That ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may comprehend and know the love of Christ. The effect of Christ's indwelling in believers is to root them and found them deeply in love - love being the root of the tree of life in the one case, and the foundation of the temple or house in the other; for the soul, ever contemplating Christ within it, is changed into his very likeness. The apostle means that the Ephesian saints would grow in the knowledge of that love by growing into the likeness of that love. "Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God; the meek will he guide in judgment, the meek will he teach his way." The truths of God are by them spiritually discerned. There is a deep philosophy in this matter. Men cannot understand each other except so far as they have the radical elements of the same experiences in themselves. I understand what you mean when you say you are hot or cold, because I have had sensations of heat and cold in myself. Thus people of dissimilar tempers, or culture, or opportunities are apt to misunderstand each other. A vulgar man cannot understand a man of high refinement. A practical man of the world, who is today what he was yesterday, and will be tomorrow what he is today, can never understand the man of poetic genius, whose spirits come and go like the tides, today in the height of sentimental ecstasy, tomorrow in the depths of despair. There must, therefore, be similarity of temper or experience to promote a real understanding. Thus we can see how only love can understand love. Even in our worldly intimacies, it is not quickness of perception but the force of sympathy or affection that enables us to understand our friends. "Love's quick eye can pierce through disguises impenetrable to a colder scrutiny." Thus it is that the knowledge of God is not to be compassed by a mere exercise of the intellect; it is to be attained through love: "He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love" (1 John 4:8). Thus it comes to pass that we can know the love of Christ realizingly just in proportion as we have that which resembles it in our own hearts, and that love is there in virtue of his own indwelling by the Spirit. "The Christ of the Bible manifests himself, and, by the laws of human nature, can manifest himself only to his own image formed in the heart." Thus it is possible to read a new meaning into the beautiful sentence of inspiration, "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him" (1 Corinthians 2:9). Our Lord has suggestively said, "If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God." There are moral as well as intellectual conditions in the pathway of all extended knowledge. - T.C.

From Divine love, as the root and ground of the soul's life, comes all spiritual perception. I say spiritual, as distinct from intellectual, perception. Paul says: You will net be able to comprehend the love of Christ, unless you are first rooted and grounded in it. A spiritual understanding is the opened flower of the Divine love root. Light is love's first-born child. Before one can enjoy the light of the world, he must be born of the world's love. And before we can be "light in the Lord," we must be "in the Lord," having a root and ground in us derived from Himself. Any such knowledge as the natural understanding is capable of deriving from the words of Scripture is by no means spiritual knowledge. In order to spiritual knowledge, the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, must as really shine into our hearts, as, in order to behold objects of nature, the light of the sun must shine into our eyes. If "Christ dwell in your hearts by faith," you will be "rooted and grounded in love," and as a consequence, you will be able to comprehend spiritual things. Love, then, according to our apostle, is the ground and mother of the perceptive faculty. Without fire there can be no effulgence, or radiance. As is the fire, will be the radiance. The source of mental illumination is the Son of God in the heart.

(J. Pulsford.)

I. THE DIMENSIONS OF THIS LOVE.

1. The breadth is seen in reaching out Divine mercy to sinners who are far off from God (Isaiah 65:1; Isaiah 45:22).

2. The length of this love reaches from eternity to eternity (Jeremiah 31:3; Jeremiah 32:40).

3. The depth of this love is seen in raising sinners from condemnation and hell (Psalm 40:2, 3; 1 Corinthians 6:9-11).

4. The height of this love consists in making sinners heirs of God, and bringing them finally to glory (2 Timothy 4:6-8).

II. WHAT THE APOSTLE MEANT, DESIRING THE EPHESIANS MIGHT COMPREHEND IT. "May be able to comprehend with all saints."

1. That they might form correct views of the freeness of God's love (2 Timothy 1:9).

2. That they might comprehend the perpetuity of it (John 13:1; Psalm 89:33).

3. That they might exhibit the effects of it in its constraining influence and constant peace (Romans 5:1-5).

III. FOR WHAT PURPOSE HE EXPRESSES THIS DESIRE. "That ye might be filled," etc.

1. That they might be able rightly to value it (Philippians 3:8, 9).

2. That they might depend upon it (James 1:17).

3. That they might honour it (Galatians 6:14).

4. It is inexpressible love.

(T. B. Baker.)

