I want us today to turn back
to that portion of Scripture we were considering a couple
of weeks ago, looking at the prayer of the Apostle Paul, as
we have it recorded at the end of Ephesians chapter 3. Last
week, of course, we turned aside and looked at the end of Luke
chapter 1 and the song of Zacharias, the Benedictus. but turning back
to the portion we were looking at the previous weeks here in
Ephesians chapter 3 and I'll read the passage through again
here from verse 14 to the end of the chapter as Paul addresses
himself then to the church of the Ephesians so he turns to
their God and his God and prays on their account Ephesians 3.14
For this cause, he says, I bow my knees unto the Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth
is named, that he would grant you, according to the riches
of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the
inner man, that Christ may dwell in your heart by faith, that
ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend
with all saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height,
and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that
ye might be filled with all the fullness of God. Now unto Him
that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we
ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, unto
Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages,
world without end, Amen. And the last time we were considering
the passage, we took up the words that we have here at verse 18,
where he speaks somewhat of how that love of God in Christ is
an immeasurable love. It's beyond measure. He speaks
of them being able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth
and length and depth and height and to know the love of Christ.
He says, which passeth knowledge. We were considering then that
18th verse and the fact that that love is beyond measure and
beyond telling when we think of the length of that love. how it reaches, of course, back
into eternity. God is love, says John on two
occasions there in that fourth chapter of his first general
epistle. God is love. What God is, His
love is. And He is that One who is from
everlasting to everlasting. And so that is the length of
His love. It reaches from everlasting to everlasting in other words
it's an eternal love it is that that is altogether outside of
the limitations of time and of space but as it is long so it
is also brought and the breadth of that love is seen surely in
the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ that gospel of which Paul
was called to be an apostle and remember how in the context here
he speaks of his ministry from the end of chapter two right
through to the first part of this third chapter he has much
to say with regards to that ministry that he has been called to exercise. He was the one who was to preach
it amongst sinners of the Gentiles that there might be those out
of every kindred, every tongue, every people and every nation
all the great breadth of that love of God that reaches to the
ends of the earth here in verse 9, to make all men see what is
the fellowship of the mystery which from the beginning of the
world hath been hid in Christ Jesus who created all things
by Jesus Christ. He was called then to such a
ministry to preach among the Gentiles those unsearchable riches
of the Lord Jesus. The breadth but then also the
great depth of the love of God the psalmist can say he brought
me up also out of a horrible pit and set my feet upon a rock
and established my goings out of all the depths of despair
out of all the awful sense of what we are by nature dead in
trespasses and sins and yet the love of God reaches to the very
depths of the sinner's soul and brings deliverance and acceptance
through the reconciling blood of the Lord Jesus. And then as
it is deep so we said also it is that that extends to the very
heights of heaven. brings His people even into that
place where Christ is, having risen from the dead as He now
ascended on high. Remember the language that we
have at the beginning of the second chapter here. Verse 6 of chapter 2, He has
raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places
in Christ Jesus. how this love then is altogether
beyond measure. This is what Paul is praying
that these Ephesians might begin to have some experience of. And so this morning I want us
to turn to the 19th verse. where he says, to know the love
of Christ which passeth knowledge that ye might be filled with
all the fullness of God. What a petition. What a petition
is this. He wants him to have an experimental
knowledge of the love of God. That's the theme really that
I want to try to address, that they might have that experimental
knowledge of the love of God in Christ Jesus. To know the
love of Christ which passeth knowledge that she might be filled
with all the fullness of God. We read another prayer earlier
even that remarkable prayer of the lord jesus in the 17th chapter
of john that familiar chapter what we call his high priestly
prayer as he turns from preaching to the disciples in the previous
chapters and begins to pray and to pray for them as he contemplates
that great sacrifice that he is going to make on their behalf
and all those whom the Father had given to him in that eternal
covenant. And there, of course, in the
opening part of that prayer we read those words that it is life
eternal to know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom
thou hast sent. And it's the same prayer in a
sense that we have here in this 19th verse. He wants these Ephesians
to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge that ye might
be filled with all the fullness of God. First of all, we see how this
love of God is clearly expressed in the gift of the Lord Jesus
Christ. There is the demonstration of
the love of God. He so loved the world that He
gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should
not perish but have everlasting life. He does not withhold His
Son Oh, thanks be to God for that unspeakable gift. And what do we read of here in
the text? It is the love of Christ. We can only know the love of
God as we see it, ultimately, in the gift of the Lord Jesus,
who in his person, of course, is the eternal Son of God, but
who in the fullness of the time is manifested also as the Son
of Man, the God Man. We know that God himself is infinite. We cannot begin to measure who
God is. Somewhere Martin Luther says
we cannot know an absolute God. No man has seen God at any time. But what does the Apostle John
go on to say there in that 18th verse of the first chapter of
his Gospel? No man hath seen God at any time.
