Paradoxes of Prayer

For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that you, 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, that you might be filled with all the fulness of God. Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus through all ages, world without end. Amen” (Eph. 3:14–21).

This is one of the noblest of apostolic prayers. Though offered in behalf of the Ephesian believers, to whom this letter was written, its petitions are timeless. “I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,” Paul begins, reminding us that our prayers are to be addressed to God the Father. This we are to do in accordance with our Lord’s own words: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, whatsoever you shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you. Hitherto have you asked nothing in my name: ask, and you shall receive, that your joy might be full” (John 16:23, 24). Christ is the mediator between God and men (1 Tim. 2:5), and, as Paul says in the preceding chapter of this letter, it is “through him [that] we … have access by one Spirit unto the Father” (Eph. 2:18).

Do we know God as our loving heavenly Father? The question is not whether we believe in God with our minds—that is something different—but whether we know him well enough to pray to him as Paul did. There is only one way to be on the close terms with God that enable us to go to him as our Father, and that is through obedient faith in his Son, our Lord and Saviour.

Aside from an incidental use in the first sentence, the pronoun “I” is notably absent from this prayer. From beginning to end the prayer has to do with others. It is a very model of intercession, because in it Paul is seeking the highest spiritual blessings for his fellow believers. We have much to learn from Paul’s prayer life. It was intercessory (Rom. 1:9); it was unceasing (1 Thess. 1:2, 3; 5:17); it was unselfish (Phil. 1:3–5).

Let us look at a few of the requests Paul makes in this great prayer. Consider this petition: “that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith.” Here the Greek verb he uses for “dwell” is related to the noun translated “house.” It literally means “to make one’s home.” Think of it! Paul is actually asking God to grant that Christ himself will be at home in the hearts of believers. As A. T. Robertson said, “This is the ideal, but a deal of fixing would have to be done in our hearts for Christ.” Paul himself knew what it meant to have Christ as the permanent resident in his heart. Indeed, he could exclaim with joy, as he did in another of his letters, “Not I but Christ liveth in me” (Gal. 2:20).

The practical realization of the stupendous fact of having Christ dwell in our hearts comes “by faith.” Surely one of our spiritual needs is for a more spacious view of faith and a fuller exercise of it. We know that salvation from sin and its penalty of hell is only through Christ. But there we so often stop. We accept our salvation by faith—and then try to live the Christian life by self-effort. Yet all the time God has far more in store for us through the love of Christ.

What that means Paul shows us in the paradoxes that climax this great prayer. G. K. Chesterton once defined paradox as “truth standing on its head to attract attention.” And here the apostle makes telling use of it. “That you,” he says, “being rooted and grounded in love, may be strong to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height, and to know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge.” Paul is speaking of the love of Christ for us—not our meager love for the Lord but Christ’s boundless love for us.

At this point the apostle soars into a fourth dimension. Length, breadth, and depth—these relate to three-dimensional space. Another dimension is incomprehensible to human intellect. Were we able to understand it, new realms would be opened to our finite minds. “Space,” said the French essayist Joubert, “is the stature of God.” But three dimensions are not enough for Paul to describe the love of Christ. So he adds what we may think of as a fourth one—“height”—and then makes the amazing and paradoxical request that believers may comprehend all these dimensions of love. He is actually praying that we may grasp the immeasurable.

In a very real sense all four dimensions of love are manifest in the cross of Jesus Christ. We find them implied in these beautiful Old Testament words: “As the heavens are high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him [here, like the upright beam of the cross set in the earth and reaching to the skies, are the two vertical dimensions—depth and height]. As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us [here, like the crossbeam are the horizontal dimensions—length and breadth]” (Ps. 103:11, 12). Or consider the most familiar of New Testament texts, John 3:16. It contains, as Norman B. Harrison pointed out, Paul’s four dimensions: “God so loved the world [the breadth of God’s love] that he gave his only begotten Son [the length to which his love went] that whosoever believeth in him should not perish [the depth of his love] but have everlasting life [the glorious height of the love of Christ].” Yes, the love of Christ has opened up the new dimension of eternity for sinners.