These terms were not, perhaps, intended to convey each of them a distinct idea, but generally to represent the vastness of the Divine love; yet we may make use of these various expressions to classify what we have to say on the matter.

1. The "breadth" suggests to us the extent of that love, the vastness of the field for which it is designed and for which it provides. God loves all His creatures — not one is excluded.

2. The "length" may suggest the duration of His love. It is not a thing of today, suddenly conceived, and that may be suddenly laid aside; it is from eternity, and had its birth before the foundations of the earth were laid. Look back, and back, and back, and you shall not see its commencement! Look forward, and forward, and forward, and you shall never see the termination of it, for it is also "to everlasting." Through the whole of your journey, however long continued it may be, you shall find His love with you.

3. And the "depth." Oh, how low has God come with that wondrous love of His! How He stooped to our low estate. From what depths has He sought to rescue His wayward, erring children.

4. And the "height." "He who ascended is the same also who descended; therefore, God hath highly exalted Him." He is high upon the throne of universal empire; and He says, "Father, I will that they also whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am." In the same height of glory to which He Himself has gone; to the same height as that throne on which He reigns; to that height of glory He purposes to bring us — a height to which no weapon can reach — a height at which there can be no sin — a height from which every step may be a stepping stone to higher glories. As the lark soars and sings, and soars and sings, so shall we; but not as the lark, which soars aloft, but ever comes back to earth.

(Newman Halt, LL. B.)

Well may St. Paul add, "to comprehend with all saints." No single mind is equal to this study. One mighty intellect of Newton may sketch the plan of the solar system; one Laplace may demonstrate its permanent equilibrium; one Herschel map out the nebulae of the southern sky; one Dalton unfold the laws of atomic combination; one Darwin assign the clue to the partial unfolding of the mystery of successive lives in nature. But no single soul is capable of comprehending the love of Christ, for the vision and experience of each is limited, and in morals we are members one of another. God has gifts which He bestows on the solitary students of Divine truth, and gifts which He bestows on His solitary petitioners in the closet or under, the fig tree. But, in general, the law of understanding the love of Christ is united study, united work, united conference, united prayer. In our spiritual being we are wonderfully dependent on each other, so that the gifted thinker freezes in solitude while companies of earnest and humble supplicants attain by their communion the vision and the faculty Divine. "Forsake not the assembling of yourselves together, as the manner of some is," for "where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them." The whole Church is a spiritual organism which is requisite for the comprehension of love Divine in its fulness. A few rays may fall on the individual eye: still more, when Churches meet to praise and pray even in a splintered and divided Christendom: but when the relics of eighteen hundred years of conflict, and ecclesiastical pride and sectarian contention, are cast aside and forgotten, and the one Church of God becomes visibly one on earth and consciously one in every place, then there will break upon the countless millions of eyes which will gaze upward every morning on the Sun of Righteousness, "with one heart and one soul," a flood of sunshine, an effulgence of answering glory, which will consecrate the earth, and prove it to be the gate of heaven.

(E. White.)

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 fires the apostle's thoughts here. Of course, he had no separate idea in his mind attaching to each of these measures of magnitude, but he gathered them all together simply to express the one thought of the greatness of Christ's love. Depth and height are the same dimension measured from opposite ends. The one begins at the top and goes down, the other begins at the bottom and goes up, but the surface is the same in either case. So we have the three dimensions of a solid here — breadth, length, and depth. And I suppose that I may venture to use these expressions with a somewhat different purpose from that for which the apostle employs them: and to see in each of them a separate and blessed aspect of the love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord.

