Ephesians 3:14-19

The main theme resumed: prayer for the Indwelling of Christ

14. For this cause The same phrase as that of Ephesians 3:1. See note there. Here the broken connexion is resumed. The "permanent habitation of God" (Ephesians 2:22) is still in the Apostle's mind, but in another aspect. The thought of the eternal totality, the Church glorified, gives place in a measure to that of the present individuality, the saint's experience now and here of the consciously welcomed "permanent habitation of Christ in the heart," with all its spiritual concomitants. The two aspects are complements of each other. Each "living Stone" (1 Peter 2:5) is, as it were, a miniature of the living Temple. In each of them, as if it were an integral microcosm, yet with a view not to itself only but to the final harmony of the whole, Christ works, manifests Himself, and dwells. So, as by the primary and most vital condition, is approached that "far-off divine Event, to which the whole creation moves," [35] (and the NewCreation most directly of all,) and with which the close of ch. 2 has dealt. Meanwhile this prospect, and the present communityof the saints, is not absent from this passage, in which we have the great "Family" (Ephesians 3:15), and "allthe saints" (Ephesians 3:18); in which plurals are used throughout; and in which the closing sentences (Ephesians 3:20-21) point by the vastness of their language to a more than individual sphere of realization.

[35] In Memoriam, at the end.

I bow my knees The attitude of prayer, Luke 22:41; Acts 7:60; Acts 9:40; Acts 20:36; Acts 21:5. See too Romans 14:11; Philippians 2:10. The words, doubtless, do not impose a special bodily posture as a necessity in spiritual worship; physical conditions may make kneeling impossible, or undesirable, on occasion. But they do impose the spiritual attitude of which the bodily is type and expression; profound and submissive reverence, perfectly harmonious with the "boldness" and "confidence" of Ephesians 3:12. And so far as body and spirit work in concord, this recommendsthe corresponding bodily attitude where there is no distinct reason against it.

the Father The words, "of our Lord Jesus Christ," are to be omitted. They appear in very ancient documents, including the Syriac and Latin versions. But the great Latin Father and critic, St Jerome (cent. 4 5), in his comment on this verse, expressly says that the "Latin copies" are in error; and the evidence of both Greek MSS. and patristic quotations preponderates for the omission.