Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Ephesians 3:14
For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
14 19. The main theme resumed: prayer for the Indwelling of Christ
14. For this cause ] The same phrase as that of Eph 3:1. See note there. Here the broken connexion is resumed. The “permanent habitation of God” (Eph 2:22) is still in the Apostle’s mind, but in another aspect. The thought of the eternal totality, the Church glorified, gives place in a measure to that of the present individuality, the saint’s experience now and here of the consciously welcomed “permanent habitation of Christ in the heart,” with all its spiritual concomitants. The two aspects are complements of each other. Each “living Stone” (1Pe 2:5) is, as it were, a miniature of the living Temple. In each of them, as if it were an integral microcosm, yet with a view not to itself only but to the final harmony of the whole, Christ works, manifests Himself, and dwells. So, as by the primary and most vital condition, is approached that “far-off divine Event, to which the whole creation moves,” [35] (and the New Creation most directly of all,) and with which the close of ch. 2 has dealt. Meanwhile this prospect, and the present community of the saints, is not absent from this passage, in which we have the great “ Family ” (Eph 3:15), and “ all the saints” (Eph 3:18); in which plurals are used throughout; and in which the closing sentences (Eph 3:20-21) point by the vastness of their language to a more than individual sphere of realization.
[35] In Memoriam, at the end.
I bow my knees ] The attitude of prayer, Luk 22:41; Act 7:60; Act 9:40; Act 20:36; Act 21:5. See too Rom 14:11; Php 2:10. The words, doubtless, do not impose a special bodily posture as a necessity in spiritual worship; physical conditions may make kneeling impossible, or undesirable, on occasion. But they do impose the spiritual attitude of which the bodily is type and expression; profound and submissive reverence, perfectly harmonious with the “boldness” and “confidence” of Eph 3:12. And so far as body and spirit work in concord, this recommends the corresponding bodily attitude where there is no distinct reason against it.
the Father ] The words, “ of our Lord Jesus Christ,” are to be omitted. They appear in very ancient documents, including the Syriac and Latin versions. But the great Latin Father and critic, St Jerome (cent. 4 5), in his comment on this verse, expressly says that the “Latin copies” are in error; and the evidence of both Greek MSS. and patristic quotations preponderates for the omission.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
For this cause – Some suppose that this is a resumption of what he had commenced saying in Eph 3:1, but which had been interrupted by a long parenthesis. So Bloomfield explains it. But it seems to me more probable that he refers to what immediately precedes. Wherefore, that the great work may be carried on, and that the purposes of these my sufferings may be answered in your benefit and glory, I bow my knees to God, and pray to him.
I bow my knees – I pray. The usual, and the proper posture of prayer is to kneel; Compare 2Ch 6:13; Dan 6:10; Luk 22:21; Act 7:60; Act 9:40; Act 20:26; Act 21:5. It is a posture which indicates reverence, and should, therefore, be assumed when we come before God. It has been an unhappy thing that the custom of kneeling in public worship has ever been departed from in the Christian churches.
Unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ – To whom, undoubtedly, prayer should ordinarily be addressed. But this does not make it improper to address the Lord Jesus in prayer; see the notes; 7:59-60 on Act 1:24.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Eph 3:14-21
For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named.
A pattern of prayer
The worldly proverb is, Every man for himself and God for us all; the true Christian practice is, to follow Christ:–I have prayed for thee, that thy strength fall not; Father, forgive them, they know not what they do. And in following the Lord, to follow St. Pauls advice and example:–For this cause I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. What an intercession this is which St. Paul makes for the Ephesians! It is a pattern of intercessory prayer; it is rightly grounded; it seeks the most precious gifts on behalf of his brethren; it has the highest designs in view in asking their bestowment.
I. The faith on which his prayer was founded.
1. The Fatherhood of God. This is the foundation thought of the Lords prayer–Our Father. The Father will not fail us.
2. The brotherhood of the saints in Christ. Heaven and earth are knit into one in Jesus. Of whom the whole family, every race, in heaven and earth is named. The sense is that all the classes and communities of heaven and earth own a common paternity.
II. The great gifts St. Paul sought for others in this prayer.
1. The infusion of spiritual strength–to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man.
2. The indwelling of Christ–that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith.
3. The establishment of their hearts in the love of God rooted and grounded in love.
III. The design of his prayer for the bestowment on them of these gifts. Such spiritual strength, and such an indwelling, were to lead to–
1. Their comprehension of the love of Christ. This is St. Pauls paradox; to know the unknowable, to know the nature, if we cannot know the extent, of the love of Christ.
2. Their being filled with the fulness of God. Where the Son of God dwells, there is the fulness of God. Such is a brief outline of an exposition of this most precious of prayers. (Canon Vernon Hutton.)
St. Pauls prayer for Gentile Christians
A great prayer all through. This may be seen from–
I. The ideal it presents. The loftiest possibilities of the Christian life are conceived of as open to Gentile equally with Jew.
II. The petition it embodies.
1. Spiritual life as a whole is besought of God as His gift.
2. It is through the continuous operation of the Divine Being that spiritual life is sustained and advanced.
3. Yet is the growth of the spiritual life conceived of as involving the activity of the subject in whom it is manifested. Faith, love, and hope, are active principles in every child of God.
III. The plea it urges. (A. F. Muir, M. A.)
Christian prayer
1. Our prayers should be addressed to God the Father.
2. Our prayers should be addressed to God as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
3. Our prayers should be addressed to God with deep humility.
4. Our prayers should be addressed to God for Christian eminence.
5. Prayers should be addressed to God both by ministers and people. (G. Brooks.)
The ladder of prayer
1. You see that the prayer begins with the gracious petition that we may be strengthened–strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man, according to the riches of His glory; the object being, that Christ may dwell in our hearts by faith. Before the Lord can dwell in us we must be strengthened–mentally and spiritually strengthened. To entertain the high and holy one–to receive into our soul the indwelling Christ–it is necessary that the temple be strengthened, that there be more power put into every pillar and into every stone of the edifice. It is taken for granted that we have already been washed and cleansed, and so made fit for Christ to come and dwell within us. But we need also to be strengthened; for, unless we become stronger in all spiritual life, how is Christ to dwell in our hearts by faith? Unless we become stronger in love, and in all the graces of the Spirit, how can we worthily entertain such a guest as the Lord Jesus? Ay, and we even need that our spiritual perception should be strengthened, that we may be able to know Him when He does come and dwell in us. We must be strengthened into stability of mind, that so Christ may dwell, abide, reside in our hearts by faith.
2. Now, having stood on the first step of the ladder, Paul goes on to pray that, when we are strengthened, we may be inhabited: that Christ may dwell in our hearts by faith. When the house is ready to receive Him, and strong enough for such a wondrous inhabitant, may Jesus come, not to look about Him as He did when He went into the temple, but to abide with us–to dwell in our hearts by faith.
3. This third step is a broad one, and it has three parts to it.
(1) Its first part is establishment–That ye, being rooted and grounded in love. When you are strengthened, and when Jesus dwells in your heart, then you are no longer carried about with every wind of doctrine, but you are rooted, like a cedar in Lebanon which receives but recks not of the stormy wind.
(2) Side by side with this very blessed establishment in the faith, for which I would bow my knee, as Paul did for the Ephesians, that you may all have it, comes a comprehension of Divine love. How anxiously do I desire your firm settlement in the truth, for this is an age which needs rooted and grounded saints. Side by side with that, however, we would have you receive this further blessing, namely, a comprehension of the love of Christ: that ye may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the arithmetician makes calculations and arrives at clear ideas. As a mechanic cubes a quantity and takes its length, and depth, and height, so may the Lord Jesus Christs love be to you no more an airy dream, but a substantial fact, about which you know distinctly, being taught of the living God by the Holy Spirit.
(3) Acquaintance. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The top of the ladder
To know the love of Christ.
I. What it is to know the love of Christ.
1. The way in which we come by our knowledge. Personal acquaintance, by having Christ dwelling in you so that you see Him, hear Him, feel His touch, and enjoy His blessed company.
2. The certainty there is in it. We cannot be certain of anything, says someone. Well, perhaps you cannot. But the man who has Christ dwelling in him says, There is one thing I am certain of, and that is the love of Christ to me. I am assured of the loveliness of His character and the affection of His heart. He would not cheer and encourage me; He would not rebuke and chasten me, as He does, if He did not love me. He gives me every proof of His love, and therefore I am sure of it.
3. What a blessed knowledge this is! Talk they of science? No science can rival the science of Christ crucified. Knowledge? No knowledge can compare with the knowledge of the love that passeth knowledge. How sweet it is to know love! Who wants a better subject to exercise his mind upon? Who would not be a scholar, when the book he reads in is the heart of Christ?
II. To know so as to be filled. It is not every kind of knowledge that will fill a man. Many forms of knowledge make a man more empty than he was before. But if you get a knowledge of Christs love, it is a filling knowledge, for it contents the soul. Imagination itself is content with Jesus. Hope cannot conceive anything more lovely; she gives up all attempts to paint a fairer than He; and she cries, Yea, He is altogether lovely. Once more, when the love of Christ comes to work upon the soul, when it brings with it all its choice treasures, then the mind of the believer is filled with the fulness of God. Christ does not long dwell in an unfurnished house. Oh, the blessedness of knowing the love of Christ! It fills the spirit to the full.
III. What it is to be filled with all the fulness of God. Does it not mean that self is banished; for if the fulness of God has filled you, where is room for self? Does it not mean that the soul is perfectly charmed with all that God does for it? Filled with all the fulness of God. Does it not mean that every power of the entire nature is solaced and satisfied?
IV. Wherever Christ dwells in the heart by faith we receive the fulness of God into our spirit, with the design that we may overflow. If you go forth filled with God, you are provided for every emergency. Come calamity or prosperity, whatever shape the temptation may assume, if the love of Christ has filled you with the fulness of God you are ready for it. If you are full with a Divine fulness, your lips scatter gems more precious than pearls and diamonds. Filled with all the fulness of God, your paths, like Gods paths, drop fatness. Do you not know Christian men of that sort? They are millionaire Christians who make others rich. If the Lord has brought us to His fulness, it is a very high state to be in. Oh, that the Holy Ghost would fill us also according to our capacity! If the water carts go along the road in dusty weather with nothing in them, they will not lay the dust; and if you Christians go about the world empty, you will not lay the dust of sin which blinds and defiles society. If you go to a fountain and find no water flowing, that fountain mocks your thirst; it is worse than useless: therefore do not forget that if you ever become empty of grace, you mock those who look to you. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Pauls prayer for the Ephesian Christians
I. It was his desire that they might be strong-minded men and women. There exists a prejudice against strong-minded men, and a still greater prejudice against strong-minded women. This may be attributable to the circumstance that many strong-minded men and women are also strong-willed, and somewhat disposed to domineer. There exists, also, a prejudice, for which expression has been found in the assertion, that ignorance is the mother of devotion. With none of these prejudices had the apostle any sympathy. He considered nothing so likely to awaken true worship as far-reaching, clear, comprehensive, and correct views of truth; and it was his desire that they to whom he wrote might have all the intellectual vigour necessary to the full enjoying of all the blessings of Christianity. Of James Wait, the Pious Shepherd–I quote from memory the title of his memoir, published many years ago, by Mr. Maclaurin of Coldingham–it is stated, that when seated at the Lords table at Stitchel Brae, and subsequently at Kelso, there was vouchsafed to him an overpowering revelation of the glory of the Lord, and of His love to mankind sinners. He said, I was no sooner set down at the table, than I found such a flood of the Spirits consolation poured in upon my soul, that I was obliged to cover myself with my plaid, to keep it from the eyes of others. I found myself obliged to plead that the Lord would strengthen the vessel or hold His hand; for I found that I could not bear up. He felt that it was becoming more than he could stand, and that if carried further, he must expire in an agony of bliss. Thus would I illustrate what I mean. Yes I there are needed strong-minded men and women to sustain the conceptions which may be formed of infinite and eternal verities! Mark the phraseology employed by the apostle: That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man. When the ship by which he sailed from Myra was in peril at Clauda, they undergirded the ship. The expression before us is suggestive of strengthening by bracings within, as well as by girdings without; and it is expressive of a desire, that they to whom he wrote might be strong-minded men and women. But this exhausts not the expression of the apostles desire on behalf of his brethren.
II. It was his desire that they might be strong-minded men and women, thoroughly imbued with a Christ-like spirit. Mark his expression! Strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man: that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith. What is it that is meant, when it is said, as sometimes it is, by persons who do not hesitate to speak profanely, The devil is in the man? Is it not this: the man acts as if the devil had taken possession of his heart, and was influencing him in his every act? Corresponding to this seems the import of the expression employed–that Christ may dwell in your hearts–that you may be strong-minded men and women, thoroughly imbued with a Christ-like spirit–strengthened with all might in the inner man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith.
III. That they might be strong-minded men and women, thoroughly imbued with a Christ-like spirit, and understanding how comprehensive religion is. The views entertained by many in regard to what is comprehended in religion, are very narrow indeed. What is the love of Christ? Our love to Christ may be called the love of Christ: thus do we speak of the love of gold. Christs love to us may be called the love of Christ: thus do we speak of a mothers love to her child. But there is yet another idea which may be expressed by the phrase, the love of Christ; and to express this idea, does it appear to me, that the phrase is employed by the apostle here. That idea I would illustrate thus: one doctrine of the apostle was, that the whole duty of man to man was comprehended in love. A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if ye have love one to another. To this love, apparently, the apostle refers–the love inculcated by Christ, and manifested by Christ–a love embracing every duty of man, to himself, to his fellowmen, and to his God. It was his desire that they might be strong-minded men and women, thoroughly imbued with a Christ-like spirit; that they, being rooted and grounded in love, might be able to comprehend how all-comprehensive religion is, what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height of the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, extending, as it did, far far beyond what they knew or dreamed of. He says not, as many seem to suppose, that it cannot be known–on the contrary, he wished and prayed that it might be known by them. His wish was: Oh that they but knew how all-comprehensive religion is, and would live up to the conception which they attained! or, as I have expressed it, that they might be–
IV. Strong-minded men and women, thoroughly imbued with a Christ-like spirit, understanding how comprehensive religion is, and maintaining a corresponding God-like walk and conversation. It is to such a manifestation of godliness that we are destined and called. A captious objector, or a careless unconcerned reader, may say, How can man be filled with all the fulness of God?–how can the finite comprehend the infinite? In a volume entitled, The Tongue of Fire, there was given a beautiful illustration of the import of the apostles figure. The illustration was double. The phraseology employed has long since escaped me, but the effect produced upon my mind remains. In substance the illustration was as follows:–There is a dewdrop hanging suspended from a blade of grass bent and pendent with its weight. While we are yet gazing on it, there falls upon it the slanting rays of the morning sun, and it shines as if it were itself a thing of light. It contains not, nor can it contain, the whole of the rays streaming from the orb of day. These illumine the whole hemisphere, and penetrate far on all sides into the depths of space–creating a sphere of light, sustained by successive rays, which it may require thousands of years to traverse, with all the velocity for which light is famous, the radius from the centre to the circumference, so vast the sphere; but that little dewdrop is filled with that fulness of light–to the full extent of its limited capacity full! Again: There is a marble cistern, filled to overflowing with the pellucid water of a perennial spring. It contains not, nor can it contain, all the waters of the fountain; it has been overflowing for years; but it is itself full–to its limited capacity filled–filled to overflowing–filled with the fulness of the fountain! Such is the illustration employed by the apostle: filled with all the fulness of God. It is an illustration or expression suggestive, at least, of two ideas, both of them calling for consideration. That ye might be filled, every faculty and affection of the soul sanctified–filled. Filled with all the fulness of God–every Divine perfection having its counterpart in the life and spirit of the man; the justice of God having its counterpart in the justice of the man; the holiness of God its counterpart in the holiness of the man; the truthfulness of God in the truthfulness of the man; the long suffering of God its counterpart in long suffering manifested by the man. Every faculty and affection sanctified, and every perfection of God having its counterpart in the life and spirit of the man–the result of all being a God-like walk and conversation. (J. C. Brown, LL. D.)
The Christian temple: its material and magnitude
I. The peculiar fitness requested for them as forming the material of the spiritual temple (verses 16, 17). It is very clear that the building idea pervades this passage throughout. The reference to the dwelling of Christ in the heart decides this. The apostles mind was so engrossed by this figure of a temple–the knowledge that he was writing to people who were familiar with temple architecture having possibly something to do with it–that each individual Christian presents himself to his mind as a stone in a glorious temple. And all his thoughts assume a corresponding form and colouring. He asks that they might be strengthened with might in the inner man. In this he shows his anxiety that they might prove true stones, possessing qualities befitting the glory and the character of the building; that they might be subjected to such a process as would impart to them the quality of soundness, a most desirable quality in a stone. Upon its soundness depends its capability of bearing strain, of carrying weight, and resisting the ravages of the elements. The quality of the stones composing a building determines the strength and stability of the building itself. Two things are declared respecting this process, namely, its manner and means.
1. The manner of it–That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith. The strengthening is secured by the indwelling of Christ. This is not a literal or physical indwelling. The nature of the indwelling is implied by the expression by faith. Contact of Christians with Him by faith results in the transmission to them of His qualities.
2. The text describes the means of the indwelling–by faith and by the Spirit. Here we have both the agent and the instrument employed to secure the indwelling. There is a beautiful interblending of the human and Divine in this transaction. The Spirit promotes faith; faith receives Christ; and Christ constitutes the strengthening. The strengthening consists in the transfusion of the soul with Christs characteristic traits of strength and firmness. This process is effected by the operation of faith; faith, again, is a mental act prompted by the spirit. If we adhere to the figure of a house, as the term dwell seems to suggest, the whole process may be represented thus–Christ comes to dwell in the heart with a view to impart strength to it, but He must be admitted into it through the door, which is faith; then, again, this door must be opened by the porter, the Spirit, as in the example of Lydia, whose heart, we are expressly told, the Lord opened to the reception of the things spoken by Paul.
II. We notice the second request of this prayer, that they might have enlarged and Christ-honouring conceptions of the magnitude of the temple of which they formed a part. Most people connect the words in verse 18 with the love of Christ referred to in the following verse. The structure of the Greek seems opposed to this interpretation; also the logic of the passage. Can it be true that the breadth, and length, and depth, and height of which we are so definitely to comprehend, is beyond our knowledge? We must look, then, for some other reference to fit the words. What had the apostle uppermost in his mind? Was it not the Christian temple so beautifully described in the last words of chapter 2 as being in course of building? The purport of the thought would seem to be this temple. The apostle knew how narrow and contracted the thoughts of many Jewish Christians, especially, were respecting this glorious institution. He is, therefore, anxious to lift their minds cut of the narrow rut of their traditional exclusiveness. He wants them to rise to a truer and nobler conception of this glorious spiritual temple–to comprehend its breadth, and length, and depth, and height. By its breadth and length he describes its area as covering the whole earth, as contemplating all nations within its scope. By its depth and height he measures its elevation; it includes the whole family on earth and in heaven, the Church militant and the Church triumphant. In a word, then, we have the area and elevation of the spiritual temple, the Church, in the one ease covering the earth, in the other reaching to the heavens.
1. The source of it. The comprehension indicated comes as the result of being rooted and grounded in love. A strange interblending of figures. Not only has the heart penetrated into the love, but the love penetrates into the heart, transfusing it with its own qualities. What is the result? It is that the heart, so affected, so wrought upon, possesses in its new instinct of love a key to all Gods ways and operations.
2. The universality of its comprehension. It is implied that to comprehend the magnitude of the aim of the Christian Church was a matter which the Ephesian Christians were to attain to in common with all saints. It is the duty of every Christian to attain to clear views on this important matter. It is men who have comprehended this most clearly and appreciated it most fully who have succeeded best in doing great things for God. It is only by the inspiration and enthusiasm born of this great fact that such heroes of the faith as Wesley in England, Carey in India, and Livingstone in Africa, were stimulated and emboldened to attempt the mighty things they achieved in their day.
3. The use of it–And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge. Here the apostle tells us that one of the advantages of the realization of the wide-reaching aims and benevolent purposes of the Church was the help it gives to realize the transcendent love of Christ. It sounds paradoxical to speak of knowing that which passeth knowledge. There is a sense, nevertheless, in which it is consistent. The fact of the love being Divine at once places it beyond the utmost stretch of the human mind to measure its force, to fathom its depth, or to scale its height. He to whom, both by reason of sympathy of nature and power of inspiration, was given more than to any other human being the power of fathoming its depth, and measuring its height, represents it as of the very essence of God. Yet this knowledge-defying love, the text tells us, we may know.
This knowledge consists of two things.
1. In being convinced of it as a fact. As Intimated, this conviction, the apostle tells us, comes of duly comprehending the breadth, and length, and depth, and height of the Church. The Church, in the magnitude of its conception and comprehensive benevolence, is a standing monument of Christs love, a proof indisputable of its existence and operative force. This much we know of the love of Christ. The sun far surpasses our power of comprehension. We can form no idea of its bulk, of the extent of its forces, of the influence it exerts upon myriad objects embraced by its light and heat. Nevertheless, there is nothing of the existence of which we are more convinced, or with the power of which we are more impressed. Thus it is with the love of Christ.
2. To know the love of Christ means also an assurance of a personal interest in it. It means the conviction that, however it may defy the utmost power of our imagination to measure its magnitude, we are, nevertheless, embraced by it; that it is our moral atmosphere in which we breathe inspiration and power; the spiritual light which infuses, sunlike, gladness and joy into the very core of our life, giving serene rest, and creating unflinching confidence in the midst of universal unrest, and of myriads of turbulent and conflicting elements.
3. The knowledge of Christs love is a qualification for the reception of all the fulness of God. The love of Christ, apprehended in the sense explained, unlocks the soul for the entrance into it of all Gods fulness. This is the apostles climax thought. Here he describes the highest point of spiritual attainment the believing soul is capable of reaching, that is, becoming a depository for all the fulness of God. The love of Christ, apprehended in this deeper manner, brings the whole man under the complete sway of God. For this being filled with all the fulness of God means–
(1) To have an all-pervading consciousness of God; it is to have God in His fulness–in the fact of His goodness, His love, His holiness in the profoundest sense pervading our every thought and action, inspiring them, moulding them, and directing them. In a word, it is God becoming the sole motive power of the soul.
(2) It also means to be endowed to the utmost possible capacity of our being with spiritual power–to be God-endowed as well as God-motived. In this fulness God lays Himself, so to speak, at the service of the soul–in the wealth of His love and the treasures of His grace. (A. J. Parry.)
An ascending prayer
You will see that this prayer is an ascending one. Each petition rises higher than the preceding. Meditating on this prayer is something like ascending an Alpine peak. The first hour or so is comparatively easy work. The giant flanks of the mountain are steep, but still their ascent is not over difficult; but the higher you go, the steeper it becomes, until at last there is just that one glittering pinnacle towering above your head, and it seems to say, Thus far, but no farther! Scale me if you can. With the aid, though, of a trusty guide, who cuts steps in the very ice for us, and who lends us the strength of his arm, we are able to gain the summit, and drink in with our eyes the grandeur of the scene. Oh that the Spirit of God might come upon us, and, taking us by the hand, help us by His own mighty power to reach the very topmost pinnacle of the apostles prayer, and understand in some measure what it is to be filled with all the fulness of God.
1. There must be an inward strengthening. Spiritual power must be developed to qualify us for attaining to eminence in the knowledge and service of Christ. Not life only, but vitality.
2. There must be an ever-acting faith on your part, so that a whole Christ may be received, and a whole Christ retained within the soul. A glorious realization of the person of the Lord Jesus, and by faith a living Christ dwelling within the breast. Not a portrait merely, but Christ Himself enshrined in the soul.
3. Then, you see, how naturally comes the next petition, That ye may be filled with all the fulness of God. Ah! I am certain of this, that if I am filled with a living Christ, I am not far off being filled with all the fulness of God. If I am strengthened with all might by the Holy Ghost, and have a living Jesus within the soul, only one step higher and the pinnacle of the prayer is reached.
(1) What it is to be filled with God. To have as much of God within us as our nature can contain. No low level of spiritual experience should satisfy us. We must ever be on the rise–ever seeking to reach perfection. He who only aims low cannot possibly have his arrow hit high; whereas he who aims high, though he may not hit the mark at which he aims, will have his arrow fly higher than that of the other marksman. I would have you to be filled, says St. Paul, with the Spirit of God; the Holy Ghost looking through your eyes, the Spirit of God on your lips, influencing, sweetening, savouring every word that you speak; the Holy Ghost in your hands, ennobling all the everyday actions of life; the Spirit of God guiding your feet, so that your every day walk honours Him.
(2) What it is to be filled with all the fulness of God. In Christ all fulness dwells, and it is bestowed on Him in order that He may communicate it to His people. All weakness, I may bring the vacuum of my weakness up to the fulness of His all-power, and then am I strong because I am weak. All foolishness in myself, there is all wisdom in Him to guide and direct. With utter nothingness in myself, there is all-sufficiency in Him. It is no longer a question of what I am, or what I can do, but who Christ is, and what He can do in me. To Him we may go for fulness: but, for fulness of what?
(a) Fulness of joy (Joh 15:11; Joh 16:24; Joh 17:13). No piety in being miserable. It is no token of grace to be depressed or disconsolate. It rather shows there is something wrong somewhere, because, included in the all-fulness that Christ has to supply His saints, there is the fulness of joy.
(b) Fulness of peace (Rom 15:13). Joy is peace singing; peace is joy reposing.
(c) Fulness of hope.
(d) The fruits of righteousness (Php 1:2). Not just a stray fruit here and there upon your boughs, but all your boughs filled with fruit, until through the very weight of their load they bend down and kiss the ground. The more fruitful the branch, the lower it will hang; and the more fruit there is upon a believer, the less conceit and pride there will be about him.
(e) The knowledge of Gods will (Col 1:9).
All these are but a few items of the different things with which the Lord is willing to fill us. Would you lead a calm, restful life? Then you must know the meaning of being filled. To use a very simple illustration–take a water bottle, and if that water bottle be only half full, every time you move the bottle the water in it washes to and fro. Why? How is it that it feels every motion? Because it is not full. But if you fill that water bottle right up until it cannot hold another drop, and then cork it in, you may turn the bottle which way you like, and the water within it will not move. There is no movement, no washing about. Why? Because it is too full to be agitated. The reason why you and I live such poor restless lives is that we are not filled up with the fulness of God. Do you also want to live a life of power? Then remember that the measure of any mans power is in proportion to the measure with which he is filled with God. (A. G. Brown.)
Prayer a self-revelation
The deepest thoughts of the heart of a spiritual man are sure to come out in his prayer. Hear a man of God pray, and you hear the real man speaking. I suppose there are none of us here who have not often had cause to confess with shame that we should not like to be judged by our converse with man. How often in society and amongst friends we are led to talk and chat in a way quite sufficient to mislead those who are with us, and make them think we are very different men from what we really are. But when after such a season we have gone to our own home, and dropped down on our knees before God, and begun to speak to Him, then, perhaps with bitter tears, we have told Him that it was not the true self speaking a few hours back. If you could only overhear the talk which a saintly heart has with its God, then you would know the man himself. And you may also rest assured that that which a man prays for, for his friends, is in his estimation the choicest blessing they can receive. Only know what your dearest friend asks God to give you, and you know what, in his opinion, is your greatest need. Oh, if we could but sometimes hear those who love us best, and those who know us best, pray for us, it would be a revelation to us. We should then see what, in their judgment, was our deficiency–what, in their estimation, our greatest requirement. Now, if there be so deep an interest attaching itself to the prayers of all, surely, without fear of contradiction, we may say that when it is an apostle who bends the knee, and when it is such an apostle as Paul who prays, we may well be all attention to catch every syllable. If the deepest thoughts of the heart come out in prayer, let there be a holy hush as we hear the apostle of the Gentiles pray. What, in his mind, is the chiefest thing to be desired for a saint? What, according to his judgment, is the choicest blessing that a believer can receive? We have only to listen to his prayer, and we shall discover. (A. G. Brown.)
St. Pauls example as to prayer
1. Ministers must pray for their people as well as teach them.
(1) Whatsoever we do, yet peoples untowardness is such, that they have no ability to entertain it fruitfully.
(2) Whatsoever we do, yet it is but planting and watering, and all is nothing, if God bless not.
(3) We must also pray that our own wants may be supplied.
(4) As ministers are the mouth of God to the people, so they are the mouth of the people to God.
(5) Ministers are co-workers with God, and it is chiefly Gods work, and the people are Gods husbandry and Gods building.
2. In prayer we must compose our outward man to due reverance, for the body as well as the soul has been redeemed.
(1) Outward gestures are to express inward affections.
(2) And to stir them up.
3. Kneeling is the most fitting attitude.
4. Yet there are some cautions to which we must pay attention.
(1) We must take heed not to rest in outward gestures and attitudes. The humiliation and prostration of the heart must go along with that of the body.
(2) If, for any reason, we are prevented from kneeling or other expressions of reverence, we must not therefore neglect prayer. (Paul Bayne.)
Kneeling in prayer
There was an old clergyman who was much troubled because his wife would sit in church instead of kneeling. He spoke about it to her, but she gave no heed. No; she was more comfortable sitting, and she thought she could pray just as well in one position as another. You may pray as well, he said, but I doubt youre being heard as well. However, it was no good; he might just as well have spoken to a stone wall. So then he went one day to his wifes old servant, and said to her, Hannah, I will give you a crown if you will go to my wife, and sit down on the sofa at her side, and ask her to give you a holiday tomorrow, because you want to go home to your friends. Hannah was shy. However, the prospect of the crown encouraged her, and she opened the door timidly, went in, and walking up to the sofa, where her mistress was knitting, sat down at her side. The old lady looked up in great astonishment, and asked what in the world she wanted. A holiday tomorrow, maam. Leave the room instantly, you impudent woman, exclaimed the old lady, and if you want to have a request granted, learn to ask it in a proper manner. Then the husband put his head in and said, My dear! is not this preaching to Hannah the lesson I have been preaching to you for years? If you want to have a request granted, learn to ask it in a proper manner. Next Sunday, and ever after, the old lady knelt in church. She saw it would not do to treat Jesus Christ in that way in which she did not like at all to be treated herself.
Kneeling
Philip the Third of Spain would never be addressed but on the knees, for which he gave the excuse, that as he was of low stature everyone would have appeared too high for him. And if men claim to be approached in this way, how shall we draw near to the living God, the Maker of heaven and earth?
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 14. For this cause I bow my knees] That you may not faint, but persevere, I frequently pray to God, who is our God and the Father of our Lord Jesus. Some very ancient and excellent MSS. and versions omit the words , of our Lord Jesus Christ. And in them the passage reads: I bow my knees unto the Father. The apostle prays to God the Father, that they may not faint; and he bows his knees in this praying. What can any man think of himself, who, in his addresses to God, can either sit on his seat or stand in the presence of the Maker and Judge of all men? Would they sit while addressing any person of ordinary respectability? If they did so they would be reckoned very rude indeed. Would they sit in the presence of the king of their own land? They would not be permitted so to do. Is God then to be treated with less respect than a fellow mortal? Paul kneeled in praying, Ac 20:36; Ac 21:5. Stephen kneeled when he was stoned, Ac 7:60. And Peter kneeled when he raised Tabitha, Ac 9:40.
Many parts of this prayer bear a strict resemblance to that offered up by Solomon, 2Ch 6:1, c., when dedicating the temple: He kneeled down upon his knees before all the congregation of Israel, and spread forth his hands towards heaven 2Ch 6:13. The apostle was now dedicating the Christian Church, that then was and that ever should be, to God; and praying for those blessings which should ever rest on and distinguish it; and he kneels down after the example of Solomon, and invokes him to whom the first temple was dedicated, and who had made it a type of the Gospel Church.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
For this cause; this may be referred either to the former verse: {Eph 3:13} For this cause, viz. that ye faint not, & c.; or rather to the 1st verse, {Eph 3:1} the apostle here resuming what he had been beginning there.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
14. For this causeResumingthe thread of Eph 3:1, “Forthis cause.” Because ye have such a standing in God’s Church[ALFORD].
bow my kneesthe properattitude in humble prayer. Posture affects the mind, and is nottherefore unimportant. See Paul’s practice (Ac20:36); and that of the Lord Himself on earth (Lu22:41).
unto the FatherTheoldest manuscripts omit “of our Lord Jesus Christ.” ButVulgate and some very old authorities retain them: Eph3:15, “From whom,” in either case, refers to “theFather” (Patera), as “family” (patria,akin in sound and etymology) plainly refers to Him. Still thefoundation of all sonship is in Jesus Christ.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father,…. That is, pray unto him for the perseverance of the saints; for nothing is more desirable to the ministers of Christ than that; which is the pure gift of God, and is what he has promised, and therefore should be prayed to for it; for what God has designed and promised to his people, he will be sought to; and the apostle’s view might be also to stir up these saints to pray for themselves: the gesture he used in prayer was bowing the knees; a man is not tied to any particular gesture or posture in prayer, the main thing is the heart; mere postures and gestures are insignificant things with God; though where the mind is affected, the body will be moved; and this gesture may be expressive of reverence, humility, and submission in prayer: the object he prayed unto is the Father; that is, as follows,
of our Lord Jesus; though these words are wanting in the Alexandrian copy, and Ethiopic version, yet are rightly retained in others; for God is the Father of Christ, not by creation, nor adoption, but by generation, being the only begotten of the Father; and as such he is rightly prayed to, since not only Christ prayed to him as such; but he is the Father of his people in and through Christ; and there is no other way of coming to him but by Christ; and all spiritual blessings come though Christ, and from God, as the Father of Christ.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
| The Apostle’s Prayer. | A. D. 61. |
14 For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15 Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, 16 That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; 17 That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; 19 And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God. 20 Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, 21 Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.
