Ephesians 3:19

And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge,.... The love of Christ to his own, to his church and people, is special and peculiar; free and Sovereign; as early as his Father's love, and

And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God. Passeth - surpasseth.

And to know, sensibly and experimentally to perceive in yourselves, the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge; which, though it may in a greater degree than hitherto be known and experienced, yet never can be in this life fully and absolutely understood and comprehended: see , and the like expression, . That ye might be filled with all the fulness of God; all that fulness of knowledge, faith, love, holiness, and whatsoever it is with which God fills believers gradually here, and perfectly hereafter, when God shall be all in all, .

19 And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God. Ver. 19. With, all the fulness of God] That is, of Christ’ s diffusive fulness, in whom the Godhead dwelt bodily, and in whom we are complete, Colossians 2:9-10. And to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge] Chrysostom speaking of this love of God in Christ, Oh, saith he, I am like a man digging in a deep spring; I stand here, and the water riseth upon me; I stand there, and still the water riseth upon me. But though we cannot ever know it all, yet we may and must grow in the knowledge of this love of Christ, in the searching of this sea that hath neither bank nor bottom; and where, as in the salt waters, "the deeper the sweeter."

(19) To know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge.—The intentional paradox of this expression is weakened if (with many interpretations) we suppose that there is opposition in kind between knowledge referred to in the two clauses: as if “to know” meant to know by faith and spiritual experience, while the “knowledge,” which the love of Christ “passes,” is mere “human knowledge”—head-knowledge, and the like. Of such opposition there is no trace (contrast 1 Corinthians 2:6-16). In the original, the word “to know” is in a tense which expresses cognition in a particular case; hence the meaning of St. Paul’s prayer seems to be that they may know from time to time, as each opportunity offers, what must in its entirety pass all human knowledge, either to discover or fully to understand, even when revealing itself; so that they may always go on from faith to faith, from knowledge to knowledge, and yet find new depths still to be fathomed. The “love of Christ” is the love which He bears to us, and which is the motive of His sacrifice for our redemption. It is known only by those who are rooted in love to Him; such love being at once the consequence of the first knowledge of His love to us (1 John 4:19) and the condition of entering more deeply into that knowledge. That ye might be filled with (or, rather, up to) all the fulness of God.—This clause must be taken as dependent, not merely on the clause immediately preceding, but on the whole sentence. It describes the final and glorious consequence of the indwelling of Christ in the heart, viz., the “being filled” with grace “up to the fulness of God.” The meaning is more clearly seen in the fuller expression below (Ephesians 4:13): “till we all come . . . to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.” It is simply perfect conformation to the image of Him in whom “dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (Colossians 2:9), and whose fulness is therefore the “fulness of God,” manifesting all the attributes of the divine nature. The process is described in 2 Corinthians 3:18, “We all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory;” its consummation in 1 John 3:2, “When He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is.” (Comp. Philippians 3:20-21.) Here it completes the climax. When Christ dwells in the heart we have first, love perfecting the faith which roots the life in Him; next, a thoughtful knowledge, entering by degrees into the unsearchable riches of His love to us; and, lastly, the filling the soul, itself weak and empty, up to the perfection of likeness to Him, so renewing and deepening through all time and eternity the image of God in our humanity.

