just like God.” A more elaborate way of expressing this meaning might be “what is characteristic of God is also characteristic of God’s Son” or “what makes God really God is also true of his Son.”
Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on Paul’s Letter to the Colossians. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1977. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .