The Prayer in Ephesians 3:14–19

Ephesians 3:18 sits inside one of Paul’s richest prayers. He bows before the Father and asks that believers be strengthened through the Spirit, that Christ may dwell in their hearts through faith, and that they may be rooted and grounded in love. Then he prays that they may have strength to comprehend with all the holy ones “the breadth and length and height and depth” and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that they may be filled with all the fullness God gives. The article What Is the Fullness of God (Ephesians 3:19)? is naturally connected to this passage because Ephesians 3:18 and Ephesians 3:19 belong to one sustained prayer.

The historical-grammatical reading begins with Paul’s context. Ephesians explains Jehovah’s purpose to bring believing Jews and Gentiles together in one body through Christ. Ephesians 2:14–16 says Christ made both groups one, breaking down the dividing wall of hostility and reconciling them to God in one body through His sacrifice. Ephesians 3:6 states that Gentiles are fellow heirs, fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. Therefore, when Paul prays that believers may comprehend the “breadth and length and height and depth,” he is not encouraging mystical speculation. He is praying that Christians will grasp the vastness of Christ’s love and Jehovah’s saving purpose as revealed through the gospel.

The four dimensions are not a secret code. Paul uses spatial language to express immensity. Human language must stretch to speak about divine love because Christ’s love is knowable and yet never exhaustively mastered by finite minds. A child can truly know the love of a faithful father, but the child does not comprehend every sacrifice, decision, concern, and act of care that father has carried out. Likewise, Christians truly know Christ’s love through Scripture, repentance, faith, obedience, forgiveness, and congregation life, but they do not reach a point where there is nothing more to understand.

Comprehension Comes Through the Spirit-Inspired Word

Paul’s prayer includes strengthening through the Spirit. This must be understood in harmony with the full teaching of Scripture. The Holy Spirit inspired the Word of God, and Christians are guided through that Spirit-inspired Word. Second Timothy 3:16–17 says all Scripture is inspired by God and equips the man of God for every good work. Second Peter 1:20–21 says men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. Therefore, believers grow in comprehension as they submit their minds and conduct to the written Word that the Holy Spirit produced.

This guards the passage from emotional misuse. Some treat Ephesians 3:18 as if comprehension comes through private impressions, ecstatic experience, or inward voices. Paul’s own writings point elsewhere. Ephesians 1:13 says believers heard the word of truth, the gospel of salvation. Ephesians 4:20–21 says Christians learned Christ as truth is in Jesus. Ephesians 6:17 calls the sword of the Spirit the Word of God. The Spirit’s instrument for instruction is the revealed Word, not uncontrolled feeling.

Concrete application follows. A believer comprehends Christ’s love more deeply when he studies the Gospels and sees Jesus receiving repentant sinners, correcting hypocritical religion, teaching truth, and giving Himself as a ransom. He comprehends more deeply when he studies Romans and sees how God can be just and yet justify the one who has faith in Jesus. He comprehends more deeply when he studies Ephesians and sees former outsiders brought near by Christ’s sacrifice. He comprehends more deeply when he applies First Corinthians 13 in family, congregation, and evangelism. Biblical comprehension is not bare information. It is truth understood, believed, obeyed, and lived.

The Breadth of Christ’s Love

The breadth of Christ’s love points to its wide reach. Ephesians itself emphasizes this breadth by showing that Christ’s saving work embraces believing Jews and Gentiles. Before Christ, Gentiles were described in Ephesians 2:12 as separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers to the covenants of promise, without hope, and without God in the world. But Ephesians 2:13 says that those once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. That is breadth.

This breadth does not mean universal salvation regardless of repentance and faith. The New Testament repeatedly calls people to respond obediently to the gospel. Acts 17:30 says God commands all people everywhere to repent. John 3:36 says the one believing in the Son has eternal life, while the one disobeying the Son will not see life. The breadth of Christ’s love is not moral permissiveness. It is the gracious extension of salvation to people from many nations, backgrounds, social classes, and former conditions, provided they come to God through Christ.

A concrete example appears in the congregation at Ephesus itself. Acts 19 shows that Ephesus was a city marked by magic, idolatry, commercial religion, and devotion to Artemis. Some who came to faith burned their books of magic publicly, showing repentance and separation from former practices. Christ’s love reached people whose lives had been entangled in false worship and spiritual darkness, but that love did not leave them unchanged. It brought them into obedience to the truth. The breadth of love includes rescuing people from many backgrounds, not affirming them in the sins from which they must be saved.

The article The Far-Reaching Love of the Believer connects naturally with this idea because believers who comprehend Christ’s far-reaching love must learn to show Christian love widely. This includes evangelizing people outside one’s comfort zone, forgiving repentant brothers and sisters, showing patience with the spiritually weak, and refusing prejudice rooted in human pride. Ephesians 4:32 commands Christians to be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave them. The breadth of Christ’s love becomes a pattern for Christian conduct.

