Ephesians 3:20,21

Ascription of praise, closing a main section of the Epistle

20. Now unto him The Father, in Whose "glory" all things terminate. As it is of His essence to demand praise, so it is of the essence of regenerate life to yield it to Him.

that is able For this phrase in doxology cp. Acts 20:32; Romans 16:25; Jude 1:24. Faith both rests and is reinvigorated in the assurance, and re-assurance, of the Divine Ability, wholly objective to the believer. Cp. Matthew 19:26; Romans 4:21; Romans 11:23; Romans 14:4; 2 Corinthians 9:8 (a good parallel here); Php 3:21; 2 Timothy 1:2; Hebrews 7:25. (In the three last passages the reference is to the Saviour.)

exceeding abundantly One compound word in the Greek; elsewhere, 1 Thessalonians 3:10, and (nearly identical) Ephesians 5:13. Strong expressions of largeness, excess, abundance, are deeply characteristic of St Paul.

all that we ask or think The word rendered "think" means more specially understand. Cp. e.g.Matthew 15:17 and above, Ephesians 3:4. So the Latin versions here; intelligimus. No narrow logic will be applied to such a clause, if we seek its true meaning. To be sure we can, if we please, "ask for," and in a certain sense "conceive of," infinitegifts of grace; though it is to be observed that the phrase is, not "all that we can ask" but "all that we ask." But the reader who studies the words in their own spirit will not perplex himself thus. He will see in them the assurance that his actual petitions and perceptions, guided and animated by Scripture and by grace, yet always fail to include all that He is able to do, in the range and depth of His working.

according to the power, &c. The power of the indwelling Spirit. See for a remarkable parallel Colossians 1:29, where the Apostle speaks of his own toils and wrestlings as "according tothat working of His which worketh in me in power." There he speaks of the present and actual, here of the possible. In the saint and in the true Church resides already a Divine force capable in itself of the mightiest developments. To attain these, not a new force, but a fuller application of thisforce, is required.