What does it mean that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith (Ephesians 3:17)?

In Ephesians 3:17 the Apostle prays that "Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith." The word translated 'dwell' is the same word as in Matt. 2:23, "He came and dwelt at Nazareth." The Greek word is kat-oikeo. The first part is the same word as is used in kata-luo, — to-be-guest; and the other part is from oikos, 'a house.' 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. I doubt not this is the meaning here in Ephesians. But before He can do this we need to receive Him joyfully, like Zacchaeus, and He must be able to claim my heart as His Guestchamber. And not only will He come in and sup with us, and we with Him: but we will find He makes our hearts His very home. In John 14:23 He tells us much the same: "If a man love Me he will keep my words: and My Father will love him, and We will come unto him, and make Our abode with him." The word for 'abode' is the very same word translated 'mansions' in Verse 2. "In My Father's house are many mansions: … I go to prepare a place for you." He is preparing the mansions for us in the Father's House; shall not we prepare a 'home', an 'abode', for Him now, down here? And the secret of preparing that 'mansion' for Him is to keep, not His commandments, as in Verse 21; but His words: which go further. Lord, help us so to do, for Thy Name's sake!

"That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith" (v. 17). This is not having happy feelings, or suavity of character, etc. 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 dwelling in it, He does not let the dust and cobwebs accumulate, but He fills it altogether: and should a sudden start come to the heart, there will be found not fear, but Christ.

But in Ephesians 3 he prays, not merely that they should know what grace had thus wrought and given, but what God could now work by Christ in them, not what He had wrought for them in Christ. This leads him to show the all-importance of Christ dwelling in the heart by faith. 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. The Holy Ghost, in virtue of that work, never leaves the Christian; when given, He never departs. But Christ may not be always dwelling in our hearts. Let us look well to it that we do not make this to be a part of the standing privilege of the believer. It is not so, but a question of spiritual experience after we are established in our place before God. He prays for them that the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ would grant them according to the riches of His glory to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man. It is not a place that is conferred. It is not our standing before God; but something that ought to be renewed day by day — to be "strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man." And how would this be proved? "That Christ," says he, "may dwell in your hearts by faith." Now we all know alas! what failure in respect of this is. We know what it is to have other objects occupying us, instead of our heart fixed on the Lord. We know what it is to have all kinds of objects that plead for notice, and that claim our thought and affection, distracting us from Christ. Then and thus we are weak, not "strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man."

The effect of the strengthening by the Spirit is that, instead of sensible things engrossing us, the things that are round about us, and that we can see and desire, Christ is before us. "That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith." It is not merely seasons of enjoyment, it goes farther. What the Christian has to seek is, that while one part of his blessing has to be held fast, as never waning, never changing, the other part should be one of constant growth. I do not mean by this our having recourse to the Lord by times merely; as if the Lord must vanish from us as the Messiah from the disciples after His resurrection. It might lead us to think that we are not entitled to the Lord dwelling in our hearts by faith, if we supposed that we could only look for Him again from time to time. It is not so; "that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith." That dwelling may have effects in gradually enlarging and deepening enjoyment, in greater power over everything here below; but what he desires is the power of the Spirit in strengthening the inner man; that Christ should be pre-eminently, and always, too, the object of the heart's affections. What is the effect? In the measure in which Christ is before us, and dwells in our hearts, we have true enlargement of heart toward all the saints; as he says, "being rooted and grounded in love, that ye may be able to comprehend with all saints."

It is not beginning with the saints, and rising up to Christ, which is a great illusion for the Christian; but when we have Christ dwelling in the heart, then alone can we share in the affections of Christ, which embrace the whole church of God. "That ye may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height." It is the whole question of that wondrous secret of God, in which He has joined together Christ and the church, and that over all things. That counsel of God the Spirit did not give him to express, to make man feel that it could not be expressed adequately, being beyond all utterance in the tongue of men. He does not say what it is. He speaks of the breadth, length, depth, and height, but not of the love of Christ, as so many make him say. And if he does not define it, neither should we. It is left in its own unmeasured vastness. He has brought you, with all saints, to apprehend this illimitable counsel of God. But the heart wants far more than glory; even a human heart could not be satisfied without more, not to speak of God's heart. If I could be in heaven, with all the glory that God could confer upon a creature, even so all would not suffice for what the heart feels the need of even now. Glory, therefore, bright as it is, is beneath what he next brings before us: "and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with [into] all the fulness of God." He who deserves and made possible for us the divine counsels of glory is far above all that will be shown throughout creation by-and-by.

Unquestionably the Spirit of God does evermore dwell in the Christian, though I am not aware that He is ever said to dwell in our hearts. He may shed abroad the love of God therein; but He is rather said to dwell in us, making the body God's temple. Here the apostle would have Christ to be more the satisfying object of our affections. This is the point. Far be it from us just to know that He loves us through the word of God, as a security to us, like a dry parchment deed of gift that we quietly keep in a strong box. Rather is the very gospel to the sinner free and full, that, having the certainty of the divine fulness of our blessing, our hearts may be now open to enjoy Christ, and be occupied with His love. "That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith;" not that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, but "rooted," etc., that ye "may be able to comprehend with all saints." It is not here deliverance, let it be ever so complete; it is not the knowledge of our position in Christ as in Eph. 1; but rather the converse — Christ dwelling in us by faith, and the heart entering into the positive excellency of the Son, the only adequate object of the Father's own delight. Hence it was that they might "be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ." It is not only the full extent of glory, but the sole satisfying spring, Christ thus dwelling in our hearts in the consciousness of His love — "to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God." He is the ultimate blessedness with which we are filled, the One in whom we most confide, being the Son, in whom dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.