We now come to the second part of this chapter, which contains Paul’s devout and affectionate prayer to God for his beloved Ephesians.–For this cause. This may be referred either to the immediately foregoing verse, That you faint not, c., or, rather, the apostle is here resuming what he began at the first verse, from which he digressed in those which are interposed. Observe,
I. To whom he prays–to God, as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of which see <i>ch. i. 3.
II. His outward posture in prayer, which was humble and reverent: I bow my knees. Note, When we draw nigh to God, we should reverence him in our hearts, and express our reverence in the most suitable and becoming behaviour and gesture. Here, having mentioned Christ, he cannot pass without an honourable encomium of his love, v. 15. The universal church has a dependence upon the Lord Jesus Christ: Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named. The Jews were wont to boast of Abraham as their father, but now Jews and Gentiles are both denominated from Christ (so some); while others understand it of the saints in heaven, who wear the crown of glory, and of saints on earth who are going on in the work of grace here. Both the one and the other make but one family, one household; and from him they are named CHRISTIANS, as they really are such, acknowledging their dependence upon, and their relation to, Christ.
III. What the apostle asks of God for these his friends–spiritual blessings, which are the best blessings, and the most earnestly to be sought and prayed for by every one of us, both for ourselves and for our friends. 1. Spiritual strength for the work and duty to which they were called, and in which they were employed: That he would grant you, according to the riches of his grace, to be strengthened, c. The inner man is the heart or soul. To be strengthened with might is to be mightily strengthened, much more than they were at present to be endued with a high degree of grace, and spiritual abilities for discharging duty, resisting temptations, enduring persecutions, c. And the apostle prays that this may be according to the riches of his glory, or according to his glorious riches–answerable to that great abundance of grace, mercy, and power, which resides in God, and is his glory: and this by his Spirit, who is the immediate worker of grace in the souls of God’s people. Observe from these things, That strength from the Spirit of God in the inner man is the best and most desirable strength, strength in the soul, the strength of faith and other graces, strength to serve God and to do our duty, and to persevere in our Christian course with vigour and with cheerfulness. And let us further observe that as the work of grace is first begun so it is continued and carried on, by the blessed Spirit of God. 2. The indwelling of Christ in their hearts, <i>v. 17. Christ is said to dwell in his people, as he is always present with them by his gracious influences and operations. Observe, It is a desirable thing to have Christ dwell in our hearts; and if the law of Christ be written there, and the love of Christ be shed abroad there, then Christ dwells there. Christ is an inhabitant in the soul of every good Christian. Where his spirit dwells, there he swells; and he dwells in the heart by faith, by means of the continual exercise of faith upon him. Faith opens the door of the soul, to receive Christ; faith admits him, and submits to him. By faith we are united to Christ, and have an interest in him. 3. The fixing of pious and devout affections in the soul: That you being rooted and grounded in love, stedfastly fixed in your love to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to all the saints, the beloved of our Lord Jesus Christ. Many have some love to God and to his servants, but it is a flash, like the crackling of thorns under a pot, it makes a great noise, but is gone presently. We should earnestly desire that good affections may be fixed in us, that we may be rooted and grounded in love. Some understand it of their being settled and established in the sense of God’s love to them, which would inspire them with greater ardours of holy love to him, and to one another. And how very desirable is it to have a settled fixed sense of the love of God and Christ to our souls, so as to be able to say with the apostle at all times, He has loved me! Now the best way to attain this is to be careful that we maintain a constant love to God in our souls; this will be the evidence of the love of God to us. We love him, because he first loved us. In order to this he prays, 4. For their experimental acquaintance with the love of Jesus Christ. The more intimate acquaintance we have with Christ’s love to us, the more our love will be drawn out to him, and to those who are his, for his sake: That you may be able to comprehend with all saints, c. (Eph 3:18Eph 3:19); that is, more clearly to understand, and firmly to believe, the wonderful love of Christ to his, which the saints do understand and believe in some measure, and shall understand more hereafter. Christians should not aim to comprehend above all saints; but be content that God deals with them as he uses to do with those who love and fear his name: we should desire to comprehend with all saints, to have so much knowledge as the saints are allowed to have in this world. We should be ambitious of coming up with the first three; but not of going beyond what is the measure of the stature of other saints. It is observable how magnificently the apostle speaks of the love of Christ. The dimensions of redeeming love are admirable: The breadth, and length, and depth, and height. By enumerating these dimensions, the apostle designs to signify the exceeding greatness of the love of Christ, the unsearchable riches of his love, which is higher than heaven, deeper than hell, longer than the earth, and broader than the sea,Job 11:8; Job 11:9. Some describe the particulars thus: By the breadth of it we may understand the extent of it to all ages, nations, and ranks of men; by the length of it, its continuance from everlasting to everlasting; by the depth of it, its stooping to the lowest condition, with a design to relieve and save those who have sunk into the depths of sin and misery; by its height, its entitling and raising us up to the heavenly happiness and glory. We should desire to comprehend this love: it is the character of all the saints that they do so; for they all have a complacency and a confidence in the love of Christ: And to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, v. 19. If it passeth knowledge, how can we know it? We must pray and endeavour to know something, and should still covet and strive to know more and more of it, though, after the best endeavours, none can fully comprehend it: in its full extent it surpasses knowledge. Though the love of Christ may be better perceived and known by Christians than it generally is, yet it cannot be fully understood on this side heaven. 5. He prays that they may be filled with all the fulness of God. It is a high expression: we should not dare to use it if we did not find it in the scriptures. It is like those other expressions, of being partakers of a divine nature, and of being perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect. We are not to understand it of his fulness as God in himself, but of his fulness as a God in covenant with us, as a God to his people: such a fulness as God is ready to bestow, who is willing to fill them all to the utmost of their capacity, and that with all those gifts and graces which he sees they need. Those who receive grace for grace from Christ’s fulness may be said to be filled with the fulness of God, according to their capacity, all which is in order to their arriving at the highest degree of the knowledge and enjoyment of God, and an entire conformity to him.
The apostle closes the chapter with a doxology, Eph 3:20; Eph 3:21. It is proper to conclude our prayers with praises. Our blessed Saviour has taught us to do so. Take notice how he describes God, and how he ascribes glory to him. He describes him as a God that is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think. There is an inexhaustible fulness of grace and mercy in God, which the prayers of all the saints can never draw dry. Whatever we may ask, or think to ask, still God is still able to do more, abundantly more, exceedingly abundantly more. Open thy mouth ever so wide, still he hath wherewithal to fill it. Note, In our applications to God we should encourage our faith by a consideration of his all-sufficiency and almighty power. According to the power which worketh in us. As if he had said, We have already had a proof of this power of God, in what he hath wrought in us and done for us, having quickened us by his grace, and converted us to himself. The power that still worketh for the saints is according to that power that hath wrought in them. Wherever God gives of his fulness he gives to experience his power. Having thus described God, he ascribes glory to him. When we come to ask for grace from God, we ought to give glory to God. Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus. In ascribing glory to God, we ascribe all excellences and perfections to him, glory being the effulgency and result of them all. Observe, The seat of God’s praises is in the church. That little rent of praise which God receives from this world is from the church, a sacred society constituted for the glory of God, every particular member of which, both Jew and Gentile, concurs in this work of praising God. The Mediator of these praises is Jesus Christ. All God’s gifts come from his to us through the hand of Christ; and all our praises pass from us to him through the same hand. And God should and will be praised thus throughout all ages, world without end; for he will ever have a church to praise him, and he will ever have his tribute of praise from his church. Amen. So be it; and so it will certainly be.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
I bow my knees ( ). He now prays whether he had at first intended to do so at 3:1 or not. Calvin supposes that Paul knelt as he dictated this prayer, but this is not necessary. This was a common attitude in prayer (Luke 22:41; Acts 7:40; Acts 20:36; Acts 21:5), though standing is also frequent (Mark 11:25; Luke 18:11; Luke 18:13).
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
For this cause. Resuming the interrupted clause in ver. 1, and having still in mind the closing thought of ch. 2. Seeing ye are so built together in Christ, for this cause, etc.
Father. Omit of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “For this cause” (toutou charin) “By reason of this (affliction),” which came upon Paul because he preached free grace to believing Jews and Gentiles, through the “cross-body” reconciliation death of Christ, and His purchasing the church as the new worship-body for Jews and Gentiles described in Eph 2:1-22.
2) “I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (kampto ta gonata mou pros ton patera) “I bend my knees unto (toward) the Father.” This expresses Paul’s devout trust in and petition to God the Father in behalf of the Ephesian brethren and their faithfulness, singularly and as a church, to the Lord Jesus Christ, Php_1:9-11; Mat 6:9. That God was the Father of Jesus Christ was Paul’s affirmation of our Lord’s virgin birth and deity, Eph 1:3; Gal 4:4-5.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
14. For this cause. His prayers for them are mentioned, not only to testify his regard for them, but likewise to excite them to pray in the same manner; for the seed of the word is scattered in vain, unless the Lord render it fruitful by his blessing. Let pastors learn from Paul’s example, not only to admonish and exhort their people, but to entreat the Lord to bless their labors, that they may not be unfruitful. Nothing will be gained by their industry and toil, — all their study and application will be to no purpose, except so far as the Lord bestows his blessing. This ought not to be regarded by them as an encouragement to sloth. It is their duty, on the contrary, to labor earnestly in sowing and watering, provided they, at the same time, ask and expect the increase from the Lord.
We are thus enabled to refute the slanders of the Pelagians and Papists, who argue, that, if the grace of the Holy Spirit performs the whole work of enlightening our minds, and forming our hearts to obedience, all instruction will be superfluous. The only effect of the enlightening and renewing influences of the Holy Spirit is, to give to instruction its proper weight and efficacy, that we may not be blind to the light of heaven, or deaf to the strains of truth. While the Lord alone acts upon us, he acts by his own instruments. It is therefore the duty of pastors diligently to teach, — of the people, earnestly to receive instruction, — and of both, not to weary themselves in unprofitable exertions, but to look up for Divine aid.
I bow my knees. The bodily attitude is here put for the religious exercise itself. Not that prayer, in all cases, requires the bending of the knees, but because this expression of reverence is commonly employed, especially where it is not an incidental petition, but a continued prayer.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES
Eph. 3:15. The whole family.R.V. every family. The word for family is only found in the New Testament in St. Luk. 2:4 and Act. 3:25; in one translated lineage, in the other kindreds in A.V.; consistently as family by R.V. Chrysostom, and others who followed him, have surely a special claim to be heard. They translate it races. Bishop Alexander contends for the A.V. translation, the whole. He says, A special force and signification in the expression make this translation necessary (cf. Eph. 2:19).
Eph. 3:16. The riches of His glory.The whole glorious perfection of God. To be strengthened with might.There may be a verbal connection with the fainting of Eph. 3:13, but the thought goes far out beyond that. In the inner man.We are reminded again of the text quoted above (2Co. 4:16). A mode of expression derived from the Platonic school, not necessarily presupposing any acquaintance with that system of philosophy.
Eph. 3:17. That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith.The condition of this, declared by Christ Himself, is that a man should keep the word of Christ. Being rooted and grounded.A double metaphorof a tree that has struck its roots deep into the crevices of the rock, and of a building with a foundation of bed-rock. Every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God (1Jn. 4:7). Love conditions knowledge of things divine (see Eph. 3:18).
Eph. 3:18. May be able.Perfectly able. With all saints.The highest and most precious knowledge Paul can desire only as a common possession of all Christians. What is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height.The deeply affected mind with its poetico-imaginative intuition looks upon the metaphysical magnitude as a physical, mathematical one. Every special attempt at interpretation is unpsychological, and only gives scope to that caprice which profanes by dissecting the outpouring of enthusiasm (Meyer).
Eph. 3:19. And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge.An adequate knowledge of the love of Christ transcends human capacity, but the relative knowledge of the same opens up in a higher degree the more the heart is filled with the Spirit of Christ, and thereby is strengthened in loving. This knowledge is not discursive, but based in the consciousness of experience (Meyer).
Eph. 3:20. Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly.After his prayer proper is ended the full heart of the apostle swells out into a solemn doxology The frequent and bold compound expressions of St. Paul (Farrar says twenty of the New Testament twenty-eight with are St. Pauls) spring from the endeavours adequately to express his energetic thought. According to the power that worketh in us.The measure of a man or of an angel is insufficient here. Things are not achieved by creaturely mensuration where God works (cf. Eph. 1:19-23).
Eph. 3:21. To Him be the glory.The honour due to His name. By Christ Jesus.He that climbeth up some other way with his offering courts his own destruction. Throughout all ages, world without end.R.V. Unto all generations, for ever and ever. A good specimen of the exceeding abundantly above all that we understand as regarded under the aspect of time. It carries our thoughts along the vista of the future, till time melts into eternity.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.Eph. 3:14-21
A Sublime and Comprehensive Prayer
I. For spiritual strengthening (Eph. 3:16).The first necessity of the new convert is strength. The change from the former life is so new and strange. The spiritual faculties are but recently called into exercise; and though they are thrilled with the vigour of youth, they possess the inherent weakness and are exposed to the temptations of youth. Their newly acquired strength is at once their glory and their dangertheir glory in giving them the capacity and impulse for the highest kind of work; their danger because they are tempted to rely upon their own conscious power rather than upon the grace of God within them, which is the source of their best strength. If that strength is once undermined or eaten away, it can never be replaced. The strength of youth, physical or spiritual, belongs only to the period of youth; if lost in youth, it can never be regained in maturer life. Whatever strength we may gain in after-years will never be what it might have been if we had never lost the strength of our first love. The apostle here prays that his converts may be invigorated with a manful courage, the moral strength to meet dangers and to battle with difficulties without quailing.
1. This spiritual strengthening is achieved by the indwelling Christ welcomed and retained in the heart by faith.That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith (Eph. 3:17). The source of this strength is not in us; we cannot evoke it by any voluntary effort of our own. It is a divine power working in us (Eph. 3:20). It is the Christ within us making Himself felt in our otherwise enfeebled powers. We are invested with the strength of Christ by our faith in Christ; and increase of strength comes with increase of faith. The faith that receives Christ into the heart must be constantly exercised to keep Him there, and to derive inspiration and help from Him in attaining spiritual growth and in doing useful work.
2. This spiritual strengthening is cherished by an accession of Christian love.That ye, being rooted and grounded in love (Eph. 3:17). The double metaphor gives emphasis to the idearooted, a tree; grounded a building. When Christ is planted and settled in our hearts, love is shed abroad there, and becomes the genial soil in which our graces grow, and the basis of all our thought and action. Love is strength, the most reliable, sustaining, and victorious kind of strength.
II. For a clearer comprehension of the immeasurable love of Christ (Eph. 3:18-19).Here the prayer rises in sublimity and comprehensiveness. The apostle prays that we may know the unknowableknow the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge. There is nothing so fascinating as the love of Christ, ever leading us on by fresh revelations, and ever leaving the impression that there are unfathomable depths and inaccessible heights yet to be discovered. Oh that Christ would, exclaimed the saintly Rutherford, arrest and comprise my love and my heart for all. I am a bankrupt who have no more free goods in the world for Christ, save that it is both the whole heritage I have, and all my moveables besides. Lord, give the thirsty manna drink. Oh to be over ears in the well! Oh to be swimming over head and ears in Christs love! I would not have Christs love entering in me, but I would enter into it, and be swallowed up of that love. But I see not myself here, for I fear I make more of His love than of Himself, whereas He Himself is far beyond and much better than His love. Oh, if I had my sinful arms filled with that lovely one Christ! Blessed be my rich Lord Jesus, who sendeth not away beggars from His house with an empty dish. He filleth the vessel of such as will come and seek. We might beg ourselves rich, if we were wise, if we would but hold out our withered hands to Christ, and learn to seek, ask, and knock. The highest conceptions of the love of Christ are realised by the soul that prays.
III. For the attainment of the most complete endowment of the divine fulness.That ye might be filled with all the fulness of God (Eph. 3:19). The prayer asks that man may gain the sum-total of Gods gifts, be filled in every capacity of his nature with the whole plenitude (the ) of God. To reach this glorious result, we need, indeed, special spiritual strengthening. New wine bursts old bottles; and a large and sudden inflow of divine grace would be disastrous to the soul unprepared to receive it. What is wanted is strengthstrength of the highest and purest kind. Muscular strengtha magnificent healthy physiqueis a great gift; but it is one of our lowest endowments, and its abuse sinks us to a worse than brutish sensuality. Intellectual strength is a still higher gift, and if rightly used will lift us into a loftier world of wonders, of beauty, of purity and joy; but if abused will drag us down to the base level of the vapouring, scoffing sceptic, whose attempts to glorify error are instigated by a savage but utterly powerless hatred of truth. Spiritual strength is the highest gift of all. It is the motive-power that gives movement and direction to thought and action. Without it man is the plaything and victim of unrestrained passions. A short time ago I inspected one of the finest ocean-going steamships, a marvellous combination of strength and elegance. Everything seemed as perfect as engineering science could make it. But there was something wanting; it was a fatal defect. The giant shaft and powerful screw, the triple expansion cylinders, the cranks, pistons, and wheels were all there, but the noble vessel was useless, heaving helplessly on the rolling tide. The fires were out, and the active driving-power was lacking. What steam is to that great floating mass of complicated mechanism, giving it life, movement, direction, purposethat spiritual strength is to our mental and physical organism. To receive the fulness of indwelling Deity the soul must be strengthened with spiritual strength. We cannot pray too earnestly for this.
IV. Uttered with a reverential recognition of the great Giver of all blessing.
1. Beginning with the submissive awe of a humble suppliant. For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father, etc. (Eph. 3:14-15). The apostle is overwhelmed with the contemplation of the rich blessings stored up for man in Christ Jesus, and prostrates himself with lowly homage in the conscious presence of the great Donor of all spiritual good. Nothing humbles us more than a sight of the blessings possible of attainment by the greatest sinner.
2. Ending with an outburst of triumphant praise (Eph. 3:20-21).Praise soars higher than prayer. Mans desires will never overtake Gods bounty. When the apostle desires that Gods praise may resound in the Church throughout all ages, he no longer supposes that the mystery of God may be finished speedily as men count years. The history of mankind stretches before his gaze into its dim futurity. The successive generations gather themselves into that consummate age of the kingdom of God, the grand cycle in which all the ages are contained. With its completion time itself is no more. Its swelling current, laden with the tribute of all the worlds and all their histories, reaches the eternal ocean. The end comes; God is all in all. At this furthest horizon of thought, Christ and His own are seen together rendering to God unceasing glory (Findlay).
Lessons.
1. Prayer is the cry of conscious need.
2. Increases in importunity as it is strengthened by faith.
3. Finds its sublimest themes in the culture of the spiritual life.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
Eph. 3:14-15. The Christian Church a Family.
I. The definition here given of the Christian Church.
1. A society founded upon natural affinitiesa family. A family is built on affinities which are natural, not artificial; it is not a combination, but a society. In ancient times an association of interest combined men in one guild or corporation for protecting the common persons in that corporation from oppression. In modern times identity of political creed or opinion has bound men together in one league in order to establish those political principles which appeared to them of importance. Similarity of taste has united men together in what is called an association, or a society, in order by this means to attain more completely the ends of that science to which they had devoted themselves. But, as these have been raised artificially, so their end is, inevitably, dissolution. Society passes on, and guilds and corporations die; principles are established, and leagues become dissolved; tastes change, and then the association or society breaks up and comes to nothing. It is upon another principle altogether that that which we call a family, or true society, is formed. It is not built upon similarity of taste nor identity of opinion, but upon affinities of nature. You do not choose who shall be your brother; you cannot exclude your mother or your sister; it does not depend upon choice or arbitrary opinion at all, but is founded upon the eternal nature of things. And precisely in the same way is the Christian Church formedupon natural affinity, and not upon artificial combination.
2. The Church of Christ is a whole made up of manifold diversities.We are told here it is the whole family, taking into it the great and good of ages past now in heaven, and also the struggling, the humble, and the weak now existing upon earth. Here, again, the analogy holds good between the Church and the family. Never more than in the family is the true entirety of our nature seen. Observe how all the diversities of human condition and character manifest themselves in the family. First of all, there are the two opposite pales of masculine and feminine, which contain within them the entire of our humanity; which together, not separately, make up the whole of man. Then there are the diversities in the degrees and kinds of affection. For, when we speak of family affection, we must remember that it is made up of many diversities. There is nothing more different than the love which the sister bears towards the brother, compared with that which the brother bears towards the sister. The affection which a man bears towards his father is quite distinct from that which he feels towards his mother; it is something quite different towards his sister; totally diverse, again, towards his brother. And then there are diversities of character. First, the mature wisdom and stern integrity of the father, then the exuberant tenderness of the mother. And then one is brave and enthusiastic, another thoughtful, and another tender. One is remarkable for being full of rich humour; another is sad, mournful, even melancholy. Again, besides these, there are diversities of condition in life. First, there is the heir, sustaining the name and honour of the family; then perchance the soldier, in whose career all the anxiety and solicitude of the family is centred; then the man of business, to whom they look up, trusting his advice, expecting his counsel; lastly, perhaps, there is the invalid, from the very cradle trembling between life and death, drawing out all the sympathies and anxieties of each member of the family, and so uniting them all more closely, from their having one common point of sympathy and solicitude. Now, you will observe that these are not accidental, but absolutely essential to the idea of a family; for so far as any one of them is lost, so far the family is incomplete. And precisely in the same way all these diversities of character and condition are necessary to constitute and complete the idea of a Christian Church.
3. The Church of Christ is a society which is for ever shifting its locality and altering its forms.It is the whole Church, the whole family in heaven and earth. So, then, those who were on earth and are now in heaven are members of the same family still. Those who had their home here, now have it there. The Church of Christ is a society ever altering and changing its external forms. The whole familythe Church of the patriarchs and of ages before them; and yet the same family. Remember, I pray you, the diversities of form through which, in so many ages and generations, this Church has passed. Consider the difference there was between the patriarchal Church of the time of Abraham and Isaac and its condition under David; or the difference between the Church so existing and its state in the days of the apostles and the marvellous difference between that and the same Church four or five centuries later; or, once again, the difference between that, externally one, and the Church as it exists in the present day, broken into so many fragments. Yet, diversified as these states may be, they are not more so than the various stages of a family.
II. Consider the name by which this Church is named.Our Lord Jesus Christ, the apostle says, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named.
1. First, the recognition of a common father.That is the sacred truth proclaimed by the Epiphany. God revealed in Christnot the Father of the Jew only, but also of the Gentile. The Father of a whole family. Not the partial Father, loving one alonethe elderbut the younger son besides; the outcast prodigal who had spent his living with harlots and sinners, but the child still, and the child of a Fathers love.
2. The recognition of a common humanity.He from whom the Church is named took upon Him not the nature merely of the noble, of kings, or of the intellectual philosopher, but of the beggar, the slave, the outcast, the infidel, the sinner, and the nature of every one struggling in various ways.
3. The Church of Christ proceeds out of and rests upon the belief in a common Sacrifice.F. W. Robertson.
The Family in Heaven and Earth.With the boldness of a true and inspired nature the apostle Paul speaks with incidental ease of one family distributed between heaven and earth. There is, it seems, domesticity that cannot be absorbed by the interval between two spheres of beinga love that cannot be lost amidst the immensity, but finds the surest track across the voida home affinity that penetrates the skies, and enters as the morning or evening guest. And it is Jesus of Nazareth who has effected this; has entered under the same household name, and formed into the same class, the dwellers above and those beneath. Spirits there, and spirits here, are gathered by Him into one group; and where before was saddest exile, He has made a blest fraternity.
I. Members of the same home cannot dwell together, without either the memory or the expectation of some mutual and mortal farewell.All we who dwell in this visible scene can think of kindred souls that have vanished from us into the invisible. These, in the first place, does Jesus keep dwelling near our hearts; making still one family of those in heaven and those on earth. This He would do, if by no other means, by the prospect He has opened, of actual restoration. And since the grave can bury no affection now, but only the mortal and familiar shape of their object, death has changed its whole aspect and relation to us; and we may regard it, not with passionate hate, but with quiet reverence. It is a divine message from above, not an invasion from the abyss beneath; not the fiendish hand of darkness thrust up to clutch our gladness enviously away, but a rainbow gleam that descends through Jesus, without which we should not know the various beauties that are woven into the pure light of life. Once let the Christian promise be taken to the heart, and as we walk through the solemn forest of our existence, every leaf of love that falls, while it proclaims the winter near, lets in another patch of Gods sunshine to paint the glade beneath our feet and give a glory to the grass. Tell me that I shall stand face to face with the sainted dead; and, whenever it may be, shall I not desire to be ready, and to meet them with clear eye and spirit unabashed? Such and so much encouragement would Christianity give to the faithful conversation of all true affections, if it only assured us of some distant and undefinable restoration. But it appears to me to assure us of much more than this; to discountenance the idea of any, even the most temporary, extinction of life in the grave; and to sanction our faith in the absolute immortality of the mind. Rightly understood, it teaches not only that the departed will live, but that they do live, and indeed have never died, but simply vanished and passed away.
II. But it is not merely the members of the same literal home that Christ unites in one, whether in earth or heaven. He makes the good of every age into a glorious family of the children of God; and inspires them with a fellow-feeling, whatever the department of service which they fill. Keeping us ever in the mental presence of the divinest wisdom and in veneration of a perfect goodness, it accustoms us to the aspect of every grace that can adorn and consecrate our nature; trains our perceptions instantly to recognise its influence or to feel its want. It looks with an eye of full and clear affection over the wide circle of human excellence. Such hope tends to give us a prompt and large congeniality with them; to cherish the healthful affections which are domestic in every place and obsolete in no time; to prepare us for entering any new scene, and joining any new society where goodness, truth, and beauty dwell.Martineau.
The Christian Brotherhood of Man.The brotherhood of man has been the dream of old philosophers, and its attainment the endeavour of modern reformers. Man can only reach his highest life when he forms part of a society bound together by common sympathies and common aims, for by a great law of our nature it is true that he who lives utterly apart from his fellows must lose all true nobleness in selfish degradation. There is no real progress for the individual but through social sympathy. There is no strong and enduring aspiration but in the fellowship of aspiring souls. That conviction which men have so strongly felt and so vainly endeavoured to realise is perpetually asserted in the Book of God.
I. The brotherhood of man in Christ.
1. The Christian brotherhood is a unity of spirit under a diversity of form. Thus with the Church of the first century. At first it was one band of brotherhood; but as it grew and individual thought expanded and experience deepened there arose infinite diversities. The more men think and the more they grow, the more will they differ.
2. There are spiritual ties in action which in Christ bind man to man.Pauls words imply a threefold unity.
1. The fellowship of devotion to a common Father.
2. The fellowship with Christ our common Brother.
3. That fellowship is unbroken by the change of worlds.
II. Results of realising this fact of brotherhood.
1. Earnestness of life.
2. Power and grandeur of hope.Some complain that their ideas of heaven are vague and ineffective. Only realise the brotherhood of man, and then the hope of the future will become a power in life.E. L. Hull.
The One Family.
1. Believers on earth and saints and angels in heaven spring from the same common parent.
2. Are governed by the same general laws.
3. Share in the same pleasures and enjoyments.
4. Have the same general temper, the same distinguishing complexion.
5. Have one common interest.
6. Look to, rely upon, and are guided by the same Head.
7. Are all objects of Gods love.
8. At the last day will meet in Gods presence, be openly acknowledged as His children, and admitted to dwell in His house for ever.
Lessons.
1. If we estimate the dignity of men from the families with which they are connected, how honourable is the believer!
2. We see our obligations to mutual condescension, peaceableness, and love.
3. Let those who are not of this family be solicitous to obtain a place in it.Lathrop.
Eph. 3:16-19. Pauls Prayer for the Ephesians.
I. For spiritual strength.It was not bodily strength, civil power, or worldly distinction; it was the grace of fortitude and patience.
II. For an indwelling Christ.As we become united to Christ by faith, so by faith He dwells in our hearts.
III. For establishment in love.True love is rooted in the heart. It is a spiritual affection towards Christ. Its fruits are love to men, imitation of Christs example, obedience to His commands, zeal for His honour, and diligence in His service.
IV. For increase of knowledge in the love of Christ.The love of Christ passeth all known examples of love. This love passeth our comprehension in respect of its breadth or extent, its length, its depth, as the benefits it has procured exceed all human estimate. Though the love of Christ passeth knowledge, there is a sense in which it is known to the saints. They have an experimental knowledge, an influential knowledge, an assimilating knowledge of the love of Christ.
V. For the fulness of God.That they may have such a supply of divine influence as would cause them to abound in knowledge, faith, love, and all virtues and good works.Lathrop.
Eph. 3:19. The Love of Christ.
I. The love of Christ passeth knowledge.
1. He Himself furnishes an illustrative instance when He says, For scarcely for a righteous man will one diea merely just and righteous man would be admired; but he would not so take hold of the heart of another to produce a willingness to die for him;yet peradventure, in some rare case, for a good man, a man of benevolence, adorned with the softer virtues and abounding in the distribution of his favoursfor such a one some would even dare to die; some one, overcoming even the love of life in the fulness of his gratitude, might venture to give his own life to preserve that of such a one. But we were neither just nor good; we were sinners, and God commendeth His love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. Passes it not, then, all knowledge, all reasonable conception and probability, that this fallen nature should be so sympathised with that these flagrant rebellions should excite, not an inexorable anger, but pity and love? And such love that our Saviourlooking not so much on man as offending, but as His creature, and as His creature still capable of restorationshould melt in compassion and die to effect his redemption; this is indeed love that passeth knowledge.
2. The manner in which this love is manifested carries the principle beyond all conception and expression.It was love to the death. It was death for sinners, death in their stead; death, that the penal claims of law, and that law the unchangeable, unrelaxable law of God, might be fully satisfied. The redemption price was fixed by a spotless justice, and the love of Christ to the sinner was to be tested by the vastness of the claims to be made upon Him. But the wages of sin is death; and His love shrank not from the full and awful satisfaction required. It was death in our stead. Then it must be attended with anxious forebodings. Of what mysteries have I suggested the recollection to you? Can you comprehend them? That feeling with which He spoke of the baptism of blood? That last mysterious agony? That complaint of being forsaken of God? You feel you cannot. They transcend all your thought; and the love which made Him stoop to them is therefore love which passeth knowledge.
3. The love of Christ passeth knowledge if we consider it as illustrated by that care for us which signalises His administration.
4. The subject is further illustrated by the nature of the blessings which result to men from the love of Christ.We usually estimate the strength of love by the blessings it conveys or, at any rate, would convey. And if the benefits be beyond all estimate, neither can we measure the love.
5. The love of Christ passeth knowledge because it is the love of an infinite nature. Love rises with the other qualities and perfections of the being in whom it is found. Among animals the social attachments are slight, and the instinctive affection dies away when its purposes are answered. In man love arises with his intellect. In him it is often only limited by his nature, and when rightly directed shall be eternal. Many that love on earth shall doubtless love for ever. Were Christ merely a man His love could not pass knowledge. What man has felt man can conceive. Love can be measured by the nature which exercises it. But this love passeth all knowledge but that of the divine nature, because itself is divine. Christ is God, and he who would fully know His love must be able to span immensity and to grasp the Infinite Himself.
II. But while it is true that the love of Christ passeth all knowledge, it is equally true that it is to be known by us.To know the love of Christ is:
1. To recognise it in its various forms and expressions in our constant meditations. And where shall we turn and not be met by this, to us, most important subject? How delightful an occupation, to track all the streams of mercy up to their source. We are surrounded by the proof of the love of Christ. Let us see to it that the blinding veil be not on our heart, that our eyes be not holden that we should not know Him. We are called to know the love of Christ. Let us accustom ourselves to reflect upon it, to see it in its various forms and results; and then shall our meditation of Him be sweet.
2. To know the love of Christ is to perceive it in its adaptation to our own personal condition.
3. To know the love of Christ is to experience it in its practical results. He offers you pardon, and the offer is a proof and manifestation of His love; but properly to know it pardon itself must be accepted and embraced. This is to know His love. Seek it, and you must find it. Rest without it, and you are but as sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal.
4. To know the love of Christ we must put forth those efforts through which that love is appointed to express itself in our daily experience.
Lessons.
1. The rejection of love, especially of redeeming love, involves the deepest guilt.
2. Remember that the grace is common to you all.R. Watson.
The Unknown and Known Love of Christ.
I. There are some respects in which the love of Christ passeth our knowledge.
1. In its objects; so unworthy and degraded.
2. In its sufferings; love to the death.
3. In its care.
4. In its blessings.
5. In its degree. It is the love of an infinite nature.
II. There are some respects in which the love of Christ may be known.
1. Our views of it may be clearer and more consistent.
2. Our views of it may be more confidential and appropriating.
3. Our views of it may be more impressive and more influential.G. Brooks.
The Transcendent Love of Christ.
I. This representation must be confirmed.
1. This love is divine.
2. Consider the objects it embraced.
3. The means by which it manifested itself.
4. The blessings it secured.
II. The perception the Christian may acquire of this love, notwithstanding its divine infinitude.
1. It is the great interpreting principle which he applies to all the tremendous facts of redemption.
2. The sacred element and incentive of all pietythe theme of contemplation, the ground of confidence, the motive of obedience.
