Albert Barnes Commentary Colossians 2:9

"for in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily," — Colossians 2:9 (ASV)

For in him dwelleth. This means that the great and central doctrine to be maintained about Christ was that all the fulness of the Godhead dwelt in him. Every system denying this was a denial of the doctrine they had been taught, and they were to be especially on guard against anything that would undermine this. Almost all heresy has begun with some form of denying the great central truth of the incarnation of the Son of God.

All the fulness. See Barnes on Colossians 1:19.

Of the Godhead. This refers to the Divinity, the Divine nature (Greek: theotēs). The word properly denotes the Divine nature and perfections (see Robinson, Lexicon). It occurs nowhere else in the New Testament.

Bodily (Greek: sōmatikōs). This word also is found nowhere else in the New Testament, though the adjective “bodily” (Greek: sōmatikos) occurs twice: in Luke 3:22, in a bodily shape; and in 1 Timothy 4:8, for bodily exercise profiteth little. The word means “having a bodily form, instead of existing or appearing in a spiritual manner.” The true sense of the phrase is that the fulness of the Divine nature became incarnate and was indwelling in the body of the Redeemer.

It is not adequate to say, as Crellius does, that the “whole Divine will was in him,” for the word theotēs (Godhead) does not mean the will of God. It is just as certain that the inspired prophets were under the control of the Divine will as that the Saviour was.

Nor can it mean, as Socinus supposes, that the fulness of Divine knowledge dwelt in him, for this is not the proper meaning of the word theotēs (Godhead). Nor can it mean, for the same reason, that a fulness of Divine gifts was entrusted to him.

The language is clearly what would be used on the supposition that God became incarnate and appeared in human form. There is no other idea that it so naturally expresses, nor is there any other that it can be made to express without a forced construction.

The meaning is that it was not any one attribute of the Deity that became incarnate in the Saviour; he was not merely endowed with the knowledge, or the power, or the wisdom of God, but the whole Deity thus became incarnate and appeared in human form (John 1:18). No language, therefore, could more clearly demonstrate the divinity of Christ. Of what mere man—of what angel—could it be used?