(Eph. 3:17). Moreover, if the Spirit works "in the inner man," it is in order "that the Christ may dwell in our hearts by faith." The Spirit conies, as the Lord tells His disciples, to take of the things of Christ and show them unto us. As we hear of the things of Christ we become attracted to Christ, and attracted to Him He becomes the object of our faith, with the result that Christ will have a dwelling place in our hearts by faith. The actual words of the prayer are, "that the Christ may dwell, through faith, in your hearts." "The Christ," not only presents Christ personally, but Christ as the One Who, according to the counsels of the Father, is the Anointed Man to be the centre of the vast universe of bliss.

The inner man is strengthened, not that we may perform miracles that may make a show before the world, or that we may become great preachers in the eyes of others, but that the Christ may dwell in our hearts by faith. As natural men self is the great object of our hearts, and everything is pursued that would gratify and exalt self. But the effect of the work of the Spirit in our hearts is to strengthen the inner man against every intrusion of the flesh, every temptation of the world, and every snare of the devil, so that self may be set aside and Christ have the supreme place in our hearts, and thus the One Who is the centre of the Father's counsels may become the centre of our thoughts and affections. Christ dwelling in our hearts would lead to our being "rooted and founded in love" (N. Tn.). The root is that from which the plant draws its nourishment; the foundation is that upon which we build. All the blessing of which the Apostle speaks is traced up to the heart of God — "His great love wherewith He loved us" (Eph. 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 apprehension depends not upon human intelligence, but comes through divinely wrought affection in the soul.

(V. 17). The second request is that the Christ may dwell in our hearts by faith. The first request leads to the second, for only as we are strengthened by the Spirit will Christ dwell in our hearts by faith. The effect of the Spirit, who has come from the Father, working in our souls, will be to fill us with the Father's thoughts of Christ — to think with the Father about the Son.

Our hearts are to be the dwelling place for Christ; He is to abide in the seat of our affections, and control our thoughts and lives. It is by faith that Christ has this place; it is as we are occupied with Him in relation to all that has been brought before the saints in this Epistle, that this becomes true of us. Communion with Christ, in the place where He now is, in all His unsearchable riches, will give Him His desired place in the hearts of His own. And we are to be rooted and grounded in the divine nature; firmly attached to Christ in divine love, and growing in the love that we have learned in Him, all our springs being in what will enable us to bring forth fruit for the glory and the praise of God.

It must be very evident that if Christ so filled the vision of His prisoner, He was dwelling in his heart. How very suitable then for him to express the desire in prayer to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ that Christ might dwell in the hearts of His own by faith. If Christ dwells in our hearts He will control every inward spring of our moral being, and thus give tone and character to all our thoughts, words and actions. Our lives will be lived for Christ who is enthroned in the seat of the affections.

I believe that the first phrase of verse 17 is the real summit, the real heart, the real end of the prayer, though subsidiary but equally great things follow. Nothing could be greater than to pray, "That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith." The Lord Jesus Christ is not to be an occasional visitor in the thoughts of our hearts, He is not to be One who sometimes is heard and seen there and at other times not. The prayer is that it might be increasingly true of us that there is always that beloved Person who is consciously within us and He is dwelling there and living there. He is the Centre of all the glory of heaven. He has in His hand all the power of creation, the first and the new. What a marvellous thing to pray that Christ may dwell in our hearts and it is by faith and you cannot have faith unless you have the Word of God.

Next, that we might be "rooted and grounded in love." Now if we regard chapter 3 as a kind of parenthesis then there is quite a lot about things being grounded in chapter 2. It is about the house of God and a temple that is growing for the praise of God. The foundation has been laid by the apostles and prophets of the New Testament. What he is praying for here is that there might be something corresponding in our hearts to his revealing ministry, that we should have a foundation laid there which is Christ Jesus. And I must say there are few things which rejoice me more than the phrase, "rooted. in love." Everybody knows that a plant cannot exist without a proper root system and a place from which its main sustenance can be drawn. If this prayer is fulfilled then we are rooted in the love of God and everything that comes to us comes to us from the love of God. If we really had this experience it would deal with so very many of the practical problems relative to our own distresses and to the distresses we bring to others.

Faith, too, has its place in this most important work of the Spirit of God, for the Christ is to dwell in the heart "by faith." God would ever direct the eye to Christ, and give us to know that every subjective result is obtained in occupation with Him. Nor is it a fleeting glance at Christ, now and again, that will give Him a dwelling place in the heart. It is the habit of the soul in turning instinctively to Christ at all times that proves that He dwells in the heart. How true this was of "The prisoner of Jesus Christ"; of him who could say, "To me to live is Christ."