To Know That Which Cannot Be Known: Ephesians 3:19

 

Ephesians 3:19- "and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God."

Have you ever awoke in the morning feeling as if God had dealt with you about something during the night? This happened to me recently. I woke up one morning with an overwhelming sense of God's love. Yet, I was also acutely aware that I could not comprehend His love or possibly love Him to the measure He has loved me. 

I admit I do not fully comprehend God's love for me. But our key verse indicates that we cannot possibly understand a love so beyond human experience. To love like Christ, then, seems like a contradiction in terms. 

One of the arguments that skeptics have of Christianity is the implicit contradiction of the Bible. Many years ago I sat with an older couple at their kitchen table talking with them about faith and their spiritual journeys. The husband was a very close friend of mine, who was also a believer. His wife was not a believer, but was very skeptical of the claims of Christianity. 

Her tactic was to point out contradictions that she had found in the Bible. While I answered her many questions related to the Bible and faith, I realized two things about her. Many years later I have realized her questions reflected her quest to be able to trust as opposed to a desire to prove the Bible wrong. I also realized she wanted her questions answered, even though she expressed her skepticism with vigor. 

The key verse for this devotion could present a possible contradiction from a human point of view. The  New Testament writers often got caught up in their writing when speaking of Christ (Romans 11:33-36; 1 Corinthians 15:56-57; Jude 24-25). Ephesians 3:16-21 is one such example. The Apostle Paul embeds an implied contradiction within His liturgical elaborations on the eternal nature of the love of Christ. He writes, "...and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled to all the fullness of God" (Ephesians 3:19).

How can we know something that we cannot possibly comprehend? To understand this key verse, we must look at it in its context. Notice the Apostle's many petitions for the church at Ephesus. He bends his knees before the Father (14-15) and prays:

"I pray

    that out of His glorious riches

He may strengthen you with power 

        Through His Spirit in your inner being (16)

    so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. 

And I pray that you, 

        being rooted and established in love (17)

may have power, 

        together with all the Lord's holy people, 

    to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, (18)

    and to know this love that surpasses knowledge-

that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God." (19)

To study this passage, I have highlighted key phrases that may help you understand the love of God and our response to Him. There are four colors to highlight three important truths about these verses. 

Blue- Represents the requests Paul prayed

Orange- Defines the riches of God

Pink- Highlights the love of God

Red- Expresses the measure of God's love

So with this colorful break down of the passage, I want you to notice three truths about the surpassing knowledge of the love of God. First, it takes prayer to comprehend the love of Christ experientially. I admit that prayer is often overdone and understated. We belittle the power of prayer by addressing it with our superficial church-isms. The Apostle did not presume that a believer would automatically be able to comprehend the love of God. That is so because experiencing the love of Christ is a supernatural phenomenon that cannot be comprehended in the flesh. Paul used the word gnonai to convey an experiential understanding of the love of Christ. We express our love for one another all the time without realizing the experience we enjoy from the love others express to us cannot possibly be duplicated with God without prayer as an intervention.  

Paul's prayer was not easy. Paul prayed for this church to experience the incomprehensible love of God through His Spirit in their inner beings (16). Here is the power of prayer. Prayer connects you to the Spirit of God within your inner man. Prayer moves you into the spiritual realm where God resides (John 4:24). We live out of our bodies most of the time, meaning that our flesh rules our decisions and governs our behaviors. Prayer takes us inward to our spirit where the Spirit of God speaks, rules, governs, controls, and loves. Paul wrote in another context, "The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children" (Romans 8:16). The affirmation we seek; the direction we need; the solace we desire; the love for which we long; the voice for which we listen are the results of connecting the spirit of man to the Spirit of God in prayer. 

However, there is a caveat. The implication of Paul's prayer was that this was not a one shot deal. This level of prayer reflected a lifestyle of devotion to Christ that transcended the immediacy of a moment. Fervent, urgent prayer (Ephesians 6:18; James 5:16), not just a quick, fly by night "bless the gift and giver" prayer defined Paul's practice and the early teaching in the church. So experiencing the love of Christ at the most basic, grassroots level is impossible without a life framed within the supernatural boundary formed by the effectual, fervent prayers of a devoted follower of Christ. 

Second, the love of God can be experienced though it could never be understood. God's love is measureless. It's as if Paul could not find the words to adequately describe the eternal expanse of God's love. He described the love of Christ in terms of width, length, height, and depth. To comprehend the extent of God's love consider love in context of what we know about how God chooses to relate to us: 

• The width of God's love: "...as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us" (Psalm 103:12).
• The length of God's love: "...and consider that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation—as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you,..." (NKJV, 2 Peter 3:15).
• The height of God's love: "For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him;..." (Psalm 103:11).
• The depths of God's love: "“What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived” — the things God has prepared for those who love him—these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God" (1 Corinthians 2:9-10). 

