'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 of magnitude, but he gathered them 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 distance is the same in either case. So we have the three
dimensions of a solid here--breadth, length, and depth.
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.