The Fulness of the Gentiles

When the Savior visited the Nephites, He spoke a fair amount about the Gentiles.  Among those teachings He said this about the records that the Nephites would keep: “These sayings which ye shall write shall be kept and shall be manifested unto the Gentiles, that through the fulness of the Gentiles, the remnant of their seed, who shall be scattered forth upon the face of the earth because of their unbelief, may be brought in, or may be brought to a knowledge of me, their Redeemer” (3 Nephi 16:4).  I’m not sure exactly what the phrase “fulness of the Gentiles” means, but this is not the only place in scriptures that we see it.  When Nephi was explaining the teachings of his father to his brothers, he said this: “The thing which our father meaneth concerning the grafting in of the natural branches through the fulness of the Gentiles, is, that in the latter days, when our seed shall have dwindled in unbelief,… then shall the fulness of the gospel of the Messiah come unto the Gentiles, and from the Gentiles unto the remnant of our seed” (1 Nephi 15:13).  Here the phrase “fulness of the Gentiles” seems to refer to the fact that the Gentiles would have in the last days the fulness of the gospel.  Paul likewise used the phrase when he taught this to the Romans: “For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in” (Romans 11:25).  This appears to me to mean that while Israel has gone “blind” in the sense that it rejected/lost the gospel, at some point because of the “fulness of the Gentiles” the House of Israel would again receive the gospel. 

                The phrase “fulness of the gospel” in all three of the above scriptures refers to events of the last days.  The final place that this phrase appears in the scriptures is in the words of Moroni to the prophet Joseph. Moroni quoted Joel 2:28-32 which he said “was not yet fulfilled, but was soon to be. And he further stated that the fulness of the Gentiles was soon to come in” (JSH1:41).  Since President Hinckley told us that “the vision of Joel has been fulfilled” then perhaps the “fulness of the Gentiles” has also “come in” and that it relates to the fulness of the gospel being brought back on the earth.  Elder McConkie spoke of the phrase this way: “The times of the Gentiles is the period during which the gospel goes to them on a preferential basis, and this will continue until they have had a full opportunity to accept the truth, or in other words until the fulness of the Gentiles. Then the message will go again to the Jews, meaning to the Jews as a nation and as a people” (Doctrinal New Testament Commentary, 2:290, see here).  So according to him this “fulness” relates to the Gentiles having had the gospel in full so that it can then go to the Jews and the House of Israel.  The important point is that the Gentiles will have the full opportunity to learn and accept the gospel and that the fulness of the gospel will go forth across the world to gather out the “remnant” of the seed of Israel.