Ephesians 3:18
will have power, together with all the saints, to comprehend the length and width and height and depth
may have power
The phrase "may have power" is derived from the Greek word "ἐξισχύσητε" (exischysēte), which implies being fully able or having the strength to accomplish something. In the context of Ephesians, this power is not merely human strength but a divine enablement granted by the Holy Spirit. This empowerment is essential for believers to grasp the vastness of God's love, suggesting that understanding spiritual truths requires divine assistance. Historically, the early church faced numerous challenges, and this empowerment was crucial for maintaining faith and unity.

together with all the saints
The phrase "together with all the saints" emphasizes the communal aspect of the Christian faith. The Greek word for saints, "ἅγιοι" (hagioi), refers to those set apart for God, highlighting the holiness and distinctiveness of believers. This communal understanding is rooted in the early church's practice, where believers gathered in homes and shared their lives deeply. The phrase underscores that the comprehension of God's love is not an individual endeavor but a collective experience, reflecting the unity and fellowship that characterized the early Christian communities.

to comprehend
"To comprehend" comes from the Greek "καταλαβέσθαι" (katalabesthai), meaning to grasp or seize. This term suggests an active pursuit of understanding, not a passive reception. In the scriptural context, it implies a deep, experiential knowledge of God's love, beyond intellectual assent. The historical context of Ephesians, written to a diverse and often divided church, underscores the need for a profound, unifying understanding of God's love that transcends cultural and social barriers.

the length and width and height and depth
This phrase poetically describes the immeasurable dimensions of God's love. Each dimension—length, width, height, and depth—symbolizes the boundless and all-encompassing nature of divine love. Theologically, this reflects the infinite nature of God, whose love extends beyond human comprehension. Historically, the use of such spatial metaphors would resonate with the Ephesians, who lived in a city known for its grand architecture, including the Temple of Artemis. This imagery would help them visualize the vastness of God's love in a tangible way, encouraging them to explore its depths in their spiritual journey.

Persons / Places / Events
1. Paul the Apostle
The author of the letter to the Ephesians, writing to encourage and instruct the church in Ephesus.

2. Ephesians
The recipients of the letter, a group of believers in the city of Ephesus, a major city in Asia Minor.

3. The Saints
Refers to all believers, emphasizing the communal aspect of understanding God's love.

4. God's Love
The central theme of this verse, described in its vast dimensions.

5. The Church
The collective body of believers who are called to understand and experience the fullness of God's love.
Teaching Points
The Power of Comprehension
Understanding God's love requires divine empowerment. We should pray for the Holy Spirit's help to grasp the enormity of His love.

Community in Comprehension
The verse emphasizes "together with all the saints," highlighting the importance of community in understanding and experiencing God's love.

Dimensions of Love
The "length, width, height, and depth" suggest that God's love is boundless and surpasses human understanding. Reflect on how each dimension might apply to your life.

Experiencing God's Love
Beyond intellectual understanding, believers are called to experience God's love in their daily lives, allowing it to transform their actions and relationships.

Living in God's Love
As recipients of such vast love, we are called to reflect it in our interactions with others, demonstrating the love of Christ in practical ways.
Bible Study Questions
1. How can we, as individuals and as a church community, seek the power to comprehend the vastness of God's love?

2. In what ways does understanding the dimensions of God's love impact your personal relationship with Him?

3. How does the communal aspect of understanding God's love ("together with all the saints") challenge or encourage you in your faith journey?

4. Reflect on a time when you experienced God's love in a profound way. How did it change your perspective or actions?

5. How can you practically demonstrate the "length, width, height, and depth" of God's love to those around you this week?
Connections to Other Scriptures
Romans 8:38-39
This passage also speaks of the inseparable nature of God's love, emphasizing its power and reach.

1 John 4:9-10
Highlights the manifestation of God's love through the sending of His Son, Jesus Christ.

Psalm 103:11-12
Describes the vastness of God's love and forgiveness, using spatial metaphors similar to Ephesians 3:18.

Colossians 2:2
Paul expresses a desire for believers to be encouraged and united in love, understanding the mystery of God.

