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 grounded
in love, may be strong to apprehend with all the saints what is the
breadth and length, and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ
which passeth knowledge, that ye may be filled unto all the fullness of
God” (R. V.). We have here an advance in the thought over that which we
have just been studying in the preceding chapter. It is the carrying out
of the former work to its completion. Here the power of the Spirit
manifests itself, not merely in giving us victory over sin but in four
things:
I. _In Christ dwelling in our hearts._ The word translated “dwell” in this
passage is a very strong word. It means literally, “to dwell down,” “to
settle,” “to dwell deep.” It is the work of the Holy Spirit to form the
living Christ within us, dwelling deep down in the deepest depths of our
being. We have already seen that this was a part of the significance of
the name sometimes used of the Holy Spirit, “the Spirit of Christ.” In
Christ on the cross of Calvary, made an atoning sacrifice for sin, bearing
the curse of the broken law in our place, we have _Christ for us_. But by
the power of the Holy Spirit bestowed upon us by the risen Christ we have
_Christ in us_. Herein lies the secret of a Christlike life. We hear a
great deal in these days about doing as Jesus would do. Certainly we ought
as Christians to live like Christ. “He that saith he abideth in Him, ought
himself so to walk even as He walked” (1 John ii. 6). But any attempt on
our part to imitate Christ in our own strength will only result in utter
disappointment and despair. There is nothing more futile that we can
possibly attempt than to imitate Christ in the power of our own will. If
we fancy that we succeed it will be simply because we have a very
incomplete knowledge of Christ. The more we study Him, and the more
perfectly we understand His conduct, the more clearly will we see how far
short we have come from imitating Him. But God does not demand of us the
impossible, He does not demand of us that we imitate Christ in our own
strength. He offers to us something infinitely better, He offers to form
Christ in us by the power of His Holy Spirit. And when Christ is thus
formed in us by the Holy Spirit’s power, all we have to do is to let this
indwelling Christ live out His own life in us, and then we shall be like
Christ without struggle and effort of our own. A woman, who had a deep
knowledge of the Word and a rare experience of the fullness that there is
in Christ, stood one morning before a body of ministers as they plied her
with questions. “Do you mean to say, Mrs. H——,” one of the ministers
asked, “that you are holy?” Quickly but very meekly and gently, the elect
lady replied, “Christ in me is holy.” No, we are not holy. To the end of
the chapter in and of ourselves we are full of weakness and failure, but
the Holy Spirit is able to form within us the Holy One of God, the
indwelling Christ, and He will live out His life through us in all the
humblest relations of life as well as in those relations of life that are
considered greater. He will live out His life through the mother in the
home, through the day-labourer in the pit, through the business man in his
office—everywhere.
II. _In our being rooted and grounded in love_ (v. 17). Paul multiplies
figures here. The first figure is taken from the tree shooting its roots
down deep into the earth and taking fast hold upon it. The second figure
is taken from a great building with its foundations laid deep in the earth
on the rock. Paul therefore tells us that by the strengthening of the
Spirit in the inward man we send the roots of our life down deep into the
soil of love and also that the foundations of the superstructure of our
character are built upon the rock of love. Love is the sum of holiness,
the fulfilling of the law (Rom. xiii. 10); love is what we all most need
in our relations to God, to Jesus Christ and to one another; and it is the
work of the Holy Spirit to root and ground our lives in love. There is the
most intimate relation between Christ being formed within us, or made to
dwell in us, and our being rooted and grounded in love, for Jesus Christ
Himself is the absolutely perfect embodiment of divine love.
III. _In our being made strong to apprehend with all the saints what is
the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of
Christ which passeth knowledge._ It is not enough that we love, we must
know the love of Christ, but that love passeth knowledge. It is so broad,
so long, so high, so deep, that no one can comprehend it. But we can
“apprehend” it, we can lay hold upon it; we can make it our own; we can
hold it before us as the object of our meditation, our wonder, and our
joy. But it is only in the power of the Holy Spirit that we can thus
apprehend it. The mind cannot grasp it at all, in its own native strength.
A man untaught and unstrengthened by the Spirit of God may talk about the
love of Christ, he may write poetry about it, he may go into rhapsodies
over it, but it is only words, words, words. There is no real
apprehension. But the Spirit of God makes us strong to really apprehend it
in all its breadth, in all its length, in all its depth, and in all its
height.
IV. _In our being __“__filled unto __ALL__ the fullness of God.__”_ There
is a very important change between the Authorized and Revised Version. The
Authorized Version reads “Filled _with_ all the fullness of God.” The
Revised Version reads more exactly “filled _unto_ all the fullness of
God.” It is no wonder that the translators of the Authorized Version
staggered at what Paul said and sought to tone down the full force of his
words. To be filled _with_ all the fullness of God would not be so
wonderful, for it is an easy matter to fill a pint cup with all the
fullness of the ocean, a single dip will do it. But it would be an
impossibility indeed to fill a pint cup _unto_ all the fullness of the
ocean, until all the fullness that there is in the ocean is in that pint
cup. But it is seemingly a more impossible task that the Holy Spirit
undertakes to do for us, to fill us “unto all the fullness” of the
infinite God, to fill us until all the intellectual and moral fullness
that there is in God is in us. But this is the believer’s destiny, we are
“heirs of God and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ” (Rom. viii. 17), _i. e._,
we are heirs of God to the extent that Jesus Christ is an heir of God;
that is, we are heirs to all God is and all God has. It is the work of the
Holy Spirit to apply to us that which is already ours in Christ. It is His
work to make ours experimentally all God has and all God is, until the
work is consummated in our being “_filled unto all the fullness of God_.”
This is not the work of a moment, nor a day, nor a week, nor a month, nor
a year, but the Holy Spirit day by day puts His hand, as it were, into the
fullness of God and conveys to us what He has taken therefrom and puts it
into us, and then again He puts His hand into the fullness that there is
in God and conveys to us what is taken therefrom, and puts it into us, and
this wonderful process goes on day after day and week after week and month
after month, and year after year, and never ends until we are “filled
_unto_ all the fullness of God.”