I. WHAT, THEN, IS THE BREADTH OF THAT LOVE? It is as broad as humanity. As all the stars lie in the firmament, so all creatures rest in the heaven of His love. Mankind has many common characteristics. We all suffer, we all sin, we all hunger, we all aspire; and, blessed be God! we all occupy precisely the same relation to the love, the Divine love, which lies in Jesus Christ. There are no step-children in His great family, and none of them receive a more grudging or a less ample share of His love and goodness than every other. Broad as the race, and curtaining it over as some great tent may enclose on a festal day a whole tribe, the breadth of Christ's love is the breadth of humanity. And this broad love, broad as humanity, is not shallow because it is broad. Our human affections are too often like the estuary of some great stream which runs deep and mighty as long as it is held within narrow banks, but as soon as it widens becomes slow, and powerless, and shallow. The intensity of human affection varies inversely as its extension. A universal philanthropy is a passionless sentiment. But Christ's love is deep though it be wide, and suffers no diminution because it is shared amongst a multitude. There are two ways of arguing about the love of Christ, both of them valid, and both of them needing to be employed by us. We have a right to say, "He loves all, therefore He loves me." And we have a right to say, "He loves me, therefore He loves all." For surely the love that has stooped to me can never pass by any human soul. What is the breadth of the love of Christ? It is broad as mankind, it is narrow as myself.

II. Then, in the next place, WHAT IS THE LENGTH OF THE LOVE OF CHRIST? If we are to think of Him only as a man, however exalted and however perfect, you and I have nothing in the world to do with His love. When He was here on earth it may have been sent down the generations in some vague, pale way, as the shadowy ghost of love may rise in the heart of a great statesman or philanthropist for generations yet unborn, which he dimly sees will be affected by his sacrifice and service. But we do not call that love. Such a poor, pale; Shadowy thing has no right to the warm, throbbing name; has no right to demand from us any answering thrill of affection; and unless you think of Jesus Christ as something more and other than the purest and the loftiest benevolence that ever dwelt in human form, I know of no intelligible sense in which the length of His love can be stretched to touch you. And if we content ourselves with that altogether inadequate and lame conception of Him and of His nature, of course there is no present bond between any man upon earth and Him, and it is absurd to talk about His present love as extending in any way to me. But we have to believe, rising to the full height of the Christian conception of the nature and person of Christ, that when He was here on earth the Divine that dwelt in Him so informed and inspired the human as that the love of His man's heart was able to grasp the whole, and to separate the individuals that should make up the race till the end of time; so as that you and I, looking back over all the centuries, and asking ourselves what is the length of the love of Christ, can say, "It stretches over all the years, and it reached then as it reaches now to touch me, upon whom the ends of the earth have come." Its length is conterminous with the duration of humanity here or yonder. There is another measure of the length of the love of Christ. "Master! How often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? I say not unto thee until seven times, but until seventy times seven." So said the Christ, multiplying perfection into itself twice — two sevens and a ten — in order to express the idea of boundlessness. And the law that He laid down for His servant is the law that binds Himself. What is the length of the love of Christ? Here is one measure of it, howsoever long drawn out my sin may be, it stretches beyond this; and the while line of His love runs out into infinity, far beyond the point where the black line of my sin stops. Anything short of eternal patience would have been long ago exhausted by your sins and mine, and our brethren's. But the pitying Christ, the eternal Lover of all wandering souls, looks down from heaven upon every one of us; goes with us in all our wanderings, bears with us in all our sins, in all our transgressions still is gracious. The length of the love of Christ is the length of eternity, and out-measures all human sin.

