full: filled to the brim, said of a container holding something you can see, or of a person so steeped in a quality that it is what they are
The picture is a thing filled right up, with room left for nothing else. Where John is simply telling the story, that is all it means: a jar of sour wine standing by the cross, and a net dragged ashore holding a hundred and fifty-three large fish.
Everywhere else in the New Testament the word is turned on people, and the fullness becomes a verdict on them. What someone is full of is what that person actually is:
- religious leaders who look right from the outside are full of pretending and lawlessness within (Matthew 23:28)
- a whole society is described as full of envy, murder, strife, and deceit (Romans 1:29)
- the tongue that no one can tame is full of deadly poison (James 3:8)
- eyes that never stop craving are full of adultery (2 Peter 2:14)
It is not only an accusation. Paul tells the Christians in Rome that they themselves are full of goodness, and James says the wisdom that comes from above is full of mercy and good fruit. Either way the claim is saturation rather than a trace, and it names a settled character rather than a passing mood.
Greek had more than one way to say full. The broader and far more common word (πλήρης) is the one used for being filled with the Holy Spirit or with grace and truth, and it can also mean a complete or undiminished amount, which this word never does. The word for being loaded or laden (γέμω) is used of things rather than people: cups, tombs, and bowls. This one is the plain adjective for a container that is full, which the letter writers press into service for a person who is full.