3. The impulse and model of all benevolence and zeal.
III. Conclusions from a review of the subject.
1. It is only natural to expect a transcendent character in Christianity.
2. No better test exists of what is genuine Christianity than the level of the views which it exhibits concerning the person and work of Christ and the tone of the affections which it encourages towards Him.
3. There is much of implicit as well as declarative evidence in support of the Saviours supreme divinity.
4. How necessary is it that we should live habitually under the influence of this transcendent love.R. W. Hamilton.
Eph. 3:20-21. A Devout Doxology.
I. The acknowledgment the apostle makes of Gods all-sufficiency.
1. God often does for men those favours which they never thought of asking for themselves.
2. God answers prayers in ways we think not of.
3. The mercies God is pleased to grant often produce consequences far beyond what we asked or thought.
4. The worth of the blessings we ask and God bestows infinitely exceeds all our thought.
II. The ascription of glory the apostle makes to this all-sufficient God.
1. God is glorified by the increase of His Church. 2. God is glorified in the Church when a devout regard is paid to the ordinances He has instituted.
3. By the observance of good order in the Church, and by the decent attendance of the members on their respective duties.
4. That God may be glorified there must be peace and unity in the Church.Lathrop.
Gods Infinite Liberality.
I. The object of this doxology.The God of all grace. Whatever we think we ask. No limit to our asking but our thinking. God gives beyond our thinking. Here, take all this! Ah, poor thing, that transcends thine asking and even thy thinking, but take it. If it transcend all communicated power of mind, I say, I thank Thee, my God, for it. I know it is exceeding good, but I cannot understand it. Keep it among Thy treasures. My blessedness rests not in my intellect, but in Thy favour. Remember Thou hast given it me. It may come I shall be able to understand it better and appreciate it more. I shall never have asked too much, I shall never have thought too much, till I have asked beyond Gods ability, till I have thought beyond Gods ability. That ability is not a bare abstraction of the omnipotence of God, but it is the omnipotence of God as working in the Church and in the people of God. He is not omnipotent in heaven, and impotent in thee, or partially powerful in thee.
II. The doxology itself (Eph. 3:21).All should glorify God, but all will not. In the Church alone will God get glory. It is as the name of Christ is glorified in us that we are glorified in Him. It is when the glory that God reflects on the creature is by the creature ascribed as due only to God when He is glorified as the Author of it, transcendently and infinitely glorious, it is then that the glory rests. When it is appropriated it is lost, but it is possessed when it is tossed back and fro between God and the creature. When the creature gives it to God, God of His rich grace sends it back in greater measure; but the humble creature, emulous of Gods glory, sends it all back again to Him, and as it reciprocates so it increases. God gives not to end by enriching usthat is an immediate end; but the ultimate end is that He may be glorified. Be ashamed to get littleget all things. Get out of your poverty, not by fancying you are rich, but by coming and getting. The more you get always give glory, and come and ask and receive.Dr. John Duncan.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
(14) Unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.The words of our Lord Jesus Christ appear, by both external and internal evidence, to be an interpolationprobably from a gloss indicating (in the true spirit of the Epistle) that the universal Fatherhood here spoken of is derived from the fatherly relation to Him in whom all things are gathered up.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
4. Paul’s apostolic prayer for the Ephesian Church, Eph 3:14-19.
14. For this cause Resumption of his purpose of prayer at Eph 3:1, where see our note. The cause still remains the same, pervading alike the paragraphs Eph 2:11-22, and this last paragraph Eph 3:1-13, namely, the happy gathering of the Gentile Ephesians into Christ under Paul’s apostleship.
Bow my knees As before them solemnly in thought assembled, Paul conceptually kneels to dedicate them as a Church to God. In this prayer he is too earnest to stand or sit, and so, in body as in spirit, he bows before God. The attitude of body is of inferior importance, except as externally impressive both upon others and upon ourselves. God, however, is as truly beneath and behind us as he is above and before us, and whatever attitude of body we assume matters not, provided our reverence is perfect. Paul says not that he prays, but gives the prayer as audible to their listening ears. Of Christ, is omitted by the best critics as not genuine.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘For this reason I bow my knees to the Father from whom every Fatherhood in Heaven and on earth is named, that he would grant you according to the riches of his glory, that you may be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith.’
Paul now feels constrained to express his prayer on their behalf. Prison gave much time for praying and Paul used it to the full. Aware of the future they faced he prayed for their divine empowering without which they could not hope to succeed.
‘For this reason.’ Because of the wonder of what God is doing, and because He has made them all one on Christ.
‘I bow my knees to the Father.’ Father He may be, but He is the divine Father. Thus Paul kneels in submission and worship. Boldness and confident access do not make him careless in his approach. Besides he has deep matters to deal with.
‘To the Father from Whom every fatherhood situation in Heaven and on earth is named.’ There is a play of words here between ‘pater’ (father) and ‘patria’ (family, fatherhood situation). The whole hierarchy of existence went down through fatherhood. God was Father of all. Then reflecting His Fatherhood came national and tribal leaders, including Abraham. Then came heads of the sub-tribes and families. Then the head of the individual family. And the same was so among the heavenly beings (‘in Heaven’). It is the whole pattern of existence. And the whole pattern of fatherhood is based on God’s Fatherhood. He is the supreme example of Fatherhood.
In all cases ‘the father’ was responsible for maintenance of unity, for justice and for the well-being of his family. Thus here the supreme Father is being approached about the well-being of His family (compare Joh 17:11).
‘That he would grant you according to the riches of His glory.’ He calls on all the resources of the Godhead, ‘the riches of His glory’, confident that He will supply from the riches of His glory and in accordance with it.
‘That you may be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man.’ The unique feature of the new people of God is that the Spirit of God has come among them and has entered in to them. They are born of the Spirit, sealed by the Spirit, being filled with the Spirit. They are Spirit possessed (in the right sense), filled with the dynamic of the Spirit. And this by the Spirit of God. Thus he prays that each member may learn to so yield to the Spirit that His full empowering might understay their whole being.
‘Strengthened.’ To be fortified, braced, invigorated.
‘In the inner man.’ The inner depths of a man that some call the soul, the centre of his being. In the Christian it is being renewed day by day, and delights in the precepts of God. Compare Rom 7:22; 2Co 4:16.
‘That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith.’ He is addressing the whole church, and yet each individual member of that church. Each individual heart is in mind. To Paul the church is not an organisation or a society. It is a living body composed of individual living members. It throbs with the life of its members. And his prayer is that they may each experience the indwelling of Christ to the full, Christ revealing Himself in them, Christ living through them, Christ in them the hope of glory (Col 1:27; Gal 2:20; Joh 14:18; Joh 14:20; Joh 14:23; Joh 17:23; Joh 17:26). Each member is daily to allow Christ to reveal Himself through their lives. Thus will the whole reveal Him in greater fullness.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Paul’s Prayer for His Readers (3:14-21).
‘For this reason -.’ Compare Eph 3:1 which begins in the same way. Does this mean that this is the continuation that he would have made had he not made a diversion? There are good grounds for suggesting that that occurs in Eph 4:1 when he returns to the theme of the prisoner of the Lord, and exhorts them to walk worthily of their calling and maintain the unity of the Spirit.
We may equally see the prayer here as resulting from his outlining of the mystery of God to be revealed through the church of Christ. In order to complete their destiny they will need divine empowering in order to fulfil their responsibilities and fulfil His eternal purpose.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
The Spirit’s Blessings – The Power Given to Every Believer Through Sanctification In Eph 3:14-21 Paul prays for God to work in the lives of the believers through the power of the Holy Spirit in order to know the love of Christ and to be filled with all of God’s fullness. This passage of Scripture expounds upon Eph 1:13-14.
A Comparison of the Prayers in Ephesians and Philippians – He asks that these believers might be empowered with the Holy Spirit in order to fulfill the calling that God has placed within each of their lives and thus to be equipped to fulfill the calling of the church itself as a corporate body. We find Paul asking the Philippians church to pray for him also to be empowered with the Holy Spirit in order to fulfill the calling that God has placed within him.
Php 1:19, “For I know that this shall turn to my salvation through your prayer, and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ,”
These two passages of Scripture are related in the fact that both Ephesians and Philippians have a common theme, which is the office and ministry of God the Father. While Ephesians places emphasis upon the Father’s role in planning all things by equipping the Church with spiritual blessings, the book of Philippians emphasizes the role of the believer in making sure that their spiritual leader fulfills his calling and this will ensure that God will fulfill the calling in each of their lives. The empowering of the Holy Spirit is part of God’s provision for enabling the believer to fulfill his personal divine calling in life.
Eph 3:14 For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
Eph 3:14
Eph 3:14 Comments – Paul begins a new thought in Eph 3:1, but stops and takes a digression in Eph 3:2-14 in order to remind the Ephesians of his divine commission to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He then picks up his thought in Eph 3:14 by repeating the phrase “For this cause.” Thus, we may well translate Eph 3:1 to read, “For this cause I Paul the servant of Christ Jesus in behalf of you Gentiles.bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Eph 3:15 Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named,
Eph 3:15
Julius Oyet said to Jesus, in his vision in heaven, “‘Dear Lord, Look! Help me Lord! How come all these brethren know me so well including all of my names? No Lord, I have never been here and never met them. But how come they know my name Lord?!!!..’….Jesus held my right hand and answered me saying, ‘My dear Julius, you are not new here. Heaven is your home land and everybody whose name is in the Book of Life is a citizen of heaven!’ Before He could continue I shouted Alleluia. Then He laughed over and over again after which He said, ‘Even these saints before they came here they were known in heaven the first time their names were written in the Book of Life.’” [109]
[109] Julius Peter Oyet, I Visited Heaven (Kampala, Uganda: Bezalel Design Studio, 1997), 70-1.
Eph 3:15 “is named” – Comments – The saints of God each have a name that the Heavenly Father gives them.
Isa 62:2, “And the Gentiles shall see thy righteousness, and all kings thy glory: and thou shalt be called by a new name, which the mouth of the LORD shall name.”
Rev 2:17, “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it.”
Rev 3:12, “Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God , and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name.”
Eph 3:15 Comments – Because God’s eternal plan (Eph 3:11) is for all nations, both Jews and Gentiles, to become one in Christ Jesus, Paul makes it clear in Eph 3:15 that we have all proceeded from God the Father. Therefore, we carry His name because we all came from Him through Adam and Eve.
Eph 3:16 That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man;
Eph 3:16
[110] Jim Hylton, Just Sitting Pretty (Kalamazoo, MI: Master’s Press, 1976), 67-68.
Weymouth reads, “to grant you– in accordance with the wealth of His glorious perfections–to be strengthened by His Spirit with power penetrating to your inmost being.”
Eph 3:16 “to be strengthened with might” Comments Kenneth Copeland teaches that the phrase “to be strengthened with might” means the God-given ability to accomplish the possible, as well as the impossible, by the anointing of the Spirit of God. [111] Creflo Dollars says the word might means the ability to do anything. [112]
[111] Kenneth Copeland, “Sermon,” ( Southwest Believers Convention, Kenneth Copeland Ministries, Fort Worth, Texas), 8 August 2008.
[112] Creflo Dollar, Changing Your World (College Park, Georgia: Creflo Dollar Ministries), on Trinity Broadcasting Network (Santa Ana, California), television program, 4 May 2012.
Eph 3:16 “by His Spirit” – Comments The focus of this prayer and the prayer of Eph 1:15-23 is the Holy Spirit working in the saints. Thus, Paul has said, “That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him:” (Eph 1:17)
Eph 3:17 That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love,
Eph 3:17
Eph 3:17 “that ye, being rooted and grounded in love” Comments Our acceptance of His love for us takes place as we base everything He does for us upon His love for us, and not our good works. His love for us is unconditional, and offers no more condemnation. This becomes the key to walking in His fullness. In other words, everything we receive from God, we receive by faith; but if we believe that we must earn God’s love and His gifts by our good performance, then we will always feel that we have come short of this, and thus have a difficult time believing we qualify to receive good things from Him. We must become rooted and grounded in His unconditional love for us, and not follow our former lifestyle of striving to please God and man through good works.
Our goal is to become rooted and established in godly conduct so that we always respond to life’s circumstances with godly love, which Paul describes in Eph 4:1 to Eph 6:9 as the “worthy walk.” Christian maturity is shown when we are not easily offended by others, because our security is in Christ’s love for us, and serving the Lord with a sincere heart and not out of hypocrisy. However, in order to get a plant that has grown up in bad soil to become rooted into good soil, it first must be uprooted. So it is with us; we must often make quality decisions to change things about our lives in order to position ourselves in good soil, or a place that is conducive to our Christian growth. For example, we should stop running with ungodly friends once we are saved. Such uprooting is often difficult and many people never make needful changes, so that their lives are never established in the ways of God and they cannot prosper in the Lord. For those who have become rooted in Christ’s love, they can look back and wonder how they ever behaved so ungodly in the past. Those old temptations no longer affect us, because our character has grown in the Lord.
Eph 3:18 May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height;
Eph 3:18
Eph 3:18 “with all saints” Comments Paul is including all of the saints in every church on earth in this prayer. If we can prayer from groups of people corporately, why can we not prayer for every saint on earth? This appears to be what Paul is doing in this verse.
Eph 3:18 “what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height” – Comments Ed Young says the love of Christ is wide enough and deep enough to cover every need and every anguish in our daily lives. There is nothing in this life that we may face where His love is not there to take us through. For God so loved the world (the breadth of God’s love), that He gave His only begotten Son (the length of God’s love), that whosoever believeth in Him (the depth of God’s love), should not perish but have everlasting life (the height of God’s love). [113] Andrew Wommack says that 1Co 13:4-7 gives us a description of God’s love, in which we are exhorted to walk. [114]
[113] Ed Young, “Winning Walk,” (Winning Walk, Houston, Texas), on Trinity Broadcasting Network (Santa Ana, California), television program, 12 January 2003.
[114] Andrew Wommack, “God’s Kind of Love to You: Unconditional Love,” Gospel Truth (Colorado Springs, Colorado: Andrew Wommack Ministries), on Trinity Broadcasting Network (Santa Ana, California), television program.
Eph 3:18 Comments We find a similar phrase in the book of I Enoch, which book was familiar to the Jews and Christians of the first century. In fact, a passage from this book is even quoted in the epistle of Jude (Eph 1:14-15).
“For who is there of all the children of men that is able to hear the voice of the Holy One without being troubled? And who can think His thoughts? and who is there that can behold all the works of heaven? And how should there be one who could behold the heaven, and who is there that could understand the things of heaven and see a soul or a spirit and could tell thereof, or ascend and see all their ends and think them or do like them? And who is there of all men that could know what is the breadth and the length of the earth , and to whom has been shown the measure of all of them? Or is there any one who could discern the length of the heaven and how great is its height , and upon what it is founded, and how great is the number of the stars, and where all the luminaries rest?” ( I Enoch 93.11-14)
Eph 3:19 And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.
Eph 3:19
Eph 3:19 “which passeth knowledge” – Comments We might ask the question, “How can we know something that is beyond our knowing?” God’s love goes far beyond our knowledge or ability to understand with the natural mind. Therefore, this type of unconditional love must be imparted into our hearts by the Holy Spirit. We cannot know something that is unknowable unless it comes by divine revelation, rather than by mental assent. As we come to know God on a personal, intimate basis, we come to know His nature and character of unconditional love.
The love of God is beyond man’s natural understanding, for it is supernatural revelation into the divine character of God. This revelation into the ways of God is the motive that drives His divine plan of redemption for mankind. This revelation into the love of Christ provides the framework that shapes our individual callings as we join in this divine plan to redeem mankind, a plan that shapes natural human history. We cannot answer His calling for us and walk in this plan without His love filling our lives each day of the journey. Therefore, we must continually pray for a divine revelation of the love of Christ to compel us in divine service. Thus, Paul writes, “For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead:” (2Co 5:14)
Eph 3:19 “that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God” – Comments Andrew Wommack says that if we are filled with all of the fullness of God (and no believer has fully achieved this walk), then it is because we do not have a full understanding of God’s love for us. In other words, we have not yet become rooted and grounded in God’s love (Eph 3:17). [115]
[115] Andrew Wommack, “God’s Kind of Love to You: Unconditional Love,” Gospel Truth (Colorado Springs, Colorado: Andrew Wommack Ministries), on Trinity Broadcasting Network (Santa Ana, California), television program.
Eph 3:20 Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us,
Eph 3:20
Comments – Note the emphasis in the use of these four adverbs “exceeding, abundantly, above, all.” One word would have said a lot, but four emphatic words are beyond our comprehension of God’s ability to answer prayer.
Eph 3:20 “ according to the power that worketh in us ” Comments – Many modern English versions read, “by the power” This power is the means by which God is able to do above what we could ask or think in the natural. This phrase answers the question, “How is God able to do beyond what we could ask or think?” Andrew Wommack says this power is the believer’s faith in His Word. [116] The great works we do for God’s glory will happen through us as we walk according to God’s norm, obedience to His Word, and as we get in the flow with God’s Spirit. We cannot operate in this power without the impartation of the divine revelation of the love of Christ that Paul prays for us to receive in Eph 3:19; for our empowerment is measured by the revelation given to us and by our decision to walk in that revelation.
[116] Andrew Wommack, Living in the Balance of Grace and Faith: Combining Two Powerful Forces to Receive from God (Tulsa, Oklahoma: Harrison House, 2009), 19.
The power working in us is that of the Holy Spirit (Luk 4:14, Eph 3:16). God puts in us the want to and the ability to do work for the Glory of God (Php 2:13). The measure of the power of God working in us determines how much God can accomplish His divine plan of redemption through us.
Luk 4:14, “And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee: and there went out a fame of him through all the region round about.”
Eph 3:16, “That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man;”
Php 2:13, “For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.”
Illustrations:
Act 4:33
Act 6:8, “And Stephen, full of faith and power , did great wonders and miracles among the people.”
Scripture References – The promise of this power:
Act 1:8, “But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.”
Rom 15:13, “Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.”
Rom 15:19, “Through mighty signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God; so that from Jerusalem, and round about unto Illyricum, I have fully preached the gospel of Christ.”
Luk 24:49, “And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high .”
Eph 1:19, “And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power,”
Eph 3:16, “That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man;”
Col 1:11, “Strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power , unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness;”
2Ti 1:7, “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power , and of love, and of a sound mind.”
Eph 3:20 Comments – God is able to do more, by means of His power in us, than we could possible accomplish in our lifetimes using our own reasoning, strength, etc. Our thinking and asking determines the size of the container that God is able to fill in our lives.
Note that Eph 3:20 teaches us that our minds were not created to understand the direction and destiny that God places in our lives. This divine work takes place in our spirits. Our minds are limited and still in their mortal states. But our spirit has already been recreated into the exact image of God. It is within our spirit that God places His message to us. Paul is praying that we will be able to bring these spiritual revelations into our mortal minds so that we can understand them enough to pursue them for our lives. When a man pursues the Christian life strictly by his natural reasoning, which is the voice of the mind, he greatly limits himself with God and will never come to the fullness of blessings that God intended him to walk in. Paul calls such saints “carnal minded” in another place. However, we are to become “spiritual minded,” which is the focus of Paul’s prayer here in Eph 3:14-21.
We find a number of examples in the Scriptures where God commissioned men to a job and their minds contradicted God’s ability to do it through them. (1) Moses – When God spoke to Moses at the burning bush to go deliver His people Israel, Moses made excuses until he angered the Lord (Exo 3:1 to Exo 4:17). (2) Gideon – When the angel of the Lord met Gideon under an oak tree in Ophrah he said, “The LORD is with thee, thou mighty man of valour,” and proceeded to explain to him that he was going to deliver Israel from the hand of the Midianites. To this Gideon wanted a sign from God before he would believe the angel (Jdg 6:11-24). (3) Jeremiah – We have the story of Jeremiah’s divine commission in which the Lord said, “I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms.” Jeremiah told the Lord that he was but a child. (4) Leah – We see Leah, the wife of Jacob, simply wanting her husband’s love. She thought she was winning his love by giving him a multitude of sons, when in fact she was destined to become the mother of six tribes of Israel. She had no idea that a nation was in her womb. Nor did she understand how much more important was her favor with God than her favor with her husband, which she never really received. Leah’s greatness is found in her favor with God who gave her six sons rather than in her favor with Jacob; for there was nothing great about her relationship with her husband.
As I write these notes, I am sitting in a church service listening to an elderly woman named Irene, who founded an orphanage in the dangerous region of northern Uganda. She is introducing some of her children who lost their parents in war and were raised in this orphanage. They are now healthy and strong, and some of them are going to the university with dreams of becoming a doctor. As a side note, she once testified how she and her husband first traveled to northern Uganda during the hot summer with the dry semiarid desert wind blowing sand in their faces for weeks at a time. She tells how her husband soon left her alone there and married a local native girl. Thus, Irene’s greatness was not found in her relationship with her husband’s love, which failed, but in the orphans that she has loved and cared for through these years.
Eph 3:18-20 Comments – God’s Infinite Love Compels Us Towards Our Destinies – Eph 3:18-19 gives us a description of God’s infinite wisdom that He desires to impart into His Church, so that every believer can fulfill his/her divine destiny according to Eph 3:20.
Eph 3:18 – Perhaps the breadth and length refer to the fullness of the destiny that the Father has ordained for each of us, and the depth may refer to the deep things of God and are imparted unto us by the anointing and gifts of the Holy Spirit, and the height may refer to our own exaltation with Christ Jesus in the heavenlies. These verses may say that our comprehension of these aspects of our Christian life will determine how far we are able to go in fulfilling the Father’s destiny in our lives.
Eph 3:19 – It will be Christ’s love, which is beyond our comprehension, that will keep us on this journey to fulfill our destiny. Finally, Paul prays that these three dimensions of our Christian life are completed in us when he says, “that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God.”
Eph 3:20 – We see from Eph 3:20 that God is able to take us way beyond what any man of God will actually achieve in this life; for His grace and love are unlimited. The child of God is able to fulfill his destiny by conforming to Ephesians 4-6, joining God the Father in implementing His divine plan of redemption upon earth. I believe that we will continue our destinies in Heaven, as we serve Him for eternity.
Eph 3:21 Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.
Eph 3:21
In the phrase “unto him be glory,” Paul is saying that all the praise and glory because of all the “exceeding abundantly above all” works done in the body of Christ, which is Christ Jesus at work in us, belongs to God the Father (Joh 17:1).
Joh 17:1, “These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee:”
We read in Eph 3:10 that God would display His manifold wisdom through the Church. Therefore, He receives glory when His wisdom is wrought in and through His people, which is exactly what Eph 3:21 is saying.
Eph 3:20-21 Comments Church Unity – Eph 3:20-21 speaks of “we” and “us” and “the church” rather than “I” and “me.” God is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all we could ask or think when He has a church that is working together in unity. No great work of the ministry takes place with one person along. It always involves teamwork. The book of Acts refers to the church as being in one mind and of one accord. This unity allowed the Spirit of God to move mightily through the early church. Without this unity, God cannot bring His marvelous plans to fullness. This is why it has taken two thousand years for the church to evangelize the world.
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
The apostle’s petition for the Church, which includes an exhortation:
v. 14. for this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
v. 15. of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named,
v. 16. that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might by His spirit in the inner man;
v. 17. that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love,
v. 18. may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height;
v. 19. and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God. The apostle now resumes the thread of his discourse, which he interrupted after v. 1 to speak of the ministry of his apostleship: For this reason I bend my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, after whom every family in heaven and earth is named. Because the Ephesian Christians have, by the labor of Paul, been added to the Church of Christ, because he is their teacher, their apostle, therefore he feels it his duty to bend his knees in prayer for these souls entrusted to his care. Luther expresses Paul’s thoughts as follows: “I must lie here a prisoner and cannot be with yon nor help you in any other way, only that I can bend my knees, that is, with all humility and seriousness pray to God that He might give you, and work in you, what neither I nor any other person can do, even if I had my liberty and were with you always. ” The God to whom Paul addresses his urgent intercession is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and therefore the true Father of every believer. Particularly, however, is He the Father after whom every generation, or family, of God’s children, all people who through Christ Jesus have been reborn to a new spiritual life, is named. All the assemblies of the children of God, whether here on earth or in heaven, in the midst of the holy angels, bear their name from the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ; they all stand in the same, in the equal relation of children to Him; they all form one great family, every member of which may ask and expect only the highest and richest of blessings from the Parent above.
In this sense Paul introduces the subject of his prayer: That He would grant you according to the wealth of His glory to be strengthened in might through His Spirit into the inner man. God has a wealth, a great amount, of excellence, majesty, and perfection; from His fullness we can always receive, and grace for grace, Joh 1:16. Paul boldly asks the measure of the gift of God’s perfection which will bring into full play this inexhaustible wealth. For only thus can the Christians grow mightily in strength, in spiritual power, only thus, namely, through the working of His Spirit, can the new inner man, the regenerated self of the Christians, make progress in faith and in holiness. God’s strengthening grace must be poured into the inner man day after day, the gift of His power must be directed toward this object without ceasing, otherwise the new spiritual life will soon become extinguished.
This idea is developed still further: That Christ may dwell through faith in your hearts. Not only the gifts and virtues of Christ, but the exalted Christ personally lives in the hearts of His believers, Gal 2:20. There is the most intimate, the most happy communion between Christ and the Christians, begun in conversion, but in need of daily growth and strengthening, for it is through faith that Christ dwells in the heart, and the loss of faith in the forgiveness of sins means the loss of Christ Himself. If Christ does not live in us, grow in us, day after day, His power will soon diminish and His picture fade away. But with Christ in the heart, there is steady progress: That you, firmly rooted and grounded in love, be fully able to comprehend with all the saints what the breadth and the length and the depth and the height is. Love is the proof and test of faith. If Christ lives in the heart by faith, then love toward God and love toward one’s neighbor will follow as a matter of course. And with the growth of faith in the form of firm confidence, love will also take a firmer hold on the Christian; it will be set as solidly as a root takes hold of the ground from which it derives strength and life. Thus the condition is obtained which enables the believer fully to understand, to get a mental grasp of, what is the breadth and length and height and depth. ALL the saints should have this understanding, all the believers should grow in Christian knowledge. And in the connection in which the apostle here writes, he undoubtedly has in mind the Church with its immense dimensions. This building extends over the entire world from North to South, from East to West, through all periods of time until the last day; it includes the believers that are now sleeping in their graves, and reaches to the heavens, where its exalted Ruler sits at the right hand of God. The Church embraces the fullness of the elect, not only of Israel, but also of the Gentile world a poor, small crew in the sight of men, but a mighty assembly before the omniscient eye of God.
And finally, Paul prays for the Christians that they might be strengthened: To know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, the knowledge-surpassing love of Christ, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. It is an incomprehensible, indescribable, immeasurable love by which Christ has founded the Church, by which He builds and extends it, a love which overcomes the hardest hearts, which influences even the greatest criminals, and always with the aim of building up the Church. This love is beyond the capacity of the human mind and intelligence, but the enlightened Christian will be able to get at least some idea of its extent and power, of its miraculous power in gaining lost sinners for Christ and the Church. And with the growth in this knowledge the hope and prayer of the apostle will finally be fulfilled, namely, that the Christians will be filled unto all the fullness of God, that this goal may be reached in them. It is a fullness of grace possessed and bestowed by God, the full measure of His gracious gifts to which the apostle has reference. Upon this measureless source the believers draw, increasing daily in virtues and blessings, as vessels of God’s mercy; themselves the possessors of boundless love and expending freely therefrom to the praise and honor of God. Though this ideal fail of full realization in this life, it is worth striving for with untiring energy.
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
Eph 3:14. Unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, In the foregoing chapter, Eph 3:19. St. Paul tells the Ephesians, that now they believe in Christ, they are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God. Here he goes on, and tells them, they are of the family, or lineage of God, being, jointly with Jesus Christ, the sons of God. Nothing could be of greater force to continue them steadfast in the doctrine which he had preached to them, and in which he makes it his principal business here to confirm them; namely, that they needed not be circumcised, and submit to the law of Moses, as they were already, by faith in Christ, the sons of God, and of the same family with Christ himself
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Eph 3:14-15 . [182] ] on this account , in order that ye may not become disheartened, Eph 3:13 . Against the view that there is here a resumption of Eph 3:1 , see on that verse.
. . .] , Chrysostom. See on Phi 2:10 . “A signo rem denotat,” Calvin; so that we have not, with Calovius and others, to think of an actual falling on his knees during the writing. Comp. Jerome, who makes reference to the genua mentis .
] direction of the activity: before the Father .
. . .] Instead of saying: before the Father of all angels and men (a designation of God which naturally suggested itself to him as an echo of the great thoughts, Eph 3:10 and Eph 3:6 ), Paul expresses himself more graphically by an ingenious paronomasia, which cannot be reproduced in German ( ): from whom every family in heaven and upon earth bears the name , namely, the name , because God is of all these . Less simple and exact, because not rendering justice to the purposely chosen expression employed by Paul only here, is the view of de Wette: “every race, i.e. every class of beings which have arisen (?), bears the name of God as its Creator and Father, just as human races bear the name from their ancestor, e.g. the race of David from David.”
] forth from whom ; origin of the name, which is derived from God as . On , comp. Hom. Il. x. 68: . Xen. Mem. iv. 5. 12: . Soph. Oed. R . 1036.
] , with classical writers ordinarily , is equivalent to gens , a body belonging to a common stock, whether it be meant in the narrower sense of a family , [183] or in the wider, national sense of a tribe (Act 3:25 ; 1Ch 16:28 ; Psa 22:27 ; Herod. i. 200). In the latter sense here; for every gens in the heavens can only apply to the various classes of angels (which are called , not as though there were propagation among them, Mat 22:30 , but because they have God as their Creator and Lord for a Father); as a suitable analogue, however, to the classes of angels, appear on earth not the particular families, but the nationalities . Rightly Chrysostom and his successors explain the word by or . The Vulgate has paternitas , a sense indicated also by Jerome, Theodoret, and others. Theodoret says: , , . This view (comp. Goth.: “all fadreinis ”) is expressed by Luther (approved in the main by Harless): Who is the true Father over all that are called children, etc . But never means fathership or fatherliness ( ), and what could be the meaning of that. fathership in heaven? [184] , every , shows that Paul did not think only of two , the totality of the angels and the totality of men (Calvin, Grotius, Wetstein, Koppe, and others), or of the blessed in heaven and the elect on earth (Calovius, Wolf), but of a plurality , as well of angelic as of human ; and to this extent his conception is, as regards the numerical form , though not as regards the idea of , different from that of the Rabbins, according to which the angels (with the Cabbalists, the Sephiroth) are designated as familia superior (see Wetstein, p. 247 f.; Buxtorf, Lex. Talm. p. 1753; Schoettgen, Horae , p. 1237 f.). Some have even explained as the whole family , in which case likewise either the angels and men (Michaelis, Zachariae, Morus, Meier, Olshausen, and earlier expositors), or the blessed in heaven and Christians on earth (Beza), have been thought of: but this is on the ground of linguistic usage erroneous. Comp. on Eph 2:21 .
] bears the name , namely, the name ; see above. The text does not yield anything else; [185] and if many (Beza, Piscator, Grotius, Wolf, Bengel, Michaelis, Zachariae, Morus, Koppe, and others, including Flatt and Olshausen) have understood the name children of God , this is purely imported. Others have taken “ nomen pro re ” (Zanchius, Menochius, Estius, et al. ), so that would denote existere. So, too, Rckert, according to whom Paul designs to express the thought that God is called the Father, inasmuch as all that lives in heaven and upon earth has from Him existence and name ( i.e. dignity and peculiarity of nature). Contrary to linguistic usage; must at least have been used in that case instead of (comp. Isaeus, de Menecl. her. 41: , , Plat. Pol . iv. p. 428 E: ). Incorrectly also Holzhausen: means to call into existence . Reiche takes ( of whom it bears the name ) as the expression of the highest dominion and of the befitting reverence due, and refers . to the pairings of the Aeons . The former without linguistic evidence: the latter a hysteroproteron.
[182] On ver. 15, see Reiche, Comm. Crit . p. 156 ff.
[183] To this head belongs also the Jewish-genealogical distinction from , according to which denotes a branch of one of the twelve tribes ( ). See on Luk 2:4 . Similarly in the sense of a family-association often with Pindar. On the relation of the word to the kindred , see Boeckh, ad Pind. Nem. V. L. iv. 47; Dissen, p. 387; Hermann, Staatsalterth . 5. 4, 10.
[184] Jerome finds it in the archangels , and Theodoret says: , and cites 1Co 4:15 .
[185] For the very reason that Paul does not put any defining addition to (in opposition to Reiche’s objection). Nor is it to be objected, with Reiche, that the human bears the name not from God, but from the human ancestor. This historical relation remains entirely unaffected by the higher thought, that they are called from the universal, heavenly Father.
REMARK 1.
In God is certainly characterized as universal Father, as Father of all angel-classes in heaven and all peoples upon earth . Comp. Luther’s gloss: “All angels, all Christians, yea, all men, are God’s children, for He created them all.” But it is not at all meant by the apostle in the bare sense of creation, nor in the rationalistic conception of the all-fatherhood, when he says that every derives this name , as from its father; but in the higher spiritual sense of the divine Fatherhood and the sonship of God. He thinks, in connection with the , of a higher than that of the mere creation. For , so termed from God as their , are not merely all the communities of angels , since these were indeed from the beginning, and have not fallen from this ; but also all nationalities among men , inasmuch as not only the Jews, but also all Gentile nations, have obtained part in the Christian , and the latter are (Eph 3:6 ). If this has not yet become completely realized, it has at any rate already been so partially, while Paul writes; and in God’s counsel it stands ideally as an accomplished fact. On that account Paul says with reason also of every nationality upon earth, that it bears the name , because God is its Father. Without cause, therefore, Harless has taken offence at the notion of the All-fatherhood, which is here withal clearly though ideally expressed, and given to the passage a limitation to which the all-embracing mode of expression is entirely opposed: “whose name every child [ i.e. every true child] in heaven and upon earth bears.” Consequently, as though Paul had written something like: . . . With a like imported limitation Erasmus, Paraphr .: “omnis cognatio spiritualis , qua conglutinantur sive angeli in coelis, sive fideles in terris.”
REMARK 2.
With the non-genuineness of . . (see the critical remarks) falls also the possibility of referring to Christ (Beza, although with hesitation, Calvin, Zanchius, Hammond, Cramer, Reiche, and others). But if those words were genuine (de Wette, among others, defends them), would still apply to God , because . . . characterizes the fatherly relation, and . . . applies to the Father.
Lastly, polemic references, whether in opposition to the particularism of the Jews (Chrysostom, Calvin, Zanchius, and others), or even in opposition to “scholam Simonis , qui plura principia velut plures Deos introducebat” (Estius), or in opposition to the worship of angels (Michaelis), or in opposition to the Gnostic doctrine of Syzygies (Reiche), are to be utterly dismissed, because arbitrary in themselves and inappropriate to the character and contents of the prayer before us.
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
2. The Apostles petition with an exhortation for the church
(Eph 3:14-19)
14For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ [omit 15of our Lord Jesus Christ],33 Of [From] whom the whole [every] family in heaven and [on] earth is named, 16That he would grant34 you, according to the riches35 of his glory, to be strengthened with might by [through] his Spirit in the inner man; 17That Christ may dwell in your hearts by [through] faith; that ye, being rooted 18and grounded in love,36 May be [fully] able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height;37 19And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge [or the knowledge-surpassing-love of Christ], that ye might be filled with [may be filled up to] all the fulness of God.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Eph 3:14. The connection. For this cause, .Thus Paul connects with Eph 3:1, where the construction is interrupted. Still with (Eph 3:13) ha has already resumed what was expressed in Eph 3:1, and with which are your glory, referred to the previous current of thought (Eph 2:22 : ye are builded together). Comp. Eph 3:1. [Eadie: The prayer must be regarded as immediately following that section, and its architectural terms and allusions will thus be more clearly understood. Meyer however explains: on this account that you faint not, etc.R.]
The prayer, Eph 3:14-15.
I bow my knees, .So Php 2:10. It describes (Chrysostom). Bengel: Si prsens adfuisset Paulus, genua flexisset, exardescente pectore. Act 20:36. Here the reference is to genua mentis (Jerome); the idea of praying is so prominent, that the accusative sometimes follows the verb (Mat 17:14; Mar 10:17).
Unto the Father, .The phrase is found thus without any qualification in Eph 2:18; Eph 5:20; Col 1:12. [On , denoting the direction, see Winer, p. 378. The metaphorical sense of the phrase justifies the preposition; were the idea merely that of bending the knee, a dative would probably follow.On the phrase: of our Lord Jesus Christ, see Textual Note1.R.]
From whom every family in heaven and on earth is named.38 is a paronomasia to , which cannot be reproduced, except as Luther (1545) has so beautifully and correctly expressed it: Der der rechte Vater ist ber Alles, was da kinder heisst; all editions from 15221541 read: was Vater heisst. Evidently from whom, , refers to Father, from Him () originates the name borne () by him who stands at the head of a group, , which is thus termed from . The etymology must be well considered here. While () designates the tribes descending from the sons of Jacob, () denotes the families in the several tribes, descending from the sons of Jacobs sons; () is yet more special in its meaning. Hence the reference here is to larger groups. The word designates a lineage, family, springing from one father and bearing his name. [Eadie: Every circle of holy and intelligent creatures having the name of takes that name from God as . So Alford, Ellicott.R.] Accordingly something concrete and living is treated of, so that it is not=, Fatherhood (Theodoret, John of Damascus, Anselm, Luther, 152241; Meyer: He is the original Father, the Father of all fathers; Tholuck, Sermon on the Mount, p. 394; Nitzsch, Prakt. Theol. 1. p. 269).
without the article (Winer, p. 110) necessarily refers to the multiplicity of the families: every family. Bengel is excellent: omnis, angelorum, hominum ceterorum, ex ipso, ut patre, pendens; as Davids family from David (Luk 2:4) and from Abraham, so the blessing comes, like that of a father upon all the families of the earth (Act 3:25). The phrase: in heaven and on earth, , joined closely to without the article, points to the world of angels and of men, referring to the groups dependent on heads and chiefs. We must then understand here classes of angels (comp. on Eph 1:21), since the angels also are called sons, children of God (Job 38:7; Luk 20:36) and call God their Father, not merely their Creator, and races of people as national families, although children of disobedience (Eph 2:2; Eph 5:6) are not wanting. For all angels, all Christians, aye, all children of men are Gods children, for He has created them all (Luther) in Christ, the Son of filiation. The word , which by the addition of and , has received an extension of meaning reaching far beyond bodily descent, must be understood not merely in a natural, but also in an ethical sense, as indeed the idea: Father is thus used. Since fatherhood has not a concrete meaning, it cannot be translated by this word, but Stier thus attempts to preserve the concrete force, der rechte Vater uber Alles, was nach Vtern heisst.
It is incorrect and ungrammatical to understand by it the whole world family (Meyer, Olshausen and others), or only two groups, angels and men (Calvin), or the saints in heaven and the elect on the earth (Calov.),39 since in that case the article would be found before and before , as in the first case it should stand after . It is incorrect to ignore altogether the idea of groups, families, which Luthers version throws into the background, and to make of God an All-father (Meyer). Luther has given occasion to this mistake, but corrected it through his translation; for he says there that God is Father over all, that is called children, of course maintained, cared for, as we are, in Christ. It respects more the right Father than the right children (Harless). Finally all polemical reference, such as against the particularism of the Jews (Calvin), angel-worship (Michael), must be rejected. The passage is ironical rather. Comp. Doctr. Note 2.
Eph 3:16. The purport of the supplication. Eph 3:16-17.That he would grant you. marks the purpose and consequently the purport of the supplication, indicating at the same time the confidence of him who prays, that He who is implored will fulfil his request. Comp. Eph 1:17. [The subject and the purpose thus blended as so often when follows a verb signifying (even metaphorically) to pray.R.]
According to the riches of his glory. defines the more closely, as a rich and glorious giving. He should give, not merely announce, according to, in the proportion of His riches in glory. See Eph 1:7; Eph 1:17; Col 1:11. Glory here embraces the whole glorious perfection of God (Meyer); there is no ground for limiting it to power (Grotius) or grace (Calvin).
To be strengthened with might., with might, placed first for emphasis, cannot anticipate either the phrase by his spirit, or in the inner man, nor can it be an instrumental dative (Meyer), nor does it refer to the will or moral being over against knowledge (Harless), which also belongs to the inner man and is given prominence in Eph 3:18-19. It qualifies the verb strengthened, , which is antithetical to the term , faint (Eph 3:13) thus not merely excluding discouragement and weakness, but marking also the external efficiency, the influence on the world, the overcoming as well as the standing fast, like before (1Co 16:13) See Eph 6:10; Col 1:11; 1Pe 5:10. Hence the passage does not refer to mere passivity, so that is merely a strengthening of the verb (Rueckert). Luther is incorrect: That he may give you strengthto become strong. [The instrumental sense is adopted by Ellicott, Hodge, Alford, Eadie and many others. Braunes view virtually resolves the dative into an adverb. Ellicott: It defines the element or influence of which the spirit is the causa medians. The contrast with , though plausible, must not be pressed. Eadie. who finds a reference to the figure of the temple in Eph 3:18, sees an architectural allusion here.R.]
Through his Spirit [ ].The means of imparting such strength is indicated thus (=, who is implored); Gods Holy Spirit makes us strong within, and thus prepares not only the actual fellowship in the kingdom of God, but also the powerful demonstration of the same; hence Bengel well says: bene congruit cum mentione spiritus.
In the inner man.[ here is not=, nor=in regard of (Meyer, Winer, De Wette, Hodge: as to), but to and into, marking the direction and destination of the prayer for gift of infused strength (Ellicott).R.] (so also Rom 7:22) is the antithesis of (2Co 4:16), which perishes, while the inward man is renewed day by day. It is not something physical, but moral, hence too, not=, which can have a vanity (Eph 4:17), of which corrupt can be predicated (1Ti 6:5), which is impossible in the case of the inner man. It is rather=the hidden man of the heart (1Pe 3:4) and refers to the concealed, displaced and obscured image of God within us. Accordingly the Apostle says , to become strong so far as to reach within to this; the preposition thus marking the aim towards which the becoming strong should be constantly and renewedly directed. See Winer, p. 389. Accordingly the inner man cannot be used interchangeably with the new man (Eph 4:24); the latter is the new creature, in which the former lives again, rises anew out of the death of sin which has come upon it: the inner man does not stand in antithesis to the body, but includes so much of it as God in the creation has prepared and designed for the life in glory, in the new creation for the resurrection of the body. See Doctr. Note 3. [Comp. Lange, Rom 7:7-25, especially my Excursus, pp. 232236.40R.]
Eph 3:17. That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.This verse forms an explanatory, further developing, parallel to the infinitive clause of Eph 3:16. We have here a second petition, in continuation of the first, hence Luther is not altogether incorrect in inserting an epexegetical and. [See below.] denotes a permanent indwelling of one taking entire possession, as Col 1:19; Col 2:9; Mat 12:45; Luk 11:26; 2Pe 3:13; Jam 4:5. The expression , Rom 7:20 (Eph 3:17 : ), Rom 8:9; 1Co 3:16, is weaker. Here it stands first for emphasis and refers to , Eph 2:21-22. Comp. Joh 14:21-23. Bengel is excellent: in perpetuum. It corresponds to strengthened with might, which precedes it; as the former is marked as an effect from without, from above, by into the inner man, so the latter is distinguished by in your hearts, as an internal condition.
[almost=through your faith] denotes in any case a power of the Spirit which has been appropriated by the Christian; accordingly the previous petition was , through the Spirit, to whom the initiative belongs, the Spirit of Christ, preparing for Him (Bengel: ubi spiritus Dei, ibi etiam Christus), while , faith, is wrought by the Spirit in the human spirit, is the power of man, awakened, directed, strengthened by the Holy Spirit, to appropriate Christ, to become Christs. Hence it is neither idem per idem (Matthies), nor something entirely different (Rueckert), nor yet a consequence from what precedes, independent of , but dependent on (Bleek).
[The connection has been much discussed. Meyer (following Calvin: declarat, quale sit interioris hominis robur) takes the clause as Braune does: parallel to the last clause of Eph 3:16, with an explanatory force. De Wette explains the infinitive as one of design, an opinion to which Eadie formerly inclined. Notwithstanding Braunes objection, the simplest explanation is that of Bleek, adopted previously however by Alford and Ellicott among others. This accepts the clause as one expressive of the result (so that) of the inward strengthening. The emphasis resting on the infinitive seems to demand this (Alford). This is a somewhat lax construction, but clearly admissible (Winer, p. 298).The view which connects the inner man with this verse (Syriac, Ambrosiaster, Pelagius): In order that Christ may inhabit the inner man by the faith which is in your hearts, is altogether untenable. On , comp. Eph 1:18; Delitzsch, Bib. Psychologie, II. p. 203 f.: the seat and centre of the moral life viewed on the side of the affections. Calvin: Partem etiam designat ubi legitima est Christus sedes; nempe cor: ut sciamus, non satis esse, si in lingua versatur, aut in cerebro volitet.]
The end of the supplication; Eph 3:18-19 a.
Eph 3:18. That ye., that, is placed after the closer definition of the subject, as , 2Th 2:7, and as is put after the object in 2Co 2:4; Gal 2:10; Act 19:4. Similarly 1Co 11:14-15; 1Co 14:7 (), 16 (). [So Rom 11:31, where however Dr. Lange denies the trajection. This view of the construction is accepted by Beza, Camerarius, Grotius, Calixtus, Semler, Storr, Rosenmueller, Flatt, Meier, Meyer, Winer (eds. 6, 7), Buttmann, Schenkel, Hodge. It is however adopted by none of the ancient versions except the Gothic, is rejected by Origen expressly. The other view joins this clause to what precedes, as a consequence of the indwelling of Christ, accepting an irregular nominative. So in the main: Chrysostom, Erasmus, Luther, Estius, Morus, Koppe, Rueckert, Matthies, Harless, Olshausen, B-Crusius, De Wette, Bleek, Eadie, Ellicott, Alford. Our preference is for the former construction. See below.R.]41
Being rooted and grounded in love.The perfect participles, , denote a state, in which they already are and continue to be, which is the pre-supposition, in order that they may be able to know. This state is effected by what has been prayed for in Eph 3:15-16; hence according to the sense and the context it is impossible to connect these participles with what precedes (Chrysostom, Luther: and to become rooted and grounded through love, Rueckert, Harless, Bleek and others), even if it were grammatically admissible to join a nominative to , as in Eph 4:23 : . Col 2:2; Col 3:16. See Winer, p. 532. This position gives especial weight to the participles, which introduce two figures borrowed from a tree and a building. They mark that a profoundly penetrating life () and a well-grounded, permanent character () are necessary. [The first may be regarded as used without any other allusion to its primitive meaning than that of fixedness, firmness at the base or foundation (Ellicott).R.]. Comp. 1Co 3:9; Col 2:7.
The double figure strengthens the notion of the relation to love; this latter () is made prominent by being placed first. In marks love as the soil, in which they are rooted, and as the foundation, on which they are grounded. This implies moreover that it is not their own love which is referred to, but one which corresponds with the soil afforded to the tree, the foundation given to the house; and this would undoubtedly be, in accordance with the context, the love of Christ (Bengel), were not all closer definition wanting, even the article. Accordingly this substantive rendered general by the absence of the article corresponds with the verbal idea: in loving, i.e. in that love, which is first Gods in Christ and then that of men who become Christians, who are rooted in Him and grounded on Him through faith. [The reference to the Christian grace of love (Eadie, Alford, Ellicott) is preferable since it does not lay too much stress on the absence of the article, as is done by both Meyer (in amando) and Harless (subjective, because anarthrous), and does not confound two things (Gods love to us and our love in response), either of which might be represented as soil and foundation, scarcely both.R.] But it is not necessary to supply in Christ (Harless) in thought, as if in love could be instrumental and the preposition could be repeated with two different references and used in joining two distinct definitions. Nor should it be limited to love of the brethren (Calvin, Schenkel, Bleek and others), as is still further evident from what follows.
May be fully able to comprehend [ . here means more than a mere intellectual apprehension, a perception, as in Act 4:13; Act 25:25; Act 10:34, but pre-eminently an inward experience: it corresponds with , which is conjoined to it with ; but differs from it however, the first word denoting the inward experience, the latter the spiritual perception [The tense of this verb perhaps implies the singleness of the act, and the voice the exercise of the mental power, a dynamic middle (Krueger), indicating the earnestness or spiritual energy with which the action is performed (Ellicott).R.] The verb , placed in emphatic position, adds the idea of exertion, an energetic pressing through; Bengel: evaleatis.
Something important is treated of, which cannot be comprehended in solitude, for ones self alone, but only in fellowship: with all saints, .Like all science, the science of Gods love, the study of God, is a joint labor.
What is the breadth and length and depth and height, .The lively, roused spirit of the Apostle here borrows the figure of a body, a mathematical magnitude [sacra illa Pauli mathematica], as in Job 11:8-9, it is applied to Gods wisdom and perfection; it is instead of and= , what is the greatness. Since the article occurs but once, the unity of the object referred to is strongly indicated. Very naturally the breadth comes first, to this the length corresponds; then the depth is the nearest dimension, and the height closes the series: what is the object then whose dimensions Paul notices here? It is not directly designated, and hence must be taken from the context. The added clause connected with this by points at once to the love of Christ. The dimensions set forth here then become clear: breadth refers to the nations lying beside each other on the earth, over all of whom the love of Christ will extend itself; length, to the successive ages during which it will reach; depth, to the misery and corruption of sin, into which it will descend; height to the glory at Gods throne and near His heart to which it would elevate all.
To return to Eph 3:9 and accept the mystery as the object (Chrysostom, Calovius, Rueckert, Harless and others) is as unfounded as to find a reference to the fulness of God (Eph 3:19), and with Rev 11:1; Rev 21:15-16, to understand the Church of Christ, the temple of God (Bengel, Stier, [Eadie], and others), or merely to supply of God or of Christ (Matthies, and others); Holzhausen alone suggests our love! Arbitrary as many of the explanations of the four dimensions undoubtedly are, the opinion of Meyer, that every special interpretation is unpsychological, only opening the door to subjective speculations, is equally unjustifiable. Abusus non tollit usum. The thought of the Apostle is clear: Loved and loving thou knowest the love of Christ. Certainly it is not: In the love to the brethren thou wilt know Gods love. Comp. 1Jn 4:10; 1Jn 4:16; Joh 15:9-11.
[This simple view of the object whose dimensions are here predicated is held in the main by Calvin, Calixtus, Morus, Storr, Hodge, Meyer, Ellicott. Eadie strangely enough opposes it because follows: see his notes for a good resum of opinions. Ellicott says: The consequent clause, without being dependent or explanatory, still practically supplies the defining genitive: Paul pauses on the word , and then, perhaps feeling it the most appropriate characteristic of Christs love, he appends, without finishing the construction, a parallel thought which hints at the same conception (), and suggests the required genitive. Alford, less correctly, leaves the object indefinite: of all that God has revealed or done in or for us, a view which results from his insisting on the subordinate character of the clause introduced by . This little word really settles the question the other way.An allusion to the temple of Diana (Macknight, Chandler) is exceedingly improbable, and the reference to the Christian Church finds no support in the context, foregoing or subsequent. Augustine gives the fanciful explanation: sacramentum cruces, which Estius elaborates. Comp. that of Severianus (in Alford), and the various homiletical applications given in Hom, Notes.R.]
Eph 3:19. And to know the knowledge-surpassing love of Christ [ . adds something closely related, giving prominence to the perception of what has become a matter of internal experience. The object is the love of Christ, obviously Christs love, not our love to Him. To the former alone is the attribute knowledge-surpassing applicable. Bengel: Suavissima hc quasi correctio est; dixerat: cognoscere, statim negat cognitionem idoneam haberi posse. The participle, which is here placed between the article and substantive, must evidently be taken as an adjective, governing with its comparative meaning the genitive which follows, superiorem cognitione. See Winer, p. 324. It is= , which passeth all understanding (Php 4:7). Comp. Php 3:8-10. It is an oxymoron, like 1Co 1:21; 1Co 1:25; 2Co 8:2; Gal 2:19; 1Ti 5:6, and refers to an (adequate) apprehension of the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge (i.e., the particular abstract knowledge, which is possible to man of himself). Harless: Love fully solves the mystery of love; only love experiences love and knows love. The of the reflecting understanding finds its limit here; the of love understands the love of Christ, which otherwise far transcended . Luther (152241): also to know the love of Christ, which yet exceeds all knowledge; in 1545 the incorrect rendering first appeared, which goes too far in the attempt to popularize the Scriptural language: and to know that to love Christ is better than all knowing. This is contrary both to the language and the context. Yet it cannot be said, that the love of Christ is the object of a knowledge, which never attains its full end (Rueckert). Against this is the previous expression: that ye may be able, as well as the remainder of the verse. [Nor can we accept the view of Harless and Olshausen: that ye may know that the love of Christ is knowledge-surpassing, since the participle, which is properly taken as an adjective, is thus twisted into an infinitive, and since the Apostles prayer is thus unnecessarily shorn of its fulness.R.]
The final end of the supplication; Eph 3:19 b.
That ye may be filled up.This phrase connects itself with that ye may be able to know, and designates the highest, last favor which the Apostle implores for the Church. With what are they to be filled?
To all the fulness of God [ .] designates that toward and unto which the becoming filled proceeds, and , meta est (Bengel), to which the Church should attain, when it is filled. It is therefore in her, not without her. Hence the Apostle is treating of a fulness in them which God grants, and which is unincumbered, unabridged. They must themselves, through the experience and knowledge of the love of Christ, be prepared, expanded, strengthened and fitted to receive , all the fulness, which God will impart, has determined and ordained to impart. What God imparts is indeed in Him, from His own character and glory He imparts. Luther: That is according to the Hebrew mode of speech as much as to say, that we are filled in every way, by which He makes fullthat He alone completely rules and works in us.
It is a bolder expression than 2Pe 1:4 : partakers of the Divine nature. Comp. Eph 4:13; Col 2:9-10. Chrysostom: , . Theodoret: . It is not to be limited to the presence of grace (Harless), or to charisms (Meyer), nor to be pantheistically extended or applied to the universe, filling itself in God, i.e., reaching the highest expression of its perfection, and reflecting itself in the Church, so that in it there is no more defect to be discovered (Schenkel). A fulness of God, which complements His Godhead, as though Gods Being were first perfected through the Church, is as little the subject treated of as a pantheistic deification of men. See Eph 1:23. The Apostle undoubtedly refers to the persons and personal culture of the individual members of the Church. See Doctr. Note. 4.
[Meyer and De Wette take in the sense of , and the genitive as that of origin. But the Greek Fathers, and Olshausen, Alford, Ellicott, Hodge, among late commentators, prefer to take in the strict sense of id quo res impletur, and the genitive as a possessive, implying: that ye may be so filled as God is filled, the reference being not to charismatic gifts, but to the spiritual perfections of God. The only objection is, that such a fulness could not be realized here in a state of imperfection, but shows that a standard is here set up, and none but a perfect one would be thus held before them. The other view is too tame for the climactic position and force of the clause. Alford: All the fulness of the Godhead abides in Christ, Col 2:9. Christ then abiding in your hearts, ye, being raised up to the comprehension of Gods mercy in Him and of His love, will be filled, even as God is fulleach in your degree, but all to your utmost capacity, with Divine wisdom, might and love.R.]
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. The fervency of the worship ( ) does not lose itself in the joyous sense of the love of God ( ), but becomes more deep and clear in love to the neighbor, in unselfish supplication, which in the scale of prayer rises above the lowest grade, which is a cry of need, a cry for help, above the grade of a pupil, the petition for supply of needed good and protection from threatening evil, and approaches in its best feature the master-prayer of thanksgiving, which is so often forgotten, and of praise, that so often is not understood.
2. The Father who is here supplicated is not the All-father of the 18th century or of the rationalists, nor the Father of the heathen. For He is not that weak father, who on account of His goodness consents to withdraw all the demands of His righteousness; nor is He merely the Creator, as if He were, like Jupiter, a father of the trees and animals, of the flowers of earth and the stars of heaven, as well as of angels and men, and as if the idea of Father included only that of the Creator, who calls into being. The father is more than the begetter, he is also the provider, the teacher, the guardian in preserving sacred love. Where such paternal care exists, it comes from God, it points to Him, the original Father. Even the most scanty traces of such fatherhood, i.e., of such companies with a father at their hand, point to Him, who has ordained and still sustains such relations. The children may be lost and not permit Him to work within them; still traces of Him, kindnesses from Him are so little wanting, that even among the heathen an altar with this inscription, To the unknown God, points to them. The Church sings and speaks of a , and sees a great family in different groups, in different circumstances, conditions and attitudes, but at the head, over all and for all the One Father in Christ.
3. The inner man ( ) is the remnant of the man created in the image of God, which is found in all men, even though extremely disfigured or shrivelled up into insignificance. On this account is Redemption possible, man is capable as well as in need of redemption. Hence the inner man is to be thus distinguished from the new man ( ): the former is the remnant of the original man as created by God in His own image, the latter is the beginning of the regenerated man, new born in Christ; that is still present in all men, this not yet existing in all, though it might and should be; that is found without the Church also, this begins only within it; the former is the starting-point for the latter, the latter is the result of the reviving of the former obtained in Christ; that is the first creation, conceived in retrospect, this the new creature, conceived as rising; the former is accordingly of nature, which God in holy love has created, preserved and guided, the latter of grace, in which He has had mercy upon the former. But universal as the need of redemption and the capacity for redemption are, man is, on account of this need and in spite of this capability, not in a condition to win the gracious right of sonship, or obligated thereto (Schenkel), but on account of this need notwithstanding this capability only in a state to receive the gift of renewed sonship. See Exeg. Notes, Eph 3:16.
4. In the economy of salvation,in which our passage, being addressed to believers, presupposes justification and antecedent repentance, and regards only the growing renewal, the strengthening of the inner man, his growth in the grace and truth of Christthe Father constantly, at every stage, takes the initiative, and the recovering man takes no step forward without power received from God. Hence the supplication, that He would grant and that too through His Spirit to the inner man: thus the renewal within begins from above. Then the awakened, renewed power of the inner man appears in faith, in dependence draws Christ into himself, into his heart, as a guest into his house, for continued intercourse with Him, carefully directing himself by Him in all respects. The inner man, when once, he has actually, with saving effect, become the object () of the working of the Holy Ghost, becomes the subject of transforming activity in faith, which like a screw binds Christ to the soul. Though we may not, with the mystics, accept a union essentialis et corporalis, still we should not, with the rationalists, deny the conjunctio substanti hominis fidelis cum substantia sanct trinitatis and affirm only a dynamic or operative presence of Christ.
5. The work of salvation is a difficult one, and demands the power of God and man. Of God: hence Paul prays (Eph 3:16): that he would grant you according to the riches of His glory. Of man: hence Eph 3:18 : that ye may be fully able.
6. Knowledge and Love are not to be separated. There is not merely an illumination before conversion and repentance, but also after justification through faith. In the enjoyment of the love of Christ, which we experience, our lovers strengthened, forgetting itself and yet with a profound remembrance of itself it knows what it has experienced, denying itself it is thus strengthened to a clear knowledge of the love of Christ. Human things one must know, in order to love but Divine things one must love, in order to know (Pascal). Love, hastening before, ever gains new material and light for knowledge. The more I love, the more I find that I ought to love Thee.
7. The connection of faith and love is also presupposed here, and in such a way that the former is the mothers lap for the latter; the faith in that love of God in Christ, which we experience and enjoy, must impel to love, to love in return again and again.
8. Christs Love surpasses all knowledge and understanding, that only toilsomely attains to seeing. Hofmann: There is really but one love in the world, because but one actual entering in of person into person. The eternally personal God, who is Love, who has entered into humanity as the personal Christ, who in the Holy Ghost personally flows into the personal life of men, so that we have Him and are His, He loves and is loved. Only where this archetypal fountain of love exists, can man exercise toward his fellow man a copied love. Only so far as it is felt, can it be known in our weakness.
9. The completion of fellowship with God points into eternity, from the militant to the triumphant church; there the children become heritors, are taken on His throne and heart. Here many radial lines already proceed from the circumference, grace, peace and joy, truth and freedom, sonship and the sense of sonship, life-power and life-fulness, yet they come together in the center only above. Let us only hold fast to the unity of the family of God in heaven and on earth, the oneness of the Father through Christ in the Holy Ghost.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Had not the Apostle said so, no one would have discovered from his tone, that he was in bonds and chains, looking death in the face. To him affliction is a clear winter night, in which the stars of promise only shine the brighter. Has he tears in his eyes, they become a telescope to carry his sight into the far distant heavens, to open heaven to him and permit him to gaze into the depth of its wonders. It does not occur to him, to pray for release; he asks only for the perfecting and ennobling of the church.In outward woe he thinks, feels and prays about inward weal alone; in evil, that concerns himself, about the good of the church alone.God, the true Father, is not nearer to heaven with its angels and saints than to earth with its sons of men; were we but nearer to Him!He is the Rich One, who can and will give; we are the poor ones, who should receive andwill not!It were better if thou didst not care so much how to adorn the outer man through the spirit of the world and of fashion; God can through His Spirit re-animate and strengthen the inner man.Above all see how it stands within thee, so that what God has created after His image in thee be not stunted and starved out. Thine outer man may laugh and sing and dance, while the inner man laments and sighs and goes to destruction.
Christ wishes to dwell with thee, not as a mere passing guest; so order thy work and recreation and mode of life after His example, that it may please Him to dwell there and not to hasten away. He is willing to belong to thee; it is not enough then that thou hearest Him, hearkenest to Him, thou must also belong to Him as His possession, must submit thyself and all thou hast to His disposal.Bind thyself in faith to Him and hold communion with those who believe in Him, that thou mayest grow in the knowledge of His love. Root thyself ever deeper in that love, ground thyself ever more firmly upon it.Do like Ernest the Pious, who in 1636 had a medal struck in commemoration of his marriage with Elizabeth Sophia of Altenburg, with this inscription on the one side: Christum lieben ist das beste wissen (Living Christ is the best knowledge), and on the other: Gott, lehr erkennen mich und Dich (God, teach me to know myself and Thee)!Holy love alone lets us understand and use the Scriptures ever better and better! If we look at Gods word and world without love; we see them only remotely.Three-fold aim of Christian supplication: 1. Strengthening of the inner man; 2. Knowledge of the love of Christ; 3. Fulness of Divine glory.
Starke:In praying the outward posture is indeed of little importance; it is left to Christian liberty to take this or that position with the body; yet no kind of posture seems better fitted for fervent, earnest prayer, than kneeling.Thou hast indeed a merciful, gracious and loving Father: Thinkest thou, He can ever forsake thee? That is an idle thought. As little as He can take Love out of His heart so little can He forget thee. See, what is the best thing a teacher can ask for his flock; but also what thou too, O soul, must seek after, to be strengthened through the Spirit of God in the inner man.It is not enough to have come into a state of grace through conversion, there must be added a strengthening and fortifying, which however is not the work of man, since Christ is the Author and Finisher of our faith. Though our sins were so broad, so long, so deep, so high, as heaven and earth, yet is the grace and mercy of God deeper, broader, higher and longer, so that it cannot be measured.The mystery of the love of God is incomprehensible: in future perfection we will understand it. Because we still await that time, let us meanwhile imitate such love in its depth, by helping those who are in the deepest misery and least deserving; in its breadth, by showing to all men without distinction, for Gods sake, kindness and affection, in its length, by never ceasing or becoming weary; in its height, by looking up to God, devoting to Him all our efforts, and having His glory as our purpose.In Christianity more depends upon taking in faith, than upon giving and doing in love. For the more we take of the fulness of God, the more we can give.
A. Mueller:He who lets Christ dwell in his heart, only that, he may have from Him a household blessing or a joyful consolation, sells Him his heart; but he who surrenders himself to Christ out of pure love, at the same time thinking himself unworthy of the least look of His grace, gives Him his heart.
Rieger:God oftentimes indeed begins in a very small way in His works of grace, because He will effect nothing according to absolute power, but so as to lead men to faith and obedience.Christ dwelling in the heart, and His Spirit lay claim also to the members of the body, putting them into the service of righteousness, to bring forth fruit unto God in holiness.Being rooted and grounded in love we obtain the ability to comprehend, not merely to know, but also with other powers of soul so to appropriate something as to be filled therewith. Faith widens the heart, so that more and more can be grasped. But with these enlarged views, which are imparted to us, we should not sunder ourselves from other saints, nor attach to anything such an immoderate value, as to sever the bond which unites us with other saints, but apply all to the edification of the body of Christ.
Heubner:It is a truly proud misery of Kants, his denying kneeling as a slavish Orientalism. He can scarcely have felt the impulse of a praying heart. Lichtenberg judges very differently, when he says: When the body falls upon its knees, the spirit lifts itself to God.We have too little bending of the knee; the Catholics perhaps too much, so that a Catholic may occasionally be recognized by the looks of his clothes at the knees. Spener wished that kneeling devotion was more common among us.What a comfort for fatherless children and widows, what hope for affectionate fathers, to know that their dear children hare in heaven a better Father than themselves. Still the human relation can best teach the true Father-theology.A church can be good outwardly and apparently and yet be without inward life. This inward life comes from the Spirit of God. Christianity should be learned not by heart, but in the heart.42Christ will dwell, not in stone churches, but in living hearts; the heart should live and move in Him, His Spirit should animate our spirit in constant intercourse with Him.When Christ dwells in the heart, every one has his Christ in his neighbor.Breadth: the Church of Christ should stretch itself over the whole circle of the earth, over all lands. The length refers to time; she continues throughout all centuries. The depth points to her foundation; she has it in the unfathomable abyss of Divine mercy, and her height reaches into heaven, it is unassailable, for the church on earth and in the spirit world is one. This is the greatness and the origin of the spiritual temple.Love to Christ, a simple heart full of faith and love to Him, is better than all science. This love has an unconditioned value, is in itself the highest: not so with knowledge; it can give a kind of enlightenment, without at all affecting the heart. The heart excels the understanding. Science should not be over-estimated, and made an idol. Science can never conquer the enemies of the Kingdom of God, she should be a handmaid. The true science is only where the cross is. Only the theologus crucis is the theologus lucis.
Passavant:With a narrow heart we cannot pray with confidence. Hence everything demands that we should receive Divine riches, which enlightens our mind, expands our heart and makes God great in us.How worthy of admiration, how highly exalted above man is this inner man of the heart! Faith is his reason and his light; love his heart and his life; the Holy Ghost his soul and strength; Jesus Christ his ego and his nature; God his Father and at the same time his heritage, his glory, his riches, his eternal dwelling-place; God makes him, His work in His own good time, and this through a power whose working corresponds with the riches and the glory of His grace.Did Christ dwell in us, what would we become to our friends, to our enemies, to the world, to the heavens!Only the Spirit of God in us can disclose to us what God is; only faith, through the Holy Ghost, can apprehend Christ and His life in us; only pure, holy love in us can comprehend what is transcendent and blissful, the wonders of the love of God in Jesus Christ.There is a breadth and length and depth and height; for this no worlds are too broad, no paths too long, no space too wide, no abyss, no hell too deep, no heaven too high, that it may not reach thither, and penetrate there with might and almightiness, with light and life, with comfort and salvation and peace from eternal compassionfulness of God the destination and end of man, the aim and end of all the decrees of God, of all the mysteries of Christ. Canst thou not satisfy man? Must he still fill himself with a thousand trifles besides, that his happiness may be complete?