III. Then again, WHAT IS THE DEPTH OF THAT LOVE? Depth and height, as I said at the beginning of these remarks, are but two ways of expressing the same dimension; the one we begin at the top and measure down, the other we begin at the bottom and measure up. The top is the Throne; and the downward measure, how is it to be stated? In what terms of distance are we to express it? How far is it from the Throne of the Universe to the manger at Bethlehem, and the Cross at Calvary, and the sepulchre in the garden? That is the depth of the love of Christ. Howsoever far may be the distance from that loftiness of co-equal Divinity in the bosom of the Father, and radiant with glory, to the lowliness of the form of a servant, and the sorrows, limitations, rejections, pains and final death — that is the measure of the depth of Christ's love. As if some planet were to burst from its track and plunge downwards in amongst the mists and the narrowness of our earthly atmosphere, so we can estimate the depth of the love of Christ by saying "He came from above, He tabernacled with us." A well known modern scientist has hazarded the speculation that the origin of life on this planet has been the falling upon it of the fragment of a meteor or an aerolite, from some other system, with a speck of organic life upon it, from which all has developed. Whatever may be the case in regard of the physical life, that is absolutely true in the case of spiritual life. It all comes because this heaven-descended Christ has come down the long staircase of Incarnation, and has brought with Him into the clouds and oppressions of our terrestrial atmosphere a germ of life which He has planted in the heart of the race, there to spread forever. That is the measure of the depth of the love of Christ. And there is another way to measure it. My sins are deep, my helpless miseries are deep, but they are shallow as compared with the love that goes down beneath all sin, that is deeper than all sorrow, that is deeper than all necessity, that shrinks from no degradation, that turns away from no squalor, that abhors no wickedness so as to avert its face from it. The purest passion of human benevolence cannot but sometimes be aware of disgust mingling with its pity and its efforts, but Christ's love comes down, howsoever far in the abyss of degradation any human soul has descended, beneath it are the everlasting arms, and beneath it is Christ's love. When a coal pit gets blocked up by some explosion no brave rescuing party will venture to descend into the lowest depths of the poisonous darkness until some ventilation has come there. But this loving Christ goes down, down, down into the thickest, most pestilential atmosphere, reeking with sin and corruption, and stretches out a rescuing hand to the most abject and undermost of all the victims. How deep is the love of Christ? The deep mines of sin and of alienation are all undermined and countermined by His love. Sin is an abyss, a mystery, how deep only they know who have fought against it; but —

"O Love! thou bottomless abyss,

My sins are swallowed up in thee."I will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea. The depths of Christ's love go down beneath all human necessity, sorrow, suffering, and sin.

IV. And, lastly, WHAT IS THE HEIGHT OF THE LOVE OF CHRIST? We found that the way to measure the depth was to begin at the Throne, and go down to the Cross, and to the foul abysses of evil. The way to measure the height is to begin at the Cross and the foul abysses of evil, and go up to the Throne. That is to say, the topmost thing in the universe, the shining apex and summit, glittering away up there in the radiant unsetting light, is the love of God in Jesus Christ. The other conceptions of that Divine nature spring high above us and tower beyond our thoughts, but the summit of them all, the very topmost as it is the very bottommost, outside of everything, and therefore high above everything, is the love of God which has been revealed to us all, and bought for us sinful men in the passion and manhood of our dear Christ. And that love which thus towers above us, and gleams the summit and the apex of the universe, like the shining cross on the top of same lofty cathedral spire, does not gleam there above us inaccessible, nor lie before us like some pathless precipice, up which nothing that has not wings can ever hope to rise, but the height of the love of Christ is an hospitable height, which can be scaled by us. Nay, rather, that heaven of love which is "higher than our thoughts," bends down, as by a kind of optical delusion the physical heaven seems to do, towards each of us, only with this blessed difference, that in the natural world the place where heaven touches earth is always the furthest point of distance from us; and in the spiritual world, the place where heaven stoops to me is always right over my head, and the nearest possible point to me. He' has come to lift us to Himself. And this is the height of His love, that it bears us up, if we will, up and up to sit upon that throne where He Himself is enthroned.

(A. Maclaren, D. D.)

This Divine mensuration is an art of the most desirable kind, as appears from its being the object of most earnest apostolic prayers.

I. Like a wise and enlightened teacher, Paul desires for the saints that they should receive THAT PREVIOUS EDUCATION WHICH IS NECESSARY BEFORE THEY WILL BE ABLE TO ENTER UPON SUCH A SCIENCE AS THE MEASUREMENT OF CHRIST'S LOVE. When lads go to school they are not at first put to study algebra, nor are they sent out to make a trigonometrical survey of a county. The schoolmaster knows that they must have a rudimentary knowledge of arithmetic, or else to teach them algebra would be waste of time, and that they must have some acquaintance with common geometry, or it would be absurd to instruct them in surveying. He therefore begins with the elementary information, and when they have learned simpler matters they are ready for the more difficult studies. They climb the steps of the door of science, and then they are introduced to her temple. The Apostle Paul does not propose that the new convert should at once be able to measure the breadth and length and depth and height of the love of Christ; he knows that this is not within the range of his infant mind; for the newborn spirit has a time of growth to go through before it can enter into the deep things of God. If you will kindly refer to the text you will see what this previous education is which the apostle desired for the saints. It is very fully described in three parts.