Verse 19. To know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge] It is only by the love of Christ that we can know the love of God: the love of God to man induced him to give Christ for his redemption; Christ's love to man induced him to give his life's blood for his salvation. The gift of Christ to man is the measure of God's love; the death of Christ for man is the measure of Christ's love. God so loved the world, c. Christ loved us, and gave himself for us. But how can the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, be known? Many have laboured to reconcile this seeming contradiction. If we take the verb γνωναι in a sense in which it is frequently used in the New Testament, to approve, acknowledge, or acknowledge with approbation, and γνωσις to signify comprehension, then the difficulty will be partly removed: "That ye may acknowledge, approve, and publicly acknowledge, that love of God which surpasseth knowledge." We can acknowledge and approve of that which surpasses our comprehension. We cannot comprehend GOD yet we can know that he is; approve of, love, adore, and serve him. In like manner, though we cannot comprehend, the immensity of the love of Christ, yet we know that he has loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood; and we approve of, and acknowledge, him as our only Lord and Saviour. In this sense we may be said to know the love of Christ that passeth knowledge. But it is more likely that the word γνωσις, which we translate knowledge, signifies here science in general, and particularly that science of which the rabbins boasted, and that in which the Greeks greatly exulted. The former professed to have the key of knowledge; the secret of all Divine mysteries; the latter considered their philosophers, and their systems of philosophy, superior to every thing that had ever been known among men, and reputed on this account all other nations as barbarians. When the apostle prays that they may know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, he may refer to all the boasted knowledge of the Jewish doctors, and to all the greatly extolled science of the Greek philosophers. To know the love of Christ, infinitely surpasseth all other science. This gives a clear and satisfactory sense. That ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.] Among all the great sayings in this prayer, this is the greatest. To be FILLED with God is a great thing; to be filled with the FULNESS of God is still greater; but to be filled with ALL the fulness of God, παντοπληρωματουθεου, utterly bewilders the sense and confounds the understanding. Most people, in quoting these words, endeavour to correct or explain the apostle, by adding the word communicable; but this is as idle as it is useless and impertinent. The apostle means what he says, and would be understood in his own meaning.

19. And to know] An aorist verb, expressing a new and decisive development of knowledge, knowledge of the spiritual kind, the intuition of the regenerate spirit, realized in its own responsive adoring love.the love of Christ] Who “loved the Church, and gave Himself for it” (Ephesians 5:25); “Who loved me, and gave Himself for me” (Galatians 2:20). See further Romans 8:35, with 39; 2 Corinthians 5:14; Revelation 1:5.—The context favours the chief reference here of these sacred words to the Lord’s love for the true Church, without excluding, what cannot be excluded in the matter, His love, and the sense of it, for the individual saint.which passeth knowledge] knowledge of every sort, spiritual as much as intellectual. Here is an Object eternally transcending, while it eternally invites, the effort after a complete cognition. For ever, there is more to know.—To find a reference here to heretical or unspiritual gnôsis is frigid and out of place, in a passage glowing with the highest truths in their loveliest aspects.—For a similar phrase, cp. Philippians 4:7.The testimony of such words as these to the Nature of Christ is strong indeed, none the less so because not on the surface. No created Person, however exalted, could either be, or be commended as being, to the human spirit, an infinite object of knowledge in any aspect.—“None fully knoweth the Son save the Father” (Matthew 11:27).that ye might be filled] An aorist again; indicating a crisis and new attainment. For the thought, cp. Colossians 1:9; “that ye may be filled with the knowledge of His will”; such knowledge as to lead to “walking worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing.” See too, for kindred language, Romans 15:13-14. The idea is of a vessel connected with an abundant source external to itself, and which will be filled, up to its capacity, if the connexion is complete. The vessel is the Church, and also the saint. It may be only partially filled; it may be full—every faculty of the individual, every part of life and circumstances, every member of the community, “ful-filled with grace and heavenly benediction.” And this latter state is what the Apostle looks for. See further, on Ephesians 3:18.with] Lit., and better, unto, “up to.” The “fulfilling” is to be limited only by the Divine resources. Not, of course, that either Church or soul can contain the Infinite; but they can receive the whole, the plenitude, of those blessings which the Infinite One is willing and able at each moment to bestow on the finite recipient.all the fulness of God] I.e., as in Colossians 2:9 (and see note on Ephesians 1:23), the totality of the Divine riches, whether viewed as Attributes as in God, or Graces as in us; whatever, being in Him, is spiritually communicable to the saints, the “partakers of Divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4). The believing reader will find inexhaustible matter in such a phrase for thought, prayer, and faith[36]. [36] Observe the silent testimony of this whole paragraph against disproportioned theories of the true use of the holy Sacraments.

And to know the love of Christ - The love of Christ toward us; the immensity of redeeming love.

19. Know—As by conscious experience. Love of Christ—His love to us as manifested in the redemption. Passeth knowledge—The conciseness of St.