Knowing the Love of Christ
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Ephesians 3:14-21
Ephesians 3:14-21
Daniel Steele, a professor of Philosophy in the 19th Century came to know Christ's love, and this is how he describes it:
Almost every week, and sometimes every day, a pressure of His great love comes down upon my heart in such measure as to make my brain throb, and my whole being, soul and body, groans beneath the strain of the almost insupportable plethora of joy. And yet amid this fulness there is a hunger for more, and amid the consuming flame of love, the paradoxical cry is ever on my lips, 'Burn, burn, O Love, within my heart, burn fiercely night and day, till all the dross of earthly loves is burned and burned away?
Again he says:
The heavenly Tenant of my soul has changed all this. He has unlocked every apartment of my being and filled and flooded them all with the light of His radiant presence; the vacuum has become a plenum; a spot untouched has been reached, and all its flintiness has been melted in the presence of that universal solvent, 'Love divine, all loves excelling'. I now wish that I had a thousand-heart-power to love and a thousand-tongue-capacity to proclaim Jesus, the One altogether Lovely, the complete Saviour, Who is able also to save to the uttermost them who come to God by Him.
300 Quotations for Preachers from the Puritans Edwards’ Experience of Jesus’ Glory and Love
Once, as I rode out into the woods for my health, in 1737, having alighted from my horse in a retired place, as my manner commonly has been, to walk for divine contemplation and prayer, I had a view, that for me was extraordinary, of the glory of the Son of God, as Mediator between God and man, and his wonderful, great, full, pure and sweet grace and love, and meek and gentle condescension. This grace that appeared so calm and sweet, appeared also great above the heavens. The person of Christ appeared ineffably excellent, with an excellency great enough to swallow up all thought and conception—which continued, as near as I can judge, about an hour; which kept me the greater part of the time in a flood of tears, and weeping aloud.
The Love of Christ
I am going to focus this morning on what I believe to be the crux of The Apostle Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians, which is found in verses 18 and 19
18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Paul starts verse 14 with the same words of verse 1, ‘for this reason..’ for what reason? The reason for his prayer is found in the verses immediately preceeding chapter 3; the reality that believing Gentiles as well as believing Jews were now being built together into a Holy Temple by God, founded on the Apostles and Prophets and with Christ as the cornerstone.
So it is this image of this building, the temple of God; His Ekklesia, His Church that is in Paul’s mind when he starts talking about the dimensions of Christ’s love. Paul isn’t talking about some kind of vapid, abstract sentimental love. Nor is he here speaking of Christ’s general love towards all people, but he’s speaking of Christ’s special love to His own people; the Church.
And Paul prays that they might be able to comprehend it καταλαβέσθαι it. Lay hold of it with their understanding.
And also that they may know it. Have their own personal knowledge of it, encounter it themselves. Though also that Christ’s love ultimately surpasses our knowledge - we will never know it completely.
It’s a fact that throughout history there are particular Christians who seem to have had a greater knowledge and experience of this love than others. And often God has used these saints in particular during times of declension in the Church to bring about revival. This was true of Jonathan Edwards, it was also true of Charles Wesley who tells of an encounter he had at a chapel in Aldersgate st when his heart was ‘strangely warmed’ while listening to a reading of the preface to Luther’s commentary on Galatians.
So we see a theme throughout church history; what marked these Christians out wasn’t necessarily how much more they loved Christ than others, but how much more they understood Christ’s love for them.
It’s our knowledge and understanding of Christ’s love for us, it’s dimensions, it’s weight that really brings the fulness of God into our finite souls.
300 Quotations for Preachers Having a Heart Filled with God’s Love
The love of God, as manifested in Jesus Christ, is what I would wish to be the abiding object of my contemplation; not merely to speculate upon it as a doctrine, but so to feel it, and my own interest in it, as to have my heart filled with its effects, and transformed into its resemblance; that, with this glorious Exemplar in my view, I may be animated to a spirit of benevolence, love, and compassion, to all around me; that my love may be primarily fixed upon him who has so loved me, and then, for his sake, diffused to all his children, and to all his creatures.
JOHN NEWTON*
Paul names four dimensions of Christ’s love for His people, the Church; it’s breadth, it’s length, it’s height and it’s depth.
THE BREADTH OF CHRIST’S LOVE
Paul has spent the previous chapter preaching about the mystery of Christ - this mystery being that the Gentiles were now fellow heirs with the believing Jews. God’s covenant promises were now wide open to all who would believe; Jew and Gentile alike.
9 After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands,
THE LENGTH OF CHRIST’S LOVE
How long is the love of Christ for His people? Theologians like to talk about something called the Covenant of Redemption; this is a covenant made not between God and man, but a covenant made within the Godhead, a covenant between Father, Son and Holy Ghost to redeem a people for themselves. This covenant was made in eternity past, before ever there was a planet earth or a star in the sky or a single atom in the cosmos. In eternity past God set His heart on a particular people, not for any other reason than his own good pleasure, the Son chose to come and lay down his life to redeem them, and the Holy Spirit chose to indwell them, cleanse them, sanctify them and ready them for heaven.
4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.
This love will have no end for those who belong to Christ. Christ will not let them go, and He will not suffer anyone to pluck His beloved people from his hand.
27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.
35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?
38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
THE HEIGHT OF CHRISTS LOVE
Lifts us up from the depths to be seated with Christ in heavenly places.
It’s often the case that we fail to appreciate the love of Christ because in these times we have too high a view of mankind. We think that we’re generally pretty good, or at least comparatively good. We don’t realise the depths to which we have fallen in Adam and so we don’t fully appreciate the heights to which Christ raises us.
5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
THE DEPTH OF CHRISTS LOVE
How deep the Father’s love for us,
How vast beyond all measure,
That He should give His only Son
To make a wretch His treasure.
The depth of Christ’s love for us is measured by how far He came to rescue us. We get an idea for this dimension when we read this in the letter to the Philippians
5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
300 Quotations for Preachers “Love Governed God”
There were no cords could have held him to the whipping-post but those of love; no nails have fastened him to the cross but those of love.
THOMAS GOODWIN
Ephesians We Must Grasp How Great Is Christ’s Love (3:18b–19a)
. We measure God’s love by a cross
5 And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.
Pray