1. He desired that their spiritual faculties might be strengthened, for he prays that they might be "strengthened with might by the Spirit in the inner man." The schoolmaster knows that the boy's mind must be strengthened, that his understanding must be exercised, his discernment must be developed, and his memory must be rendered capacious before he may enter upon superior studies; and the apostle knows that our spiritual faculties must undergo the same kind of development; that our faith, for instance, must be unwavering, that our love must become fervent, that our hope must be bright, that our joy must be increased, and then, but not till then, we shall be able to comprehend the length and breadth of love Divine. We are to be strengthened in the inner man by the Spirit of God; and who can strengthen as He strengthens?

2. He desired that the object of study may be evermore before them: "that Christ may dwell," etc. A good tutor not only wishes his scholar may have a disciplined mind able to grapple with the subject, but he endeavours to keep the subject always before him; for in order to attain to any proficiency in a science the mind must be abstracted from all other thoughts, and continually exercised with the chosen theme. You will never find a man preeminent in astronomy unless astronomy has become the lord of mind, and holds a sway over his mind even in his dreams. The anatomist must be bound to nerves, and bones, and blood vessels, as the galley slave is bound to the oar, or he will never master his subject, The botanist must be enamoured of every flower, and wedded to every plant, or the fields will utterly bake him. "Through desire a man, having separated himself, seeketh and intermeddleth with all wisdom." Solomon knew what he wrote when he said, "Separated himself," for without separation or abstraction there can be no progress. Now, the apostle desires that we who are believers, our faculties being strengthened, may have the person of Jesus constantly before us to inflame our love, and so increase our knowledge. See how near he would have Jesus to be! "That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith." You cannot get a subject closer to you than to have it on the inner side of the eyes; that is to say, in the heart itself. The astronomer cannot always see the stars because they are far away, and outside of him; but our star shines in the heaven of our hearts evermore. The botanist must find his flowers in their seasons, but our plant of renown blooms in our souls all the year round. We carry the instruments of our saintly art, and the object of our devout contemplation within ourselves. As a scholar carries in his pocket a small edition of his favourite classic, so do we carry Christ in our hearts; what if I say we bear about with us a heart edition of the Liber Crucis, the Book of the Cross. If we knew more fully by experience the meaning of "Christ in you the hope of glory," our heaven-taught affections, which are the best part of our inner man, might be continually exercised upon the person, the work, and the love of our dear Redeemer.

3. The apostle prays further that they may have practical exercise in the art of holy love; "that ye being rooted and grounded in love." Every experienced tutor knows that it is greatly helpful to the student to exercise him in his chosen pursuit upon some lower and inferior branch of it, so as to lead him gradually to the higher points of it. If, for instance, he means him to understand the surveying of estates, he bids him measure a field containing an acre or two. If he means him to map out a country, he sets him first to make a plan of a neighbouring field or a farm. The apostle acts upon the same method. "That ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend the breadth and length of the love of Christ." Having the love of Jesus in you, possessed with love to Christ, you will be practised in the exercise of love, and so will understand the love which filled the Saviour. You will learn to do business upon the greater waters of the Redeemer's infinite love to His people, as you sail upon the stream of your love to Him. Two expressions are used: — "rooted," like a living tree which lays hold upon the soil, twists itself round the rocks, and cannot be upturned — "grounded," like a building which has been settled, as a whole, and will never show any cracks or flaws in the future through failures in the foundation. The apostle wishes us to be rooted and grounded in love, a vital union being established between our souls and Jesus, so that we love Him because He first loved us; and also a fiducial union, or a union of trust, by which we rest upon Jesus as the stones of a wall are settled upon the foundation.