Stier:The higher his petition seeks to ascend above all understanding to Him, who is able to do above all, the deeper he bows himself.The indwelling of Christ: Its beginningthrough faith; meansChrists love, which becomes ours; aimaccording to the widest extension of the plan (knowledge) and inmost depths of the foundation (Christs love).
Gerlach:The love of Christ to us precedes all our love and knowledge.
Nitzsch:The essential petition, which we, each for all and all for each, should bear in our hearts, during the varieties and vicissitudes of our life-path. 1. Its purport: a) To become strong in the inner man; b) To have vital fellowship with the Redeemer; c) To know His love. 2. The effect.
Wolters (Dedication sermon at Godesberg): The proper prayer for a young congregation: 1) that its members become strong in the inner man: 2) that Christ lives in their hearts; 3) that they understand His love in its greatness and blessedness.
Genzken (Preparatory Lecture43 on Eph 3:13-21): St. Paul our example in prayer. 1) He bows his knees, so we under the burden of our guilt; 2) He addresses himself to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ; so there is no other name for us; 3) He asks power for the inner man to strengthen in faith, in love, and for every good work; so we.
Lhe:St. Pauls request to the Ephesians, his prayer to God, his song of praise to Him, all in relation to the great mystery of building the church on earth.
Westermeier:The best prayer: 1) to whom it is addressed; 2) the gifts it desires; 3) the basis on which it rests.
Kluge:Seek the kingdom of God, not in external things, but in the inner man1) in judging of the contest of the gospel against the world; 2) of the blessing of the gospel in yourselves.
Rabus:A glance into the closet of the Apostle: 1) How we should approach God in prayer; 2) how supplicate Him; 3) how praise Him.
Rautenberg:What Paul does in his tribulations, that his disciples may not become weary in the walk of faith: 1) He is far from themyet sends them his mighty word; 2) He suffers the contempt of the worldbut endures it for their glory; 3) He cannot give them his hand, but he bows his knee for them.
Dr. Meier (Baptismal discourse on Eph 3:18): On the breadth, length, depth, height of the love of God.
Prhle:Pauls pious wish for the Church at Ephesus: 1. That they might not become weary in their Christian course (Eph 3:13). 2. That God would give them power to become strong in the inner man (Eph 3:14-16). 3. That Christ may dwell in their hearts (Eph 3:17). 4. That they may be able to comprehend with all saints the breadth=the universality, embracing all, the length=the endlessness from eternity to eternity, the depth and height=the immeasurable and incomprehensible greatness of the love of Christ.
[Hodge:The most beautiful object might be in the apartment of a blind man, and he not be sensible of its presence; or if by any means made aware of its nearness, he could have no delight in its beauty. Christ dwells in us by faith, because it is by faith we perceive His presence, His excellence and His glory, and because it is by faith we appropriate and reciprocate the manifestations of His love. Faith is to this spiritual communion what esteem and affection are to the fellowship of domestic life.The love of Christ is infinite; not only because it inheres in an infinite subject, but because the condescension and sufferings to which it led, and the blessings which it secures for its objects, are beyond our comprehension.R.]
[Eadie:
Eph 3:15. They lose the cold and official name of subjects in the familiar and endearing appellation of sons, and they are united to one another not dimly and unconsciously, as different products of the same Divine workman-ship, but they merge into one familyall they are brethren.
Eph 3:17. When Ignatius was asked, on his trial, by the Emperor, what was the meaning of his nameTheophorushe promptly replied, He who has Christ in his breast.Love is the fundamental grace.
Eph 3:19. As the attachment of a man, it may be gauged; but as the love of a God, who can by searching find it out? Uncaused itself, it originated salvation; unresponded to amidst the contradiction of sinners, it neither pined nor collapsed. It led from Divine immortality to human agonies and dissolution, for the victim was bound to the cross, not by the nails of the military executioner, but by the cords of love. It loved repulsive unloveliness, and, unnourished by reciprocated attachment, its ardor was unquenched, nay, is unquenchable, for it is changeless as the bosom in which it dwells. Thus it may be known, while yet it passeth knowledge; thus it may be experimentally known, while still in its origin and glory it surpasses comprehension, and presents new and newer phases to the loving and inquiring spirit. For one may drink of the spring and be refreshed, and his eye may take in at one view its extent and circuit, while he may be able neither to fathom the depth nor mete out the volume of the ocean whence it has its origin.R.]
Footnotes:
[33]Eph 3:14.[The phrase: , which follows in Eph 1:3; Col 1:3; 2Co 1:3; Rom 15:6, should be rejected here. The weight of diplomatic authority is against it (omitted in 1 A. B. C. 17, 67; found in 3 D. F. K. L. and all other cursives). A number of fathers reject it (Jerome expressly speaks of the omission), while the best versions retain it. It is scarcely credible, as De Wette urges, that it was omitted because coming between and , since it really disturbs the rhythmical connection; while on the other hand no addition would be more likely than this from the common formula. If internal grounds have any weight, it must be rejected. So Lachmann, Tischendorf, Rckert, Harless, Meyer, Olshausen, Alford, Ellicott; Eadie inclines to this view. Reiche and De Wette retain it, as does Hodge, who says: the majority of recent editions and commentators retain them, a statement surprisingly unwarranted.R.]
[34]Eph 3:16.[The Rec. reads with D. K. L., and most fathers, but (. A. B. C. F.) is to be preferred. Comp. Eph 1:17.R.]
[35]Eph 3:16.[Here also as in Eph 1:7; Eph 2:7; Eph 3:8, the Rec. gives the masculine form (D.3 K. L., cursives), but . A. B. C. D.1 F. support the neuter.R.]
[36]Eph 3:17.[Another view of the construction requires the following translation: That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, ye having been rooted and grounded in love, in order that, etc. See Exegetical Notes.R.]
[37]Eph 3:18.[The order of the Rec. ( ) is sustained by . A. K. L., most cursives; adopted by Tischendorf, Ellicott, Meyer and Braune, as lectio difficilior. B. C. D. E. F. G., most versions, give the reverse order, which as more natural and prevalent (Rom 8:39) is open to suspicion. It is accepted by Lachmann, Alford and others.R.]
[38][Ellicott renders: From whom every race in heaven and on earth is thus named, while the German text of Braune runs thus in a literal translation: whose name every family in heaven and on earth bears.R.]
[39][So Bodius and Hodge, both insisting upon the exclusive reference to the redeemed. The argument of the latter rests altogether on the incorrect reading he accepts. Admitting that the omission of the article favors the rendering: every family, he adds that it may still be omitted where the sense is the whole family, provided the context is so clear as to prevent mistake. But it is not so clear, else the great body of commentators would not have mistaken it; hence the condition is not met. Besides the context does not teach, except critical judgments are to give way to exegetical preferences, that those who are here contemplated as children, are those who are by Jesus Christ brought into this relation to God. Consequently it ought not to be affirmed that the word cannot include any but the subjects of redemption.Undoubtedly there is an underlying thought of redemption; it is not in virtue of Gods creative power that the Apostle here prays to Him, but in virtue of His adoptive love in Christ (Alford). The thought of an All-Father is remote enough, but any unnecessary limitation of is at the same time a limitation of the wider results of Redemptive Love so frequently hinted at by Paul and not very remote here (Eph 3:10). Alford: The Apostle seems, regarding God as the Father of us His adopted children, to go forth into the fact, that He, in this His relation to us, is in reality the great original and proto-type of the paternal relation, wherever found. And in an ethical sense this relation may be readily conceived of as existing in heaven among other than those redeemed from earthR.]
[40][Dr. Hodge, very sweepingly, intimates that all those interpretations which distinguish this inner man from the renewed man, belong to the theory of Semi-Pelagianism, embodied and developed in the theology of the Church of Rome. But this is based on a mere assumption, viz., that this view of the inner man as the seat of spiritual influences implies the actual sinlessness and unfallen status of that inner man, an implication distinctly denied by many of the supporters of this theory, among whom are expositors, who cannot be classed among the advocates of Semi-Pelagianism. I append the statement of Ellicott, which agrees with my own view, referred to above: The expression (Rom 7:22) is nearly identical with, but somewhat more inclusive than (1Pe 3:4), and stands in antithesis to (2Co 4:16); the former being practically equivalent to the or higher nature of man (Rom 7:23), the latter to the or : see Beck, Seelenlehre, III. 21, 3, p. 68. It is within this that the powers of regeneration are exercised (Harless, Christl. Ethik, 22a), and it is from their operation in this province that the whole man (secunda interna spectatus, Bengel) becomes a (as opposed to a former state), or a (as opposed to a former corrupt state), and is either (Eph 4:24), or (Col 3:10), according to the point of view under which regeneration is regarded. The distinction between this and the partially synonymous terms and may perhaps be thus roughly stated: is simply the highest of the three parts of which man is composed; the regarded more in its moral and intellectual aspects, quatenus intelligit, cogitat, et vult; the or rather the whole immaterial portion, considered in its theological aspects, and as the seat of the inworking powers of grace. To which may be added that owing to the fact that has also a second meaning (the human spirit as inwrought upon by the Divine Spirit), Paul does not use it in Rom 7:7-25, but rather and . This view of the phrase is adopted by Eadie and Alford, and may be regarded as the prevalent one in Germany, perhaps now among English commentators.R.]
[41][Eadie thus states his view: The change of syntax indicates a change of connection, and the use of the irregular nominative makes the transition easy to the form adopted with . The clause thus changed becomes a species of independent proposition, giving a marked prominence to the sense, and connected at once with the preceding context as its result, and with the following context as its starting idea. So Ellicott, who in his translation puts a dash before and after the clause. The course of thought then is: Christ dwelling in their heartsthey are supposed, as the effect of this inhabitation, to have been now rooted and grounded in love; and as the design of this confirmation in lovethey are then and there qualified to comprehend, etc. This construction is certainly admissible, although Harless is fanciful in accounting for it by the reference to both the dative and genitive which precede. Meyer presents the forcible objection that the present participles would occur were this the connection. When to this it is replied, that the clause does express the state which must ensue upon the indwelling of Christ before what is expressed in the next clause can in any way be realized, and that therefore the perf. part. is correctly used (Ellicott), I find in this but a confession of that subordinate relation of the clause to the next one, which is implied in the other view. If the ideas are so nearly similar, a trajection seems a better explanation, than to complicate the relation of the clauses further (we have already a leading clause in Eph 3:14, a clause of purport in Eph 3:16, containing a finite verb followed by an infinitive, on which infinitive a clause of result depends, Eph 3:17. The view under discussion would make an irregular sub-subordinate clause of result to be followed (Eph 3:18) by a clause of design, which the other view would append directly to the purport of the prayer). On the other hand this metathesis is open to objection. Such a trajection implies an emphasis on the words thrown in advance, and it is asserted that there is no necesssity for such emphasis here, but this is no real objection, since the words can be emphatic (notwithstanding Alfords denial). Again, it is said that the premised words in all such cases form the objective factor of the sentence and are not connected with the subject as here (Ellicott). Ellicotts remark is true as regards the other cases where is trajected, but in 2Th 2:7, is put after the subject, which it not strictly parallel, is certainly analogous.R.]
[42][ The German has a similar paronomasia: Man soll das Christenthum nicht auswendig, sondern inwendig lernen.R.]
[43][Beichtrede is literally a discourse at confession but among Protestants means the service preparatory to the communion, during the previous week. The etymology confirms the view, that our preparatory lecture is borrowed from the Romanist usage of confessing before the communion, though in reality a proper mode of obeying the injunction: Let a man examine himself.R.]
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
DISCOURSE: 2104
PRAYER THE MEANS OF THE RICHEST BLESSINGS
Eph 3:14-19. For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.
MANY who espouse the cause of religion when it is in flourishing circumstances, are apt to decline from it when their profession exposes them to any great trouble. The Ephesians had heard of Pauls imprisonment at Rome, and were in danger of turning from the faith through the fear of persecution. St. Paul cautions them against being intimidated by the tribulations which he endured for their sakes; and assures them, that they ought rather to consider it as an honour, that their cause had been so vigorously maintained by him; and that he was suffering persecution for asserting their rights in opposition to the bigoted and blood-thirsty Jews. Precluded as he was from prosecuting his ministerial labours for their good, he spent the more time in prayer for them. This was a liberty of which none could deprive him: yea, rather, the more his body was confined, the more his spirit was enlarged on their behalf. He considered them as members of the same family with all the Church militant and Church triumphant, of which Christ is the Head; and, with the profoundest reverence and humility, he implored for them all those blessings which he desired for himself, and which were suited to their state:
I.
The strengthening communications of the Spirit
[The first blessing which a child of God would desire, is strength; because he longs as much to execute his Fathers will, as he does to enjoy his favour. The occasions on which he needs an increase of strength, are many and urgent. He has many trials to endure; many temptations to withstand; many duties to perform: and in himself he is insufficient for any one of these things. But God will give his Holy Spirit unto them that ask him. He will strengthen us in our inner man, so that our wills shall be active, our affections lively, our resolutions firm, our exertions effectual. It is no small measure of might with which he will strengthen us: the greater our necessities, the more abundant will be his liberality towards us: he will bestow according to the riches of his own glory: so that, if the utmost efforts of Omnipotence were necessary for us, they should be put forth in our behalf; and Gods own ability should be the measure of his communications to us.]
II.
An abiding sense of Christs presence
[The believer longs to enjoy the presence of God in his soul, because he finds by experience that the joy of the Lord is his strength. Nor shall he be disappointed of his hope, if he only spread his desires in prayer before God. There is no habitation, not even heaven itself, in which Christ more delights to dwell, than in the heart of a believer. He has promised to come and make his abode with his people, as he did of old in the tabernacle and temple, or as he did in the flesh that he assumed. In them he will exert his power; and to them he will reveal his glory: he will manifest himself to them, as he does not unto the world.
But, in order to bring him into the soul, we must exercise faith. It is faith that apprehends, and pleads his promise: it is faith that brings him down from heaven: it is faith which opens the door of the heart for his admission into it: it is faith which detains him there; and which gives us a realizing sense of his presence. It is by prayer that we must obtain this blessing, and by faith that we must enjoy it.]
III.
An enlarged discovery of his love
[The presence of Christ in the soul is desired, in order to a more lively sense of his love. Now the love of Christ has a breadth and length, a depth and height, which are utterly unsearchable [Note: Properly speaking, nothing has more than three dimensions; length, breadth, and thickness. The Apostle divides the last into two, in order the more strongly to express his idea.]: it extends to the remotest corners of the earth: it reaches from everlasting to everlasting: it descends to the very confines of hell itself, and exalts to thrones of glory those who are its favoured objects. In its full extent, it passes the knowledge of men or angels; but in a measure it is comprehended by all the saints. Mens capacity to comprehend it, is proportioned to their growth and stature in the Church of Christ; those who are but infants, hare only narrow and contracted views of it; while those who are advanced to manhood, stand amazed at its immeasurable dimensions.
But in order that we may be able to comprehend it, we ourselves should be rooted and grounded in love to him. As a sense of his love is necessary to beget a holy affection in us towards him, so a love to him disposes our mind to contemplate, and enlarges our capacity to comprehend, his love to us. Each in its turn is subservient to the promotion of the other: but under circumstances of trial, which endanger the steadfastness of our profession, we are more especially called to have our love to him rooted and grounded, so as to be immoveable amidst all the storms with which it may be assailed: and then, from every exercise of our own love, we shall acquire a greater enlargement of heart to admire and adore his love to us.]
IV.
A repletion with all the fulness of God
[The Apostles prayer rises at every successive step, till he arrives at a height of expression, which, if it had not been dictated by inspiration, one should have been ready to condemn as blasphemy. Amazing thought! May we offer such a petition. as this? Yes: there is indeed in the Deity an essential fulness, which is incommunicable to his creatures: but there is also a fulness which he does and will communicate [Note: we cannot have, Col 2:9. This is .]. In him are all the perfections of wisdom and goodness, of justice and mercy, of patience and love, of truth and faithfulness: and with these he will fill his people, according to the measure of their capacity; so that they shall be holy as he is holy, and perfect as their Father which is in heaven is perfect. If any possess but a small portion of his perfections, it is owing to their being straitened in themselves; for none are straitened in him.
But how is this to be attained? Will repentance effect it? No. Will mortification procure it? No: that which alone will avail for this end, is an enlarged discovery of the love of Christ; and therefore the Apostle prays for the one in order to the other. Indeed, high thoughts of a creatures kindness to us have a natural tendency to produce in us a resemblance to him: but a sense of Christs love has an irresistible influence [Note: 2Co 5:14. .] to transform us into his image, and to fill us with all his fulness.]
Reflections
1.
How much do the saints in general live below their privileges!
[Who that is conversant with the religious world, would imagine that such things as are mentioned in the text were ever to be attained? One is complaining of his weakness and insufficiency; another, of his darkness and distance from Christ: one is harassed with doubts and fears; another bewails his emptiness and the prevalence of sin. Alas!. alas!. how different would be their experience, if they were more constant and importunate in prayer! What strength and comfort, what light and holiness, might they not enjoy! Beloved brethren, do but contemplate the state to which the Ephesians were taught to aspire, and you will blush at your low attainments, and be confounded before God for your partial acquaintance with his mercies.]
2.
How rich is the benefit of prayer!
[There is nothing for which effectual and fervent prayer will not avail [Note: Jam 5:16.]. However wide we open our mouths, God will fill them [Note: Psa 81:10.]. We may search out all the promises in the Bible, and take them, like notes of hand, for payment: our God will never refuse what is good for us: his generosity is unwearied, his faithfulness inviolate, his treasury inexhaustible. O that there were in us such a heart, that we could go to him at all times, renewing our petitions, and taking occasion, from every fresh grant, to enlarge our desires, and be more importunate in our entreaties! Beyond the Apostles request we cannot perhaps extend our conceptions: but short of them we would not stop. Ambition here is virtue. Let no strength but omnipotence, content us: no presence but the actual dwelling of Christ in our hearts, satisfy us: no view of his love but a comprehension of it in all its dimensions, limit our researches: nor any communication short of all the fulness of God, allay our appetite for his blessings.]
EPHESIANS, III. 18, 19.
See Sermons on 1Ti 1:11. where it forms the fourth Sermon of a series.
Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)
14 For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
Ver. 14. For this cause ] sc. That ye faint not, but gather strength.
I bow my knees ] A most seemly and suitable gesture, usual among all nations but Turks, who kneel not, nor uncover the head at prayer, as holding those postures unmanly. And yet they pray five times every day (saith Mr Terry), what occasion soever they have either by profit or pleasure to divert them.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
14 19 .] His prayer for them, setting forth the aim and end of the ministerial office as respected the Church, viz. its becoming strong in the power of the Spirit .
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
14 .] On this account (resumes the of Eph 3:1 (see note there): viz. ‘because ye are so built in, have such a standing in God’s Church’) I bend my knees (scil. in prayer: see reff.; and cf. 3 Kings 19:18) towards (directing my prayer to Him: see Winer, 49, h) the Father (on the words here interpolated, see var. readd.), from whom (as the source of the name: so Hom. II. . 68, : Soph., d. Tyr. 1036, , : Xen. Mem. iv. 5. 8, : Cic. de Amicitia, 8, ‘amor, ex quo amicitia nominata’) every family (not ‘ the whole family ’ ( . , or, less strictly, ), as E. V. The sense, see below) in the heavens and on earth is named (it is difficult to convey in another language any trace of the deep connexion of and here expressed. Had the sentence been ‘the Creator , after whom every creature in heaven and earth is named,’ all would be plain to the English reader. But we must not thus render; for it is not in virtue of God’s creative power that the Apostle here prays to Him, but in virtue of His adoptive love in Christ. It is best therefore to keep the simple sense of the words, and leave it to exegesis to convey the idea, is the family , or in a wider sense the gens , named so from its all having one . Some (Est., Grot., Wetst., al.) have supposed St. Paul to allude to the rabbinical expression, ‘the family of earth and the family of heaven:’ but as Harl. observes, in this case he would have said . ., . . . Others (Vulg., Jer., Thdrt., , , , Corn.-a-lap.) have attempted to give the sense of paternitas , which it can certainly never have. But it is not so easy to say, to what the reference is, or why the idea is here introduced. The former of these will be found very fully discussed in Stier, pp. 487 99: and the latter more shortly treated. The Apostle seems, regarding God as the Father of us His adopted children in Christ, to go forth into the fact, that He, in this His relation to us, is in reality the great original and prototype of the paternal relation, wherever found. And this he does, by observing that every , compaternity , body of persons, having a common father, is thus named (in Greek), from that father , and so every earthly (and heavenly) family reflects in its name (and constitution) the being and sourceship of the great Father Himself. But then, what are in heaven? Some have treated the idea of paternity there as absurd: but is it not necessarily involved in any explanation of this passage? He Himself is the Father of spirits, Heb 12:9 , the Father of lights, Jas 1:17 : may there not be fathers in the heavenly Israel, as in the earthly? May not the holy Angels be bound up in spiritual , though they marry not nor are given in marriage? Observe, we must not miss the sense of , nor render, nor understand it, as meaning ‘ is constituted .’ This is the fact, but not brought out here),
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Eph 3:14-19 . A paragraph containing an earnest prayer for the inward strengthening of the readers, the presence of Christ in them, their enlargement in the knowledge of the love of Christ, and the realisation in them of the Divine perfections.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
Eph 3:14 . : for this cause . The sentence begun at Eph 3:1 and interrupted at Eph 3:2 is now taken up again. The , therefore, refers to the great statement of privilege in the latter part of the previous chapter. The ideas which came to expression in the digression in Eph 3:2-13 , are also no doubt in view in some measure. The thought of the new relations into which the Ephesians had been brought by grace toward God and toward the Jews the reconciliation of the Cross, peace effected where once there was only enmity, the place given them in the household of God gave Paul cause for prayer in their behalf. : I bow my knees . A simple, natural figure for prayer; earnest prayer (Calv.) not as if Paul actually knelt as he wrote (Calov.). The standing posture in prayer and the kneeling are both mentioned in the NT ( e.g. , Mar 11:25 ; Luk 18:11 ; Luk 18:13 , for the former, and Luk 22:41 ; Act 7:60 ; Act 20:36 ; Act 21:5 , for the latter). For kneeling in the OT see 1Ki 8:54 ; Dan 6:10 ; cf. also 1Ki 19:18 . : to the Father . The takes the place of the simple dat. which usually follows the phrase (Rom 11:4 ; Rom 14:11 ), the idea here being that of prayer , and of God as the Hearer to whom it was directed . The TR, following [318] 3 [319] [320] [321] [322] , Lat., Syr., Goth., etc., adds . This is an addition which might very readily find a place in the text, the designation being a familiar one, occurring already indeed in this Epistle (Eph 1:3 ). It does not appear, however, in [323] [324] [325] [326] , 17, Copt., Eth., etc., and it is omitted by the best critics (LTTrWHRV).
[318] Codex Sinaiticus (sc. iv.), now at St. Petersburg, published in facsimile type by its discoverer, Tischendorf, in 1862.
[319] Codex Claromontanus (sc. vi.), a Grco-Latin MS. at Paris, edited by Tischendorf in 1852.
[320] Codex Augiensis (sc. ix.), a Grco-Latin MS., at Trinity College, Cambridge, edited by Scrivener in 1859. Its Greek text is almost identical with that of G, and it is therefore not cited save where it differs from that MS. Its Latin version, f, presents the Vulgate text with some modifications.
[321] Codex Mosquensis (sc. ix.), edited by Matthi in 1782.
[322] Codex Angelicus (sc. ix.), at Rome, collated by Tischendorf and others.
[323] Codex Vaticanus (sc. iv.), published in photographic facsimile in 1889 under the care of the Abbate Cozza-Luzi.
[324] Autograph of the original scribe of .
[325] Autograph of the original scribe of .
[326] Codex Ephraemi (sc. v.), the Paris palimpsest, edited by Tischendorf in 1843.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Eph 3:14-19
14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, 16that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, 17so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.
Eph 3:14 “For this reason” Paul returns to his initial purpose (cf. Eph 3:1, i.e. his prayer): Notice the doctrinal section opens with a prayer to the Triune God (cf. Eph 1:3-14) and closes with prayer.
“I bow my knees” Standing, not bowing, was the usual position for Jewish prayer. This shows Paul’s intensity (cf. Mat 6:5; Mar 11:25; Luk 18:11-12; Luk 22:41; Act 7:60; Php 2:10).
Eph 3:14-15 “Father. . .family” This is a play on the Greek name pater and patria. Notice the emphasis on the Father, as in Eph 1:3-14. The Creator God is the paradigm for all living beings and their social units (i.e. tribes/nations).
Eph 3:14-17 “Father. . .Spirit. . .Christ” Notice the work of the Trinity as in Eph 1:3-14. It is true that the term “Trinity” is not used in the NT. However, there are numerous passages where the three divine persons are mentioned in a unified context (cf. Mat 3:16-17; Mat 28:19; Joh 14:26; Act 2:33-34; Act 2:38-39; Rom 1:4-5; Rom 5:15; Rom 8:9-10; 1Co 12:4-6; 2Co 1:21-22; 2Co 13:14; Gal 4:4-6; Eph 1:3-14; Eph 1:17; Eph 2:18; Eph 3:14-17; Eph 4:4-6; 2Th 2:13; Tit 3:4-6; 1Pe 1:2; Jud 1:20-21). See Special Topic: The Trinity.
The KJV translation adds “the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,” but this phrase is not in the ancient Greek manuscripts P46, , A, B, C, nor the Greek texts used by Jerome and Augustine. The addition does occur in the uncial manuscripts c, D, G, K, and the Greek text used by Chrysostom.
The concept of three divine persons with one divine essence (i.e., monotheism) is difficult to understand. Yet, if Jesus is deity and the Spirit is a person, then Bible believers are forced to affirm a triune unity. See Special Topic The Trinity at Eph 1:3.
Eph 3:15 “in heaven and on earth” This refers to believers alive and dead (cf. Php 2:10).
Eph 3:16-19 Paul’s prayer can be outlined using two grammatical features.
1. Three purpose clauses (hina)
a. Eph 3:16, God would grant (aorist subjunctive)
b. Eph 3:18, God would fully enable (aorist subjunctive)
c. Eph 3:19 b, God would fill (aorist subjunctive)
2. Four aorist infinitives
a. Eph 3:16, “you to be strengthened”
b. Eph 3:17, “Christ to dwell in your hearts”
c. Eph 3:18, “you to comprehend”
d. Eph 3:19, “you to know”
This paragraph reflects Paul’s prayer for the believers in all these churches that they be stable and established by God’s power through Christ’s acts and the Holy Spirit’s empowering to resist (1) the false teachers and (2) the persecution of a fallen world.
Eph 3:16 “according to the riches of His glory” “Riches” is one of Paul’s favorite terms to describe the grace of God in Christ (cf. Eph 1:7; Eph 1:18; Eph 2:4; Eph 2:7; Eph 3:8; Eph 3:16). God’s nature is the key to God’s power and provisions.
“in the inner man” Spiritual growth is internal, but it is stimulated by external pressure. Paul often uses the contrast between the inner man and the outer man. The inner man is the spiritual aspect, while the outer man is the physical aspect. The inner man is already part of the New Age, the kingdom of God, but the outer man is still dying and struggling with the old age, the old fallen nature, and the fallen world system (cf. Eph 2:1-3).
Eph 3:17 “so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith” This is an aorist active infinitive which points toward a specific act of faith. There is a fluidity in the NT between the indwelling of the Son and the Spirit. The Spirit’s task (cf. John 14-16) is to
1. reveal the need for Jesus (i.e., human sin)
2. reveal Jesus (i.e., the gospel)
3. draw to Jesus
4. baptize into Jesus (cf. 1Co 12:13)
5. form Jesus in believers (i.e., Christlikeness), see Special Topic: Heart at Col 2:2
See Special Topic: Jesus and the Spirit at Col 1:26.
“being deeply rooted” This is a perfect passive participle which could be translated “have been and continue to be rooted by God.” Paul uses this agricultural metaphor only here and in Col 2:7. These two perfect passive participles are a way of showing his confidence in these believers and these churches.
“and grounded” This is a second perfect passive participle. This is a construction metaphor. The same mixing of agriculture and construction metaphors is found in Eph 2:20-22 and 1Co 3:9.
Eph 3:18-19 “to comprehend. . .to know” These are both aorist infinitives (i.e., there are four aorist infinitives in this prayer, Eph 3:16-19). This emphasis on knowledge counteracted the exclusive intellectual claims of the Gnostic false teachers. It may refer to the newly revealed mystery of God, the uniting of Jews and Gentiles in Christ (cf. Eph 3:9).
Eph 3:18 “may be able” This is the second purpose clause. Paul is praying that all believers be strengthened and enabled to fully understand the gospel (i.e., “comprehend” and “know”).
“with all the saints” This term is always plural, except in Php 4:21, which also has a corporate context. To be a Christian is to be in community. Also, notice that God’s will is the maturity of all believers (cf. Eph 4:13). See Special Topic: Saints at Col 1:2.
Eph 3:19 “surpasses” Christ’s love is greater than human knowledge! Huperball. See Special Topic: Paul’s Use of Huper Compounds at Eph 1:19. This word is used in Eph 1:19; Eph 2:7; and Eph 3:19. Another huper compound is used in Eph 3:20 (huperekperissou), which is also used in 1Th 3:10; 1Th 5:13.
“filled up to all the fullness of God” This is the third purpose clause in this prayer. This does not refer to the indwelling Christ or Spirit, Eph 3:17, but is a play on the false teachings of the Gnostics, who emphasized fullness (plrma) as special knowledge which enabled one to pass through all the angelic spheres (aeons) to heaven. Christ is the true “fullness of God” (cf. Eph 1:23; Col 2:9).
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
This verse going back to the subject of Eph 3:1 is Figure of speech Anachoresis App-6.
Father. App-98.
of . . . Christ. The texts omit.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
14-19.] His prayer for them, setting forth the aim and end of the ministerial office as respected the Church, viz. its becoming strong in the power of the Spirit.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Eph 3:14. , I bend my knees) If Paul had been present, he would have bent his knees with a breast kindling into a glow of devotion. Act 20:36.-) Its conjugate is .
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Eph 3:14
Eph 3:14
For this cause-[The sentence begins in 3: 1 and interrupted at verse 2 is now taken up again. The ideas which came to expression, which were expressed in 2-13, are no doubt in view in some measure. The thought of the new relations into which the Ephesians had been brought by grace toward God and toward the Jews-the reconciliation of the cross, peace effected where once there was only enmity, the peace given in the household of God-gave Paul cause for prayer in their behalf.]
I bow my knees unto the Father,-He prays the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ that they faint not, be not cast down, and give up their faith in Christ. The bowing of the knees was so universally the accompaniment of prayer that to bow the knees meant to pray. [This was an emphatic way of denoting prayer; but not incidental, occasional prayer, inspired by some passing feeling; the attitude, bow my knees, denotes deliberate prayer (Dan 6:10), making a business of approaching God with reverence and godly fear.]
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
the Greatest of All Desires
Eph 3:14-21
The kernel of this prayer is in the clause that Christ may make His home in the believers heart through faith. The previous petitions lead up to this. Note the Apostles attitude-with bended knee; his plea with God-that He is the Father from whom all family love emanates; his measure-the wealth of Gods glorious perfection; the necessary preliminary to Christs indwelling-the penetration of our inmost being with the strength of the Holy Spirit. And then note the outcome: The indwelling Christ means that we shall be rooted and grounded in love. When this is the case we shall understand His love; and when we experience and know Christs love, we shall be as completely filled in our little measure as God is in His great measure.
A dying veteran in Napoleons army, when the surgeon was probing for the fatal bullet, said, A little deeper and you will find the Emperor. Faith opens the door to the Spirit; the Spirit reveals Christ; Christ fills the heart; the heart begins to understand love; and love is the medium through which we become infilled with God, for God is love. It is staggering to ask all this; but the God who works in us with such power is able to do more than we ask, more than we think-abundantly more, exceeding abundantly more.
Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary
Pauls Second Prayer for the Saints (Eph 3:14-21)
In the first chapter of this precious Epistle we have Pauls prayer for knowledge, and in the third, his prayer for love. After reading the first prayer we naturally find ourselves looking out over the great sphere of Gods eternal purpose, trying to take in the scope of His wonderful pre-arranged divine plan. But, as we read the second prayer and meditate on it, we find ourselves looking up in adoring gratitude, with our hearts going out in love to the One who first loved us.
We read in verse Eph 3:14, For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. For this cause-For what cause? What motivated Paul to pray for these people? It was his deep interest in the people of God. He desired that they should fully experience their privileges in Christ and understand the great mystery of which he had spoken.
The expression, I bow my knees, is a very beautiful one and suggests intensity of feeling. Have you ever noticed that if you are just quietly engaged in prayer or meditation, you may sit, perhaps as I often do, in a comfortable big chair with your open Bible before you, and as one thought or another comes, you close your eyes and lift your heart to God in prayer? Or when you come together with Gods people, you love to stand in holy silence before God, joining with someone who is leading in prayer. But when you are intensely in earnest, when something has fairly gripped you that stirs you to deepest supplication, you find yourself almost irresistibly forced to your knees.
