For this reason I bow my knees to the Father [of our Lord Jesus Christ],
Paul stops teaching here and kneels. Two things in this short verse shape all he asks for: the reason he prays, and the Name he prays to.
Paul writes as a prisoner. He has just asked his readers not to lose heart over his suffering, and his kneeling grows out of that concern.
In telling the saints of his bonds on their account, Paul asks them not to lose heart, but rather to boast. They might well delight to speak of the grace given to Paul to suffer for their sakes, so that God might enrich them with such wonderful divine communications. But the natural tendency is to lose heart on learning that the man who brought them God's testimony now sits in prison because of it. Would they not fear and shrink from the afflictions that faithfulness to such a testimony brings? So Paul prays for them to the Father. His heart is stirred more deeply, his longing for their blessing grows, and he bows his knees.
This is the second prayer in the letter, and Paul uses a different name for God. One writer traces both names back to the risen Lord's own words.
We should also remember these words of the Lord: "I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God." The two prayers of the apostle in the Epistle to the Ephesians rest on these two titles. The prayer of chapter 1 is founded on "God of our Lord Jesus Christ" (v. 17); that of chapter 3 on "Father of our Lord Jesus Christ" (v. 14). The first of these is used in relation to glory, the second to communion in love.
Another writer names what each prayer asks for.
"God and Father" are the blessed words that stand in the foreground of this Epistle. God is light and God is love. The first prayer is a prayer for light, that His redeemed people may know and be enlightened. So Paul addresses it to the God of our Lord Jesus Christ. The second prayer, in the third chapter, is for love, and so he addresses it to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The first prayer asked that they know. This one asks for something knowing alone cannot give.
How fitting it is, then, that the Apostle bows his knees in prayer (v. 14) before he leads us on to the practical working out of these great truths in our walk (Eph. 4). He does not pray now for the first need of souls, that we should come into the full knowledge of Him and understand these truths, as in chapter 1. He prays for something far deeper: communion with Him in what we know. Without that, the most precious truth does not work in us.
One writer draws out the practical side of this second prayer.
In the first prayer, it is the Christian in Christ; in the second, it is Christ in the Christian. So in chapter 1 the apostle prays that the saints may grasp their standing in Christ as risen and glorified. In chapter 3 he prays that Christ may dwell in their hearts by faith, and that His Spirit may strengthen them with might in the inner man. This is clearly practical. The one we have called Christian standing; the other, Christian state.
Paul names his posture here, and not in the first prayer. One writer weighs what that difference shows.
I am not suggesting that he fails to take this attitude in both prayers, or in all his prayers. But there is an earnestness in the attitude he takes here which is absent in chapter 1. So I have no doubt about this: however important these things are in his mind in the first prayer, he feels them to be of still greater importance in this second prayer.
One writer calls the posture fitting, but refuses to make it a rule for everyone.
We find our Lord kneeling in prayer (Luke 22:41). We find the apostle Paul kneeling with the elders of Ephesus (Acts 20:36). It is in every way a fitting posture. But when people speak of it as "an imperative duty," we regard that as an unwarranted assumption... Let them kneel, or sit, or stand, as they feel led. But let them not try to force their attitudes as "an imperative rule" upon other people.
- Cause. "For this reason" reaches back to Paul's imprisonment. He begs his readers not to lose heart, and his own suffering drives him to his knees for them.
- Name. He prays to the Father, not to "the God of our Lord Jesus Christ" as in chapter 1. The first name goes with glory, this one with communion in love.
- Aim. The first prayer asks for light; this one asks for love. It seeks not more information but communion, without which the most precious truth does nothing.
- Result. Chapter 1 prays that we see ourselves in Christ. Chapter 3 prays that Christ dwell in us: standing first, then state.
- Posture. The bowed knee marks an earnestness absent from the earlier prayer. It is a fitting posture, but not a rule to impose on others.
of whom every family in [the] heavens and on earth is named,
Paul stops mid-letter to kneel, and before he asks for anything he names the One he prays to — the Father. Two questions follow: is this one family or many, and why does Paul choose this title?
Some translations read "the whole family." That wording has led readers to picture the church split in two — half in heaven, half on earth.
The expression "the whole family" gets tangled up with people's ideas about the Church, as if part of it were in heaven and part on earth. But the real force is "every family." There is no reference to the unity of the Church here. On the contrary, he means that when we look at the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, we rise high enough to take in every class of creature that God has made.