II. We now come to consider more closely the SCIENCE OF HEAVENLY MENSURATION ITSELF. According to the text, we have a solid body to deal with, for we are to measure its breadth and length, and depth, and height. This cubical measurement — for it lieth foursquare, like the new Jerusalem — proves the reality of the body to be measured. Alas, to a great many religious people the love of Jesus is not a solid substantial thing at all — it is a beautiful fiction, a sentimental belief, a formal theory; but to Paul it was a real, substantial, measurable fact. No one knows the love of Christ at all if he does not know it to be real, and no one has felt it in his soul at all unless it becomes so real as to constrain him and move him into actual activity. The apostle desires that when the love of Christ becomes to us a solid reality we may have close communion with it. You may measure the breadth and length of a thing at a great distance, but you cannot very well measure its depth without drawing near to it. What a holy familiarity with Jesus do the words imply when we come to measurements of all kinds! What condescension is this which allows the sacred heart to be fathomed like a sea, and to be measured as a field! Shall the infinite thus bow itself to man? Shall man refuse to commune with such condescending love? Let me come to the very words of our text, and point out to you their order.

1. The first object of the Christian's knowledge should be the breadth of the Saviour's love. I know a certain school of Christians who have need to study this point, for they have a very narrow idea of the Lord's loving kindness. They conceive of Divine love as a very narrow stream, they have never seen it to be a mighty, flowing, abounding, and rejoicing river, such as it really is. The love of Jesus Christ does not surround our favoured island alone, but, like the ocean, it washes every shore. The love of Jesus Christ has been extended to kings upon their thrones, but with equal and more frequent bounty to the slaves in their dungeons.

2. The next object of study is the length of Christ's love. "I have loved thee with an everlasting love." Coeval then with Deity itself is the love of Deity towards its chosen ones. God did love us in His Son long before the world began. If an angel were to start from today with the design of finding out when God's love began he would doubtless fly on till he lingered at the Cross. "Here," he would say, "here is the fountain, here is the source of it all." But he would be reminded that "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son." Then there was a love before the giving of His Son. He would fly onward till he paused at Isaiah's day and heard of God's love in the prophecy that the Son of man should bear the iniquity of His people. He would say, "Surely it begins here!" But saints would remind him of yet older words of comfort, and he would fly on till he stopped outside of the garden of Eden and heard the Lord say, "The Seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head." "Surely," saith he, "it began here." But, divinely instructed, he would go back yet further, even to the eternal councils where first of all salvation was planned and contrived in the cabinets of wisdom before the world was. He would have to go back, back, back, till creation had vanished, till there remained not a shred of existence except the absolute self-existent Deity, and then in the Eternal Mind he would see thoughts of love toward a people to be formed for himself. This knowledge of the length of love does not always come to Christians early in their history. This love is not only without beginning, but it is without pause. There is never a moment when Jesus ceases to love His people. The love of Jesus knows nothing of suspended animation. There are some rivers in Australia which lose themselves, and for miles along their bed you find nothing but dry stones at certain seasons of the year. It is never so with the love of Christ: it is tong, and without a break from beginning to end; it is a chain without a single broken or feeble link.

3. The depth of the love of Jesus! Consider it as stooping to look upon such an insignificant creature as man! View the depth of that love in receiving such sinful creatures into His embrace! O sinner! you cannot have gone too deep for Christ's love to reach you. O backslider! you cannot have sinned too foully for forgiveness.

4. Think next of the height of the Master's love. You see it is put last, as the highest point of learning, There are some who have advanced as far as to understand somewhat of the depths, who do not know the full dignity and glory of an heir of heaven, and have felt but little of the power of His ascension. Why, the love of Jesus, even in this present life, is a height unspeakable, for has it not lifted us up to become sons of God? Yet, brethren, the height of this love will be best seen in a future state. You shall be borne up to dwell with Christ in the clouds when the world is in a blaze, and when the judgment is passed you shall be carried by angels' wings up to the seventh heaven where God dwelleth. Oh the breadth, the length, the depth, the height! To sum up what we have said in four words. For breadth the love of Jesus is immensity, for length it is eternity, for depth it is immeasurability, and for height it is infinity.

(C. H. Spurgeon.)

