Ephesians 3:19 Meaning and Explanation

Paul reaches the summit of his prayer with a beautiful paradox: that his readers would "know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge." How can one know what surpasses knowledge? Paul is distinguishing two kinds of knowing. There is the knowing of information, facts gathered about a subject, and there is the knowing of experience, the way one knows a beloved friend. Christ's love is too vast to be fully measured or explained, yet it can be genuinely experienced. Paul prays for that deeper knowing: to be embraced by Christ's love, going beyond merely studying it.

The goal he names is breathtaking: "that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God." This is the high point toward which the whole prayer has been climbing: inner strength, the indwelling Christ, roots in love, comprehension with all the saints, and now this. To be filled with God's fullness is to have one's whole life saturated with God's presence and character, lacking nothing of what He desires to give. It is hard to imagine a larger request. Yet Paul prays it with confidence, because the next verse reminds us that God is able to do far more than we ask. For the reader, this verse lifts the horizon of what life with God can be. The aim is a love so deeply known that God's own fullness comes to dwell within, far richer than a thin acquaintance with Christ.