The Length of Christ’s Love

The length of Christ’s love points to its enduring reach across time and circumstance. Ephesians 1:4–10 presents Jehovah’s purpose in Christ as established before the world’s foundation and moving toward the administration of all things under Christ. Without using speculative systems, the passage teaches that God’s saving purpose in Christ was not an afterthought. Christ’s love reaches from Jehovah’s eternal purpose into the believer’s present life and forward into the future inheritance.

In human relationships, love often weakens when difficulty appears. Christ’s love does not. Romans 5:8 says God shows His love in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. The love of Christ did not begin when people became attractive, righteous, or useful. It acted when sinners were helpless. Ephesians 2:4–5 says God, being rich in mercy because of His great love, made believers alive with Christ when they were dead in trespasses. Christ’s love reaches into the depth of human need and continues to sustain the believer on the path of salvation.

The length of Christ’s love can be seen in His patient dealings with His disciples. Peter spoke boldly and failed grievously, yet the resurrected Christ restored him to useful service, as recorded in John 21:15–17. Thomas struggled to accept the resurrection testimony, yet Christ gave him the correction he needed, as seen in John 20:24–29. The disciples argued about greatness, misunderstood Jesus’ mission, and fled under pressure. Yet Christ continued to teach, correct, and prepare them. His love endured without becoming indulgent. He did not excuse unbelief, pride, or fear. He corrected them for their good.

For Christians today, the length of Christ’s love gives stability. A believer who has stumbled must not conclude that repentance is useless. First John 1:9 says that if Christians confess their sins, God is faithful and righteous to forgive and cleanse. A believer who is discouraged by slow growth must not despise the ordinary means of Scripture, prayer, congregation encouragement, and obedience. Philippians 1:6 expresses confidence that God’s good work among believers moves toward completion. Christ’s love does not abandon the repentant because growth is gradual.

The Height of Christ’s Love

The height of Christ’s love points upward to its heavenly source, dignity, and goal. Ephesians 1:20–21 says God raised Christ from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above every rule and authority and power and dominion. Ephesians 2:6 says believers are raised with Him in a representative sense, sharing the spiritual blessings of union with Christ. The love being described is not merely human affection. It comes from the exalted Son who reigns under the Father’s authority.

Christ’s love lifts believers from earthly-mindedness. Colossians 3:1–2 tells Christians to seek the things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God, and to set their minds on things above, not on things of the earth. This does not mean Christians ignore earthly responsibilities. It means their values are governed by the risen Christ rather than by the present wicked world. First John 2:15–17 warns against loving the world or the things in the world because the world is passing away, but the one doing the will of God remains.

Concrete examples show the height of this love. A Christian tempted to measure worth by popularity remembers that Christ’s love has brought him into God’s household. A worker tempted to dishonesty remembers that he serves Christ above human masters, as Ephesians 6:5–8 teaches. A young believer tempted by immoral approval remembers that his identity is shaped by the risen Christ, not by social pressure. Christ’s love raises the mind above temporary applause and anchors conduct in eternal realities.

The height of Christ’s love also points to worship. Ephesians 1:3 blesses the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ for every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. The believer’s response to Christ’s love is not self-centered emotionalism. It is praise, obedience, reverence, and gratitude. The more a Christian comprehends the height of Christ’s love, the less he treats salvation casually. He sees that forgiveness, reconciliation, adoption into God’s household, and future life under Christ’s Kingdom are gifts of immense value.

The Depth of Christ’s Love

The depth of Christ’s love points to how far He descended in humiliation and sacrifice to save sinners. Philippians 2:5–8 says Christ existed in God’s form, took the form of a servant, came in human likeness, humbled Himself, and became obedient to death. Second Corinthians 8:9 says that though He was rich, for the sake of believers He became poor, so that they through His poverty might become rich. The depth is not sentimental language. It is the historical reality of the Son’s obedient life and sacrificial death.

Ephesians 5:2 says Christ loved believers and gave Himself up for them as an offering and sacrifice to God. Ephesians 5:25 says Christ loved the congregation and gave Himself up for her. This sacrificial love is the foundation of Christian salvation. It is not merely an example, though it is an example. It is the atoning act by which sinners are reconciled to God. First Peter 2:24 says Christ bore sins in His body on the tree so that believers might die to sin and live to righteousness. The depth of love reaches into guilt, alienation, and death itself.

This depth also corrects pride. No Christian can comprehend Christ’s love while maintaining self-righteousness. Ephesians 2:8–9 says salvation is by grace through faith, not from works, so that no one may boast. Obedience matters, but obedience is not a basis for boasting. A believer serves because he has been rescued. Evangelism, worship, moral purity, generosity, forgiveness, and endurance flow from gratitude to Christ, not from a desire to display superiority.

A concrete example appears in Paul himself. Before conversion, he persecuted Christians. First Timothy 1:13–16 says he had acted ignorantly in unbelief, yet mercy was shown so that Christ Jesus might display patience. Paul’s life became a living demonstration that Christ’s love reaches deeply enough to save a violent opponent and transform him into an apostle. That does not make sin small. It makes Christ’s mercy great.