I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. We noticed that the first prayer is addressed to the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, for God is the source of all knowledge. But this second prayer, which has to do more with family relationship, is addressed to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Divine titles are used most discriminate^ in the Word of God; never in the careless way that we so often use them. We might not think it made any difference whether one said, I address myself to the God of our Lord Jesus, or, I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus, but it made a great deal of difference to the apostle. It indicated the different thoughts that were in his mind. When I think of God, I think of the maker of all things, the planner of all things who fitted the ages together. But I think of the Father as the One from whose bosom the eternal Son came into this world, becoming man for our salvation. Before He left this world Jesus said to Mary, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God (Joh 20:17). There you have the two thoughts: God, the source of all counsels; the Father, the source of all family affections-the very center of family relationship.
The Father Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named. The whole family is undoubtedly a correct rendering here, and yet every family would be just as correct. The whole family, however, conveys the most precious thought. This phrase means that all saints in earth and Heaven constitute one great family of born-again ones, of whom God is the father. But I am thinking too of the great hosts of angels never redeemed by the blood of Christ because they have never fallen; even those who fell found no Savior. The angels also acknowledge the fatherhood of God, but they are servants, waiting on the family. Then there is the family of the Old Testament saints. There was the antediluvian family, the patriarchal family, the Israelites, those who were truly of Israel. All these were families through the past dispensations. Today there is the church of this age of grace, and in the future there will be the glorious kingdom family. There are dispensational distinctions, but all receive life from the same blessed Person, and all together adore and worship Him. Notice that the whole family is located in Heaven and on earth. Those who are dead to us are alive to God above.
As we try to understand this prayer I want you to think of seven words that I believe will help us to grasp its scope. First, there is our endowment. That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory. You may come to God in prayer for anything, and realize that since you have such a marvelous endowment from which to draw, you do not need to fear to present your petitions to God. You cannot ask too much. We are reminded of the man who came to a king asking for something, and the king gave to him out of his abundant treasure until the man said, Your majesty, that is too much! That is too much! The king smiled and said, It may seem too much for you to take, but it is not too much for me to give. And so our blessed God gives out of His abundance.
He is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think. He does not say, as we sometimes suppose, Able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we can ask or think, for we might be like little children asking for the moon. But Paul said that God does for us, exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think. When we come to Him in the name of Jesus, bringing our petitions, there is more in that great endowment fund than we can ever exhaust.
According to the riches of his glory. According to, not out of the riches of His glory. We have noticed the difference between these two expressions when commenting on a similar passage found in Eph 1:7, so we need not repeat the illustration used then. But it means much to the soul when one truly sees this distinction.
Next Paul prayed that the Ephesians be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man. This speaks of our enduement or empowerment. Do you sometimes feel your limitations, your weakness, your lack of purpose, your powerlessness when it comes to living for God and witnessing for Him? Do you feel as though you might as well give up for the little you accomplish? Do you say, If I only had more strength, how different it might be? Listen! The excellency of the power is of God, not of us, and the Holy Spirit who dwells within us is ready to work in and through us to the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. So the prayer is that we may be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man. Some people have an idea that a Christian is a walking storage battery. You hear people pray, O God, give me more power, fill me with power. The idea they have is that the old battery is pretty well run down. Put another one in, Lord, is what they seem to say. No, you are not a storage battery; you are in connection with the great eternal dynamo, and the Holy Spirit works in and through you to the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ as you yield yourself to Him. He Himself is the source of all power, and that power is to be used by the people of God.
That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith. The next word is enthronement. It is Christ sitting on the throne of our hearts dominating, controlling us for the glory of God, His blessed pierced hands guiding and directing everything. It is not Christ received as an occasional visitor, not Christ recognized merely as a guest, but Christ abiding within as our living, loving Lord: Christ dwelling in the heart by faith. You remember the saying, If Christ is not Lord of all, He is not Lord at all. He does not want second place. He must be first if your life is going to be that which it should.
That ye, being rooted and grounded in love. This phrase suggests our establishment. Rooted and grounded are two very different terms. When I was a boy, the schoolteacher used to tell me that I must not mix my metaphors. For instance, I should not start with the figure of a ship and change to that of a railroad in the same sentence. But the Holy Ghost is wonderfully independent in His use of metaphors. He speaks of being rooted like a tree, and grounded like a building that is raised on a great foundation. Rooted and grounded in what? In love. What is love? It is the great rock foundation on which we build, for God is love. He who is rooted in love is rooted in God, and therefore, the righteous shall flourish like the palm tree: he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon (Psa 92:12). The believer is like the trees, for they draw their nourishment from the living God Himself. Great Christian character will be established when one is founded on this Rock, building on God Himself, rooted and grounded in love!
That yeMay be able to comprehend with all saints. This speaks of our enlightenment. Individually, you will never be able to completely understand Gods purposes in grace. But you comprehend a little, and another Christian a little, and I a little, and with all the saints together we begin to get some idea of Gods wonderful purpose of grace. Therefore, we need one another; we need fellowship; we need to be helpers of each others faith. The feeblest, weakest member of the body of Christ is necessary, for God may give understanding to some weak brother that some strong active Christian may never get at all. Paul prayed that we be enabled to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height. Of what? Some say love. But previously in the chapter he had been speaking about Gods wonderful purpose of the ages, Gods great plan. Paul was praying that by the Spirit you may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height of the vast system of grace that God is working out through the ages of time, and which will be consummated in the ages to come.
In school I was told that no solid could have more than three dimensions-length, breadth, and thickness. But we have here length, breadth, depth, and height-four dimensions. Could you draw a picture of this? Could you draw an illustration of length, breadth, depth, and height? How would you do it? Some of the old Greek philosophers used to reason about a possible fourth dimension, and with them it was a kind of weird spiritual dimension. That is not such a bad idea. When Napoleons soldiers opened the prison of the Inquisition, in an underground dungeon they found the skeleton of a prisoner. The flesh and clothing had long since gone, but the remnants of an ankle bone with a chain attached to it were still there. On the wall they saw cut into the rock with a sharp piece of metal a cross. Above the cross in Spanish was the word for height, and below it the word for depth, and on one arm the word for length, and on the other the word for breadth. As that poor prisoner of so long ago was starving to death, his soul was contemplating the wonder of Gods purpose of grace, and to Him the figure of the cross summed it all up-the length, the breadth, the depth, the height!
Next Paul prayed that we may know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge. Surely this is our enlargement. We glory as we comprehend the knowledge of the love of Christ. But what a strange expression is Pauls petition! He prayed that we may know the unknowable: The love of Christ, which passeth knowledge. See that darling little baby in the mothers arms, looking up and cooing and responding to the mothers smile? You or I might say, May I hold the baby? and hold out our hands, and he would look at us and cling the more tightly to the mother. If we insist on taking him, he might utter a piercing cry that would say, I do not know you; I do not know whether you love babies or not, but I know my mothers love and can trust her. And yet, what does the baby really know of the love of a mother? What does he understand about the reasons behind a mothers love? But he enjoys it nevertheless. And so the youngest saint in Christ knows the love of the Savior, and the most mature saint is seeking to know in greater fullness that love that passeth knowledge.
Oh, the love of Christ is boundless,
Broad and long and deep and high!
Every doubt and fear is groundless,
Now the Word of faith is nigh.
Jesus Christ for our salvation,
Came and shed His precious blood;
Clear we stand from condemnation,
In the risen Son of God.
Then notice the last point in Pauls prayer, That ye might be filled [unto] all the fulness of God (Eph 3:19). This is our enrichment. The King James version, Filled with all the fulness of God, is not totally accurate for you could not hold all the fullness of God. Solomon said, Behold the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee (1Ki 8:27). Yet we read that He dwells in the heart of him that is humble and contrite. Walking by the seaside one time, someone touched on the real meaning of this word. He picked up one of the beautiful seashells and put it down in the sand where the water had ebbed for a moment or two. Then as they watched, the sea came rolling in and the shell was filled, and he said, See! Filled unto all the fullness of the ocean. So you and I as we live in fellowship with God may be filled unto His fullness. We are in Him and He is in us, and thus Pauls prayer is answered.
And now notice the closing wonderful benediction of Pauls prayer: Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think. Does it say Now unto him that is able to do above all we ask? No, that is not enough. Is it, Able to do abundantly above all that we ask? That is not enough. Is it, Able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask? No, still that does not reach the limit. Unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think. You need not fear to come to God about anything.
Are you troubled about present circumstances? Have you availed yourself of the abundant resources of God? If your heart is right with God and you come to Him and make effective use of the power He has for you, you can be sure of a wonderful answer. According to the power that worketh in us-this is the divine energy that works through poor feeble creatures such as we are. Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen. He is the One in whom God will find His pleasure throughout all eternity.
Fuente: Commentaries on the New Testament and Prophets
The Father and the Families
For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named.Eph 3:14-15.
1. There are two great prayers in this Epistle. The first is in the first chapter. It seemed to Paul that the gospel was so wonderful that it was impossible for men to See the glory of it unless they were taught of God, and therefore after his lofty account of Gods purpose to bring the heavens and the earth into an eternal unity in Christ, he tells the Christians at Ephesus that he was continually praying that God would give them a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him, and that the eyes of their heart might be enlightened that they might know the hope to which God had called them, and the glory of his inheritance in the saints. Spiritual illumination is necessary if we are to know the contents of the Christian gospel; for the gospel reveals invisible and eternal things lying far beyond the frontiers of the common thoughts of men.
The second prayer takes another form. Its central idea is strength. Strength is necessary as well as light. We cannot know the gospel unless its glories are divinely revealed to us; and the spiritual energy necessary to receive it and to hold it fast must also come from God.
2. The prayer which he offers here is no less remarkable and unique in his Epistles than the act of praise in chapter 1. Addressing himself to God as the Father of angels and of men, the Apostle asks that He will endow the readers in a manner corresponding to the riches of his gloryin other words, that the gifts He bestows may be worthy of the universal Father, worthy of the august character in which God has now revealed Himself to mankind. According to this measure, St. Paul beseeches for the Church, in the first instance, two gifts, which after all are one,viz., the inward strength of the Holy Spirit (Eph 3:16), and the permanent indwelling of Christ (Eph 3:17). These gifts he asks on his readers behalf with a view to their gaining two further blessings, which are also one,viz., the power to understand the Divine plan (Eph 3:18) as it has been expounded in this letter, and so to know the love of Christ (Eph 3:19). Still, beyond these there rises in the distance a further end for man and the Church: the reception of the entire fulness of God. Human desire and thought thus reach their limit; they grasp at the infinite.
Few of us can fail to have been struck with the solemnity and high tone of this prayer. It may be that some of us have thought that it contained a higher standard of feeling and life than we could hope to reach, and therefore have been tempted to abandon the consideration of it in silence; whilst others, striving to force the feelings which it recommends, have been betrayed into false excitement and unreality. The remedy for both these common cases is a careful consideration of the Apostles petition as a whole. Almost every word is a rich mine of thought, but there is a lesson contained in its general scope which we must carefully observe. It is indeed very spiritual; but it is not the less practical. It is a pattern for the most advanced Christian; but it is a lesson for the weakest believer. We are not to regard it only as an Apostles prayer for the early saints, who lived in days far different from our times. It is a prayer suitable for all ministers of the Gospel, for all times. It shows us what is the object of Church teaching, and therefore points out the state to which all Christians ought to be advancing. The Apostle did not pray for any blessing which his people could not receive; and therefore all he prayed for they were bound to seek. Hence this petition came to the Ephesians not only as an evidence of their pastors love and devotion, but with an implied command.
And so it is now: the prayers of the Church are exhortations to the faithful. For example: when the earnest petition arises from the altar, that this congregation here present may with meek heart and due reverence hear and receive Thy holy word, it is a solemn admonition to cultivate that very meekness and reverence for which we pray. And when the Apostle tells us: For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father that he would grant you according to the riches of his exceeding glory, to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inward man; when he prays that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith, and that we may be skilled in the heavenly wisdom of the love of Christ, as the members of His mystical body should beare not these several petitions so many loving exhortations to us to seek after spiritual strength, to acquire a constant faith, to study Gods attributes, especially His love in the Cross, that love which exceeds all other mysteries and surpasses all other knowledge; and to strive after all the perfection which God requires? The Apostle opens the door of his closet to show all Christian pastors how they should pray for their people; and all Christian people what they should seek for themselves. As in church solemn lessons are conveyed in the services, so here we are admitted into the awful privacy of an Apostle, to learn our duty whilst we catch his fervour. So beautifully is edification always mingled with devotion.1 [Note: J. Armstrong.]
3. The prayer is conveniently divided into four petitions: That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, that ye may be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inward manthat is the first. That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faiththat is the second, the result of the first, and the preparation for the third. That ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be strong to apprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledgethat is the third. And all lead up at last to that wonderful desire beyond which nothing is possiblethat ye may be filled unto all the fulness of God.
I
The Occasion of this Prayer
For this cause.
1. For this cause, says St. Paul, I bow my knees,what is the cause on account of which he bows his knees? In order to ascertain this cause we must look back, first of all, to the beginning of the chapter. The chapter begins with the same words, For this cause I, Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ, for you Gentiles. Then there comes a parenthesis, which continues until the verse immediately preceding our text. Therefore, if we want to find the connexion, we must look at the close of the preceding chapter, where the cause is set forth in language beautifully and expressively instructive. There the Apostle has been speaking of those who were builded together for a habitation of God in the Spirit, of those who, having been previously afar off, had been made nigh by the blood of Christ, who were no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God; he had been speaking of those who were saved by grace through faith, who had been brought into covenant with God through Christ, through whom they had access by one Spirit to the Father; and then he says, for this cause I bow my knees, that is, as if he had said: God hath blessed my ministry to youEphesians; there was a time when you were alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of the promise, having no hope and without God in the world; but the God of all grace has reversed all this, and has now created you anew in Christ Jesus; and for this cause I bow my knees to the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named.
2. There is, however, an immediate and pressing necessity for this prayer, but it is rather implied than expressed. When he wrote this letter and offered this prayer, Paul was a prisoner in Rome, a circumstance which appears to have had a very depressing, if not a staggering effect on the newly-converted brethren at Ephesus. Retaining some of the follies of their former heathenism, they looked upon this calamity as an evil omen, and drew from it strange inferences. A prisoner in Rome, and an ambassador of the King of kings! A favourite of heaven and shut up in gaol! Can it be? Is Christianity of God? Is Paul true? So thought and so reasoned these novices in the Christian faith, as is evidently implied in the words immediately preceding our textWherefore I ask that ye faint not at my tribulations for you, which are your glory. To save them from fainting, and to keep them steadfast in the faith, notwithstanding his imprisonment, he prayed for them. It is occasions that make prayer. We never pray as we ought without having definite cases before our minds, and seeking the Divine help, either for ourselves or others, according to the actual circumstances and the special needs of the time.
These Ephesian Christians have passed away, their city lies in ruins; the heron and the stork wander where once the multitude stood. The hand that wrote these lines has long since mouldered into dust; and yet to-day these words are as fresh and appropriate as when first penned. For the fundamental facts of human need and Divine grace remain through all generations, and are true of all nations. To the English Christians of the twentieth century, who represent the same Gentile Church as the Ephesians of the first, the message of the Apostle is suitable: I bow my knees unto the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, that ye may be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inward man.1 [Note: J. W. Ewing, The Undying Christ, 69.]
II
The Apostles Attitude in Prayer
I bow my knees.
1. I bow my knees. Why is that mentioned? Is not posture a small thing compared with spirit? Why does the Apostle refer to the attitude? It is because of what that attitude meant to him and means to every sincere worshipper. Kneeling is the attitude of humility, of confession, of entreaty, of worship. Some have gone further, and thought that kneeling in prayer is a symbol of mans fallen state, that he can no longer stand erect before God, but is broken and crushed in the presence of Jehovah. Certainly, kneeling is the natural position of man before the Almighty and All-Holy Creator. The holiest and highest of men have approached God thus. Solomon, the greatest, except David, of all Jewish kings, upon the day of the dedication of the Temple, knelt down before all his people and presented his prayer to God. Ezra, the priest, on receiving news of the peoples sin tells us: I fell upon my knees, and spread out my hands unto the Lord my God. Daniel, the prophet, when, in the city of idolatry, he heard of the decree forbidding prayer, except to the king, for thirty days, went into his house and kneeled upon his knees as before.
But we have still higher authority; for did not Jesus, in the Garden of Gethsemane, withdraw Himself from His disciples a stones throw and kneel down and pray? And, after Jesus, what a line of menthe greatest, the purest, the tenderestwe see kneeling in prayer. Stephen, with that stony rain beating out his life, kneels down and cries with a loud voice: Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. Peter, when Dorcas is dead, kneels down and prays for her restoration. And Paul, when bidding farewell to the elders of this very Church, knelt down on the seashore and poured out his heart to God for those he was leaving. Evidently it was the habit of his life.
I was touched by reading yesterday morning of Bishop Latimer, the martyr, that towards the end of his life he used to spend so much time kneeling in prayer that he had to be assisted to rise. He forgot his troubles when pouring out his soul before God. Robert McCheyne spent a large part of his time in prayer. As he said: Prayer is the link between earth and Heaven. These men stooped to conquer, knelt to prevail, humbled themselves that Christ might be exalted. I pity the man or the nation that knows not how to kneel in prayer to God.1 [Note: J. W. Ewing, The Undying Christ, 71.]
2. Yet no one could be less inclined than Paul to place any emphasis on any possible amount or variety of genuflexion. He knelt, but in assuming that attitude, and in mentioning it, he only gave expression to the humility, the reverence, the earnestness, the concentration of his spirit in devotion. Prayer lies in the heart only, but the words, the attitude, the place, the time, have all their influences directly or indirectly on our heart. We all kneel in private, and no doubt find the attitude helpful, at least to the fixedness of our attention on the work professedly in hand. Would not kneeling in public be equally helpful, and would not its general practice be as seemly as it would be helpful? But, whatever the attitude, let us not forget that the spirit fairly indicated by the Apostles expression, I bow my knees, is essential to the validity of prayer.
The old customary, seemly attitude in prayer was standing. So Jesus said when He described the penitent publican, He stood afar off and prayed; so when He commanded His disciples and said: When ye stand praying, forgive! So in the godly fear of our fathers I still remember the awe that seized me as a boy when the whole great congregation rose to its feet in prayer, when the feeble old man and the frail man lifted their worn faces uncovered in speechless reverence to the eternal light which descended and suffused them with a glory which makes the burnished nimbus with which the painter ever loved to decorate his saint seem tame and tawdry. So when the subject enters the presence of his sovereign he stands, and in the very act and attitude of his homage shows that he is a free-born citizen conscious of his dignity.
But prayer is too large and masterful a thing to be capable of being expressed in any single attitude. There are moments when collective worship is beautiful and seemly, and there are moments when a man is overpowered with a transcendent need and is forced to his knees. The man who is dazzled with excess of light finds that he lives and looks through a medium of vision too perfect for his dim eyes. So the man who for a moment is possessed by a great vision, or is conscious of a great need, may as it were be swept from his feet into the attitude of a suppliant before God. The year when I first entered the University was a year when the most learned of all Scottish thinkers died and passed away. As I saw him he was a frail and shrinking shadow, scarcely equal to the humblest act of articulation, yet round the benches the whisper passed that in strong manhood, when first he came to his Chair and wrestled with the problems of metaphysics, and seemed now and then to wrestle in vain, there would come such a torrent of passion and of intellectual conflict in him, that he would leap from his desk and away from his papers and fall prone before God, that light might come and he might, see.1 [Note: A. M. Fairbairn.]
Brother Lawrence told me that it was a great delusion to think that the times of prayer ought to differ from other times: that we were as strictly obliged to adhere to God by action in the time of action as by prayer in its season. His view of prayer was nothing else but a sense of the Presence of God, his soul being at that time insensible to everything but Divine Love. When the appointed time of prayer was past, he found no difference, because he still continued with God, praising and blessing Him with all his might, so he passed his life in continual joy; yet hoped that God would give him somewhat to suffer, when he should have grown stronger.2 [Note: Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God, 21.]
III
The Father
I bow my knees unto the Father.
1. St. Paul says that he offered his prayer to the Father. He did not address a material image, a creation of his own fancy, a power, or even the Divine totality of being. He prayed to a Person. With St. Paul prayer was mind addressing mind; heart pleading with heart.
Madame Blavatsky, the founder of modern Theosophy, was asked: Do you pray? No, she replied, we do not pray; the only Deity we know is an abstraction. We have no time to kneel to an abstraction.1 [Note: J. W. Ewing, The Undying Christ, 71.]
2. The Authorized Version has an addition which we may well wish we could retain. Unto the Father of our lord Jesus Christ. There is something peculiarly tender and winning about this title of God. God is brought very near to us as the Father of Jesus. And we can still cherish that beautiful title, for it is used in several other places.
All nations, all men, who have cultivated religion, have given names and titles to God, in which they have expressed and embodied as well as they could their most exalted ideas concerning God. So the Jew called upon the God of his fathers by the name of Yahveh (Jehovah); and in that name called to mind a whole world of plighted troth, of faithfulness and tenderness. So the Moslem, as he tells his beads, recites the names of God, and passes into a kind of ecstasy as he recalls one by one the lofty titles of the beneficence and power of Allah. St. Paul, like all other Christians since, had no personal name for the God whom he adored, no long string of loud-sounding titles. You will not find in the New Testament any mention made of the Supreme Being, of the First Great Cause, of the Architect of the Universe, or anything else in that line. For St. Paul, and for us, God is simply and for ever the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is hardly too much to say, that is all we know, and all we want to know, of Him.
(1) The Father of our Lord Jesus Christ means the Father of our Lords teaching, of those good tidings which He came to bring home to our minds and hearts. That is quite good grammar, and quite good theology. It is (most emphatically) the Father of our Lords discourses and parables; it is the Father of the Prodigal Son, who went forth to meet him while he was yet a long way off, and fell on his neck and kissed him; it is the Father of whom our Lord testified, I say not unto you that I will pray for you, for the Father himself loveth you; it is He alone to whom we bow our knees, because we cannot help it, because His goodness and patience and amazing love are too much for us, because they have tamed our pride and broken down our obstinacy, and shamed us out of our indifference; and now we bow our knees to Him in adoring love, even if we have to add, Father, I have sinned, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.
There are many people nowadays who claim to know the Father, and in the strength of that knowledge they reject the Saviour, reject the Bible, reject Christianity. Yet it remains absolutely true that the New Testament is the one and only book that ever told them anything worth knowing about the Father; it is a fact that the Father to whom they bow their knees (if, indeed, they ever bow them at all) belongs exclusively to our Lord Jesus Christ. He alone knew Him; He alone revealed Him. Even they have to come to the Father by Christ: as a matter of history, as a matter of fact; there is no other way. And so their position is this: they embrace with effusion the one great and glorious revelation of the Book, and then they throw the Book aside with contempt; they acknowledge with enthusiasm the Father whom Christ (and only Christ) declared unto them, and then they dismiss Christ with scant courtesy.1 [Note: R. Winterbotham.]
(2) In the second place, it is impossible to doubt (if we believe Himself) that the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ means more than the Father of His discourses, of His gospel. There was an ineffable relationship, a mysterious unity, between our Lord Jesus Christ and the Father, which is as strongly marked in His own words as in any creeds which have been made since. Whatever fault may be found with those creeds, they do not assert more strongly than He did Himself a oneness with the Father which passes mans understanding; which, assuredly, it had been impossible for any other, and intolerable in any other to assert.
If we understand that He is indeed the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ in such wise that there is absolutely no difference or inequality; that such as the Son is in the Gospels, such is the Father also above us, and such the Holy Spirit within us; even so good, so loving, so pitiful, so faithful and true, so unyielding in the face of wrong, so careful for His own, so just and right in all His ways, so compassionate to error, so grieved for sufferers, so sorrowful for sin even unto death; if we understand this, I say, then we believe our Lords saying, He that hath seen me hath seen the Father (and cannot possibly be mistaken concerning Him), and we bow our knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ with the most joyful and complete assurance.1 [Note: R. Winterbotham.]
Trust My Father, saith the Eldest-born;
I did trust Him ere the earth began;
Not to know Him is to be forlorn;
Not to love Him isnot to be man.
He that knows Him loves Him altogether;
With My Father I am so content
That through all this dreary human weather
I am working, waiting, confident.
He is with Me; I am not alone;
Life is bliss, because I am His child;
Down in Hades will I lay the stone
Whence shall rise to Heaven His city piled.
Hearken, brothers, pray you, to my story!
Hear Me, sister; hearken, child, to Me:
Our one Father is a perfect glory;
He is light, and there is none but He.
Come then with Me; I will lead the way;
All of you, sore-hearted, heavy-shod,
Come to Father, yours and mine, I pray;
Little ones, I pray you, come to God!2 [Note: George MacDonald.]
3. When St. Paul said, I call upon the Father, he was not saying a truism; he was striking the note that was distinctive of Christianity. He was saying the very central thing which Christ, our Master, came into the world to say. I call upon the Father. What does it mean, this belief that God is our Father? We are in the hands of a great power. No one can be such a fool as to think that man is independent. We are in the hands of a vast and universal power on which moment by moment we depend, as for our life originally, so, moment by moment, for the breath we breathe. What is this power? Is it blind force? The Jew alone of all the races was taught to believe that the power which lay behind him was righteousness, and that God was just and righteous; so it was that he set to work to build up the foundations of human societybecause he believed that God was righteous, and all this our Lord maintained and deepened. He deepened it into the belief that God was a Father.
(1) That means, first of all, that God is love, that behind all the suffering, the misery, the inequality, and the injustice which confront us in this wild and irregular scene of human life, there beats always and everywhere the heart of a Father, the heart of a personal and impartial love. You ask how it was that Christ persuaded men of this truth. It was because of what He was. It was because He was a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. If some bright angel had come down from heaven with all the glory of miracles, and had flown to the earth and had proclaimed in a voice of thunder and with works of wonder that God was love, we might have shaken our heads and said, It is all very curious and mysterious, and it is a very nice thing to listen to, but I know better. Our Lord persuaded men that God was love because He came a man among men, hiding not Himself from His own flesh, moving among men in free and open contact, bearing mens sicknesses and carrying their infirmities; because He went down Himself into the dark valley of failure and suffering; because He bore all the pains of body, all the racking agonies of mind, all the mysterious sense of failure and desolation, that, generation after generation, have turned philanthropists into cynics and made them mad; all the human history that has lain behind that bitter cry of righteous men forsakenthat cry which we hear in the Psalm, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?those words which rang out of the lips of Christ on the Cross.
In our great cities we seem as if we were lost in a crowd. What am I but a tiny little element in some vast human machine that sweeps along in the sway of great forces which move from one end of the industrial world to another and seem to annihilate any sense of the individuality of a single life? It is crushed under the great forces which rush along. So even the old Jew could feel years ago in the Book of Ecclesiasticus, where the writer says: Say not thou, I shall be hidden from the Lord; and who shall remember me from on high? I shall not be known among so many people; for what is my soul in a boundless creation? We feel it even more in our modern time, but the assurance of Christ is that it is not true; that there is no one of us lost in the crowd; that there is no one of us created by accident; that we were not turned out in hundreds or in thousands or in nations, that we were created individuals, that God is the Father of each and all; and that behind all the seeming inequalities of position and comfort there is the perfect rectifying justice and equality of God. I believe that God is my Father. That means that He knows all my circumstances, that He values me, not in proportion to my performance, but in proportion to how much I am tried; because, to keep my temper, if I am naturally an angry man, is worth in His sight ten thousand times more than to keep my temper if I am naturally an amiable person without a bad temper to contend with. He knows my circumstances. He knows me and cares about me with the infinite knowledge of the Creator and the Father of everything that goes to make the individuality of my lot, which means the individual love of God.1 [Note: Bishop Gore.]
(2) And then, the Fatherhood of God, St. Paul says, is the pattern and source of every fatherhood in heaven, and on earth. It means that God rules by a method of fatherhood. Men are set in groups and societies, and each group and society has one at the head of it, and the model of government is to be fatherhood. So it is in the family, and Christian civilization depends upon maintaining the sanctity and the dignity of the family. To believe in the Fatherhood of God is to set to work to be a good father, a good head of a household in our own families.
The other day I had occasion to find out, in very large works, about a great mass of very intelligent men who were workers there, that they were very unwilling that their wives should know how much money they were getting. I thought that was a very bad sign. There can be no sound and healthy married life where the wife does not know what money the husband is getting, because there can be no confidence; there can be nothing of that confidence of heart to heart, that real unity of life, that real fellowship and co-operation which means complete trust; and you know we have a great job to-day if we are to restore home life to its proper sanctity and dignity.1 [Note: Bishop Gore.]
Now, look for a moment how the small families of the earth are all made after the fashion of the heavenly family. Did it ever occur to yousurely it mustthat Gods invention of the family in this world is just to compel our thoughts to rise up to the great Father, and to recognize the great family? Love is the secret of God; love is the creative power. It is symbolized in birth. See how the child comes into the world, dependent on the mother. See how the child has no notion of bliss but in the mothers arms, surrounded with the protection of those arms, looking up into the heaven of her face, reading the infinite in her eyes. The child, I say, is compelled to love the mother. He cannot help himself. Of course, there is the faculty of loving in the child, or else he could not love. It is his Divine nature; he is born of love, and he is love; but it can be brought out only in this waythat he shall, through helplessness, passivity in bliss, feeding on the very body of the mother that bare him, seeking the shelter of her bosom at every dread or anxiety or fear that comes upon him, learn that there is an overshadowing, an upholding love, and that love is his very servant, and, I had almost said, Slave. Surely there is no servant in His house like God Himself, for He does everything for His little ones.2 [Note: George MacDonald.]
IV
The Families
Every family, in heaven and on earth.
1. I bow my knees unto the Father, from whom [not the whole family, but] every family in heaven and on earth is named. The point of St. Pauls original phrase is somewhat lost in translation. The Greek word for family (patria) is based on that for father (pater). A distinguished father anciently gave his name to his descendants; and this paternal name became the bond of family or tribal union, and the title which ennobled the race. So we have the sons of Israel, the sons of Aaron or of Korah; and in Greek history, the Atridae, the Alcaemonidae, who form a family of many kindred householdsa clan, or gens, designated by their ancestral head. Thus Joseph (in Luk 2:4) is described as being of the house and family [patria] of David; and Jesus is the Son of David. Now Scripture speaks also of sons of God, and these of two chief orders. There are those in heaven, who form a race distinct from ourselves in origindivided, it may be, amongst themselves into various orders and dwelling in their several homes in the heavenly places, and there are those on earth.
The various classes of men on earth, Jewish and Gentile, and the various orders of angels in heaven, are all related to God, the common Father, and only in virtue of that relation has any of them the name of family. The father makes the family; God is the Father of all; and if any community of intelligent beings, human or angelic, bears the great name of family, the reason for that lies in this relation of God to it. The significant name has its origin in the spiritual relationship.
This great and noble conception of the unity of heaven and earth in God is characteristic of that form of Christian theology which is illustrated in this Epistle and in the Epistle to the Colossians. It appears elsewhere; but in these two Epistles, which were written about the same time, it is developed with extraordinary boldness and with a vehement and glorious eloquence. As yet, according to Pauls conception, the Divine idea is unfulfilled. Its orderly development has been troubled, thwarted, and delayed by sin, by sin in this world and in other worlds. But it will be fulfilled at last. In Christ were all things created, in the heavens and upon the earth, things visible and things invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things have been created through him, and unto him; and in union with Christ, the eternal Son of God, heaven and earth will be restored to the eternal Father.
During this tour in England (in 1894) Dr. Paton was invited by the Bishop of Durhamthe late Bishop Westcottto visit him at Auckland Castle. Both of the men of God who then met are gone, and we can speak more freely of the event. The Bishop received his Presbyterian brother as whole-heartedly as if he had been one of his own clergy. The missionary on his part was profoundly moved by the visit, and told his friend subsequently how the Bishop had led him away to his study, and there discussed, with evident eagerness of soul, the progress and hopes of the evangelization of the heathen in the South Sea Islands and in the world. Then they knelt together before Godthose two warriors who, in such different fields and circumstances, had fought their great fight and well-nigh finished their course. They recognized that they were one in heart and purpose, and each poured out his soul in fervent petition for the other, and for the bringing in of the Kingdom of God.1 [Note: John G. Paton, iii. 52.]
Painful as it is to witness the ineffectual yearnings after unity on all hands of which you speak, still it is hopeful also. We may hope that our good God has not put it into the hearts of religious men to raise a prayer for unity without intending in His own time to fulfil the prayer. And since the bar against unity is a conscientious feeling, and a reverence for which each party holds itself to be the truth, and a desire to maintain the faith, we may humbly hope that in our day, and till He discloses to the hearts of men what the true faith is, He will, where hearts are honest, take the will for the deed.2 [Note: Cardinal Newman, in Life of David Brown, 239.]
2. The Greek words can grammatically mean only every family not the whole family. All such ideas, therefore, as that angels and men, or the blessed in heaven and the believing on earth, are in view as now making one great family, are excluded. The sense is the Father, from whom all the related orders of intelligent beings, human and angelic, each by itself, get the significant name of family.
In the Epistle to the Ephesians, St. Paul lays open a vision of the spiritual origins and influences and issues of things temporal and confirms the truth which lies in the bold surmise of the poet that earth is in some sense a shadow of heaven. Now he sees in the future of the material Temple with its wall of partition a figure of the state of the world before the Advent, and then passes to the contemplation of its living antitype, built on the foundation of apostles and prophets with Christ for its head corner-stone. Now he traces in the organization of the natural body the pattern of a glorious society fitly framed together by the ministries of every part, and guided by the animating energy of a Divine Head. Now he shows how through the experience of the Church on earth the manifold wisdom of God is made known to the heavenly hierarchy. Now he declares that marriage, in which the distinctive gifts and graces of divided humanity are brought together in harmonious fellowship, is a sign, a sacrament, in his own language, of that perfect union in which the Incarnate Word takes to Himself His Bride, the first-fruits of creation. And so in the paragraph where the text occurs he touches with thankful exultation on the universality of the Gospel, by which the many races of men, Jews and Gentilesthe people and the nationsare reunited, and the purpose of God in the education of the world is at last made clear.
Not in one line but in many; not through a calm, uninterrupted growth but in sorrow and tribulation men were trained in the pastthis is his thoughtto receive the crowning truth, and justified their training by their faith. By the help of that most signal example we can see how every ordered commonwealth, every bond of kinsmanship, owes its strength to a Divine presence. From the one Father, every fatherhood, every family through which the grace of fatherhood is embodied, derives its essential virtue.1 [Note: B. F. Westcott, The Incarnation and Common Life, 161.]
3. Family relationship is therefore a very sacred thing, its root being not in the creation, but in God. And though we shall not find on earth any development worthy of its holy root, nevertheless the flower which fills the world with choicest fragrance is family affection. It is capable of becoming most heavenly, since the Eternal Father is Himself the spring of parental as His Eternal Son is of filial love. Therefore, also, family affections are capable of ceaseless cultivation. There is nothing to hinder family love from becoming evermore deeper, stronger, and lovelier. If it is so strong and so precious among fallen creatures, what must it be among the perfect? If family life on the earth gives rise, as it often does, to a very paradise of courtesies and tender sanctities, what must family life be in the immediate Presence, and under the direct influence, of the Infinite Father and His only begotten Son? Christian parents and their children should know, therefore, that in their families they have not a little world, but a little heaven, to cultivate. Their families derive their distinctions and peculiarities from relations in the Godhead. Their families have names not only in time, but in eternity. Every family in Christ is named according to its distinction, as a manifestation of a corresponding variety in the Divine Nature.
(1) The family is a kingdom.It is not of our design. It is not of our making. It is not of our choosing. It is not dependent on our pleasure for its continuance. When complete it includes each typical relation of society, the relation of command, of obedience, of fellowship. The members of a family in simple intercourse learn, however imperfectly, the duty of service. The feeling of the family conquers self. It is enough to appeal to the experience of home to refute the cynical assertion that personal interest is mans single or strongest motive. In the family the tenderest affection, the most watchful care, the largest forethought, are lavished, not on the strongest or the most helpful, but rather on the most helpless and weak, who can make no measureable return to their comforters. In the family, need is taken as the measure of help, and a principle is spontaneously acknowledged which in its widest application would be adequate to deal with the sorrows of the world.
On no subject has human thought more centred than upon the family. There is nothing more important in our entire social life. For a nation will not be better than its homes. Christianity did not invent the family or marriage, but it has been probably the greatest agency in giving ideals to the home. This is all the more remarkable when one recalls that Jesus was not married, and that so much of the New Testament literature was written by Paul who, like his Master, had no home. But how incomplete would the gospel be without the figures drawn from fatherhood, sonship, marriage, and childhood! The more one reads the New Testament the more does one feel how sacred the family is, because it so often serves as a symbol of the relations of the Church with Christ. When the New Testament writers wish to express the very closest and holiest union of believers with their Lord it is to the family that they turn for symbols.1 [Note: Shailer Mathews, The Social Gospel, 35.]
(2) The family is also a school, a school of character. The outer school cannot mould the whole of mans nature. Character is shaped by action and not by words. What has been learnt by memory must be tested and embodied by experience. Under one aspect the outer school stimulates new and importunate wants, while the home is fitted to bring that social discipline which checks the selfish endeavour to satisfy them. At the same time the school offers new interests which may brighten home. Out of the home, too, must spring the spirit of purity. For home has its own proper warnings when the occasion comes. The knowledge of the elder may guard the innocent from falling; and the young have no better earthly safeguard than to carry with them the thought of mother or sister as the witness of all they do or say or think.
In September I saw a tree bearing roses, whilst others of the same kind, round about it, were barren; demanding the cause of the gardener, why that tree was an exception from the rule of the rest, this reason was rendered: because that alone being clipped close in May, was then hindered to spring and sprout, and therefore took this advantage by itself to bud in autumn. Lord, if I were curbed and snipped in my younger years by fear of my parents, from those vicious excrescences to which that age was subject, give me to have a godly jealousy over my heart, suspecting an autumn-spring, lest corrupt nature (which without Thy restraining grace will have a vent) break forth in my reduced years into youthful vanities.1 [Note: Thomas Fuller, Good Thoughts in Worse Times.]
Ah! not to be happy alone,
Are men sent, or to be glad.
Oft-times the sweetest music is made
By the voices of the sad.
The thinker oft is bent
By a too-great load of thought;
The discoverers soul grows sick
With the secret vainly sought:
Lonely may be the home,
No breath of fame may come,
Yet through their lives doth shine
A purple light Divine,
And a nobler pain they prove
Than the bloom of lower pleasures, or the fleeting spell of love.2 [Note: Sir Lewis Morris, Songs of Two Worlds (Works, 68).]
(3) The family becomes also a sanctuary.The splendour of palaces does not secure innocence and holiness within their walls, but a sense of the presence of God does. Where God is welcomed as a guest there an atmosphere of sanctity is diffused around. A witness whose experience is unsurpassed writes: I know numbers of the prettiest, happiest little homes which consist of a single room. We ask then that His hallowing Presence should be habitually sought. We ask that daily bread should be received with some simple words of blessing; that work and rest should be consecrated by some simple words of prayer and praise. In these observances there is nothing forced or unnatural; nothing which is not possible under the commonest outward circumstances; nothing which does not answer to the promptings of the human heart. And for the fulfilment of this desire we claim womans help. There is a message even for the present age in the fact emphatically recorded by St. John, that a woman was divinely charged to be the first herald of the Resurrection, the herald of the new life.
The need of England, the need of every land, is good mothers. If they fail, it is not for lack of womanly endowments in those who are called to fulfil the duty. Poor and desolate outcasts, whom we are tempted to place lowest, are capable of every sacrifice to shield their children from bodily suffering or loss. Let them only feel, and let mothers of every class feel, that there are sicknesses of the soul which require the ministries of wise and tender affection, spiritual perils which need to be guarded against by watchful forethought, desires of the heart which crave the fullness of more than human love, and we shall be brought near to the consummation of our daily prayer in the advent of the Kingdom of God.1 [Note: B. F. Westcott, The Incarnation and Common Life, 168.]
Father Endeavour Clark, as the founder of the Christian Endeavour movement is sometimes called, tells the story of a mother, whose family is as remarkable in its influence as that of the Crossleys of Halifax. This is the Murray family of Graaf Reinet, in South Africa. The father of the family, Andrew Murray the first, was a young Scotch missionary. He wooed and won a Dutch girl of Huguenot extraction, and carried her off, a bride of sixteen years, to his parsonage at Graaf Reinet. She became the mother of seventeen children, twelve of whom lived to grow up to bless the world. From them three hundred and four descendants have sprung (including those who have married into the family). The total number of ministers in the family, either directly or by marriage, is forty-two. Three are now studying for the ministry, six are missionaries in Central Africa, four others are in Mashonaland and the Transvaal, and three in Nyassaland. Three grandsons are in the South African Parliament. Of the original family, five sons were ministers, and the daughters wives of pastors and heads of educational establishments; the most well known, outside of South Africa, by his writings, being the beloved Andrew Murray, his fathers namesake. The influence of the whole family in South Africa is incalculable. Never, says Dr. Clark, were children more fortunate in their mother. Hers was one of those sweet, persuasive natures which mould and guide and bless, without seeming to know it themselves, certainly without conscious effort. When asked, How did you bring up such a wonderful family? she replied, Oh, I do not know; I didnt do anything. But every one else knew if she did not. She just lived herself the life she wanted her boys and girls to live. Her life was hid with Christ in God; and they, through her, saw the beauty of holiness. Her chief characteristic, said one of her children, was a happy contentment with her lot. She was always exactly where she wished to be, because she was where her Father in heaven had placed her. She outlived her husband by many years. It was felt that her serenity and gentleness and loveliness of character came not a little from the hours of long communion when she looked into the Face of the Invisible, and thus learned to endure as seeing Him.1 [Note: H. S. Dyer, The Ideal Christian Home, 77.]
No clever, brilliant thinker she,
With college record and degree;
She has not known the paths of fame;
The world has never heard her name;
She walks in old long-trodden ways,
The valleys of the yesterdays.
Home is her kingdom, love her dower;
She seeks no other wand of power
To make home sweet, bring heaven near,
To win a smile and wipe a tear
And do her duty day by day,
In her own quiet place and way.
Around her childish hearts are twined,
As round some reverend saint enshrined,
And following hers the childish feet
Are led to ideals true and sweet,
And find all purity and good
In her divinest motherhood.
She keeps her faith unshadowed still;
God rules the world in good and ill;
Men in her creed are brave and true
And women pure as pearls of dew,
And life for her is high and grand
By work and glad endeavour spanned.
This sad old earths a brighter place
All for the sunshine of her face;
Her very smile a blessing throws,
And hearts are happier where she goes;
A gentle, clear-eyed messenger,
To whisper lovethank God for her!1 [Note: L. M. Montgomery.]
4. What a solace to our hearts is the assurance that we shall never cease to be members of a family! The perfection of the great heavenly Household is that it is a Household of households. We are born into a family, we grow up in a family, we die in a family, and after death, we shall not simply go into the great heaven, but to our own family, in our Fathers House. Abraham gave up the ghost, and was gathered to his people. Thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace, God had said to him. All in heaven will not know us, but our own people will know us. We shall go to them.
We are but babes in the household of God; and, moreover, we are in a very humble part of His House, rather in an adjoining house than in the very House. But we are loved as babes, by our numerous kindred; and quite as much by our own in heaven as by our own on earth. The sweet affections of our heavenly kindred are ever seeking to reveal themselves in our hearts. What are our family altars but means of communication between families on earth and families in heaven? They unite with us in saying, Our Father. And in the joy of our fellowship with Him, and with His Son Jesus Christ, they joy with us.2 [Note: J. Pulsford, Christ and His Seed, 110.]
The two communities of earth and heaven are united. They, as we, live by derivation of the one life; they, as we, are fed and Messed by the one Lord. The occupations and thoughts of Christian life on earth and of the perfect life of saints above are one. They look to Christ as we do, when we live as Christians, though the sun, which is the light of both regions, shows there a broader disc, and pours forth more fervid rays, and is never obscured by clouds, nor ever sets in night. Whether conscious of us or not, they are doing there, in perfect fashion, what we imperfectly attempt, and partially accomplish.1 [Note: A. Maclaren.]
5. But the members of families on the earth should see to it that they are members of the Household of God. Let there be no doubt touching their union with Christ, the First-born Son. Let them have clear evidence that they are born again, and partakers of the Divine Nature. Members of Christian families who are not personally in Christ should lay it to heart that they are not as yet members of any heavenly household, and that they will be separated from their own families, unless they enter in at the door of grace, while they may. Has the door been opened in vain? We have been resting in the affections of our parents and enjoying the comforts of their house; but are we with them in Christ, and members with them of their eternal family?
In one sense, and that a very important one, every family with all its members has God for its Father, for He made all and upholds all; and the thought should be a welcome one, that we share His love with all the world, and yet our own share in His love and His care is none the less, and that the family of God is made up of those who are loved by Him. But there is more than thisthe admission into His family implies for us the recovery of a lost privilege. Sin separated and banished us, made us as though we were not Gods children, and unwilling to accept the love and the care and the will of God; we needed to be made the Sons of God again, and here came a provision of the Fatherly care which made the limits of the Family as wide as ever; the barrier of enmity was broken down by the great Sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Since He died, it is now, not indeed, every one upon earth, but whosoever willevery one who feels that he would be a child of God. As many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God.
That we might know Him, Thou didst come and live;
That we might find Him, Thou didst come and die;
The son-heart, Brother, Thy son-being give
We too would love the Father perfectly,
And to His bosom go back with the cry,
Father, into Thy hands I give the heart
Which left Thee but to learn how good Thou art!
There are but two in all the universe
The Father and His childrennot a third;
Nor, all the weary time, fell any curse!
Not once dropped from its nest an unfledged bird
But Thou wast with it! Never sorrow stirred
But a love-pull it was upon the chain
That draws the children to the Father again!
O Jesus Christ, babe, man, eternal Son,
Take pity! we are poor where Thou art rich:
Our hearts are small; and yet there is not one
In all Thy Fathers noisy nursery which,
Merry, or mourning in its narrow niche,
Needs not Thy Fathers heart, this very now,
With all his beings being, even as Thou!1 [Note: George MacDonald, Poetical Works, ii. 335.]
The Father and the Families
Literature
Baring-Gould (S.), Our Parish Church, 129.
Boyd (A. K. H.), Sunday Afternoons in a University City, 279.
Brown (J. B.), The Home, 217.
Brown (J. B.), The Home Life, 288.
Chadwick (W. E.), Social Relationships in the Light of Christianity, 173.
Clarke (J. E.), Common-Life Sermons, 29, 52.
Ewing (J. W.), The Undying Christ, 68.
Harris (H.), Short Sermons, 268.
Hull (E. L.), Sermons, i. 121.
Laird (J.), Memorials, 167.
Maclaren (A.), Expositions: Epistle to the Ephesians, 128.
Magee (W. C.), Sermons (Contemporary Pulpit Library), i. 73.
Pulsford (J.), Christ and His Seed, 106.
Ridgeway (C. J.), Social Life, 103.
Robertson (F. W.), Sermons, iii. 181.
Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xxii. No. 1309.
Spurgeon (C. H.), My Sermon Notes, iv. 272.
Vaughan (C. J.), Authorized or Revised? 315.
Westcott (B. F.), Social Aspects of Christianity, 19.
Westcott (B. F.), The Incarnation and Common Life, 161.
Christian World Pulpit, xl. 233 (MacDonald); lviii. 19 (Fairbairn); lxxiv. 241 (Gore).
Churchmans Pulpit: Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity, xii. 201 (Armstrong), 214 (Kempthorne), 216 (Heber).
Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible
I: Eph 1:16-19, 1Ki 8:54, 1Ki 19:18, 2Ch 6:13, Ezr 9:5, Psa 95:6, Isa 45:23, Dan 6:10, Luk 22:41, Act 7:60, Act 9:40, Act 20:36, Act 21:5
the Father: Eph 1:3
Reciprocal: Gen 4:26 – Enos 1Ki 18:36 – Lord God Psa 72:17 – his name Mic 6:6 – bow Zec 14:9 – and Mat 6:6 – pray Mar 1:40 – kneeling Joh 4:21 – worship Joh 14:1 – ye Joh 14:13 – in my Joh 16:23 – Whatsoever Act 6:4 – prayer Rom 1:9 – I make 1Co 8:6 – one God 2Co 11:31 – God Eph 2:18 – the Phi 2:10 – every Col 1:3 – praying Col 1:9 – that ye 2Th 1:11 – we pray 1Pe 1:17 – call
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
(Eph 3:14.) -For this cause I bow my knees. The attitude, which Kant has ventured to call einen knechtischen (servile) Orientalismus, is described instead of the act, or, as Calvin says-a signo rem denotat. The phrase is followed here by -but by a simple dative in Rom 11:4; while has an accusative in Mat 17:14; Mar 1:40; Mar 10:17. This compound and represent in the Septuagint the Hebrew , H4156. The posture is the instinctive expression of homage, humility, and petition: the suppliant offers his worship and entreaty on bended knee. 2Ch 6:13; Psa 95:6; Luk 22:41; Act 7:60; Act 9:40; Act 20:36; Act 21:5. See Suicer’s Thesaurus, sub voce . He does not simply say, I pray, adds Chrysostom- . is repeated from Eph 3:1, Because ye are inbuilt in the spiritual temple. I bow my knees-
-toward the Father. Winer, 49, h. The genitives, , of the common text are pronounced by many critics to be spurious. That there was an early variation of reading is evident from Jerome’s note-non ut in Latinis codicibus additum est, ad Patrem Domini nostri Jesu Christi, sed simpliciter ad Patrem, legendum. The words are wanting in A, B, C, and some of the Patristic citations, are omitted by Lachmann and Tischendorf, and rejected by Rckert, Harless, Olshausen, Meyer, Stier, Ellicott, and Alford. In this opinion we are now inclined to concur. Still the words are found in other Codices, and those of no mean authority, such as D, E, F, G, I, K, etc. They occur, too, in the Syriac and Vulgate, are not disowned by the Greek fathers Chrysostom and Theodoret, and they are retained by Knapp, Scholz, Tittmann, and Hahn, and vindicated by de Wette. The evidence for them is strong, but not conclusive. They may have been interpolated from the common formula, and their insertion weakens the rhythmical connection between and the following . The question is yet somewhat doubtful. The object of Paul’s prayer is the Father-the universal Father-
Fuente: Commentary on the Greek Text of Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians and Phillipians
Eph 3:14. For this cause. This phrase is commented upon at length in the first verse of the chapter; please read that again. The apostle now proceeds to tell what he will do on the basis of the wonderful story of Jesus as just described in the foregoing verses. Bow my knees is mentioned incidentally as far as the posture of the body is concerned. We know it is not intended as a binding example for general practice, thus disfavoring other positions of the body while in prayer. Such a theory would contradict too many instances where prayer was offered while in some other position, and where the prayer is recorded in a favorable connection. In Mat 26:39 Jesus “fell on his face” and prayed; the publican’s prayer was acceptable though he prayed “standing” in Luk 18:13; Jesus gave thanks while sitting (Luk 22:14-17). The validity of prayer depends upon the condition of the heart and not the position of the body; a hypocrite could pray as well in one position as another. God is again called the Father of Christ, which disproves the foolish notion that God and Christ are the same person.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Eph 3:14. For this cause. On the resumption and connection, see last section.
I bow my knees. So Php 2:10. The full form is rhetorical. The reference is not to the actual bending of the knees, but to his earnest prayer.
Unto the Father. God the Father, so in chaps. Eph 2:18; Eph 5:20; Col 1:12, without any added phrase, since the words of our Lord Jesus Christ are not found in the oldest and best manuscripts, are rejected expressly by some of the Fathers, and by nearly every modern editor of any critical judgment. The grand thought of the passage is obscured by the insertion.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Section 3. (Eph 3:14-21.)
Christ abiding in the heart by faith, we are filled into all the fulness of God.
This closes in a prayer which has been often compared with the prayer in the first chapter, a comparison which is much in the way of contrast also. He is in earnest for that for which he prays. The expression “I bow my knees” evidently intimates that. The whole body, as it were, witnesses to that earnest desire which is filling his soul and which he addresses now, not to “the God of our Lord Jesus Christ,” not to God in that character, but to “the Father of our Lord.” The prayer has to do, not as before, with the knowledge which he would have the saints have of the extent of their blessing. That has been gone through, and now he desires that they should be filled with the affections suited to those to whom God has drawn near after this manner; but still he contemplates what we have just seen, this purpose of God fulfilled in the saints as having to do with “every family in heaven and on earth.” Of Him, he says, of the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, every such family is named. It should not be “all the family” as in the common version, which destroys the very distinctions which the apostle means to emphasize here, distinctions which only make the unity of blessing which he has before him here, the more distinct and beautiful. Angels and men, to speak of no more, are different families, at first sight, far enough apart. The angels “who excel in strength” are manifestly of a higher order naturally than man is man who has been united to the dust of the earth, that pride may be hidden from him; yet when we realize what divine grace has done, this human family appears in a very different character. Christ has come into relationship with these in a way that He has not to the angels. “He layeth not hold of angels, but of the seed of Abraham He layeth hold” (Heb 2:16). Thus men have a part in Christ that no angels can lay claim to. The work done for them, though their sins necessitated it, has been done for no other. It is a Man who is on the Father’s throne, and not an angel. Divine grace, in the very fact of taking up the lowest of God’s spiritual creatures, has manifested itself only the more, and this, too, necessitates the highest place of blessing for them. But are the angels passed over then in this? Have the other families of God been forgotten? It is clear that what the apostle has already said shows that this is not and could not be the case. The Arms that encompass man by the very fact of his being furthest off and lost, are wrapped around all the rest also. This Fatherly relationship which God has, of necessity, to His creatures, is now characterized by this relationship, -One who has come down amongst these creatures and who has in Himself wedded, as we may say, creation to God. Have the angels gained nothing by this? They did not say so when, Christ being born upon earth, they opened heaven to proclaim their praise. God’s good pleasure was in men but how much did that reveal of God to them also -of the Father, who was also their Father?
The apostle prays now, therefore, that God may give them “according to the riches of His glory to be strengthened with power by His Spirit in the inner man.” His glory is being manifested indeed in all its fullness. He desires that this should be realized by us in the heart, but for what purpose? Not that signs and miracles may display what God is working, but “that Christ may dwell” in the heart through faith. This Christ, in whom all God’s purposes united and with whom we have been brought into such wonderful and tender relationship, well may He dwell through faith in our hearts, not be a Visitor, known, as it were, fitfully and imperfectly, but dwelling there so that we might be “rooted and grounded in love,” that the love which has been manifested in Him might be that out of which we should draw continually and in which also we should be established, a perfect love, dismissing all fear and refusing all distance. “Rooted and grounded,” -thus we are alone fitted to apprehend “with all saints,” “the breadth and length and depth and height,” He does not say of what. It is not of love, certainly, that he is speaking, for he immediately goes on to say that this is measureless, this surpasses knowledge. “Breadth and length and depth and height” naturally speak of God’s ways, of what He is doing. The breadth of His work includes all His creatures. The length of it is from eternity to eternity. The depth of it could only be rightly known by that depth to which Christ has descended for us; and the height by that place which He has given us with Himself; but if we apprehend these things aright, they are, in fact measurements, in a sense, of that which cannot be measured, so that he immediately adds: “To know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge” like those measurements which we take of the heavens from angles obtained on earth. They convey to us, -how much! but yet leave us to realize that we are incompetent in any full way to estimate what this love is; but even now the consequence of it will be, we shall be “filled up in all. the fulness of God.” This is what is in Christ. “In Him,” as Colossians tells us, “dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily,” and it is added: “We are filled up in Him.” This divine fulness then, though we cannot hold it, holds us. We are, as has often been said, like a vessel dipped in the ocean which cannot, of course, hold the ocean, but in which the ocean is, as well as round about it. Divine fulness, to be filled with that which is, nevertheless, infinite, how natural to think that here the apostle has in some way exhausted. the sober estimate of things! It is as if anticipating that thought, that he says immediately, “To Him that is able to do far exceedingly above all that we ask or think, to Him be glory.” How wonderful the connection there! Think of what he has just been speaking of. It is not, however, that he means that God is able to do more than fill us with all the fulness of God, but that as to all that we might think about it, He is able to exceed any measure we can make. We may ask, but He can transcend all that we can ask for. We may think, but He will be beyond us still, and beyond us in a power which works in us too as the apostle says here, a power which is, of course, the power of the Holy Spirit. He has thus taken hold upon us for this very thing, and to make the Church the vessel of His praise, not simply for the present time, but in a way which nothing will exceed, forever: “To Him be glory in the Church by Christ Jesus, unto all the generations of the age of ages.” How he seems to contemplate there the whole history as it were of the future, filled with wonderful and new displays continually, to new spectators also of God’s goodness and power, and to all these and in the midst of all these, the vessel of His glory will still be the Church. in Christ Jesus. Think of it, that this is what God has brought us into! Is it possible, one would ask, to add more to a revelation such as this?
Fuente: Grant’s Numerical Bible Notes and Commentary
Our apostle having exhorted the Ephesians in the foregoing verse, not to faint at his tribulation for the gospel, here he puts up a most affectionate prayer to God for them on the same account: For this cause, and in order to this end, I bow my knees, & c. Now in this affectionate and most excellent prayer of the apostle, we have several particulars worthy of our notice and remark.
As, 1. The humble gesture which the apostle used in his prayers, I bow my knees; thereby expressing the reverent frame of his heart in prayer.
Learn hence, That the gestures which we use in prayer should be such as may best express our reverence of God, and denote our profound humility before him.
Observe, 2. The person prayed to, God, under the appellation of a Father, and, in particular, as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ: I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Blessed be God, that believers and Christ have one and the same father; he by nature, we by grace; he by eternal generation, we by gracious adoption.
By virtue of this relation we may expect to be heard in prayer as Christ was, and to be helped in our distresses, as Christ was, and in God’s good time to be possessed of the inheritance of children, as Christ is.
Observe, 3. The title given to the church: it is styled God’s family, his household: all the saints on earth, whether Jews or Gentiles, and all the glorified angels and saints in heaven, do make but one family. There is but one catholic or universal church, comprehending all its members both in heaven and earth: and all within the church are of one kindred and line, descended of one common Father; and his Family is named, that is, united under Christ, he being the head of all.
Observe, 4. The mercy prayed for, That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man Eph 3:16.
Where note, 1. The mercy itself: spiritual strength, strength in the inner man, to enable them them to bear afflictions, to endure persecutions, to resist temptations, to grapple with all their spiritual enemies in the progress of their Christian course.
Note, 2. The fountain from whence all spiritual strength flows; and that is, from the Holy Spirit; Strengthened with might by his spirit. It is the Holy spirit of God that constantly renews the believers strength, by upholding and actuating their graces, which otherwise would fade and wither, would languish and die.
So many and so mighty are our spiritual enemies, that we have to wrestle with and strive against, that except we be under propt and strengthened by the almighty power of the Holy Spirit in the inner man, we cannot keep our ground, and much less get ground of our enemy, but shall become an easy prey to every temptation.
Note, 3. The moving, impelling, or impulsive cause, from whence the foregoing mercy is expected to proceed and flow, namely, from the rich and glorious mercy of God: God grant you according to the riches of his glory to be strengthened.
In all our approaches to God for any blessings, especially for spiritual blessings, it is our duty to direct the eye of our faith to that inexhaustible fountain of rich mercy and almighty power, in God, whereby he is both able and willing to bestow upon us whatever is agreeable to his holy will: God grant you according to the richness of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man.
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
An Introduction to Paul’s Prayer
In 3:14, Paul resumes the approach to God’s throne which he had begun in Eph 3:1 . The things that caused him to bow in prayer are primarily found in chapter 2. Some of those are: the grace of God toward lost men, reconciliation between Jew and Gentile, making both friends again with God and the great privileges the Gentiles now have under Christ’s law.
The bending of ones’ knees is a sign of reverence, or respect. One of the words for worship in the New Testament is proskuneo and suggests making obeisance, or bowing, or even to kiss the ground toward one. Others knelt in prayer to show their respect for God ( Luk 22:41 ; Act 9:40 ; Act 20:35 ; Act 21:5 ). However, such is not the only position for prayer which is mentioned in scripture ( 1Ti 2:8 ; Luk 18:13 ; Act 16:24-25 ). Paul’s prayer was directed to the Father in heaven, in accord with Jesus’ model ( Mat 6:9 ). The whole family of God would seem to include angels, faithful men of the past and the faithful on earth. They are sons of God (3:15).
Fuente: Gary Hampton Commentary on Selected Books
Eph 3:14-21. The Writers Prayer for his Readers.Kneeling, in a very ecstasy of prayer, before the Father who is the source and prototype of all fatherly relationship whether on earth or in heaven, the writer prays that, in a degree commensurate with the wealth of the Divine glory, his readers may be granted power and strength through the Spirit unto inner spiritual growth; that the indwelling of Christ in their hearts may through faith be realised; that Christian love may come to be the very root and foundation of their being; and that so they may be given strength to share with all Gods holy people the comprehension of the length and breadth and height and depth (of Gods glorious purpose) and the knowledge of that love of Christ which is beyond all knowledge, and be made spiritually full unto the measure of the fulness of God Himself (Eph 3:14-19). God can do that and more: His powerthe power of that Divine energy of His which is at work in usfar exceeds all capacity of human prayer or imagination. Glory to Him in the Church and in Christ Jesus for ever! (Eph 3:20).
Eph 3:14. The writer prostrates himself; the ancients ordinarily prayed standing.
Eph 3:15. every family: i.e. angelic or human. The Greek involves a word-play (pater-patria) which suggests the translation fatherhood. To the writer human fatherhood is a metaphor from Divine, not vice versa.
Eph 3:16. the inward man: the spiritual as opposed to the physical side of mans nature (cf. 2Co 4:16).
Eph 3:19. All fulness, i.e. all true reality, dwells in God: unto the complete attainment of reality and truth the working out of the Divine purpose in Christ and Christians is to lead. In Christ and through the Church the restoration of a disordered universe to its true order is to be achieved. The word fulness (pleroma) became later on a catchword of Gnosticism, and the prominence both of the word and the idea in Eph. and Col. may point to its having already played a part in the theosophic speculations attacked in the latter epistle.
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
SECTION 8. PAUL PRAYS THAT HIS READERS MAY KNOW CHRIST AND THUS ATTAIN THE CONSUMMATION DESIGNED BY GOD.
CH. 3:14-21.
For this cause I bow my knees to the Father from whom every family in heaven and upon earth is named, in order that He may give to you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit to the inward man, that Christ may dwell through faith in your hearts; in order that, being rooted and foundationed in love, ye may be strong to apprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth, and length, and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge; in order that ye may be filled to all the fulness of God.
To Him that is able to do beyond all things abundantly beyond the things which we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be the glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus, to all the generations of the age of the ages. Amen.
This section contains in Eph 3:14-19 a sublime prayer for the readers, consisting of three petitions, viz. Eph 3:16-17 and Eph 3:18-19 a and Eph 3:19 b, each leading up to the petition following; and in Eph 3:20-21 a doxology of praise to Him who is able to surpass in fulfilment our loftiest prayer or thought.
Eph 3:14-15. For which cause; takes up the same words in Eph 3:1, after the digression prompted by the latter part of Eph 3:1, and continues the line of thought there broken off. That the Christians at Ephesus who were once far off; are now (Eph 2:21-22) stones built into the rising walls of the temple of God, was prompting Paul in Eph 3:1, while in prison through his loyalty to their spiritual interests, to pray for them. But his prayer was delayed to make way for an account of his Apostolic commission for the Gentiles. This account he closes by an assertion that in Christ his readers and himself have confident access to God. He begs them not to lose heart through his persecutions; and declares that these, by revealing the grandeur of the grace of God, cover them with splendour. And now comes the postponed prayer, introduced by a repetition of the words of the broken-off sentence, for this cause: i.e. because of his readers confident access to God by faith and the glory which is theirs through the sufferings of Paul. Thus both 7 and 8 were prompted by the actual spiritual life of those to whom he writes.
Bow knee: same phrase in Rom 11:4; Rom 14:11; Php 2:10 : slightly different from Act 7:60; Act 9:40; Act 20:36; Act 21:5. So intensely real, so deliberate and solemn, is Pauls approach to God for his readers that even while writing he forgets his actual posture and says I bow my knees. He turns in prayer to the Father from whom etc.
Family: same word in Exo 6:15, These are the families of the sons of Simeon; and in Num 1:16, leaders of the tribes according to their families, etc.
Every family in heaven: the various classes of angels, e.g. those mentioned in Eph 1:21. So in Job 1:6; Job 2:1 the sons of God can be no other than angels: and the word is so rendered by the LXX. They are sons of God as sharing, by derivation from Him, His moral and intellectual nature; not by adoption, which is always the reception of a strangers child, but by creation and continuance in the image of God.
Every family on earth: Jews and Gentiles, or any other classes into which the race is divided. Not all men indiscriminately, but the adopted sons, according to Pauls constant teaching: see under Rom 8:17. With the various families of heaven are associated, as children of one divine Father, families of adopted sons on earth. And, from the one Father, all these bear the same name: cp. Eph 1:21.
Notice that, in harmony with the exalted standpoint of the whole Epistle, when Paul approaches God in prayer his eye passes the limits of earth and sees other races sharing with himself a name which enables them to call God their Father. Thus the cry, My Father God, unites earth to heaven.
Eph 3:16-19. Contents of Pauls prayer. It consists of three parts, Eph 3:16-17; Eph 3:18-19 a; Eph 3:19 b; each under the same conjunction, which represents the contents of the prayer as also its aim; in order that God may give in order that ye may be strong in order that ye may be filled.
Eph 3:16. In order that He may give to you: same words and sense in Eph 1:17.
The riches of His glory: the abundance of the splendour of God. Same words in Rom 9:23. Similarly Eph 1:7; Php 4:19. Conscious that the answer to his prayer will reveal the grandeur of God and thus evoke the admiration of men, and that there is in God an infinity of grandeur ready to reveal itself, Paul asks that this infinite grandeur may be the measure of the answer to his prayer.
Strengthened: fitted for the intellectual and moral effort and work and battle of the Christian life. Same word and sense in 1Co 16:13; Luk 1:80; Luk 2:40. It is practically the same as the similar word in Col 1:11; Php 4:13. This strengthening is to come by contact with divine power, which enters into us and makes us strong. Similar connection of thought in Col 1:11.
Through (or by means of) His Spirit: the Bearer of the presence and power of God. Same or similar words and same sense in Rom 5:5; 1Co 12:8; 2Ti 1:14.