John 3:16
The quintessential verse on God's love, showing its depth through the giving of His Son for the world.
Among the Heights of Divine LoveC. H. Spurgeon.Ephesians 3:18
Comprehending Christ's LoveT. B. Baker.Ephesians 3:18
Comprehension of God's Immeasurable LoveE. White.Ephesians 3:18
Heavenly GeometryC. H. Spurgeon.Ephesians 3:18
Love Unknowable and KnownAlexander MaclarenEphesians 3:18
Love, the Root and Foundation of Spiritual KnowledgeT. Croskery Ephesians 3:18
Measuring the ImmeasurableC. H. Spurgeon.Ephesians 3:18
Spiritual PerceptionJ. Pulsford.Ephesians 3:18
The Knowledge of Our IgnoranceC. H. Spurgeon.Ephesians 3:18
The Measure of the CrossCharles KingsleyEphesians 3:18
The Paradox of Love's MeasureA. Maclaren, D. D.Ephesians 3:18
The Vastness of the Divine LoveNewman Halt, LL. B.Ephesians 3:18
A Prayer on Behalf of the Ephesian ChristiansR. Finlayson Ephesians 3:14-19
Intercessory PrayerD. Thomas Ephesians 3:14-19
The Great Mystery of the Love of ChristW.F. Adeny Ephesians 3:14-19
A Pattern of PrayerCanon Vernon Hutton.Ephesians 3:14-21
An Ascending PrayerA. G. Brown.Ephesians 3:14-21
Christian PrayerG. Brooks.Ephesians 3:14-21
KneelingEphesians 3:14-21
Kneeling in PrayerEphesians 3:14-21
Paul's Prayer for the Ephesian ChristiansJ. C. Brown, LL. D.Ephesians 3:14-21
Prayer a Self-RevelationA. G. Brown.Ephesians 3:14-21
St. Paul's Example as to PrayerPaul Bayne.Ephesians 3:14-21
St. Paul's Prayer for Gentile ChristiansA. F. Muir, M. A.Ephesians 3:14-21
The Christian Brotherhood - Paul's Second PrayerR.M. Edgar Ephesians 3:14-21
The Christian Temple: its Material and MagnitudeA. J. Parry.Ephesians 3:14-21
The Ladder of PrayerC. H. Spurgeon.Ephesians 3:14-21
The Top of the LadderC. H. Spurgeon.Ephesians 3:14-21
The Comprehension of the Love of ChristT. Croskery Ephesians 3:18, 19
People
Ephesians, Paul
Places
Ephesus
Topics
Able, Apprehend, Breadth, Christ, Comprehend, Deep, Depth, Fully, God's, Grasp, Grasped, Height, Highth, Length, Love, Order, Power, Saints, Strength, Strengthened, Strong, Wide
Dictionary of Bible Themes
Ephesians 3:14-19

     4504   roots
     6756   union with Christ, significance

Ephesians 3:14-21

     8611   prayer, for others

Ephesians 3:16-18

     8349   spiritual growth, means of

Ephesians 3:16-19

     3209   Holy Spirit, and love
     4813   depth
     5024   inner being
     8115   discipleship, nature of
     8351   teachableness
     8443   growth
     8619   prayer, in church

Ephesians 3:16-20

     6670   grace, and Holy Spirit

Ephesians 3:17-19

     2048   Christ, love of
     8102   abiding in Christ

Library
April 15. "Rooted and Grounded in Love" (Eph. Iii. 17).
"Rooted and grounded in love" (Eph. iii. 17). There is a very singular shrub, which grows abundantly in the west, and is to be found in all parts of Texas. It is no less than the "mosquito tree." It is a very slim, and willowy looking shrub, and would seem to be of little use for any industrial purposes; but is has extraordinary roots growing like great timbers underground, and possessing such qualities of endurance in all situations that it is used and very highly valued for good pavements. The
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

August 28. "According to the Power that Worketh in Us" (Eph. Iii. 20).
"According to the power that worketh in us" (Eph. iii. 20). When we reach the place of union with God, through the indwelling of the Holy Ghost, we come into the inheritance of external blessing and enter upon the land of our possession. Then our physical health and strength come to us through the power of our interior life; then the prayer is fulfilled, that we shall be in health and prosper, as our soul prospereth. Then, with the kingdom of God and His righteousness within us, all things are added
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity Paul's Care and Prayer for the Church.
Text: Ephesians 3, 13-21. 13. Wherefore I ask that ye may not faint at my tribulations for you, which are your glory. 14 For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, 16 and 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; 17 that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; to the end that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may be strong
Martin Luther—Epistle Sermons, Vol. III

'The Whole Family'
'The whole family in heaven and earth.'--Eph. iii. 15. Grammatically, we are driven to recognise that the Revised Version is more correct than the Authorised, when it reads 'every family,' instead of 'the whole family.' There is in the expression no reference to the thought, however true it is in itself, that the redeemed in heaven and the believers on earth make up but one family. The thought rather is, that, as has been said, 'the father makes the family,' and if any community of intelligent beings,
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture Ephesians, Peter,John

Strengthened with Might
'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. iii. 16. In no part of Paul's letters does he rise to a higher level than in his prayers, and none of his prayers are fuller of fervour than this wonderful series of petitions. They open out one into the other like some majestic suite of apartments in a great palace-temple, each leading into a loftier and more spacious hall, each drawing nearer the presence-chamber,
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture Ephesians, Peter,John

The Indwelling Christ
'That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; ye being rooted and grounded in love.'--Eph. iii. 17. We have here the second step of the great staircase by which Paul's fervent desires for his Ephesian friends climbed towards that wonderful summit of his prayers--which is ever approached, never reached,--'that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.' Two remarks of an expository character will prepare the way for the lessons of these verses. The first is as to the relation of this clause
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture Ephesians, Peter,John

The Paradox of Love's Measure
The breadth, and length, and depth, and height.'--Eph. iii. 18. Of what? There can, I think, be no doubt as to the answer. The next clause is evidently the continuation of the idea begun in that of our text, and it runs: 'And to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge.' It is the immeasurable measure, then; the boundless bounds and dimensions of the love of Christ which fire the Apostle's thoughts here. Of course, he had no separate idea in his mind attaching to each of these measures
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture Ephesians, Peter,John

The Climax of all Prayer
'That ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.'--Eph. iii. 19. The Apostle's many-linked prayer, which we have been considering in successive sermons, has reached its height. It soars to the very Throne of God. There can be nothing above or beyond this wonderful petition. Rather, it might seem as if it were too much to ask, and as if, in the ecstasy of prayer, Paul had forgotten the limits that separate the creature from the Creator, as well as the experience of sinful and imperfect men,
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture Ephesians, Peter,John

Love Unknowable and Known
'That ye ... 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.'--Eph. iii. 18, 19. This constitutes the third of the petitions in this great prayer of Paul's, each of which, as we have had occasion to see in former sermons, rises above, and is a consequence of the preceding, and leads on to, and is a cause or occasion of the subsequent one. The two former petitions have been for inward strength
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture Ephesians, Peter,John

Measureless Power and Endless Glory
'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.'--Eph. iii. 20, 21. One purpose and blessing of faithful prayer is to enlarge the desires which it expresses, and to make us think more loftily of the grace to which we appeal. So the Apostle, in the wonderful series of supplications which precedes the text, has found his
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture Ephesians, Peter,John

The Christian Church a Family.
Preached January 11, 1852. THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH A FAMILY. "Our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named."--Ephesians iii. 14, 15. In the verses immediately before the text the Apostle Paul has been speaking of what he calls a mystery--that is, a revealed secret. And the secret was this, that the Gentiles would be "fellow-heirs and of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ by the gospel." It had been kept secret from the former ages and generations;
Frederick W. Robertson—Sermons Preached at Brighton

The Measure of the Cross
EPHESIANS iii. 18, 19. That ye 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. These words are very deep, and difficult to understand; for St. Paul does not tell us exactly of what he is speaking. He does not say what it is, the breadth and length, and depth, and height of which we are to comprehend and take in. Only he tells us afterwards what will come of our taking it in; we shall know the
Charles Kingsley—The Good News of God

Past Knowledge.
(Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity.) EPHESIANS iii. 19. "To know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge." There are some things which no earthly school can teach us, no earthly science explain. Science can do very much, it has done marvellous things, and will do still more. Men can work now with ease such wonders as would have sent them to the fire as wizards three hundred years ago. Science can calculate the exact time of an eclipse ages before the time, science can connect two worlds with the
H. J. Wilmot-Buxton—The Life of Duty, a Year's Plain Sermons, v. 2

First Day for the Power of the Holy Spirit
WHAT TO PRAY.--For the Power of the Holy Spirit "I bow my knees unto the Father, that He would grant you that ye may be strengthened with power through His Spirit."--EPH. iii. 16. "Wait for the promise of the Father."--ACTS i. 4. "The fuller manifestation of the grace and energy of the Blessed Spirit of God, in the removal of all that is contrary to God's revealed will, so that we grieve not the Holy Spirit, but that He may work in mightier power in the Church, for the exaltation of Christ and
Andrew Murray—The Ministry of Intercession

