Ephesians 3:14-21

The Writer's Prayer for his Readers. Kneeling, in a very ecstasy of prayer, before the Father who is the source and prototype of all fatherly relationship whether on earth or in heaven, the writer prays that, in a degree commensurate with the wealth of the Divine glory, his readers may be granted power and strength through the Spirit unto inner spiritual growth; that the indwelling of Christ in their hearts may through faith be realised; that Christian love may come to be the very root and foundation of their being; and that so they may be given strength to share with all God's holy people the comprehension of the length and breadth and height and depth (of God's glorious purpose) and the knowledge of that love of Christ which is beyond all knowledge, and be made spiritually full unto the measure of the fulness of God Himself (Ephesians 3:14). God can do that and more: His power the power of that Divine energy of His which is at work in us far exceeds all capacity of human prayer or imagination. Glory to Him in the Church and in Christ Jesus for ever! (Ephesians 3:20).

Ephesians 3:14. The writer prostrates himself; the ancients ordinarily prayed standing.

Ephesians 3:15. every family: i.e. angelic or human. The Greek involves a word-play (pater-patria) which suggests the translation fatherhood. To the writer human fatherhood is a metaphor from Divine, not vice versa.

Ephesians 3:16. the inward man: the spiritual as opposed to the physical side of man's nature (cf. 2 Corinthians 4:16).

Ephesians 3:19. All fulness, i.e. all true reality, dwells in God: unto the complete attainment of reality and truth the working out of the Divine purpose in Christ and Christians is to lead. In Christ and through the Church the restoration of a disordered universe to its true order is to be achieved. The word fulness (pleroma) became later on a catchword of Gnosticism, and the prominence both of the word and the idea in Eph. and Col. may point to its having already played a part in the theosophic speculations attacked in the latter epistle.