The inward man: that in man which is furthest removed from the outer world and its influence, the secret chamber in which mans personality dwells alone. Same words and sense in Rom 7:22; 2Co 4:16. Paul prays that, by contact with the might of God and by the agency of the Holy Spirit, the inward Bearer to mans spirit of all divine influences, divine strength may reach and fill this inmost chamber, making his readers strong indeed.
Eph 3:17. A clause exactly parallel to that preceding it.
Dwell: or make His home: same word in Col 1:19; Col 2:9; Heb 11:9; Mat 2:23; Mat 4:13. In Rom 8:9; Rom 8:11 and 1Co 3:16 cognate words describe the indwelling of the Spirit of God: cp. also 2Co 6:16 and Col 3:16.
In your hearts: the locality of spiritual life: same words and sense in Col 3:15-16; Rom 5:5; cp. Eph 1:18; Eph 4:18; Eph 6:5; Gal 4:6. The heart is the inmost chamber of our nature, whence come our thoughts, words, and actions: see under Rom 1:21. It is, therefore, practically identical with the inner man. Moreover, the Holy Spirit is the divine person through whose agency Christ dwells in man. For the coming of the other Helper is the coming of Christ to His disciples: Joh 14:18. Hence the indwelling of the Spirit is practically the indwelling of Christ: Rom 8:9-11; cp. Gal 2:20. Now Christ has all power. Therefore, for Him to make His home in our heart, is for God to give us, by the agency of the Holy Spirit, the Bearer of the presence of Christ, a strength reaching to the inmost chamber of our being. Moreover, faith is the constant condition of the gift of the Spirit: Eph 1:13; Gal 3:2; Gal 3:14. Consequently, it is through faith that Christ makes His home in our hearts. Thus each of these parallel clauses explains the other. This unexpected reference to faith is in complete accord with Eph 2:8, and with the importance everywhere given to faith in the theology of Paul as the means of salvation.
The above exposition is better than to take the indwelling of Christ as a result of the strengthening wrought by the Spirit; a connection of thought not found elsewhere. The presence of Christ in us is not a result, but a means, of the spiritual strength for which Paul prays.
Eph 3:18-19 a. Second petition of Pauls prayer.
Love: to our fellows, as always when not otherwise defined: see under 1Co 13:1. It is a reflection in man of Gods love to man.
Rooted: same word and sense in Col 2:7.
Foundationed, i.e. placed upon a solid foundation: same word in Col 1:23; Heb 1:10; Mat 7:25. Notice the double metaphor: a similar combination in Col 2:7. A man animated by Christian love has therein good soil in which his spiritual life may take firm hold and raise its head securely, and from which it may derive nourishment and growth. He has also a firm rock on which may rest and rise a solid structure of immoveable perseverance. Cp. 1Jn 2:10. Where love does not reign, the Christian life is always unstable.
The above words may grammatically be joined either to those preceding or to those following. In the former case, they would further describe the state of those in whom Christ dwells: in the latter, they would state a condition needful in order to comprehend the love of Christ. The latter seems the more likely: so A.V. and R.V. For the strength implied in this root and foundation seems to lead up to the strength needful to comprehend etc. [This would also more easily explain the nominative participles, rooted and foundationed. For the construction, cp. 2Co 2:4; Gal 2:10.] But the difference is slight. For Pauls first petition, in Eph 3:16-17, leads up to the second as a means to an end; so that in any case the firmness developed by Christian love is a condition of the spiritual strength needful to comprehend the love of Christ.
That ye may etc.: immediate object of the second petition.
May-be-strong: an emphatic Greek word, found in the Greek Bible only here and Sirach vii. 6, denoting strength to carry us through and out of difficulty. It suggests the difficulty of comprehending the love of Christ.
Comprehend: same word and sense in Act 4:13; Act 10:34; Act 25:25. It denotes firm mental grasp. And what Paul desires for his readers he desires for all the saints. This desire is prompted by remembrance that it is designed equally for all.
What is the breadth etc.: an indirect question suggesting wonder and adoring curiosity.
Breadth and length etc.: as though Paul attempted to measure the love of Christ in each direction, e.g. how wide is its compass, how far it will carry us, how high it will raise, and from what depth it will rescue. But these must not be taken as the intended distinction of the four dimensions. They are altogether indefinite, simply noting measurement in every direction. Cp. Job 11:7-9. What Paul desires his readers to comprehend, he does not in Eph 3:18 say, but interrupts his sentence to suggest its manysidedness and vastness. The matter to be grasped is stated in Eph 3:19 a.
To know: already implied in comprehend, but inserted for marked contrast to the words which follow.
The love of Christ: to us, revealed (2Co 5:15) in His death for all, and well known to Paul as a constraining power and as the ground (Gal 2:20) of his faith in Christ.
Surpassing: as in Eph 1:19; Eph 2:7 : passing all limits and all measurement; and doing this, as implied in Eph 3:18, in every direction. This love surpassing knowledge, Paul desires his readers to comprehend and to know. Nor was this an empty wish. For, though human knowledge cannot fathom it, a determined effort to fathom it ever leads to blessed result by revealing its immeasurable depth. Thus in a very real sense men may know that which in its fulness surpasses knowledge. The greatness and difficulty of this attempt to fathom the unfathomable prompted the emphatic word rendered may-be-strong. And, since this strength is possible only to those whose Christian life is made firm by, and draws nourishment from, love to their brethren, and rests upon this love as on a solid foundation, Paul prefaces this second petition by the words rooted and foundationed in love.
Eph 3:19 b. Third and culminating petition. Paul desires his readers (1) to be strengthened by the indwelling of Christ, in order that thus (2) they may know the love of Christ, and in order that thus finally (3) they may be filled etc.
Filled: made full or fully developed so as to attain the goal of their being. Fulness: result of being filled or fulfilled: see under Col 1:19. The fulness of God: either that with which God is Himself full or the fulness which He gives, filling others or working in them a realisation of the possibilities of their being. These senses are closely allied. For all good in man is an outflow of the eternal excellence of God. And only by being filled with blessing from God can we attain our own complete development. This divinely-given and full development is the measure and aim of the fulness with which Paul prays that his readers may be filled: to all the fulness of God. [The preposition has the same sense of a goal to be reached in Eph 4:13.] Such fulness leaves in man no aching void and no defect. It is Gods gift and is an impartation to man, according as he is able to contain it, of that infinite abundance in which every desire of the nature of God finds ever complete satisfaction.
Such is Pauls prayer. It begins and ends with an appeal to the infinite wealth of God. This is, as he approaches the one Father of angels and men, the measure of his desire and his faith. For, to answer his prayer, will reveal the abundance of the splendour of God. His first petition is that his readers be strengthened by the agency of the Holy Spirit, even to the inmost chamber of their being: or, what is practically the same, that Christ may make His home in their hearts. He remembers that this inward presence of Christ is, like all Gospel blessings, through faith. This first petition is but a stepping stone to others greater. Paul desires that Christ may dwell in his readers hearts in order that by personal and inward contact with Him they may know the infinite greatness of His love. To form any worthy conception of this love, passes so completely all human intellectual power that before asking for this knowledge Paul prays that his readers may receive from the Spirit of God divine strength for this arduous spiritual task. And he reminds them that this strength needs the nourishment and support found in Christian love. He wishes them to measure in every direction the love of Christ, that the failure of their measurement may reveal a vastness which leaves behind the utmost limits of human and created thought. Yet even this is not the ultimate aim of Pauls prayer. Knowledge, even of God, is but a means to a further end. Paul desires his readers to know in order that thus they may be made full, or rather that thus they may attain the goal of their being. And this goal is God Himself. He prays that, by the impartation of that fulness in which are realised the possibilities of Gods own nature, his readers may attain the satisfaction of every spiritual instinct and the aim of their being.
Eph 3:20. Rising by three successive stages, Paul has now reached the summit of his mighty prayer. Conscious of the greatness and difficulty of that for which he has asked, he remembers that the omnipotence of God passes infinitely all human word or thought. In this surpassing power of God his faith now takes refuge.
To Him that is able: cp. Rom 16:25; Jud 1:24. Paul has prayed that his readers be strengthened by the power of God so as to have strength to comprehend the surpassing love of Christ. He now appeals to the only source of this strength, the infinite power of God.
Beyond all things: passing all limits. This is further expounded by the parallel phrase, exceedingly beyond etc.
The things which we ask or think: specific details included in all things. Gods power to do goes not only beyond these but exceedingly beyond them.
Think: as in Rom 1:20 : a looking through things around to the realities underlying them. Of such mental sight, Paul is conscious: we think. His thoughts go beyond his prayers. But Gods ability to perform goes infinitely beyond both prayers and thoughts.
This appeal to the power of God to perform this great petition is in harmony with the truth that already His power is at work in His peoples hearts: according to the power which is at work in us. Close parallel of thought and expression in Eph 1:19-20. The power already at work in them, a power surpassing all word and thought of man, stimulates Pauls faith that the great prayer just offered will be answered.
Glory: manifested grandeur evoking admiration. See under Rom 1:21. The infinite power of God assures Paul that his great prayer will be answered. He knows that the answer will be an outshining of the grandeur of God and will evoke the adoring admiration of His creatures. And this is his heartfelt desire: to Him be the glory.
In the Church: the human locality of this admiration. Only in the company of the saved is the grandeur of God recognised. To the outer and human sphere of this praise is now added its inner and divine sphere: and in Christ Jesus. A somewhat similar combination in Eph 1:3. Only through the historic facts of Christ and so far as we are inwardly united to Him do we recognise the grandeur of God.
The age of the ages: Hebrew superlative, like song of songs. Eternity is here represented as one superlative age; the one age in which all ages culminate. Slightly different in Gal 1:5.
Generations: as in Eph 3:5. Since the men living together on earth are ever changing by death, this word receives sometimes a temporal sense. And Paul here projects into eternity the most conspicuous feature of our conception of time, viz. the passing by of successive generations. Even where generations cannot pass away, and where we cannot easily conceive fresh generations rising, Paul uses a term derived from human life on earth in order to describe in the clearest colours possible the endlessness of the song of praise which the manifested power of God will evoke: to all the generations of the age of the ages.
The mention of the Church in this endless song implies that it will itself endure for ever. This is also clearly implied in Eph 5:27. For the bride of the eternal King can never die. We may therefore conceive the glorified human race to continue for ever as a definite and glorious part of the Kingdom of God.
This doxology is the climax of the Epistle. Taking up his pen to write, the prisoners first thought is praise to God for blessings already given to his readers. All these he traces to their ultimate source in an eternal purpose of God, a purpose embracing the universe. In the spiritual life of the servants of Christ, the realisation of this purpose has already begun. This moves Paul to pray that his readers may know the infinite greatness of the power already at work in them. As a measure of it, he points to the power which raised Christ from the grave to the throne of God; and declares that spiritually they are already raised from the dead and seated with Christ in heaven. Having thus described their salvation from beneath upwards, Paul further describes it laterally as a bringing near those who were once far away from the people of God, and as a building together of Jews and Gentiles upon one foundation into one glorious temple.
All this moves Paul again to pray for his readers. But he delays his prayer, in view of the just-described union of Jews and Gentiles, to expound his own commission to the Gentiles. Like the blessings for which Paul gave thanks in his first outburst of praise, this commission also has its source in an eternal purpose; and is wider in its scope than the human race, embracing even angels in their successive ranks. The Apostle then, deliberately and solemnly, betakes himself to prayer. He prays to the Father of angels and of men; and appeals to the wealth of splendour ever waiting to reveal itself in Him. He prays that, by the agency of the Spirit and by the indwelling of Christ, his readers may receive, in the inmost chamber of their being, strength to grasp the immeasurable love of Christ, that thus by knowing that which passes knowledge they may themselves be made full to an extent measured by the fulness which God waits to give. The vastness of his prayer compels Paul to appeal to the all-surpassing power of God: and this power evokes from him a song of adoring praise. Thus from praise to prayer and prayer to praise, in the light of the eternal past and the eternal future and in view of a universe to be united under the sway of Christ, in stately and increasing grandeur, rolls forward this glorious anthem, till it culminates in a song of praise begun in the Church on earth but destined to continue through the successive periods of the age of ages.
Notice that each of the two prayers is dominated by thought of the power of God (Eph 1:19; Eph 3:20) already working in Christians and able to work in them blessings beyond their utmost thought.
Fuente: Beet’s Commentary on Selected Books of the New Testament
For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
Ouch, if you are old and have damaged knees you know what the old apostle might have gone through. I’d guess with all the walking, all the cold damp nights and all the heavy work over the years that his knees are in about as bad a shape as mine and I hurt when I bow, yet Paul was still getting on his knees before the Lord.
It was my privilege to attend a Bible study prayer time with three other men. Three of us were in our sixties and on bended knees is how we prayed. I must admit there was a lot of shuffling during prayer to find a more comfortable spot, but I’m sure God could hear over the background noise. Not that we were super spiritual, just that four men on their knees before their God was quite a unifying factor amongst us.
It has surprised me that more prayer meetings aren’t conducted on the knee. In all my years of church life, I have only been part of two churches where the men knelt for prayer times. If you study the term worship in the Bible, you will find that many of the references include the thought of being on one’s face before God. It is placing ourselves in a position of waiting upon Him for His will, not our own.
Now, notice the phrase “Lord Jesus Christ” and make a mental note to yourself to notice the words that are used with the term Jesus. You will find the majority of the time, outside of the time He spent on earth living as a man, that the name Jesus is also accompanied by either or both of the terms Lord and Christ. I have to wonder when people constantly use the term Jesus if they really understand that that is His earthly name, but his rightful office and position is Christ and Lord.
It seems to constantly use the name Jesus is to dwell upon His earthly ministry rather than all that He really is as Lord and Christ.
Barnes suggests the following texts for further information on prayer. “2Ch 6:13 Dan 6:10; Lu 22:41; Act 7:60; Act 9:40; Act 20:36;Act 21:5”
Fuente: Mr. D’s Notes on Selected New Testament Books by Stanley Derickson
3:14 {3} For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
(3) He teaches by his own example that the efficacy of the doctrine depends upon the grace of God, and therefore we ought to join prayers with the preaching and hearing of the word. And these are needful not only to those who are youngsters in religion, but even to the oldest also, that as they grow up more and more by faith in Christ, and are confirmed with all spiritual gifts, they may be grounded and rooted in the knowledge of that immeasurable love, with which God the Father has loved us in Christ. And this is because the whole family, of which a part is already received into heaven, and part is yet here on earth, depends upon that adoption of the heavenly Father, in his only Son.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
3. Future comprehension 3:14-19
Paul had explained that Jews and Gentiles are one in Christ (Eph 2:15). Therefore he prayed that they might experience the unity that was theirs spiritually in their relations with one another. He turned from exposition to intercession (cf. ch. 1; John 13-17). Eph 3:14-19 are also one sentence in the Greek text.
"In the first prayer [Eph 1:15-23], the emphasis is on enlightenment; but in this prayer, the emphasis is on enablement. It is not so much a matter of knowing as being-laying our hands on what God has for us and by faith making it a vital part of our lives." [Note: Wiersbe, 2:30-31.]
"Whereas the first prayer centers in knowledge, this prayer has its focal point in love." [Note: Martin, p. 1309.]
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
"For this reason" goes back to Eph 3:1, from which Paul departed in Eph 3:2-13 to give more information about the mystery. Bowing the knees and kneeling in prayer were postures that reflected an attitude of submission to God. Kneeling was not the most common posture for prayer in Paul’s culture. Usually people stood when they prayed (cf. Mar 11:25; Luk 18:11; Luk 18:13). Praying on one’s knees signified especially fervent praying (cf. Luk 22:41; Act 7:40; Act 7:60; Act 20:36; Act 21:5). [Note: Foulkes, p. 101; Morris, pp. 100-101.] "Before" suggests intimate face-to-face contact with the heavenly Father (cf. Mat 6:9).
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
Chapter 14
PRAYER AND PRAISE. THE COMPREHENSION OF CHRIST
Eph 3:14-18
IN Eph 3:14 the prayer is resumed which the apostle was about to offer at the beginning of the chapter, when the current of his thoughts carried him away. The supplication is offered “for this cause” (Eph 3:1, Eph 3:14)-it arises out of the teachings of the preceding pages. Thinking of all that God has wrought in the Christ, and has accomplished by means of His gospel in multitudes of Gentiles as well as Jews, reconciling them to Himself in one body and forming them together into a temple for His Spirit, the apostle bows his knees before God on their behalf. So much he had in mind when at the end of the second chapter he was in act to pray for the Asian Christians that they might be enabled to enter into this far-reaching purpose. Other aspects of the great design of God arose upon the writers mind before his prayer could find expression. He has told us of his own part in disclosing it to the world, and of the interest it excites amongst the dwellers in heavenly places, -thoughts full of comfort for the Gentile believers troubled by his imprisonment and continued sufferings. These further reflections add new meaning to the “For this cause” repeated from Eph 3:1.
The prayer which he offers here is no less remarkable and unique in his epistles than the act of praise in chapter 1. Addressing himself to God as the Father of angels and of men, the apostle asks that He will endow the readers in a manner corresponding to the wealth of His glory-in other words, that the gifts he bestows may be worthy of the universal Father, worthy of the august character in which God has now revealed Himself to mankind. According to this measure, St. Paul beseeches for the Church, in the first instance, two gifts, which after all are one, -viz., the inward strength of the Holy Spirit (Eph 3:16), and the permanent indwelling of Christ (Eph 3:17). These gifts he asks on his readers behalf. with a view to their gaining two further blessings, which are also one, -viz., the power to understand the Divine plan (Eph 3:18) as it has been expounded in this letter, and so to know the love of Christ (Eph 3:19). Still, beyond these there rises in the distance a further end for man and the Church: the reception of the entire fulness of God. Human desire and thought thus reach their limit: they grasp at the infinite.
In this chapter we will strive to follow the apostles prayer to the end of the eighteenth verse, where it arrives at its chief aim and touches the main thought of the epistle, expressing the desire that all believers may have power to realise the full scope of the salvation of Christ in which they participate.
Let us pause for a moment to join in St. Pauls invocation: “I bow my knees to the Father, of whom [not the whole family, but] every family in heaven and upon earth is named.” The point of St. Pauls original phrase is somewhat lost in translation. The Greek word for family (patria) is based on that for father (pater). A distinguished father anciently gave his name to his descendants; and this paternal name became the bond of family or tribal union, and the title which ennobled the race. So we have “the sons of Israel,” the “sons of Aaron” or “of Korah”; and in Greek history the Atridae, the Alcmae-onidae, who form a family of many kindred households -a clan, or gens, designated by their ancestral head. Thus Joseph {in Luk 2:4} is described as “being of the house and family [patrio] of David”; and Jesus is “the Son of David.” Now Scripture speaks also of sons of God; and these of two chief orders. There are those “in heaven,” who form a race distinct from ourselves in origin-divided, it may be, amongst themselves into various orders and dwelling in their several homes in the heavenly places.
Of these are the sons of God whom the book of Job pictures appearing in the Divine court and forming a “family in heaven.” When Christ promises {Luk 20:36} that His disciples in their immortal state will be “equal to the angels,” because they are “sons of God,” it is implied that the angels are already and by birthright sons of God. Hence in Heb 12:22-23 the angels are described as “the festal gathering and assembly of the firstborn enrolled in heaven.” We, the sons of Adam, with our many tribes and kindreds, through Jesus Christ our Elder Brother constitute a new family of God. God becomes our Name-father, and permits us also to call ourselves His sons through faith. Thus the Church of believers in the Son of God constitutes the “family on earth named” from the same Father who gave His name to the holy angels, our wise and strong and brilliant elder brothers. They and we are alike Gods offspring. Heaven and earth are kindred spheres.
This passage gives to Gods Fatherhood the same extension that Eph 1:21 has given to Christs Lordship. Every order of creaturely intelligence acknowledges God for the Author of its being, and bows to Christ as its sovereign Lord. In Gods name of Father the entire wealth of love that streams forth from Him through endless ages and unmeasured worlds is hidden; and in the name of sons of God there is contained the blessedness of all creatures that can bear His image.
I. What, therefore, shall the universal Father be asked to give to His needy children upon earth? They have newly learnt His name; they are barely recovered from the malady of their sin, fearful of trial, weak to meet temptation. Strength is their first necessity: “I bow my knees to the Father of heaven and earth, praying that He may grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened by the entering of the Spirit into your inward man.” The apostle asked them in Eph 3:13, in view of the greatness of his own calling, to be of good courage on his account; now he entreats God so to reveal to them His glory and to pour into their hearts His Spirit, that no weakness and fear may remain in them. The strengthening of which he speaks is the opposite of the faintness of heart, the failure of courage deprecated in Eph 3:13. Using the same word, the apostle bids the Corinthians “Quit themselves like men, be strong”. {1Co 16:13} He desires for the Asian believers a manful heart, the strength that meets battle and danger without quailing. The source of this strength is not in ourselves. We are to be “strengthened with [or by] power, “- by “the power” of God “working in us” (Eph 3:20), the very same “power exceeding great,” that raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. {Eph 1:19} This superhuman might of God operating in men is always referred to the Holy Spirit: “by power made strong,” he says, “through the Spirit.” Nothing is more familiar in Scripture than the conception of the indwelling Spirit of God as the source of moral strength. The special power that belongs to the gospel Christ ascribes altogether to this cause. “Ye shall receive power,” He said to His disciples, “after that the Holy Spirit is come upon you.” Hence is derived the vigour of a strong faith, the valour of the good soldier of Christ Jesus, the courage of the martyrs, the cheerful and indomitable patience of multitudes of obscure sufferers for righteousness sake. There is a great truth expressed when we describe a brave and. enterprising man as a man of spirit. All high and commanding qualities of soul come from this invisible source. They are inspirations. In the human will, with its vis vivida, its elasticity and buoyancy, its steadfastness and resolved purpose, is the highest type of force and the image of the almighty Will. When that will is animated and filled with “the Spirit,” the man so possessed is the embodiment of an inconceivable power. Firm principle, hope and constancy, self-mastery, superiority to pleasure and pain, -all the elements of a noble courage are proper to the man of the Spirit. Such power is not neutralised by our infirmities; it asserts itself under their limiting conditions and makes them its contributories. “My grace is sufficient for thee,” said Christ to His disabled servant; “for power is perfected in weakness.” In privation and loneliness, in old age and bodily decay, the strength of God in the human spirit shines with its purest lustre. Never did St. Paul rise to such a height of moral ascendency as at the time when he was “smitten down” and all but destroyed by persecution and affliction. “That the excellency of the power,” he says, “may be of God and not from ourselves”. {2Co 4:7-11}
The apostle points to “the inner man” as the seat of this invigoration, thinking perhaps of its secrecy. While the world buffets and dismays the Christian, new vigour and joy are infused into his soul. The surface waters and summer brooks of comfort fail; but there opens in the heart a spring fed by the river of life proceeding from the throne of God. Beneath the toil worn frame, the mean attire, and friendless condition of the prisoner Paul – a mark for the worlds scorn- there lives a strength of thought and will mightier than the empire of the Caesars, a power of the Spirit that is to dominate the centuries to come. Of this omnipotent power dwelling in the Church of God, the apostle prays that every one of his readers may partake.
II. Parallel to the first petition, and in substance identical with it, is the second: “that the Christ may make His dwelling through faith in your hearts.” Such, it seems to us, is the relation of Eph 3:16-17. Christs residence in the heart is to be viewed neither as the result, nor the antecedent of the strength given by the Spirit to the inward man: the two are simultaneous: they are the same things seen in a varying light.
We observe in this prayer the same vein of Trinitarian thought which marks the doxology of chapter 1., and other leading passages in this epistle. The Father, the Spirit, and the Christ are unitedly the object of the apostles devout supplication.
As in the previous clause, the verb of Eph 3:17 bears emphasis and conveys the point of St. Pauls entreaty; he asks that “the Christ may take up His abode, -may settle in your hearts.” The word signifies to set up ones house or make ones home in a place, by way of contrast with a temporary and uncertain sojourn. {comp. Eph 2:19} The same verb in Col 2:9 asserts that in Christ “dwells all the fulness of the Godhead”; and in Col 1:19 it declares, used in the same tense as here, how it was Gods “pleasure that all the fulness should make its dwelling in Him” now raised from the dead, who had emptied and humbled Himself to fulfil the purpose of the Fathers love. So it is desired that Christ should take His seat within us. He is never again to stand at the door and knock, nor to have a doubtful and disputed footing in the house. Let the Master come in, and claim His own. Let Him become the hearts fixed tenant and full occupier. Let Him, if He will thus condescend, make Himself at home within us and there rest in His love. For He promised: “If any man love me, my Father will love him; and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.”
And “the Christ,” not Christ alone. Why does the apostle say this? There is a reason for the definite article, as we have found elsewhere. The apostle is asking for his Asian brethren something beyond that possession of Christ which belongs to every true Christian, -more even than the permanence and certainty of this indwelling indicated by the verb. “The Christ” is Christ in the significance of His name. It is Christ not only possessed, but understood, -Christ realised in the import of His work, in the light of His relationship to the Father and the Spirit, and to men. It is the Christ of the Church and the ages-known and accepted for all this-that St. Paul would fain have dwelling in the heart of each of his Gentile disciples. He is endeavouring to raise them to an adequate comprehension of the greatness of the Redeemers person and offices; he longs to have their minds possessed by his own views of Christ Jesus the Lord.
The heart, in the language of the Bible, never denotes the emotional nature by itself. The antithesis of “heart and head,” the divorce of feeling and understanding in our modern speech is foreign to Scripture. The heart is our interior, conscious self-thought, feeling, will in their personal unity. It needs the whole Christ to fill and rule the whole heart, -a Christ who is the Lord of the intellect, the Light of the reason, no less than the Master of the feelings and desires. The difference in significance between “Christ” or “Christ Jesus” and “the Christ” in such a sentence as this, is not unlike the difference between “Queen Victoria” and “the Queen.” The latter phrase brings Her Majesty before us in the grandeur and splendour of her Queen-ship. We think of her vast dominion, of her line of royal and famous ancestry, of her beneficent and memorable reign. So, to know the Christ is to apprehend Him in the height of His Godhead, in the breadth of His humanity, in the plenitude of His nature and His powers. And this is the object to which the teaching and the prayers of St. Paul for the Churches at the present time are directed. Understanding in this larger sense the indwelling of the Christ for which he prays, we see how naturally his supplication expands into the “height and depth” of the ensuing verse.
But however large the mental conception of Christ that St. Paul desires to impart to us, it is to be grasped “through faith.” All real understanding and appropriation of Christ, the simplest and the most advanced come in by this channel, through the faith of the heart in which knowledge, will, and feeling blend in that one act of trustful apprehension of the truth concerning Jesus Christ by which the soul commits itself to Him.
How much is contained in this petition of the apostle that we need to ask for ourselves. Christ Jesus dwells now as then in the hearts of all who love Him. But how little do we know our heavenly Guest! how poor a Christ is ours, compared to the Christ of Pauls experience! how slight and. empty a word is His name to multitudes of those who bear it! If men have once attained a sense of His salvation, and are satisfied of their interest in His atonement and their right to hope for eternal life through Him, their minds are at rest. They have accepted Christ and received what He has to give them; they turn their attention to other things. They do not love Christ enough to study Him. They have other mental interests, -scientific, literary, political, or industrial; but the knowledge of Christ has no intellectual attraction for them. With St. Pauls passionate ardour, the ceaseless craving of his mind to “know Him, ” these complacent believers have no sympathy whatever. This, they think, belongs only to a few, to men of metaphysical bias or of religious genius like the great apostle. Theology is regarded as a subject for specialists. The laity, with a lamentable and disastrous neglect, leave the study of Christian doctrine to the ministry. The Christ cannot take His due place in His peoples heart, He will not reveal to them the wealth of His glory, while they know so little and care to know so little of Him. Now many can be found, outside the ranks of the ordained, that make a sacrifice of other favourite pursuits to meditate on Christ? what prosperous merchant, what active man of affairs is there who will spare an hour each day from his other gains “for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord”?-“If at the present time the religious life of the Church is languid, and if in its enterprises there is little of audacity and vehemence, a partial explanation is to be found in that decline of intellectual interest in the contents of the Christian Faith which has characterised the last hundred or hundred and fifty years of our history.”
It is a knowledge that when pursued grows upon the mind without limit. St. Paul, who knew so much, for that reason felt that all he had attained was but in the bud and beginning. “The Christ” is a subject infinite as nature, large and wide as history. With our enlarged apprehension of Him, the heart enlarges in capacity and moral power. Not unfrequently, the study of Christ in Scripture and experience gives to unlettered men, to men whose mind before their conversion was dull and uninformed, an intellectual quality, a power of discernment and apprehension that trained scholars might envy. By such thoughtful, constant fellowship with Him the vigour of spirit and courage in affliction are sustained, that the apostle first asked from God on behalf of his anxious Gentile friends:
III. The prayers now offered might suffice, if St. Paul were concerned only for the individual needs of those to whom he writes and their personal advancement in the new life. But it is otherwise. The Church fills his mind. Its lofty claims at every turn he has pressed on our attention. This is Gods holy temple and the habitation of His Spirit; it is the body in which Christ dwells, the bride that He has chosen. The Church is the object that draws the eyes of heaven; through it the angelic powers are learning undreamed-of lessons of Gods wisdom. Round this centre the apostles intercession must needs revolve. When he asks for his readers added strength of heart and a richer fellowship with Christ, it is in order that they may be the better able to enter into the Churchs life and to apprehend Gods great designs for mankind.
This object so much absorbs the writers thoughts and has been so constantly in view from the outset, that it does not occur to him, in Eph 3:18, to say precisely what that is whose “breadth and length and height and depth” the readers are to measure. The vast building stands before us and needs not to be named; we have only not to look away from it, not to forget what we have been reading all this time. It is Gods plan for the world in Christ; it is the purpose of the ages realised in the building of His Church. This conception was so impressive to the original readers and has held their attention so closely since the apostle unfolded it in the course of the second chapter, that they would have no difficulty in supplying the ellipsis which has given so much trouble to the commentators since.
If we are asked to interpret the four several magnitudes that are assigned to this building of God, we may say with Hofmann: “It stretches wide over all the world of the nations, east and west. In its length, it reaches through all time unto the end of things. In depth, it penetrates to the region where the faithful sleep in death. {comp. Eph 4:9} And it rises to heavens height where Christ lives.” In the like strain Bernardine a Piconio, most genial and spiritual of Romanist interpreters: “Wide as the furthest limits of the inhabited world, long as the ages of eternity through which Gods love to His people will endure, deep as the abyss of misery and ruin from which He has raised us, high as the throne of Christ in the heavens where He has placed us.” Such is the commonwealth to which we belong, such the dimensions of this city of God built on the foundation of the apostles, “that lieth four-square.”
Do we not need to be strong- to “gain full strength,” as the apostle prays, in order to grasp in its substance and import this immense revelation and to handle it with practical effect? Narrowness is feebleness. The greatness of the Church, as God designed it, matches the greatness of the Christ Himself. It needs a firm spiritual faith, a far-seeing intelligence, and a charity broad as the love of Christ to comprehend this mystery. From many believing eyes it is still hidden. Alas for our cold hearts, our weak and partial judgments! alas for the materialism that infects our Church theories, and that limits Gods free grace and the sovereign action of His Spirit to visible channels and ministrations “wrought by hand.” Those who call themselves Churchmen and Catholics contradict the titles they boast when they bar out their loyal Christian brethren from the covenant rights of faith, when they deny churchly standing to communities with a love to Christ as warm and fruitful in good works, a gospel as pure and saving, a discipline at least as faithful as their own. Who are we that we dare to forbid those who are doing mighty works in the name of Christ, because they follow not with us? When we are fain to pull down every building of God that does not square with our own ecclesiastical plans, we do not apprehend “what is the breadth”! We draw close about us the walls of Christs wide house, as if to confine Him in our single chamber. We call our particular communion “the Church,” and the rest “the sects”; and disfranchise, so far as our word and judgment go, a multitude of Christs freemen and Gods elect, our fellow-citizens in the new Jerusalem-saints, some of them, whose feet we well might deem ourselves unworthy to wash. A Church theory that leads to such results as these, that condemns Nonconformists to be strangers in the House of God, is self-condemned. It will perish of its own chillness and formalism. Happily, many of those who hold the doctrine of exclusive Roman or Anglican, or Baptist or Presbyterian legitimacy, are in feeling and practice more catholic than in their creed.
“With all the saints” the Asian Christians are called to enter into St. Pauls wider view of Gods work in the world. For this is a collective idea, to be shared by many minds and that should sway all Christian hearts at once. It is the collective aim of Christianity that St. Paul wants his readers to understand, its mission to save humanity and to reconstruct the world for a temple of God. This is a calling for all the saints; but only for saints, -for men devoted to God and renewed by His Spirit. It was “revealed to His holy apostles and prophets” (Eph 3:5); and it needs men of the same quality for its bearers and interpreters.
But the first condition for this largeness of sympathy and aim is that stated at the beginning of the verse, thrown forward there with an emphasis that almost does violence to grammar: “in love being fast rooted and grounded.” Where Christ dwells abidingly in the heart, love enters with Him and becomes the ground of our nature, the basis on which our thought and action rest, the soil in which our purposes grow. Love is. the mark of the true Broad Churchman in all Churches, the man to whom Christ is all things and in all, and who, wherever he sees a Christlike man, loves him and counts him a brother.
When such love to Christ fills all our hearts and penetrates to their depths, we shall have strength to shake off our prejudices, strength to master our intellectual difficulties and limitations. We shall have the courage to adopt Christs simple rule of fellowship: “Whosoever shall do the will of my Father who is in heaven, he is my brother, and sister, and mother.”