The only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father,
He hath declared Him. It is in the Lord Jesus, in His
coming, in His work, in His sacrifice, in His rising again from the
dead, in His ascension on high, in all that we have recorded
in the Gospels and throughout the New Testament Scriptures,
it is only in the Lord Jesus Christ that we can begin to understand
who God is and we see a wondrous expression of that love of God
in the gift of Him who is the Son of the Father in truth and
in love remember how in that remarkable opening chapter
of the epistle to the Hebrews Paul begins to say just who it
is that we witness in the person and work of the Lord Jesus being
the brightness of God's glory the express image of his person
that one who has come and made the great sin atoning sacrifice
for sinners and he says to which of the angels said he at any
time thou art my son this day have I begotten thee he is the
only begotten of the father he is that one who is full of grace
and truth and he is that one then who is the mediator he is
the mediator between men and God. There is no other way whereby
we can approach God. We acknowledge that he is the
great high priest of our profession and as he comes to make the sin
atoning sacrifice here upon the earth, so having accomplished
that work, he rises from the dead, he ascends on high, he
enters heaven and there he ever lives to make intercession. And
all our intercession must be presented in His name and come
through Him. If we do not invoke His name
in our prayers, there are no prayers at all. He is the Way,
the Truth and the Life. No man cometh unto the Father,
He says, but by Me. But as He is the mediator between
the sinful sons of men and God, He is also the mediator between
God and men. one God and one mediator between
God and man it's interesting to observe the way in which that
mediation is expressed there in 1 Timothy 2.5 because the
emphasis there really is on the fact that he is the mediator
between God and man as he is also of course the mediator
between men and God but God comes and God expresses the wonder
of his great love for sinners in the gift of his only begotten
son. We know that God is a holy God,
a righteous God, a just God. He is spoken of, isn't he, at
the end of Hebrews 12 as a consuming fire. He is a God of purer eyes
than to behold iniquity, a God who cannot look upon sin. And
yet, in the Lord Jesus Christ we see a remarkable truth that
God, who is the just one, is also the justifier of him that
believeth in Jesus. In the gift of the Lord Jesus
Christ we have the harmonizing of all those holy attributes
that are in God. He's holy, He's righteous, He's
just, but He's also a God who is merciful and gracious and
loving and kind and compassionate. And that verse that we have in
the Psalms, Psalm 85 and verse 10, mercy and truth, are met
together. Righteousness and peace have
kissed each other. Oh, we see it in that wondrous
gift of the Lord Jesus. We have it in the hymn 750, the
language of George Byrd, that the gift of gifts appears to
show that God is love. There is the expression then
of this remarkable love of God that we can come into the knowledge
of only through the Lord Jesus. It's life eternal to know Thee,
the only true God, yes, but Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. I say again, God's expression
of His love. is so seen in the coming of Christ
and we see it in so many places in the New Testament in the epistles
not just of Paul but of the other apostles again the remarkable
statement of John in that first epistle and there in chapter
4 and verse 10 he says here in his law not the will of God but
that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for
our sins. Oh, we have an Advocate with
the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous, and He is the propitiation
for our sins. What has God done? He has sent
His Son to bear in His own person all that wrath of God, God angry
with the wicked every day and all of that wrath that was the
just desert of the sinner poured upon the soul of the Lord Jesus
Christ that's a lovely hymn isn't it? 153 I mean I suppose you could
sing and we have sometimes sung it certainly you can sing it
at the Lord's table that long hymn of hearts on Christ's Passion
it's in two parts, fourteen verses in the first part and then in
the second part another ten verses and it's dealing with the whole
theme of the death of the Lord Jesus but those words that open
the second part of the hymn and why dear Saviour tell me why
Thou thus would suffer, bleed, and die. What mighty motive could
they move? The motive's plain. Twas all
for love. Twas all for love. Here is the
love of God. It's demonstrated in the gift
of the Lord Jesus. And this is what Paul is praying
for these people, to know the love of Christ. You know the grace of our Lord
Jesus Christ, though he was rich, for your sakes he became poor,
that ye through his poverty might be rich. Writes 4 to the Corinthians. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ,
he lays to one side all the glories that belong to him, humbles himself,
takes upon him the form of a servant he's made in the likeness of
men, and found in fashion as a man he humbles himself again
and becomes obedient to the death of the cross having loved his
own which were in the world he loves them to the end here is the love of God, God
commendeth his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners
Christ died for us I wonder sometimes do we really of any appreciation of the wonder
of it. It's beyond us really. He says
it in the text, doesn't he? To know the love of Christ which
passeth knowledge. What has God done? He has made
Him to be sin, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. Oh, what an expression! of the
love of God we see then in the gift of the Lord Jesus and all
that Christ so willingly undertook to endure not only the contradiction
of sinners against himself but to make that great propitiatory
sacrifice that speaks to us of God in all his holiness and righteousness
and justice and visiting that dreadful punishment upon the
the person of his only begotten son as God manifest in the flesh
but Paul is here praying for these people that they might
come to some understanding some experience of this love this
is the burden of his prayer that they might know the love of Christ
which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled, he says,
with all the fullness of God. And what has he said previously? How can they know these things?
Well, he uses that word comprehend, doesn't he, in verse 18? He wants
him to comprehend with all saints the breadth, length, depth and
height of Islam. That's an interesting word that
he is using back in verse 18. It's really the same word that
he also uses when he's writing to the Philippians. And we have it there in chapter
3, where he speaks of his own experience in some measure. You
remember the third chapter of Philippians, where we have that
word apprehended being used several times. In verse 12, we speak how he
wants to attain unto the resurrection of the dead, not as though I
had already attained, he says, neither were already perfect,
but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also
I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself
to have apprehended but this one thing I do forgetting those
things which are before and reaching forth under those things which
forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth
under those things which are before I press toward the mark
for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus he had
been apprehended he says by the Lord Jesus and the word of course
as the force of he'd been seized, laid hold of and it had happened
back in Acts 9 as we have the record there of the way in which
the Lord arrested him at the very gates of Damascus as he's
about the destruction of the church so great is his opposition to
those who are the followers of the Lord Jesus that the Lord
laid hold of him and arrested him and seized him and he as
he has been apprehended so he wants to apprehend he wants to
take hold of all that is there in the Lord Jesus well it's the
same word really that we have here in in verse 18 He desires that these Ephesians
may be able to comprehend it with their minds, as it were,
to lay hold of all that is laid up in the person and work of
the Lord Jesus Christ. How can this be? If it's something
that is beyond our finite understanding, that our minds can't really begin
to grasp these things. It passes knowledge, he says.
Well, the only way whereby these things can be is if God himself
is pleased to grant such a revelation to the soul. All the language
that we have previously in the opening chapter The other prayer that we looked
at some weeks ago, what does he say there at verse 17? That
the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give
unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge
of Him. If we're going to have this knowledge,
oh, we need that blessed work of the Spirit Himself. even the
spirit of wisdom and revelation it's not something that we can
grasp after and there when the Lord deals with us does he not
teach us this that salvation is a revelation it is that that
comes only from God we're brought to the end of ourselves we can
do nothing with regards to the application of the gospel of
the grace of God. And Paul knew it, or Paul certainly
knew it in his own experience. As he tells those Galatians,
we've referred many a time to those words in the opening chapter
of Galatians. It was the good pleasure of God.
When he pleased God, he says, who separated me from my mother's
womb and called me by His grace to reveal His Son in me. as in our natural birth we have
no say really we are conceived in the womb of our mother we
are begotten of our father well if that's true with regards to
nature how much more so when it comes to grace if we know
anything of the grace of God if we have any knowledge of the
Lord Jesus Christ saving knowledge the work is all of God and how
God is sovereign in that work and how God deals with individuals
in that work those solemn words and of course it's a repetition
isn't it that we have there in Romans 9.13 as it is written What is Paul doing? He's quoting
the language of Malachi as it is written, Jacob have I loved
and Esau have I hated. These were twins. These were
twin boys. They're equal really you might
say. In fact we could say that Esau the first one, he has of
course, he has the right of inheritance. All but God's sovereignty. It's
Jacob. the supplanter, who is to become
Israel, a prince with God. All the wonder of it, it's all
the work of God, it's all the work of Christ. If we're to have
any experience, when we speak of an experimental knowledge,
then it's nothing of ourselves, it's not something that we, a
time by, didn't have studied. not something that we can acquire
by our own familiarity with the words of Holy Scripture. It's
good, of course, that we read the Word of God and meditate
upon those things that we read and pray over the Word of God.
