EPHESIANS 3:14-21
PAUL’S POWERFUL, PASSIONATE PRAYER
Ephesians 3:14 . . . for this reason I bow my knees before the Father . . .
SUSIE: Paul has been stressing the unity of believers, especially the uniting of Jews and Gentiles, because of their common salvation in Jesus Christ.
SUSAN: Nationalities are always to be secondary to the believers’ identity in Christ.
SUSIE: Toward that end, Paul now lifts them up in prayer. The Jews at this time usually prayed standing up. However, due to the realization that he could never be worthy and in thankfulness to God for saving grace, Paul knelt in humility and gratitude. This was not just a physical posture but an inward attitude.
SUSAN: The Father invested in us giving His only begotten Son, in order through Jesus’s sacrificial death on the cross to grant us salvation. We could never earn or deserve God’s love. He chose to lavish it on us. As the Holy Spirit by God’s grace made us aware that He had given such a priceless gift, all we had to do was receive it.
SUSIE: Since we could do nothing to earn God’s love, we can do nothing to make Him love us less. Grace means that God chose to save us and keep us, and that assurance is apart from anything we could do or fail to do. This should bring all believers to their knees in humility.
Ephesians 3:15 . . . from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name.
SUSIE: We sought clarification on verse 15 from several sources. Three are quoted below.
15 The Father is the One after whom “the whole family” is named. Paul confines the concept of family here to believers. This is altogether in keeping with the context and the inference drawn from 2:18-19 (cf. 2:20, 22; 3:6). This family of God is not confined to earth but embraces heaven as well. This may simply refer to the church triumphant, but could include the angelic hosts, described in rabbinic literature as “the higher family.”
Expositor’s Bible Commentary (Abridged Edition): New Testament as quoted on www.biblegateway.com
Here, having mentioned Christ, he cannot pass without an honourable encomium of his love, Eph. 3:15. The universal church has a dependence upon the Lord Jesus Christ: Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named. The Jews were wont to boast of Abraham as their father, but now Jews and Gentiles are both denominated from Christ (so some); while others understand it of the saints in heaven, who wear the crown of glory, and of saints on earth who are going on in the work of grace here. Both the one and the other make but one family, one household; and from him they are named CHRISTIANS, as they really are such, acknowledging their dependence upon, and their relation to, Christ.
Matthew Henry’s Commentary as quoted on www.biblegateway.com
3:15 whole family in heaven and earth is named. Paul was not teaching the universal fatherhood of God and the universal brotherhood of man (cf. John 8:39–42; 1 John 3:10), but was simply referring to believers from every era of history, those who are dead (in heaven) and those who are alive (on earth).
MacArthur Study Bible, 2nd Edition as quoted on www.biblegateway.com
…The one who practices sin is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the very start. This is why the Son of God was revealed, to destroy the works of the devil. Anyone born of God refuses to practice sin, because God’s seed abides in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God. By this the children of God are distinguished from the children of the devil: Anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is anyone who does not love his brother.…
1 John 3:8-10 (BSB)
No one who is born of God [deliberately, knowingly, and habitually] practices sin, because God’s seed [His principle of life, the essence of His righteous character] remains [permanently] in him [who is born again—who is reborn from above—spiritually transformed, renewed, and set apart for His purpose]; and he [who is born again] cannot habitually [live a life characterized by] sin, because he is born of God and longs to please Him.
1 John 3:9 (AMP)
SUSAN: Jewish and Gentile believers, living on earth and those in Heaven, have one identity—Christian. We are all in the family of Jesus. We are all corporately His bride, His body, His church, the Messianic Community. That truth is evidenced in our changed lives.
SUSIE: Believers all have one Father—God. Paul will expound on this later in Ephesians. Here’s a sneak peek:
Ephesians 4:4-6 (NASB) There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.
Ephesians 3:16 I ask that out of the riches of His glory He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being,
SUSAN: Our ultimate focus should be the inner being, our spirit rather than our earth-suit that begins perishing from the moment we are born.
SUSIE: Paul prays for the Ephesian believers and all who would read this letter (including us), that the Lord will strengthen them from within. The Lord supplies His power, His strength by placing the Holy Spirit within believers; but we need to pray for each other to be “plugged in,” as it were, on a daily basis. The power grid is there, but we have to access the outlet via prayer.
