Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary Ephesians 3:19

"and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that ye may be filled unto all the fulness of God." — Ephesians 3:19 (ASV)

Paul recognizes, however, that he is attempting to measure the immeasurable and so paradoxically prays that the Ephesian Christians may in fact come to know a love that is ultimately unknowable (cf. 1:19; 2:7; 1 Corinthians 8:1). It is cast into a totally different realm where the normal faculties of rational apprehension are incapable of functioning. The final item in Paul’s prayer is introduced in v.19b, though some regard it simply as a consequence of knowing Christ’s love. It seems preferable to treat it as the climax of Paul’s intercession. He makes the bold request that his readers may be filled up to “the measure of all the fullness of God,” meaning the fullness that God requires. The fulfillment that God intends for us is the maturity that is measured by the full stature of Christ (4:13).