Exceedingly Abundantly

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 exceedingly abundantly beyond 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 (Eph 3:14-21).

Sure, that's a long section, but it's Sunday and it's worth it. It's a prayer from Paul for the Ephesian Christians, indeed, for "all the saints". He prays for God to strengthen them and to root and ground them in love. It's all very good. But when he gets to a description of the love of God in which he wants them grounded, it gets ... large.

He prays that they would have "strength to comprehend" this love. What? What's to comprehend? We know love, right? Well, apparently not this love. It is wide and tall and deep and long. It is, according to Paul, a love that "surpasses knowledge". Did you get that? Because it sounds a bit crazy. Paul wants the saints "to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge." Sorry, Paul? That sounds contradictory. What he says is that we should know by experience the love of Christ that we can never comprehend.

I get the image of a guy in a rowboat on Lake Superior. Water as far as the eye can see. He is deeply thirsty, so he dips his cup into the water and takes a drink. Ah! That's good. He slips out of the boat and paddles about for a few moments to cool off. Ah! Refreshing. Now, does this guy comprehend Lake Superior at this point? No, not at all! But he has experienced it. He knows it better than I do, who has only seen it (once ... as a child). Kind of like that.

Still, I want to keep in mind that the love of Christ, as much as we think we get it, surpasses knowledge. This love requires supernatural strength to grasp. This love requires divine power to experience it. And while I have suggested a human way of understanding the phrase, "to know that which surpasses knowledge", it is still too large to really get your mind around. This is why Paul's prayer ends up with an exclamation of the glory of God. Getting the love of Christ is, frankly, far beyond our capabilities. It is not, however, beyond God's capabilities. And here Paul runs into real problems of expression. The only way that we would be able to know that which surpasses knowledge is by the work of God who "is able to do exceedingly abundantly beyond all that we ask or think." It's a huge expression -- "exceedingly abundantly beyond." It isn't short. It isn't simple. It's really, really big. It's more than you could ever ask of God. Indeed, it's beyond more than you could even imagine. Bigger than even that. What God is capable of is really big -- even beyond Paul's abilities to express it.

Now here's the kicker. This power, this extreme ability of God, this thing that enables us to know that which cannot be known and to experience the love of Christ, is "at work within us". Did you get that? It's not available. It's not out there, waiting to be tapped. It's not simply God's capabilities. It is within us. It's already at work within us.

Indeed, "to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen."