Ephesians Chapter 3 verse 18 Holy Bible

Ephesians 3 : 18 Bible Verse Songs

• How Deep the Father's Love for us by Stuart Townend
• How Deep is The Love by Hillsong Young & Free
• Never See The End by Amanda Cook
• Weak, Proudly by Jillian Edwards
• Now To Jesus by Philippa Hanna + Abby Scott
• We could change the world by Matt Redman
• Love Like You by SEU Worship
• My Heart Your Home by Maverick City Music + Alton Eugene + Chandler Moore
• Tonight by All Sons and Daughters
• Power Of His Love by Josh Baldwin

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 18. - May be made strong to comprehend with all the saints. The subject to be comprehended is not only beyond man's natural capacity, but beyond the ordinary force of his spiritual capacity. The thing to be grasped needs a special strength of heart and soul; the heart needs to be enlarged, the mental "hands of the arms" need to be made strong (Genesis 49:24). But the attainment is not impossible - it is the experience of "all the saints;" all God's children are enabled to grasp something of this (comp. 2 Corinthians 4:3-6). What is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height. No genitive being given, it has been a difficult point to settle to what these dimensions must be held to be applicable. Some think that the love of Christ in the following clause must be meant; but surely when that is made the subject of a separate part of the prayer, and is not in the genitive but the objective case, governed by a verb of its own, this explanation is not to be enter-rained. Others, with more reason, think that the idea of a temple was in the mind of the writer, as it certainly was in Ephesians 2:21, 22, and that it is the dimensions of the temple he had here in his eye, the prayer being that the Ephesians might comprehend the vastness and glory of that spiritual temple which is constituted by all believers, and in which God dwells by the Spirit. Even this, however, would not divest the construction of abruptness, and it would fit in but poorly with the context, in which the tenor o f the apostle's prayer is that a profusion of Divine blessing might be enjoyed by the Ephesians. If a genitive must be supplied, may we not conceive the apostle to have had in his view the entire provision God has made in Christ for the good of his people, so that the dimensions would be those of the gospel storehouse, the vast reservoir out of which the Church is filled? "Breadth" might denote the manifoldness of that provision; "length," its eternal duration; its "depth" might be represented by the profundity of Christ's humiliation; and its "height" by the loftiness of the condition to which his people are to be raised. To comprehend this, to understand its existence and its richness, is to get our faith enlarged, our expectations expanded; it is through this comprehension that "all the saints" have got their wants supplied, and their souls filled as with marrow and fatness.

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(18) May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height.--It has been asked, Of what? Various answers have been given; but as St. Paul has obviously of set purpose omitted all definition, leaving the phrase incomplete in absolute generality, no answer can be perfectly satisfactory. The early fathers delighted to refer it to the cross, and to trace in the four dimensions of the cross a symbol of this four-fold extension of the love of God in Christ. The clause following, "to know the love of Christ," though partly explanatory of this, hardly seems to be identical or co-extensive with it. The knowledge there described is a part--perhaps the chief part, but not the whole--of the comprehension here prayed for. If anything is to be supplied, it should probably be "of the mystery"--i.e., of the whole mystery on which St. Paul had been dwelling, including the predestination, the redemption, the call and union of Jews and Gentiles. The prayer is that we may know it every way, in every direction in which the soul can go forth towards God.It may be noted that comprehension is placed after love, just as in Philippians 1:9, "I pray that your love may abound (that is, overflow) in knowledge and in all judgment." The spiritual order of revelation differs from that of the "wisdom of the world." It has first faith, next love, and finally knowledge, because its object is a person, not an abstract principle. That knowledge must, even here, "grow from more to more;" but St. Paul's prayer can never be perfectly realised till we "know even as we are known."