According to Ephesians 3:18-19, the result of Christ’s making His home in our hearts is that we are full of strength to apprehend the dimensions of Christ—the breadth, length, height, and depth—and to know the knowledge-surpassing love of Christ. To apprehend the dimensions of Christ, we need all the saints, not individually but corporately. The breadth, length, height, and depth in verse 18 are the dimensions of Christ. In our experience of Christ, we first experience the breadth of what He is and then the length. This is horizontal. When we advance in Christ, we experience the height and depth of His riches. This is vertical. Our experience of Christ must become three-dimensional, like a cube, and must not be one-dimensional, like a line. In our experience of Christ we must go back and forth and up and down, that eventually our experience of Him may be a solid “cube.” When our experience is like this, we cannot fall or be broken.
We become strong not only to apprehend the dimensions of Christ but also to know the knowledge-surpassing love of Christ. The love of Christ is Christ Himself. Just as Christ is immeasurable, so also is His love; hence, it is knowledge-surpassing. Yet, we can know it in our spirit by experiencing it. If we compare what we have thus far experienced of the immeasurable love of Christ to all that there is to experience, it is like comparing a raindrop to the ocean. Christ in His universal dimensions and in His immeasurable love is like a vast, limitless ocean for us to experience.
The result of apprehending the dimensions of Christ and knowing the knowledge-surpassing love of Christ is that we are filled unto all the fullness of God. Here the expression the fullness of God denotes the overflow of the riches of Christ that have been constituted into us. The fullness of God implies that the riches of all that God is have become His expression. When the riches of God are in God Himself, they are His riches, but when the riches of God are expressed, they become His fullness (John 1:16). All the fullness of God dwells in Christ (Col. 1:19; 2:9). Through His indwelling, Christ imparts the fullness of God into our being that we may be filled even unto the fullness of God to be the practical manifestation of the church, in which God may be glorified in His expression (Eph. 3:21).
Our Christ is unsearchable and immeasurable, and yet He is intimately making His home in our heart. Because all the fullness of God is in Him, He is the embodiment of God. Therefore, as He makes home in our heart, we are filled unto all the fullness of God.
In the New Testament the fullness is the expression through the completeness of the riches. This is the reason that in verse 8 Paul speaks of the unsearchable riches of Christ and that in 1:23 and then in 4:13 he speaks of the fullness of Christ. The riches of Christ are all that Christ is and has and all that He has accomplished, attained, and obtained. The fullness of Christ is the result and issue of our enjoyment of these riches. When the riches of Christ are assimilated into our being metabolically, they constitute us to be the fullness of Christ, the Body of Christ, the church, as His expression. First, in 1:23 this expression is the fullness of Christ, and then in 3:19 it is the fullness of God, for the fullness of Christ, the embodiment of God, is the fullness of the Triune God.
The Father (v. 14) answers and fulfills the apostle’s prayer through the Spirit (v. 16) that Christ, the Son (v. 17), may make His home in our hearts. Thus we are filled unto the fullness of God—the Triune God. This is the issue of the dispensing of the Triune God into our entire being. Paul’s prayer regarding our becoming filled unto all the fullness of God will be ultimately fulfilled in the New Jerusalem as the fullness of God.
Verses 20 and 21 say, “But to Him who is able to do superabundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power which operates in us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus unto all the generations forever and ever. Amen.” Verses 16 through 19 are the apostle’s prayer. The word but makes verses 20 and 21 a doxology. In his prayer the apostle prayed that the Father would strengthen the saints according to the riches of His glory. This implies that the glory of God can be wrought into the saints. In the doxology he said, “To Him be the glory” (v. 21), implying that the glory of God, which has been wrought into the saints, returns to God. First, the glory of God is wrought into us; then it returns to God for His glorification. Isaac’s wealth was first given to Rebekah for her beautification; then all the wealth came back to Isaac, with Rebekah, for his glorification (Gen. 24:47, 53, 61-67). The apostle prayed that God would strengthen the saints according to His glory, “but” eventually God’s glory, after being wrought into them, returns to Him along with the strengthened saints. This is the way in which God is glorified in the church.
We are being strengthened into our inner man according to the riches of God’s glory (v. 16). This glory comes to us with God and, after being worked into us, will return to God with us. By means of this two-way traffic the church, as the firstfruits in the universe (James 1:18), takes the lead to give glory to God. All the other families both in heaven and on earth will follow the church to glorify Him.
God’s glory is wrought into the church, and He is expressed in the church. Hence, to God is the glory in the church; that is, God is glorified in the church. Moreover, God is glorified not only in the church but also in Christ. The word and is used in Ephesians 3:21 to stress this point emphatically. In the church the sphere of God’s glorification is narrow, being limited to the household of the faith, but in Christ the sphere is much broader because Christ is the Head of all the families in the heavens and on earth (1:22; 3:15). Hence, God’s glorification in Christ is in the realm of all the families created by God, not only on earth but also in the heavens. This is in accord with unto all the generations forever and ever, which means for eternity. All the generations forever and ever constitute eternity. God’s glorification in the church is mainly in this age, whereas God’s glorification in Christ is for eternity.
In summary, we should experience and enjoy Christ not only as the Dweller in us but also as the Settler in our hearts. Through regeneration Christ has been revealed in our spirit. Christ is the hidden treasure in our spirit; He lives in our spirit. Yet Paul prayed that this Christ in our spirit would have an opportunity to make His home in our heart, that is, to make our heart His own home. Our heart is different from our spirit. The heart is composed of the mind, emotion, will, and conscience. Our conscience is a main part of our spirit. Therefore, our spirit is within our heart; in fact, our spirit is the center of our heart. Christ has been revealed into the saints’ spirit, yet with a great many saints, Christ does not have any ground in their hearts. Yes, all believers have Christ in their spirit, but most of the believers do not have Christ wrought into various parts of their heart. This means that Christ still does not have a home in their heart. For this reason, Paul prayed that Christ, who is in our spirit, may have an opportunity to make His home in our heart; that is, Christ may spread Himself from our spirit into all the parts of our heart in order to make His home and be settled in our heart. For Christ to make His home in our heart means that we experience and enjoy Him to such an extent that He not only lives in our spirit but also occupies our entire heart. When Christ makes His home in our heart, we will apprehend with all the saints the unlimited dimensions of Christ, which are the dimensions of the universe, and we will know the knowledge-surpassing love of Christ. This results in our being filled unto all the fullness of God to be His expression.