1 J. E. McFadyen, The Divine Pursuit, 123. « Edward White,
EPHESIANS III. 17-19 177
pass beyond Golgotha and Olivet to the throne of God, and see Christ as the reigning Lord of heaven and earth under the Father, who has subjected all things to Him, and they see Him especially as the King who shall come again to rule the earth. They say : " You must not look alone upon Calvary. The Christ who hung there has ascended on high and will come again ; you must see the coming as well as the dying Christ." The future to them explains the past ; and they are wondrously drawn by the vision of the returning Christ. So do men in various ways fix and fasten their attention on various aspects of Jesus Christ, of what He was and is ; and to the superficial they may seem to contradict and deny each other. The one may seem to believe in a different Christ from the Christ the other believes in ; but, nevertheless, it is one Christ in whom they believe.^
IV.
The Bkeadth and Length and Height and Depth.
1. " The breadth and length and height and depth " — of what ? Paul does not say ; but the words that follow make it practically certain that what he is thinking of is the Divine personality, the Divine character, the Divine love. His thought seems to run parallel with that in the Fourth Gospel : " This is life eternal, that they should know thee the only true God, and him whom thou didst send, even Jesus Christ " (John xvii. 3).
2. The Apostle, then, in his prayer not only seeks that the spiritual building may be strong, divinely possessed and firmly grounded; but in his enlarged vision of what the believer may have, he teaches us to pray for an all- comprehending and experi- mental knowledge of the love of Christ, that ye " may be strong to apprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth; and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge." The temple is made strong by the almighty power of the Spirit ; Christ dwells in it ; the foundation is settled and sure, and now he proceeds to its geometrical proportions of breadth and length, height and depth.
3. It has been said that Paul's thought was something like this. From that old captivity of his in Eome, his mind went
* J. A. Davies, Seven Words of Love, 141. EPH.-COL. — 12
178 THE LOVE OF CHRIST
away, carried him to the ^gean Sea, whose blue waters lay in beauty about the yellow sands of the Ephesian shore; and, looking in thought upon the land, he seemed to see a mighty castle, a splendid fortress. It stood out above the landscape as if with conscious pride, as if it knew it was the master of the coast and country. There it was, beautiful, strong, capacious, majestic. But would all men look at it alike ? Paul thought that every one looking upon it would not give the same judgment about it ; not that they would disagree about any part of it, but each would be so struck by one part of it as almost to neglect the rest.
^ Let us imagine ourselves on board of a ship on that -^gean Sea ; then, as we mix with those on board, let us go to some of them and ask them : " What do you see in that castle ? What is your vision of it ? " It is true that it is one castle, but, yet, what do men see in it ? We go to one and we look at his mind, and we ask : " What do you see in that castle ? " And he in reply says : " What magnificent breadth it has ! Just look what a grand space of soil it covers ! I cannot loose my mind from thinking how vast it is." We go to another and he says : " See the length of it ! Look at the front it presents to this sea ! What magnificent shelter and defence against inroad from the sea ! " And we go to another and he says : " See the height of its walls ! Who can scale those ? The houses of yonder city, compared with it, are as pigmies beside a giant ! " And if you go to another, he sees the unseen. He feels the majesty of the height, but if those walls are high, they must also be deep, he thinks. Ere that castle could stand, he knows there must be firm foundations ; the walls must be going down deep. It is the mystery of their depth that he is thinking of.^
^ How many men and women have sung about this temple, and have revelled in its strength and glory. Let us listen to one or two : —
0 love how deep, how broad, how high!
It fills the heart with ecstasy That Christ, the Son of God, should take Our mortal form, for mortals' sake.
And here is another singer : —
Jesus, Thy love unbounded. So full, so sweet, so free, Leaves all our thoughts confounded Whene'er we think of Thee.