The name "Father" reaches further than the names God used before.
There will be many families both in the millennial heavens and on the millennial earth. Under the name of Jehovah, the Jews alone were named or included. As it is written, "You only have I known of all the families of the earth" (Amos 3:2). But in the apostle's prayer we have the contrast to this... When He brings forth His Son, the "heir of all things, through whom also he created the world," He takes the title Father. Under this name He takes in the wide circle of creation — of "every family" — both in the heavens and the earth. The blessing no longer stops at the favoured Jew or the honoured Gentile. He extends it to every class of being He has made.
Naming here means more than a label. One writer reaches back to the garden of Eden for the picture.
In the first creation all the animals passed before Adam. He gave them names that set out the distinguishing characteristics to be displayed in each family. So it is with the eternal counsels for the new creation. Every family in heaven and earth — angelic beings, the church in heaven, and the saints on earth — will be named of the Father. Each family then has its distinguishing character according to the eternal counsels of the Father. This is a scene where the Father is the source of all, the Son the centre of all, and every family in heaven and earth displays some special glory of the Father.
So who are these families? And where does ordinary human fatherhood fit in?
Paul addresses the Father as the One who gives His own Name and character to every family that will one day fill the heavens and the earth. The Lord Jesus is our Head, and in some sense He is also the Head and Leader of every one of these different families. God will have many families, some for heaven and some for earth. Among the heavenly families will be the church and "the spirits of the righteous made perfect," that is, Old Testament saints. For the earth there will be Israel, redeemed Gentiles, and so on. Now among men every family takes its name from the one who is father to it, the one from whom it derives its origin. But fatherhood among men is only a reflection of the divine Fatherhood.
The title is not decoration. It sets the tone and the scale of what Paul then dares to ask.
The name of the Father, in which we are brought into nearness of communion and relationship, gives its character to the prayer of chapter 3... But under the name of Father of our Lord Jesus Christ every family in heaven and earth comes, and we are heirs of all. And the apostle seeks our blessing according to the riches of glory of Him to whom everything belongs.
Knowing that many circles exist is not the point of the prayer. The point is knowing which one you are in.
Every family, and I suppose there are many, has its distinctive privilege... but each one of these families is named of the Father, because the name of Father gives the full revelation of God. But the apostle's desire is not that we should know a great deal about the families of other ages. He wants us to know the particular privilege that belongs to the family we Gentiles are part of.
- Source — Every family in heaven and earth traces its name back to one Father; human fatherhood is only a reflection of His.
- Scope — The name Jehovah took in one nation only; the name Father takes in every class of being God has made.
- Naming — The Father names each family, giving it the character He has chosen for it, just as Adam named each creature in the garden.
- Many — Angels, Old Testament saints, the church, Israel, redeemed Gentiles. Many families, some in heaven, some on earth, each with its own privilege.
- Yours — Paul's aim is not that you list the other families. It is that you know your own, and pray under the title that makes you an heir of all.
in order that he may give you according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power by his Spirit in the inner man;
Paul has just finished setting out the mystery — the deep purpose of God he has been unfolding in this letter. Now he kneels and prays for what words alone cannot give: inward strength from the Spirit, supplied out of the riches of God's glory.
Paul has already said everything he can about the mystery, and in simple words. He prays because words alone cannot do the work.
The Apostle clearly saw that stating the truth in set terms would not achieve God's purpose. It is reached only as the Holy Spirit, in mighty power, gives the believer perception through deep exercise of soul.
Another writer draws a line between what anyone can grasp and what only the Spirit can give:
Our natural ability, even in someone born of God, is of no use for understanding the things that belong to divine counsel. Anyone can understand the gospel preached to the people of the world — repentance and forgiveness of sins. But when we come to the deep things of God, we must have the help of the Divine Spirit. Yet God grants this freely.
The phrase means something real inside the believer. Three passages show what it is.
In Romans 7 the apostle looks into himself. He made that wonderful discovery that one part of him, the flesh, "does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot." But he also found a part of himself that delighted in the things of God. In Romans 7 that inward man is without power. In Ephesians 3 the apostle prays that they might be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man. He does not say it has already happened. What is lacking is strength, and the Spirit of God is there to give that strength. The third reference is in the closing verses of 2 Corinthians 4: "though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day."