“With All the Holy Ones” Shows Congregational Comprehension

Paul does not pray that isolated individuals may comprehend Christ’s love apart from the congregation. He says “with all the holy ones.” This phrase refers to all Christians set apart by God through Christ, not an elevated religious class. Ephesians consistently addresses believers as holy ones because they belong to God and are called to holy living.

This matters because comprehension of Christ’s love is communal. Christians learn love by receiving instruction, practicing forgiveness, sharing burdens, correcting sin, encouraging the discouraged, and working together in evangelism. Ephesians 4:15–16 says the body grows as each part works properly, building itself up in love. A believer who avoids the congregation cuts himself off from one of Jehovah’s appointed contexts for growth.

Concrete congregational life reveals the dimensions of love. The breadth is seen when people from different backgrounds worship together in truth. The length is seen when older believers patiently help younger ones over years. The height is seen when the congregation’s worship directs attention to Jehovah and Christ rather than human personalities. The depth is seen when repentant sinners are restored, burdens are carried, and sacrificial service is rendered without applause. The congregation becomes a living classroom where Christ’s love is learned.

Christ’s Love Surpasses Knowledge but Does Not Contradict Knowledge

Ephesians 3:19 says believers are to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge. This is not a contradiction. Paul means that Christ’s love is truly knowable yet greater than complete human comprehension. A believer knows it truly because Scripture reveals it clearly. He does not know it exhaustively because finite creatures cannot exhaust the love of the divine Son.

This statement guards against two errors. The first error is anti-intellectual religion, which treats doctrine as unnecessary because love is “beyond knowledge.” Paul does not pray for less understanding. He prays for more comprehension. Love is known through truth. The second error is cold intellectualism, which treats doctrine as information without devotion. Paul’s prayer is not for abstract data but for believers to be rooted and grounded in love. Biblical knowledge must produce worship, obedience, humility, and love.

A Christian may know the doctrine of atonement and still need deeper appreciation of Christ’s sacrifice. He may know that Jews and Gentiles are one in Christ and still need to practice patience with believers unlike himself. He may know that Christ loves the congregation and still need to stop speaking harshly about brothers and sisters. The love that surpasses knowledge calls believers to continual growth in understanding and conduct.

Being Rooted and Grounded in Love

Before Paul mentions the four dimensions, he prays that believers be rooted and grounded in love. The two images are agricultural and architectural. A tree must have roots deep enough to draw nourishment and withstand wind. A building must have a foundation strong enough to support weight. Christian life must be rooted and founded in Christ’s love.

This has practical force. A believer rooted in Christ’s love does not collapse when human approval disappears. A family grounded in Christ’s love does not define love by mood, convenience, or personal preference. A congregation rooted in Christ’s love does not become a social club built on shared interests; it becomes a body shaped by truth, holiness, forgiveness, and evangelism. Rooted love is stable love. Grounded love is structurally sound love.

Ephesians 4:1–3 shows what this looks like. Christians are to walk worthily, with humility, gentleness, patience, bearing with one another in love, and being eager to maintain unity in the bond of peace. This is not vague warmth. It includes the humility to listen, the gentleness to correct without cruelty, the patience to endure immaturity, and the courage to preserve truth. Ephesians 4:25–32 then shows love in speech, anger, labor, generosity, and forgiveness. Paul never separates lofty doctrine from daily conduct.

Filled With the Fullness God Gives

The prayer moves from comprehension of love to being filled with the fullness God gives. This does not mean believers become divine. The Creator-creature distinction remains forever. It means believers are filled with the moral and spiritual maturity that comes from knowing God through Christ and conforming to His revealed will. Ephesians 4:13 speaks of mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. Ephesians 5:18 contrasts drunkenness with being filled by the Spirit, which is expressed through worship, gratitude, submission, and wise living under Scripture’s direction.

Concrete fullness includes doctrinal stability. Ephesians 4:14 says believers must no longer be children tossed by waves and carried about by every wind of teaching. It includes truthful speech. Ephesians 4:15 commands speaking the truth in love. It includes moral change. Ephesians 4:28 tells the thief to stop stealing and work honestly so he can share with those in need. It includes clean speech. Ephesians 4:29 says corrupting talk must be replaced by words that build up. These details show what it means to be filled with the fullness God gives. It is not a vague spiritual sensation. It is Christlike maturity shaped by revealed truth.

Therefore, to comprehend the breadth and length and height and depth in Ephesians 3:18 is to grasp, with all the holy ones, the immense dimensions of Christ’s love as revealed in the gospel. Its breadth reaches people from every background who repent and believe. Its length endures from Jehovah’s purpose through present salvation into the future. Its height lifts believers into heavenly realities under the exalted Christ. Its depth reaches sinners through Christ’s humiliation and sacrifice. This love is learned through Scripture, lived in the congregation, and displayed in obedience.

You May Also Enjoy

What Are the Covenants in the Bible?

About the Author

CLICK LINKED IMAGE TO VISIT ONLINE STORE

CLICK TO SCROLL THROUGH OUR BOOKS