Ephesians 3.18b-The Four Dimensions of Jesus Christ's Love for the Church Age Believer
Wenstrom Bible Ministries
Pastor-Teacher Bill Wenstrom
Thursday September 5, 2024
Ephesians Series: Ephesians 3:18b-The Four Dimensions of Jesus Christ’s Love for the Church Age Believer
Lesson # 180
Ephesians 3:14 For this reason, I make it my habit of bending my knees in the presence of the Father 15 from whom each and every family located in the heavens as well as located upon the earth is designated a name. 16 I make it a habit of occupying myself with praying that according to the wealth produced by His glory He would cause each and every one of you as a corporate unit to be given strength by means of power through the personal intermediate agency of His Spirit for the benefit of your inner being. 17 Namely that the one and only Christ’s power would dwell in your hearts through your faith …because each and every one of you are firmly rooted, yes specifically, because of all of you without exception are firmly established by means of the practice of divine-love, 18 each and every one of you as a corporate unit would cause yourselves to be able to fully comprehend with each and every one of the saints what constitutes being the breadth, length, height and depth (of Christ’s love for each and every one of you as a corporate unit). (Lecturer’s translation)
As we noted, Ephesians 3:18 is composed of a hina (ἵνα) infinitive purpose clause, which presents the purpose of the hina (ἵνα) direct object clause in Ephesians 3:16 and the one in Ephesians 3:17, which is a complementary infinitive clause that explains the one in Ephesians 3:16.
Therefore, here in Ephesians 3:18, this hina (ἵνα) purpose clause presents the purpose of the Father answering Paul’s intercessory prayer in Ephesians 3:16 that the recipients of this epistle would be given strength by means of power through the personal intermediate agency of the Spirit for the benefit of their inner being, i.e., the indwelling nature of Christ.
In Ephesians 3:17, Paul explains what he means by this request, namely that the power of Christ would dwell in their hearts through their post-justification faith in the Spirit inspired contents of Ephesians.
This hina (ἵνα) purpose clause in Ephesians 3:18 states that the recipients of this epistle would be fully able to comprehend or grasp with the all the saints what constitutes being the breadth, length, height and depth of Christ’s love for them.
Thus, in Ephesians 3:16-18, Paul prays that the recipients of this epistle would be given strength by means of power through the personal intermediate agency of the Spirit for the benefit of their inner being, i.e., the indwelling nature of Christ.
Namely that, the power of Christ would dwell in their hearts through their post-justification faith in the Spirit inspired contents of Ephesians.
The purpose of which is that they would be to fully able to comprehend with all the saints what constitutes being the breadth, length, height and depth of Christ’s love for them.
The reason why they are able to fully comprehend the four dimensions of the Lord’s love for them is that each and every one of them are firmly rooted, yes specifically, because all of them without exception are firmly established by means of the practice of divine-love.
Now, the apostle Paul employs four nouns in this verse whose referent is Jesus Christ’s love for every church age believer.
That each of these four words are related to Jesus Christ’s love for the church age believer is indicated by the assertion in Ephesians 3:19, which presents the result of the recipients of this epistle practicing the command to love one another, namely that they would be able to fully comprehend Christ’s love for them.
This is further indicated by the fact that Paul in the causal participial clause in Ephesians 3:18 speaks of the recipients of this epistle being firmly rooted and established by means of the practice of divine-love by obedience to the Lord’s command in John 13:34 and 15:12 to love one another as He loves the believer.
This clause we noted presents the reason why the recipients of this letter will be able to fully comprehend what constitutes the breadth, length, height and depth, namely, because they are firmly rooted and specifically, firmly established by means of the practice of divine-love.
The love of God is manifested in their lives through obedience to the Lord’s Spirit inspired command to love one another.
Consequently, they would have an experiential knowledge of Christ’s love for them when they practice this command, which we noted is the subject of Ephesians 3:19.
Therefore, the reference to the believer obeying the command to love one another in Ephesians 3:17 and the reference to the believer experiencing the Lord Jesus’ love for them strongly suggests that these four dimensions listed in Ephesians 3:18 are a reference to Jesus Christ’s love for the church age believer.