So the inner man is not the natural person improved. It comes from God's own work:
The outward man is the physical man — the man who walks, eats, sleeps, and does the ordinary things of life. The inward man belongs only to the Christian. It speaks of a gracious work of God in the soul, beginning with the new birth, the fruit of God's sovereign act.
One commentator notes which word Paul uses here, and which one he does not.
The Apostle does not say "according to the riches of His grace," as in Ephesians 1:7. He says "according to the riches of His glory." The prayer is not connected with meeting our need, but with the fulfilment of the counsels of the Father's heart.
One writer explains why every believer's capacity for truth is still not enough here:
Every believer, as one whom God has worked upon and who has received the Holy Spirit, has the spiritual capacity to receive truth. But this verse shows that special communications from God need special preparation of heart, if they are to be impressed on the heart. Does this not mean that the Holy Spirit forms us to receive the truth of the Father's counsels as we are occupied with the Father's glory? We easily become absorbed in our needs, and perhaps in our service for the Lord too — things we do need to speak to the Lord about. But there should be time for communion with the Father about His things, about His glory and about Him who sits in that glory on the Father's throne.
This is Paul's second prayer in the letter, and it asks for something the first did not.
This is an entirely different line of truth from his prayer in Ephesians 1. There it is a question of standing; here it is of state. In Ephesians 1 he prays that the saints might know their place before God in Christ more fully, with all the privileges of that position. Here it is a question of practical power by the Holy Spirit.
The power Paul asks for has a purpose.
God is indeed displaying His glory in all its fullness. He wants us to grasp this in the heart — but for what purpose? Not so that signs and miracles may display what God is working, but "so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith." How fitting that He should dwell there through faith — not as a Visitor, known now and then and only in part, but truly dwelling there.
- Weakness. The inner man is God's own work in you. Yet in Romans 7 it delights in God without strength: the lack is never desire, always power.
- Prayer. Paul prays instead of explaining. Set words cannot open the deep things of God; only the Spirit can.
- Measure. The supply comes "according to the riches of His glory." It is not just enough to meet a need. It is enough to fulfil what the Father purposed.
- Method. When we are occupied with the Father's glory instead of our own needs and service, the Spirit strengthens the inner man.
- Aim. The power is not for display but for residence — that Christ may dwell in the heart, not visit it.
that the Christ may dwell, through faith, in your hearts, being rooted and founded in love,
Paul is in the middle of a prayer. He asks that Christ Himself would settle in the hearts of his readers. Two questions follow. How is this different from the Spirit already living in every believer? And what has love to do with it?
The verb Paul chose is not the language of a short visit. One writer points to Matthew 2:23, where older translations say Jesus "dwelt" at Nazareth:
In Ephesians 3:17 the Apostle prays that "Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith." The word translated 'dwell' is the same word as in Matthew 2:23, "He came and dwelt at Nazareth." ... The whole word means 'to settle, to dwell.' Some think 'To make one's home' is nearer the true meaning; or, perhaps, 'to settle down.' Either translation seems to bring a lovely thought: "That Christ may make His home in your hearts." When I am in my 'home' every part of the house is open to me: nothing is hidden or closed: all is, in a sense, mine.
Is this just another way of saying the Spirit lives in every Christian? One writer says no:
It is not the Spirit of God dwelling in us; it is just as sure now that He has come and abides, as the work of Christ for us. Because of that work, the Holy Spirit never leaves the Christian. Once He is given, He never departs. But Christ may not be always dwelling in our hearts. Let us take care not to make this part of the believer's standing privilege. It is not. It is a question of spiritual experience, once God has established us in our place before Him.
Kelly draws the same line, pointing to a difference in wording:
There is no question that the Spirit of God always dwells in the Christian. But I am not aware that He is ever said to dwell in our hearts. He may pour out the love of God there. Scripture rather says He dwells in us, making the body God's temple. Here the apostle would have Christ to be more the satisfying object of our affections.
Christ's love can be held as a fact and still leave the heart untouched. Kelly presses for more:
May we never settle for just knowing from the word of God that He loves us, holding it as our security, like a dry paper deed of gift kept in a safe. The gospel comes to the sinner free and full for this reason: that, being sure of the divine fullness of our blessing, our hearts may now be open to enjoy Christ and taken up with His love.
What changes when Christ is at home in the heart? Darby names both a loss and a gain:
"So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith." This is not about having happy feelings or a pleasant character. It is one thing to be safe in the ark on the Ararat of God, and another thing for Christ to dwell in the heart by faith. Oh what a quantity of care goes out when Christ is there! If Christ is the master of the house and lives in it, He does not let the dust and cobwebs pile up. He fills the whole house. And if a sudden shock comes to the heart, you will find not fear, but Christ.
Paul uses two pictures: a plant and a building. Whose love is the soil and the foundation?
The root is that from which the plant draws its nourishment; the foundation is that upon which we build. Every blessing the Apostle speaks of goes back to the heart of God — "His great love with which He loved us" (Ephesians 2:4). Moreover we do well to be "founded in love," building not on our love to God and to Christ, but on divine love to us. "We love Him because He first loved us." It is ever God's way to teach through the affections. Spiritual understanding does not depend on human intelligence. It comes through affection that God Himself works in the soul.
Where does that love lead? One writer traces the chain:
Through the work of the Spirit, Christ dwells in our hearts by faith; dwelling there by faith He fills our hearts with love, and love prepares us to apprehend. Further, this love leads us to embrace "all saints", for the more we enjoy the love of Christ, the more our hearts will go out to all who are loved by Christ.
- Home, not visit. The word means to settle down and make a home; Christ asks for the run of the whole house, not a guest room.
- Sure, then sought. The Spirit never leaves the Christian. Christ dwelling in the heart is not a standing privilege but a matter of spiritual experience.
- Faith, not feeling. This is not a pleasant mood. It is Christ enjoyed as the heart's object — His love held as living, not a deed locked in a safe.
- Root and foundation. The love we are rooted in is God's love to us, not ours to Him; that is what feeds the plant and carries the building.
- Then the widening. Love settles the heart. A settled heart is ready to understand, and it goes out to all who are loved by Christ.
in order that ye may be fully able to apprehend with all the saints what [is] the breadth and length and depth and height;
Paul's prayer reaches a point where language runs out. He names four measurements, but he never says what he is measuring. Then he asks that believers be able to grasp them together with everyone else who belongs to God. Two questions sit at the heart of the verse — the dimensions of what, and why this grasp is impossible alone.
One writer supplies the missing word from the letter itself:
Four dimensions are listed, but we are not told what they refer to. The dimensions of what? Surely of all the great truth Paul had been unfolding, the dimensions of the unsearchable riches of Christ.
One writer reads the four measures as the range of God's eternal purpose, and gives each one its own reach:
Then the Apostle desires that we may grasp "the breadth, and length, and depth, and height". This would appear to be the whole range of God's "eternal purpose", already mentioned in verse 11. In its breadth this eternal purpose embraces "all saints". In its length it stretches into the age of ages. In its depth it reached down to us in all our need. In its height it brings us into a scene of glory.
Another writer points the depth and the height to Christ Himself:
Depth — this reminds us of all the distance and shame and suffering the blessed Lord went through. He went through it to open all this up righteously and to carry out God's wonderful plan of blessing. Height — we look up and see Him who went into the lowest depth, now in the highest height of glory. And we see the believer made to sit in heavenly places in Christ.
The verb Paul uses asks for more than information. One writer also refuses to shrink the four measures down to love alone:
In verse 18, to comprehend or apprehend is not just to know about something. It is to apply it to the heart in experience. The apostle speaks of love in verse 17. But verse 18 is not limited to love. It takes in all the counsels of God, in which He shows His great love.
These measurements are not handed to a private student. One writer draws out what that means for how we treat other believers:
How can I "comprehend with all saints" if I leave out any? I cannot separate from them without lessening my own sense of the fulness of the love of Christ and of God. If I leave out one, he is Christ's joy. And here we fail.
But believers today are scattered and divided. One writer faces that head on:
In these days of brokenness and division in the church of God we cannot bring all saints together. Nor can we stir up all saints to grasp these things. But we can hold firmly to the divine thought of all saints, and, as far as we are able, live and act with all saints in view. Those who do this are more likely than others to grasp the mighty scope of the unsearchable riches of Christ, to know His love which is centred on all saints, and to be filled with all the fulness of God.
Paul makes one thing the condition of this grasping: being rooted and grounded in love. That sounds like a strange qualification for understanding, and one writer names the puzzle:
The question is this: What is to enable you to comprehend that which is measureless? True, it is a paradox; but the answer is, the love of Christ. It is not knowledge by itself, or general intelligence, or great mental power. It is being rooted and grounded in the love of Christ.
