John Calvin 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)

And to know the love of Christ. By those dimensions Paul means nothing other than the love of Christ, which he discusses later. The meaning is that whoever knows it fully and perfectly is in every respect a wise person.

It is as if he had said, “In whatever direction one may look, one will find nothing in the doctrine of salvation that does not relate to this subject.” The love of Christ contains within itself the whole of wisdom, so that the words can be understood as: that you may be able to comprehend the love of Christ, which is the length and breadth, and depth, and height—that is, the complete perfection of all wisdom.

The metaphor is borrowed from mathematicians, taking the parts as expressive of the whole. Almost all people are infected with the disease of desiring to obtain useless knowledge.

It is very important for us to be told what is necessary for us to know, and what the Lord desires us to contemplate—above and below, on the right hand and on the left, before and behind.

The love of Christ is presented to us as the subject that should occupy our daily and nightly meditations, and in which we should be wholly immersed. Whoever possesses this alone has enough.

Beyond it there is nothing solid, nothing useful—nothing, in short, that is proper or sound. Though you survey the heaven and earth and sea, you will never go beyond this without overstepping the lawful boundary of wisdom.

Which surpasseth knowledge. A similar expression occurs in another Epistle: “the peace of God, which surpasseth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7).

No one can approach God without being raised above themselves and above the world. For this reason, the sophists refuse to admit that we can know with certainty that we enjoy the grace of God, because they measure faith by the perception of the bodily senses.

But Paul justly contends that this wisdom exceeds all knowledge. For, if human faculties could reach it, Paul’s prayer that God would bestow it would have been unnecessary.

Let us remember, therefore, that the certainty of faith is knowledge, but it is acquired by the teaching of the Holy Spirit, not by the acuteness of our own intellect. If the reader desires a fuller discussion of this subject, he may consult the “Institutes of the Christian Religion.”

That you may be filled. Paul now expresses in one word what he meant by the various dimensions. Whoever has Christ has everything necessary to be made perfect in God, for this is the meaning of the phrase, the fullness of God.

People certainly imagine that they have complete fullness in themselves, but this is only when their pride is inflated with empty trifles. It is a foolish and wicked dream that by the fullness of God is meant the full Godhead, as if humans were raised to an equality with God.