Ephesians 3:17-19 states, “That Christ may dwell in your hearts 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.” I want to draw your attention today to a statement in verse 18, “able to comprehend”. In his commentary on Ephesians entitled “The unsearchable riches of Christ” Martin Lloyd-Jones devotes 5 chapters to this one thought, “able to comprehend”. The chapter titles are as follows: “Able to comprehend with all saints.” “Breadth, Length, Depth, Height.” “Knowing the Unknowable.” “The Innermost Circle.” “Seeking to Comprehend.”
Our capacity to understand is directly related to our faith in God’s Word. Jesus said in John 8:43, “Why do ye not understand my speech? Even because ye cannot hear my word.” The Bible teaches that “faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God.” Some would call this blind faith. No! Faith is seeing Him Who is Invisible. Unbelief is blindness. And what are we able to know by having this faith? Verse 19 says, “…to know the love of Christ,…”. The results of knowing this is “…that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God.” To know the wonders of redemption is a marvelous knowledge. But to understand the motive for that redemption is to have our heart open to God. The greatest story ever told is “God loves you”. It has been stated many times that God’s greatest attribute is His love. “God is love”. Spurgeon wrote, “Consider what you owe to His immutability. Though you have changed a thousand times, He has not changed once.” His love is constant, consistent and eternal. Romans 8:28-39.
I remember, when I was a boy, going to a missionary meeting. A missionary was there from Africa, and was showing us a whole lot of curious things, and then he said, “Now, boys, I want to tell you the kind of Gospel we preach to the people of Africa. How many good boys have we here?” A lot of us thought we were good, but our mothers were there, and so not one of us dared hold up his hand. “Well,” said he, “not one good boy here; then I have the same message for you that we have for the heathen in Africa; God loves naughty boys. “My,” I thought, “he is getting all mixed up,” for you see I had heard people say, “If you are good God will love you.” But, dear friends, that is not true. God is not waiting for you to be good so He can love you; God loves sinners. “God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
— H. A. Ironside“Could we with ink the ocean fill, And were the skies of parchment made;
Were ev’ry stalk on earth a quill, And ev’ry man a scribe by trade;
To write the love of God above Would drain the ocean dry;
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,Though stretched from sky to sky.”
— Song