But ultimately, salvation is that that comes all together
from God. It's the eternal purpose of the
Father It's all that was accomplished by the Son of God in the fullness
of the time here in this world. And when it comes to our experience,
there must be that blessed application by the Spirit. We need to know
Him as Paul says back in that 17th verse
in the opening chapter, the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the
knowledge of Him. Oh, but what a knowledge is this!
It's the love of Christ shed abroad in our hearts. That's how Paul describes it,
back in Romans 5 and verse 5, the love of Christ. The same
expression, of course, that we have here in the text, to know
the love of Christ. It's the love of Christ shed abroad in our hearts it's
not something that is stagnant really it's something that is
flowing when we think of the of the ministry of the Holy Spirit
when John in his gospel speaks of the Holy Spirit remember in
the seventh chapter We have those words of the Lord Jesus, he that
believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall
flow rivers of living water. And John makes the comment, this
spake he of the Holy Spirit, that was not yet given because
Jesus was not yet glorified. There was to be that glorious
outpouring of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost. He was there,
of course, previous to that. He's there in the Old Testament.
He's there in the New Testament, in the Gospels, in the experience
of the Apostles. But there was to be such a glorious
manifestation of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost when Christ
had accomplished His work. And that's what's been spoken
of by the Lord Himself there in John 7 at verse 38. He that believeth on me, as the
Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers. Rivers
of living water. Where that love of Christ is
shed abroad in the heart, it will be evidenced. And how will
it be evidenced? It will be shown in love for
the brethren. That's certainly what John has
to say time and again, remember, in that first general epistle. You are familiar with the language
of the apostle there in chapter 3. He says, verse 10, in this, the
children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil.
Whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God. neither he that
loveth not his brother. For this is the message that
ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another."
And then again he says at verse 14, we know. We know that we
have passed from death unto life. You see, here is this knowledge again.
what we read of in our text to know the love of Christ which
passes knowledge if it is beyond knowing how can we know that
we even have it? well here is the test whereby we can come to some assurance
of our part in that great salvation John says we know we can deduce
this We have passed from death unto
life because we love the Brethren. He that loveth not his brother
abideth in death. Whosoever hateth his brother
is a murderer. And ye know that no murderer
hath eternal life abiding in him. Hereby perceive we the love
of God, because he laid down his life for us, and we ought
to lay down our lives for the Brethren. but also have this
world's good, and seeeth his brother have need, and shutteth
up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of
God in him. My little children, let us not
love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed, and in truth." How
John so graciously pleads with them concerning these things.
Beloved, He says, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one
another. Healing is love, not that we
love God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation
for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us,
that's the love He's speaking of. That love of God expressed
in the gift of the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, it's expressed in the gift
of Christ. It's to be experienced in the
soul of the sinner. It's the work, the gracious work
of Him who is the Spirit of wisdom and knowledge. Even God the Holy
Ghost. And what is the end of all this? Well, we have it in the second
clause in the verse, that you might be filled. with all the
fullness of God it's all in order to that all that he has said
in the first clause to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge
is to this blessed end that she might be filled with all the
fullness of God you see what he's saying here
that once we come to this experimental knowledge we are those who are
partakers of the divine nature we are filled with all the fullness
of God how is that? it seems to be utterly
impossible really how can it be? well that's that's the seed
of the new birth, is it not? Whosoever is born of God does
not commit sin his seed remaineth in him, he cannot sin because
he is born of God, that new nature that's the divine nature, it's
the life of God that has come into the soul of man we are partakers
of the divine nature and all of this of course is enjoyed
by faith back to verse 17 that Christ may dwell in your hearts
by faith Christ dwelling in your heart by faith that means you
are filled with all the fullness of God in the Lord Jesus Christ and what is the mark of true
faith? well it is faith which worketh
by love This is His commandment, that
we should believe on the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and
love one another, as He gave us commandments. This grace of love, it's a working
grace, the labour of love, the labour of love. This is the calling of these
Christians. The blessed end, you see, is
altogether the glory of God. This is what all that Christ
has done leads up to, ultimately. And it's seen in the lives of
those who experience that grace of God in their souls. and then
of course after what he says here in verse 19 we really have
the doxology and the Amen to it all in the following verses
well the Lord willing we'll go on to say something with regards
to that doxology and that Amen when we gather later today in
the goodness of God. But the Lord be pleased to grant
that we might enter in some measure into this knowledge that's spoken
of in the text this morning, to know the love of Christ which
passeth knowledge, that she might be filled with all the fullness
of God. May the Lord bless to us His
Word. Amen.