I can do all things [which He has called me to do] through Him who strengthens and empowers me [to fulfill His purpose—I am self-sufficient in Christ’s sufficiency; I am ready for anything and equal to anything through Him who infuses me with inner strength and confident peace.]
Philippians 4:13 (AMP) I
SUSAN: When we recognize our weaknesses and embrace them, the totality of His strength through us becomes a reality as we surrender to His will and purposes for our lives. It is possible for a believer to move counter to the Spirit’s leading. There must be a submission and cooperation on the part of the believer to access the full power available to him or her. We are in allegiance with God, submitted and committed to be instruments of His grace for His glory.
Ephesians 3:17-19a . . . so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. Then you, being rooted and grounded in love, will have power, together with all the saints, to comprehend the length and width and height and depth of the love of Christ,
SUSIE: Paul is not praying for their salvation as he is addressing those who already believe.
SUSAN: He is praying that since Jesus dwells in them, takes up residence, moves in, they will abide in that knowledge, in that power.
SUSIE: I would relate this to what Jesus taught as recorded in John 15. We are to abide in Christ as He abides in us.
I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.
John 15:5 (NASB)
SUSIE: Our total source of power is the Holy Spirit within us. The Love that placed Him there is vast.
3:18 breadth and length and height and depth. These measures of space recall the temple image of 2:21. As the “living stones” (1 Pet. 2:5) are linked in love, God’s dwelling grows and is filled with Christ Himself. God uses the love among “all the saints”—Jew and Gentile alike—to build a whole that is greater than any of its individual parts. The spatial language exalts Christ’s love for His people—a love that is inclusive, inexhaustible, and self-sacrificing.”
Reformation Study Bible as quoted on www.biblegateway.com
SUSAN: We have seen that in our own ministry. We are more than our individual personalities or expressions added together.
SUSIE: Christ brings us together to be something neither of us could be separately or even dream of being as a team. Christ working in us, enables us to be more than we could ever be without Him.
SUSAN: The reality is that we are nothing without Him. However, we have the capacity to be everything God wills us to be as we embrace our identity in Christ.
SUSIE: God’s love, power, and especially His grace are incomprehensible to the unregenerate (un-saved) mind. The Holy Spirit within us enables us to glimpse the extent of God’s work both in us individually and in the Messianic Community—God’s family—as a whole.
Ephesians 3:19b . . . and to know this love that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
SUSIE: How can we know something that surpasses knowledge?
SUSAN: Jesus’ love cannot be known intellectually. It is exclusively revealed by the Holy Spirit working in and through us.
We ourselves love now because he loved us first.
1 John 4:19 (CJB)
SUSIE: As we receive His love, love Him in return, and share His love with others, our understanding grows along with our faith.
SUSAN: It is a circular experience that continually comes back to the Father’s gracious love for His children—those who believe—and has no end.
Ephesians 3:20-21 Now to Him who is able to do so much more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
SUSAN: Jesus is the One doing the work. We are the instruments He employs and empowers to do the work.
Do not present the parts of your body to sin as instruments of wickedness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and present the parts of your body to Him as instruments of righteousness.
Romans 6:13 (BSB)
SUSIE: Jesus is the master builder, and we (the church) are His handiwork. We are the vehicle He uses to spread the Good News, to build one another up, and to glorify God.
SUSAN: We saw this truth in Ephesians 2:10 and Paul expresses the same idea to the church at Philippi:
I can do all things [which He has called me to do] through Him who strengthens and empowers me [to fulfill His purpose—I am self-sufficient in Christ’s sufficiency; I am ready for anything and equal to anything through Him who infuses me with inner strength and confident peace.]
Philippians 4:13 (AMP)
SUSAN: If one receives an infusion of medicine via an IV, the medicine permeates the body via the circulatory system.
SUSIE: Jesus infuses us with His strength in our spiritual system via the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Paul ends his prayer for these believers by asking the Lord to glorify Himself through the church throughout the ages.
PONDER THIS: Are we asking and expecting God to glorify Himself through us individually, through our local body of believers, and through the church worldwide?
ASSIGNMENT: Take time in the next few days to pray for God to be glorified specifically. Perhaps you could write out a prayer and share it with others or on your Facebook page. You may also ask the Lord to reveal to you anything in your life that is not bringing glory to His name and ask Him to help you overcome it. Remember, we can only live righteously by the power of the Holy Spirit within us.
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