The love of Christ

Part 4 - How wide and long and high and deep

Ephesians 3v16-19

18^th December 2015

We've been looking at Paul's prayer in Ephesians 3:

Ephesians 3v16-19
I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.
And I pray that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 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, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge - that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Paul prays that we might 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, but he admits that this love... surpasses knowledge. I think this means two things:

• Firstly, it means that we need more than just theology or doctrine, more than just head knowledge; we need heart experience, so ask for it. God wants to give it to us.
• Secondly, it means that no matter how much you know the vastness of Christ's love for you, you don't know all of it. There' always more.

We've seen that our ability to grasp the size of Christ's love for us is God-given, now we must also see that it's progressive. No-one wakes up one morning fully understanding how much Jesus loves them, but we can grasp more of the amazing width and length and hight and depth of His love each day. As the Holy Spirit works in our hearts over time, as we know our Bibles better, as we continue to pray and worship, and meet with other believers, God gives us this power more and more. And as we walk with Him, He walks with us year after year, and we see His mercy and grace.

No-one knows exactly what was in Paul's mind when he wrote about how wide and long and high and deep Christ's love is. Augustine interpreted this phrase to mean love, hope, patience and humility. Ambrose took it to mean the dimensions of a sphere - perhaps the whole world, or the whole of creation. Some take it to be a description of the cross. Calvin says it means "In whatever direction men may look, they will find nothing in the doctrine of salvation that does not bear some relation to this subject". They're all partly right, of course. But I think what Paul's mainly saying is:

The love of Christ is vast, enormous, huge. You can find it everywhere, in every situation, in every moment.

On the earth, and in heaven, east and west, north and south, in the palace and in the prison, in health and in sickness, in business and in loneliness, Christ's love is there for you, and you can find it. And there's more of it than you realise.

I don't think Paul is suggesting that we should pray once for the power to grasp the immensity of the love of Christ; I think his words teach us to go on praying, for ourselves and for others, that by God's power we understand more and more and more, as time goes on.

The more we walk with Christ, the more we know Christ. And the more we know Christ, the more we understand of His love. And the more we realise we haven't grasped all of it yet.