I. THE PREVIOUS TRAINING REQUIRED FOR THIS MEASUREMENT.

1. He would have their spiritual faculties vigorous.

2. He would have the subject always before them.

3. He would have them exercised in the art of measurement.(1) We must love Him ourselves, if we would measure Christ's love.(2) We must, by experience of His love, be confirmed in our own love to Him, or we cannot measure His love.(3) We must also have a vital grip of Christ. We must be rooted as a tree, which takes many a hold upon the soil.(4) We must settle down on His love as our foundation, on which we are grounded, as a building.(5) We must also show fixedness, certainty, and perseverance in our character, belief, and aim; for thus only shall we learn.

II. THE MENSURATION ITSELF.

1. This implies a sense of the reality of the matter.

2. It includes a coming near to the object of our study.

3. It indicates an intimate study, and a careful survey.

4. It necessitates a view from all sides of the subject.

5. The order of the measurement is the usual order of our own growth in grace. Breadth and length before depth and height.(1) The breadth. Immense.

(a)Comprehending all nations. "Preach the gospel to every creature."

(b)Covering hosts of iniquities. "All manner of sin."

(c)Compassing all needs, cares, etc.

(d)Conferring boundless boons for this life and worlds to come. It were well to sail across this river and survey its broad surface.(2) The length. Eternal. We wonder that God should love us at all. Let us meditate upon —

(a)Eternal love in the fountain. Election and the covenant.

(b)Ceaseless love in the flow. Redemption, calling, perseverance.

(c)Endless love in endurance. Long suffering, forgiveness, faithfulness, patience, immutability.

(d)Boundless love, in length exceeding our length of sin, suffering, backsliding, age, or temptation.(3) The depth. Incomprehensible.(a) Stoop of Divine love, condescending to consider us, to commune with us, to receive us in love, to bear with our faults, and to take us up from our low estate.(b) Stoop of love personified in Christ. He stoops, and becomes incarnate; endures our sorrows; bears our sins; and suffers our shame and death.(c) Where is the measure for all this? Our weakness, meanness, sinfulness, despair, make one factor of the measurement. His glory, holiness, greatness, Deity, make up the other.(4) The height. Infinite.

(a)As developed in present privilege, as one with Jesus.

(b)As to be revealed in future glory.

(c)As never to be fully comprehended throughout the ages.

III. THE PRACTICAL RESULT OF THIS MENSURATION. "That ye might be filled with all the fulness of God." Here are words full of mystery, worthy to be pondered.

1. Be filled. What great things man can hold!

2. Filled with God. What exaltation!

3. Filled with the fulness of God. What must this be?

4. Filled with all the fulness of God. What more can be imagined?

(C. H. Spurgeon.)

The more we know the more are we conscious of our ignorance of that which is unknown, or, as Dr. Chalmers used to put it in his class — borrowing an illustration from his favourite mathematics — "The wider the diameter of light, the greater is the circumference of darkness." The more a man knows, he comes at more points into contact with the unknown.

(C. H. Spurgeon.)

As I was riding along in the South of France one day I saw a fine pair of birds overhead. The driver called out in the French tongue, "Eagles." Yes, and there was a man below with a gun, wishful to get a nearer acquaintance with the eagles, but they did not come down to oblige him. He pointed his rifle at them, but his shots did not reach half way, for the royal birds kept above. The higher air is the fit dominion for eagles, up above the smoke and clouds. Keep there, eagles. Keep there! If men can get you within range they mean no good to you. Keep up, Christian. Keep up in the higher element, resting in Jesus Christ, and do not come down to find a perch for yourself among the trees of philosophy.

(C. H. Spurgeon.)

Ephesians, PaulEphesusAble, Apprehend, Breadth, Christ, Comprehend, Deep, Depth, Fully, God's, Grasp, Grasped, Height, Highth, Length, Love, Order, Power, Saints, Strength, Strengthened, Strong, Wide1. The hidden mystery that the Gentiles should be saved was made known to Paul by revelation;
8. and to him was that grace given, that he should preach it.
13. He desires them not to be discouraged over his tribulation;
14. and prays that they may perceive the great love of Christ toward them.

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

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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