We shall have power to comprehend these dimensions of Christ’s love, Paul adds, only with all the saints. The isolated Christian can indeed know something of the love of Jesus. But his grasp of it is bound to be limited by his limited experience. It needs the whole people of God to understand the whole love of God, all the saints together, Jews and Gentiles, men and women, young and old, black and white, with all their varied backgrounds and experiences.
Yet even then, although we may ‘comprehend’ its dimensions to some extent with our minds, we cannot ‘know’ it in our experience. It is too broad, long, deep and high even for all the saints together to grasp. It surpasses knowledge. Paul has already used this ‘surpassing’ word of God’s power and grace; now he uses it of his love. Christ’s love is as unknowable as his riches are unsearchable (verse 8). Doubtless we shall spend eternity exploring his inexhaustible riches of grace and love.
–John Stott, The Message of Ephesians (Bible Speaks Today) [Downer’s Grove, Ill. IVP Academic, 1984), p.80, quoted in this morning’s adult ed class by yours truly
"We must allow the Word of God to confront us, to disturb our security, to undermine our complacency and to overthrow our patterns of thought and behavior." John Stott pic.twitter.com/oD0f61vR9K
— Preaching and Preachers (@PreachingJKA) November 10, 2018