Ephesians 3:14-21 -- The Unity of Believers

Verse by Verse Commentary of the Letter to the Ephesians

In this prayer, Paul again expressed his desire for believers. To understand it we must note the context: when it comes in a section in which Paul had been affirming the unity of a church made up of many differing individuals. Here Paul prayed that “being rooted and established in love” we believers might experience the love of God and be filled with His fullness. What “love” are we to be established in? In context it is not the love of God, or even love for God. It is love for one another as members of the family of God! It is in the context of loving relationships within the church that we experience through one another the depths of God’s love. It is in this context that we grow in the fullness of Christ. All this is possible only because God is “able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us.” (Bob Damon’s Ephesians Commentary, pgs 16, 17).

Growing in Unity

Ephesians 3:

¹⁴For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 

¹⁵from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named,

• Note Paul prays to the Father, and that the prayer was brief.
• The family referred to are the sum of the redeemed. 
• There is a false belief that all of mankind is a universal brotherhood. Only the saved are adopted by the Father.
• 1 John 3:1-2: Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God!  Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.  Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.

¹⁶that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, 

¹⁷that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 

¹⁸may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height—

¹⁹to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

• Paul’s prayer asks that we grow in four dimensions: Strength, Depth, Comprehension, and Fullness. These dimensions are summarized again as width, length, depth and height.

• Strength – the presence of the Spirit is evidenced with power 
• Acts 1:8 But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you;…

• Depth – to be deeply rooted and nourished 
• Jeremiah 17:7-8 “Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, and whose hope is the LORD.  For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, which spreads out its roots by the river, and will not fear when heat comes; But its leaf will be green and will not be anxious in the year of drought, nor will cease from yielding fruit.


• Comprehension – along with our fellow believers, to understand the truth of Scripture and the Love of God. 
• 1 Corinthians 2:11-14 For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God.  Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.  These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual.  But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

• Fullness – to be spiritually satisfied, all your needs met by the Lord. 
• John 4:13-14 Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst.  But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.”

• This passage could also be a play on the dimensions of our physical world.  We live in 3½ measurable dimensions, people often forget the ½ time dimension:
  • Width - suggesting breadth
  • Length - literally length, although could mean time
  • Depth - depth or profundity or mystery
  • Height - elevation, dignity

²⁰Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, 

²¹to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

• God can do more than we can even think to ask of Him!
• Note that His glory at this time is through the church!

Application Questions

• As members of God’s family, we experience the depth of God’s love through one another. Why do you think God established this pattern, where the love of God is transmitted through the love of one another?
• By what power are we able to overcome our natural inclinations and love one another selflessly as Christ first loved us? Does this love come from us directly, or are we channels through which the Spirit’s love is displayed?
• To whom is God the father? How would Christ dwell in the hearts of believers? What does this love of Christ surpass?
• What does it mean to be filled with the fullness of God? 

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Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, Copyright © 1960,1962,1963,1968,1971,1972,1973,1975,1977,1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.