Lastly, as we noted in our introduction, though Paul never mentions any specific problem or problems taking place within the Christian community in this epistle, it can be inferred from the contents of the letter that he was concerned that the Christian community remain united experientially through practice of the command to love one another.
This is indicated by the fact that Paul opens the practical application of his teaching in the first three chapters by commanding the recipients of the letter to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace in Ephesians 4:3.
This would be accomplished by living in a manner worthy of their calling and by practicing humility, gentleness, patience and tolerance of one another through the practice of the command to love one another, which Paul instructs them to do in Ephesians 4:1-2.
The first of these four nouns listed by Paul here in Ephesians 3:18 is the noun platos (πλάτος), “the breadth,” which pertains to the extent of something from side to side or the measurement of width.
This word is used to describe the life and death of Jesus Christ and specifically, this word describes the person of Jesus Christ who is the incarnate love of God because He is the incarnate Son of God, who as to His nature, is love.
It describes the life of Jesus Christ who always fulfilled the requirement of the Mosaic Law to love God with one’s entire being and neighbor as oneself.
It describes the substitutionary spiritual and physical deaths of Jesus Christ on the cross, which demonstrated or manifested the love of God for God’s enemies, i.e., unregenerate sinners who are enslaved to Satan and the indwelling Adamic sin nature.
The next noun is mēkos (μῆκος), “length,” which pertains to the linear extent in space from one end to the other or in other words, it pertains to the measurement of length.
This word describe the love of the Lord Jesus Christ for the believer as being eternal.
This love originated from eternity past when He agreed to become a human being for unregenerate humanity and extends to eternity future because they were placed in an eternal union with Him and identified with Him in His crucifixion, death, burial, resurrection and session at the Father’s right hand through the baptism of the Spirt at justification.
This guarantees that nothing whatsoever could separate them from the Lord Jesus Christ’s love for the church age believer.
The third noun employed by Paul to describe Jesus Christ’s love for the church age believer is hypsos (ὕψος), “height,” which pertains to the vertical dimension of extension or the distance from the base of something to the top or in other words, it pertains a location above the earth and associated with supernatural events or beings.
This word describes Jesus Christ’s love for the church age believer from the perspective that because of His love for all of unregenerate humanity, He left the throne of His heavenly Father in order to become a human being and suffer the wrath of His Father on the cross for all of unregenerate humanity.
The result was that He propitiated the Father’s holiness, which demanded that sin and sinners be judged, reconciled all of sinful humanity to a holy God and redeemed them out of the slave market of sin, in which they were born physically but spiritually dead.
The last of these nouns, which Paul uses to describe Jesus Christ’s love for every church age believer is the bathos (βάθος), “depth,” which pertains to the extent downward or to the place or region which is below.
This word describes Jesus Christ’s love for the church age believer from the perspective that out of His love for every church age believer, He was willing to die spiritually and physically in order suffer the wrath of God for all of unregenerate humanity and then descend into Hades, which contains the compartments of Torments and Paradise, (Eph. 4:8-10).
The language which Paul employs here in Ephesians 3:18 to describe Jesus Christ’s love for the believer is similar to that which he uses in Romans 8:35-39.
Romans 8:35 Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will trouble, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 As it is written, ‘For your sake we encounter death all day long; we were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.’ 37 No, in all these things we have complete victory through him who loved us! 38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor heavenly rulers, nor things that are present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (NET)
Interestingly, only one of the four nouns in this verse, which refer to the dimensions of Christ’s love for the believer, is articular.
Namely, the noun platos (πλάτος), “the breadth,” which is the first of these nouns presented here by Paul as constituting the four dimensions of Jesus Christ’s love for every church age believer.
This construction would indicate that we have four distinct entities, which are dimensions of Christ’s love for the believer but are united together because they are all characteristics of Christ’s love for every believer.
Dan Wallace writes “The author is speaking about God’s love in figurative language, as if he were using a spiritual plumb-line. Although each term refers to God’s love, each refers to a different aspect of it and thus the terms are not identical. ”