“That ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge” (Eph. 3:17-19). If I am walking in self, I cannot see beyond the petty things of this world, but when I get beyond the region of self, I am able to judge about sin and sinners, to have a true judgment about everything, and I am able to understand the breadth and length and depth and height. He does not say of what — that has to be filled in. But in order to make all practical I must “know the love of Christ.” If I were going into the Queen’s presence, how glad I should be if someone would tell me what to do! Well, this knowledge of the love of Christ is the very thing that calms my heart when I think of the immensity of the glory that is to be revealed in me. Christ is beside me. I have known Him intimately down here and as risen too, for He is just the same as when He said, “Children, have ye any meat?” When I read that the glory of God lightens the city, is that too dazzling, too much for my eye?
The next words that I read are that “the Lamb is the light thereof.” You see, the heart gets into a condition where it is at home, and therefore the poorest, simplest saint is quite at ease in all this glory, because Christ is in it all, and Christ is in his heart. I may be a poor earthen vessel, but then I have got the treasure inside. By faith in my heart He speaks to me; He manifests Himself to me as He does not to the world. It is a wonderful thing for me to say that I know Christ’s love, at the same time that I can also say it passes knowledge. And now the Apostle, having shown the saints the exalted position, rises up to it and says it is “that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God.” Wondrous place! Wondrous purpose of love to have brought me here! Now how shall I look on tribulation? Oh, I can glory in it! I can joy in God, not merely joy amid the circumstances, but joy in God Himself.
“Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think” (Eph. 3:20). This is often wrongly put forth as though it said, “Able to do for us” (quite true, of course, in its place, because He is able and does do for us), but it is not the thought here; it is “able to do in us”—“according to the power that worketh in us” (vs. 20). The church has been looked at as all that we have been speaking of, in order that Christ may be glorified in us. “He shall come to be glorified in His saints, and to be . . . admired in all them that believe in that day” (2 Thess. 1:10), although the Apostle is not here (that is, in Ephesians) looking at what it will be in the future, but what it is now by faith. Moses reflected in his face the glory of God when he came down from the mount; so should the church now. The angels are looking on; there is wisdom in the church, although very feeble. The angels ought to see in the saints the glory of God, but how little, beloved friends, how terribly little, can be seen! How everything has failed that has been put into the hand of man, as far as man is concerned — the law, the Son of David, Nebuchadnezzar, the church! Man has spoiled everything, as far as he had the power.
And, dear friends, would that you knew you were weak. Then you would be better able to say, “Now unto Him be glory.” When Paul said, “I was with you in much weakness,” we learn God had “much people in this city.” There must be weakness in the vessel. The object known is Christ; the place, our hearts. God is looking for Christ being known by us and God glorified in us, not merely Christ dwelling in us by the Holy Spirit, but in our hearts — my heart; my thoughts, my feelings, the same as Christ’s. The Lord give us to know how God has treated us, that we may know the heart’s obligation to love, and that obligation not a legal one.
J. N. Darby, adapted