There was no other good enough

To pay the price of sin;

He only could unlock the gate

Of Heaven and let us in.

No wonder then, that Paul, caught up in the grandeur of his prayer, uses the sublime paradox—“to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge.” Let us look at it again. Without question the love of Christ transcends knowledge. No human mind can fully understand it. That is why Paul said (1 Cor. 1:23) that “Christ crucified” is “foolishness to the Greeks” (the intellectuals of his time). But we Christians are not limited to understanding our Lord’s love with our minds. There is another kind of knowledge. As Pascal said, “The heart has reasons that the reason does not know.” For it is through the experience of our hearts that we know the boundless love of Christ.

Paul goes on to offer another petition that is also a paradox: “that you might be filled with all the fulness of God.” The thought is of a vessel filled to the brim. The vessel is the believer, and the fullness of God is the Lord Jesus Christ making his home in our hearts by his Spirit in his divine four-dimensional love. So, marvel of marvels, we may actually be filled to the utmost of our personal capacity with the all-sufficiency of God.

The ancient Greeks spoke of “piling Pelion on Ossa.” The myth was that the Titans wanted to climb up to heaven, so they took these two mountains of Thessaly and piled them one on the other. So Paul piles Pelion on Ossa as he concludes his prayer with an audacious doxology. As if his petitions are not enough, he dares to say that God “is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think.” Having voiced his tremendous petitions for the utmost spiritual blessing of believers, he confidently affirms that God can do far, far more for us than anything we can ask or even think!

When you and I pray, what is it we are asking for? Suppose our prayers were analyzed with unsparing honesty. Would they show that within our hearts we are hungering and thirsting after righteousness, that we are seeking to know the love of Christ more fully? Or would they show that we are asking God largely for things—for material, not spiritual, blessing? In the stress of daily life and work our hearts tend to get set on things. But our Lord’s principle remains unchanged: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you” (Matt. 6:33). He did say, “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled” (Matt. 5:6). Yet we keep on asking for things, while all the time our Father has something more for us. He wants to fill us, as we have seen, to the very limit of our capacity with the love of Christ and with his own fullness.

L. P. Jacks once spoke of the “lost radiance of the Christian religion.” If any of us have lost that radiance, may not a reason be that our values in prayer need to be revised? It is not wrong to pray for things. God wants us to come to him with our practical needs. He has promised to supply every one of them. But he also wants us to prefer him to things.

Do we truly want to serve God? Then we must keep inviolate our daily appointments alone with him. “But,” we say, “I don’t always have time for prayer—not every day.” Yes, duties press upon us. There is a living to be made. There are family responsibilities. There are church services to attend. Social life takes time, as does needed recreation. But none of these—not even religious activity—can take the place of communion with God. The consistent maintenance, day in and day out, year in and year out, of our quiet time alone with God takes unremitting spiritual discipline. And it must be in our lives if we are to grow in grace and serve the Lord in obedient discipleship.

“Always,” said Amy Carmichael, “there is a spiritual secret at the heart of a great battle for righteousness.” For Christian disciples that secret may well be faithfulness in prayer that seeks first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. If we would really use our privilege of prayer as Paul did—daily, always, unselfishly—who can measure what God would do in and through us!

Lord, what a change within us one short hour

Spent in Thy Presence will avail to make!

What heavy burdens from our bosoms take!

What parched grounds refresh as with a shower!

We kneel, and all round us seems to lower;

We rise, and all, the distant and the near,

Stands forth in sunny outline, brave and clear;

We kneel, how weak! We rise, how full of power!

Why, therefore, should we do ourselves this wrong,

Or others-that we are not always strong-

That we are overborne with care-

That we should ever weak or heartless be,

Anxious or troubled-when with us is prayer,

And joy and strength and courage are with Thee?

Richard Chenevix Trench

Paul D. Steeves is assistant professor of history and director of Russian studies at Stetson University in Deland, Florida. He has the Ph.D. from the University of Kansas and specializes in modern Russian history.

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