"14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, 16 that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being,17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
20 Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen."
Ephesians 3:14-21
The tremendous words in 18, 19a have been described by one commentator as 'the four dimensions of redeeming love'. This is a good way of describing Paul's words here, and typical of the exuberance of his language that he should speak of knowing something that passes knowledge. We will come to this presently, but we need to look first of all at the phrase in 18, 'with all saints'. Fully to comprehend the love of Christ is not something we can ever do on our own, but only in fellowship with God's people. It is not the individual, but the Church, that is the Bride of Christ, and it is to the Bride that He discloses Himself most fully and without reserve. This is why the worship of a congregation often knows blessings and enrichments that none of us can know as individuals, and we often get supreme glimpses of His truth, grace and love when we are together. This is one of the reasons why we are exhorted not to 'forsake the assembling of ourselves together' - we miss so much when we are not in our place on Sundays! As to the 'dimensions' of Christ's love, it is suggested that we will catch something of Paul's meaning if we place them alongside the greatest of all gospel texts - John 3:16. It is as if John were stretching out his arms as widely as possible to illustrate the all-embracing breadth of that love in the words 'He gave His only begotten Son' we are shown the length to which that love went, in going 'all the way to Calvary' for our sakes. The depth of the divine love is seen in that He stooped to the lowest - 'whosoever believeth in Him should not perish'. And finally, the height to which we are raised is of course the chief preoccupation of the Ephesian epistle - everlasting life, 'far above all principality and power and might and dominion'. This is the position to which the love of Christ has raised us, and it is when we grasp the significance of this ('comprehend' speaks of mental perception - no unthinking emotionalism here!) that we experience the fullness of God.