This rules out one route and opens another:
To be rooted and grounded in the knowledge of the schools will be of no help in learning the mysteries of God. Here we touch a region beyond the wit of man. We are in touch with things that no eye has seen and no ear has heard. They have never entered the heart of man. God alone can teach them, and He teaches them through our affections.
- Strength first. Paul asks for this grasp; he does not assume it. He prays that believers may be able, because the four measures lie beyond the wit of man.
- Root next. Love, not learning, gives the capacity. The knowledge of the schools is of no help here; God teaches these things through the affections.
- Measure then. Breadth takes in all saints. Length stretches into the age of ages. Depth answers to what Christ went through, and height to where He now is.
- Company always. We grasp the dimensions "with all saints". Leave one out, and you shrink your own sense of the fulness of Christ's love.
- Fulness last. The grasp ends where the prayer ends: knowing His love, and being filled with all the fulness of God.
and to know the love of the Christ which surpasses knowledge; that ye may be filled [even] to all the fulness of God.
The prayer in this chapter reaches its high point here. It asks for the knowledge of a love that no one can ever exhaust. Two questions press on any reader. How can we know what surpasses knowledge? And what could it mean for creatures as small as us to be filled with what belongs to God?
The phrase sounds like a contradiction. We will never master this love. We can keep going further into it forever.
It may seem to be a paradox to say so, but a blessed one. He does not mean that we shall ever know it perfectly. But there may be the knowing more and more of that which surpasses knowledge. He supposes us launched upon that sea where there is no shore: we can never reach the end of His love... You could no more get to the end of the love, than you could get to the end of God Himself.
Believers are not shut out from this love now. They live on it, and still cannot measure it.
But do we not know it? Are we quite ignorant of it? No — it is our security, it is our motive, it is indeed our portion. It has cast out fear. The manger, the garden, the cross, the throne, all bear witness to its fullness and eternity. But who can fully know its everlasting strength?
The prayer does not stop with glory. Even the brightest glory leaves the heart wanting more.
But the heart wants far more than glory. Even a human heart needs more, not to speak of God's heart. Suppose I were in heaven, with all the glory God could give a creature. Even then it would not be enough for what the heart feels the need of even now. So glory, bright as it is, is beneath what he next brings before us...
The measurements only mean something because a Person fills them:
The verse adds "and to know" — as though that were something extra — "the love of Christ". What would those measures mean to me if I did not have the knowledge of the love of Christ which fills it all? God is going to fill the whole sphere with the One in Whom His love is centred.
The ESV reads "filled with all the fullness of God." One writer presses a different rendering: filled unto it. That changes the picture. We do not contain God. He brings us into His fulness, and our growth in it matches our grasp of the love of Christ.
"That you may be filled unto (not with) all the fullness of God." We are filled unto that fullness in the measure in which we know the love of Christ and understand the dimensions of this love. We are filled in the measure in which Christ dwells in our hearts by faith and we are rooted and grounded in love.
Being placed inside something limitless is a different thing from containing it:
If I am placed in the middle of infinity, I am not at the end of it. I am in an infinity which I do not comprehend and do not measure. I have no smaller measure than that: it is nothing less than the fulness of God... whatever my littleness may be, I am in this blessed position... we cannot go outside this wall of enclosure with which God has surrounded us, and which is God Himself.
This fulness is not vague. It is God's own moral character, and it should show in the people it fills.
Does not the fulness of God speak of all that God is in His moral attributes — His holiness, His love, and His grace? A vessel could be filled with water, but no vessel could hold the ocean. So our little vessels cannot take in all the fulness of God, but the fulness of God can fill our little vessels. So the beautiful character of God, as He has been pleased to reveal Himself, should fill the saints, and show in the saints.
That filling has a practical cost and a practical result:
If we are to be filled with the divine fulness then everything of self, of the world, and of the earth must be removed from the vessel... All that we are to be for God, and to do for Him, must come from the fulness of God that dwells in Christ.
- Know — we know the love of Christ now. It is our security, our motive, our portion. Yet no one exhausts it.
- Surpasses — the paradox is deliberate: we know more and more of what we will never fully know, like a sea with no shore.
- Crowns — the prayer sets love above the vast measures and above glory itself, because glory alone leaves the heart wanting.
- Filled unto — read it as unto, not with. God launches us into His fulness; He does not ask us to contain it. Our measure of it matches our grasp of Christ's love.
- Shows — the fulness of God is His holiness, love and grace. Clear out self and the world, and that fulness fills the saints and shows in them.