49 Eph 3.20 God doing the impossible in us

Eph 3.20 (ESV), “Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, …”: notice that this doxology appears immediately after a very large thing Paul did think about and ask in verses 16-18: that God would strengthen the Ephesian believers so that Christ would dwell in their hearts through faith, so that they, being rooted and grounded in love, would be able to comprehend the incomprehensible, the dimensions, the “limits”, of the unlimited love of Christ; and to know by experiencing it this love that surpasses knowing, with the result that they would be filled with all the fullness of God.

In other words, the request seems clearly impossible: comprehending what can’t be comprehended?, knowing the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge?  being filled with ALL the fullness of God, who is infinitely larger than the whole universe?  Yet the next sentence God inspired Paul to write after the request is a declaration that God is able to do much more than the request needs.  And rather than stating this fact simply and directly, God inspired Paul to state the fact using superlative language:  God is able to do this abundantly, but not just abundantly, more abundantly, and not just that, but far more abundantly than all we ask or think.

So I think God was actually, in response to Paul’s prayer, performing this request and accomplishing its result in the life of the Ephesian believers.  And according to Paul’s words to the Philippian believers that, “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil 1.6), I expect He is achieving this same result in you and I, believers in the Lord Jesus Christ.  In us He is performing to an exceedingly abundant degree the hugely powerful changes of enabling us to comprehend the incomprehensible dimensions of His love, and to know the unknowable — His love — and to be filled with all the fullness of God.

Considering this, it seems beyond imagining, and certainly is beyond describing, what you and I are becoming.  With the Apostle John (1 Jn 3.2 NKJV), with shivers of anticipation, we can with wonder declare, “… it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.”