Strength and Indwelling.
"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
W. H. Griffith Thomas—The Prayers of St. Paul

The Love of Christ.
THE Patience of Christ was recently the object of our meditation in these pages. Blessed and inexhaustible it is. And now a still greater theme is before our hearts. The Love of Christ. The heart almost shrinks from attempting to write on the matchless, unfathomable love of our blessed and adorable Lord. All the Saints of God who have spoken and written on the Love of Christ have never told out its fulness and vastness, its heights and its depths. "The Love of Christ which passeth knowledge" (Ephesians
Arno Gaebelein—The Lord of Glory

The Holy Spirit Forming Christ Within Us.
It is a wonderful and deeply significant prayer that Paul offers in Eph. iii. 16-19 for the believers in Ephesus and for all believers who read the Epistle. Paul writes, "For this cause 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; that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; to the end that ye, being rooted and
R. A. Torrey—The Person and Work of The Holy Spirit

"Love that Passeth Knowledge. "
"To know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge." (Ephesians iii. 19.) If I could only make men understand the real meaning of the words of the apostle John--"God is love," I would take that single text, and would go up and down the world proclaiming this glorious truth. If you can convince a man that you love him you have won his heart. If we really make people believe that God loves them, how we should find them crowding into the kingdom of heaven! The trouble is that men think God hates them;
Dwight L. Moody—The Way to God and How to Find It

Another Archbishop
Paul did not say, Let everyone desire the episcopate. It is a work, not a relaxation; a solicitude, not a luxury; a responsible ministration, not an irresponsible dominion; a fatherly supervision, not a tyrannical autocracy.--Isidore of Pelusium, Ep. iii. 216. Nectarius, then, on September 27, 397, lay dead in his splendid palace; and the breath was hardly out of the Archbishop's body when there were a dozen austere intriguers' in the field, and the subterranean plots and whisperings began, and the
Frederic William Farrar—Gathering Clouds: A Tale of the Days of St. Chrysostom

His Dwelling-Place
T. S. M. Eph. iii. 17 Thou knewest not where to lay Thy head; When over the twilight sea The birds of the mountains homeward sped, There was no home for Thee. But God had prepared for the weary feet A home when the toil was past, And there, in His chamber still and sweet, O Lord, Thou shouldst rest at last. A Home to be won by deadly fight, The price to be paid in blood-- Oh where is that palace of fair delight, That glorious Home of God? The City that hath foundations shone To Abram's eyes of
Frances Bevan—Hymns of Ter Steegen, Suso, and Others

The Apology of Rufinus.
Addressed to Apronianus, in Reply to Jerome's Letter to Pammachius, [2814] Written at Aquileia a.d. 400. In Two Books. In order to understand the controversy between Jerome and Rufinus it is necessary to look back over their earlier relations. They had been close friends in early youth (Jerome, Ep. iii, 3, v, 2.) and had together formed part of a society of young Christian ascetics at Aquileia in the years 370-3. Jerome's letter (3) to Rufinus in 374 is full of affection; in 381 he was placed in
Various—Life and Works of Rufinus with Jerome's Apology Against Rufinus.

Whether Only a Bishop Can Confer this Sacrament?
Objection 1: It seems that not only a bishop can confer this sacrament. For Gregory (Regist. iv), writing to Bishop Januarius, says: "We hear that some were scandalized because we forbade priests to anoint with chrism those who have been baptized. Yet in doing this we followed the ancient custom of our Church: but if this trouble some so very much we permit priests, where no bishop is to be had, to anoint the baptized on the forehead with chrism." But that which is essential to the sacraments should
Saint Thomas Aquinas—Summa Theologica

"And if Christ be in You, the Body is Dead Because of Sin; but the Spirit is Life Because of Righteousness. "
Rom. viii. 10.--"And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness." God's presence is his working. His presence in a soul by his Spirit is his working in such a soul in some special manner, not common to all men, but peculiar to them whom he hath chosen. Now his dwelling is nothing else but a continued, familiar and endless working in a soul, till he hath conformed all within to the image of his Son. The soul is the office house, or workhouse,
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

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