Ephesians 3:19

And to know An aorist verb, expressing a new and decisive development of knowledge, knowledge of the spiritual kind, the intuition of the regenerate spirit, realized in its own responsive adoring love.

the love of Christ Who "loved the Church, and gave Himself for it" (Ephesians 5:25); "Who loved me, and gave Himself for me" (Galatians 2:20). See further Romans 8:35, with 39; 2 Corinthians 5:14; Revelation 1:5. The context favours the chief reference here of these sacred words to the Lord's love for the true Church, without excluding, what cannot be excluded in the matter, His love, and the sense of it, for the individual saint.

which passeth knowledge knowledge of every sort, spiritual as much as intellectual. Here is an Object eternally transcending, while it eternally invites, the effort after a complete cognition. For ever, there is more to know. To find a reference here to heretical or unspiritual gnôsisis frigid and out of place, in a passage glowing with the highest truths in their loveliest aspects. For a similar phrase, cp. Philippians 4:7.

The testimony of such words as these to the Nature of Christ is strong indeed, none the less so because not on the surface. No created Person, however exalted, could either be, or be commended as being, to the human spirit, an infinite object of knowledge in any aspect. "None fully knoweth the Son save the Father" (Matthew 11:27).

that ye might be filled An aorist again; indicating a crisis and new attainment. For the thought, cp. Colossians 1:9; "that ye may be filled with the knowledge of His will"; such knowledge as to lead to "walking worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing." See too, for kindred language, Romans 15:13-14. The idea is of a vessel connected with an abundant source external to itself, and which will be filled, up to its capacity, if the connexion is complete. The vessel is the Church, and also the saint. It may be only partially filled; it may be full every faculty of the individual, every part of life and circumstances, every member of the community, "ful-filled with grace and heavenly benediction." And this latter state is what the Apostle looks for. See further, on Ephesians 3:18.

with Lit., and better, unto, "up to." The "fulfilling" is to be limitedonly by the Divine resources. Not, of course, that either Church or soul can contain the Infinite; but they can receive the whole, the plenitude, of those blessings which the Infinite One is willing and able at each moment to bestow on the finite recipient.

all the fulness of God I.e., as in Colossians 2:9 (and see note on Ephesians 1:23), the totality of the Divine riches, whether viewed as Attributes as in God, or Graces as in us; whatever, being in Him, is spiritually communicable to the saints, the "partakers of Divine nature" (2 Peter 1:4). The believing reader will find inexhaustible matter in such a phrase for thought, prayer, and faith [36].

[36] Observe the silent testimony of this whole paragraph against disproportioned theories of the true use of the holy Sacraments. The theme is the mode of development of Divine Life in the saint, and yet no allusion is made (here or elsewhere in the Epistle) to the Holy Communion.