The deep things of God, such as the measureless love of Christ, cannot be understood intellectually or physically. They must be experienced supernaturally from within the positional source where God resides. While the love of God far surpasses the human intellectual capacity to comprehend, through the sovereign choice of God, we can experience His love in every circumstance, in every conversation, through every person, in every verse of scripture, in the quiet moments of nature, and in the busy-ness of life. 

Finally, the love of Christ is the door by which we enter into the fullness of everything that God has for us. There is no place that is outside of the realm of possibility for those who have received the love of Christ. Paul expressed those places as God's glorious riches, which represent the immeasurable fullness of God. Paul prayed that this church may be filled (plērōthēte), meaning that they may be complete receiving all that God has for them with no desire for anything else that may abandon them to emptiness. 

This is not pie-in-the-sky theology. God loves on you out of all that He has for you in everyday circumstances. God loves on you so you can experience just how much He loves you in every detail of life. Three years ago God gave me a promise from Psalm 121 while I nervously sat in a waiting room hoping I could avoid surgery. At that point, I trusted Him by believing that this promise was for me in that moment. An hour later, I found out that the prognosis was confirmed cancer. I admit I wondered if I had misinterpreted this passage from Psalm 121 because the doctor painted a grim prognosis for the evasive nature of this surgery. An hour later, different from the doctor's original prediction and much to my surprise, the surgery went much easier than she thought or I was prepared to expect. I learned for the first time in that circumstance that God keeps His promises even when the prognosis is bleak or the worst case scenario happens. 

Life may not work out. The surgery may still be difficult. The prognosis may remain bleak. Our circumstances do not change the promises of God because no doctor, no prognosis, no illness can separate us from the love of Christ, nor rob us of the riches of everything God has given us by His grace through Christ. 

He has reminded me over and over again how much He loves me from that promise He gave me three years ago. But it is not only for me. God's love for you far surpasses your ability to comprehend it, your expectation to receive it, or your experience to know it. Anticipate His love for you as you live life today. 

Life Application

As I thought through God's love for me, He directed me to Romans 5:8 where Paul instructed the church at Rome about the unique love of God: "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." 

God does not wait for us to say the right words nor do the right things before He demonstrates His love for us in Christ. The love of Christ accepts us messy, sinful, undeserving, and broken. Love makes it possible for grace to clean the mess (1 John 1:9), forgive the sinner (Psalm 79:9), justify the lawbreaker (Romans 5:1), and heal the wounded (Luke 4:18-19). Love is the message of grace that Christ called Paul to preach (Acts 20:32) and motivated the Apostle to pray for this church. 

Two final thoughts about God's love for you and how you express His love to others. To love like God loved you in Christ, you must understand that love is blind to the shortcoming of others. Even though in the mind of God, He knew I would betray Him even as His Son bled out on the cross, the Father still saw me worth the death of His only begotten Son. His love was not based upon whether I was worthy of such a sacrifice, because I am not. Christ's substitutionary death was simply motivated by love that cannot be measured, but is perfectly understood when received without merit or work. God's love for us was borne out of His sovereign will to choose us (Ephesians 1:4ff) as children of God without merit or justifiable works. That means I can express my love for Him when I pour out the love He has already shown me on someone else, especially when they least deserve it.  

Love is not only blind, but it is also deaf. How many times have my words imparted death instead of life? How many times has my language cursed instead of blessed? How many times have the words of others pierced the depths of my soul to cause doubt, insecurity, fear, or isolation? Love drowns out the lies of the enemy by pointing us to the word of grace (Acts 20:32). 

Meditate on this last statement as a moment of reflection by breaking it down phrase by phrase and receiving the truth of God's love for you. 

By demonstrating God's love for someone else from the overflow of His love for you, you can experience the incomprehensible love of Christ to its fullest measure simply because God chose to first love you before the foundations of the world (Ephesians 1:4). 

Scriptures for further study

Ephesians 3:14-21

How would you describe prayer in your Christian life?

Few and far between        Infrequent            Frequent            Fervent    

Does your prayer life manifest the love of God? If not, how is God working to mature your life of prayer? If so, how does God's love manifest in your life of prayer? 

Do you struggle with showing love to others who you believe don't deserve it? If so, why do you think you struggle with showing this measure of love?

List 3 ways that God has supernaturally expressed His love for you. 

How do you think you could love others based upon these 3 supernatural expressions of God's love?