Paul’s prayer in Ephesians 3:14–21 is structured like a series of rings moving inward toward a single center.
Each petition draws the reader closer to the thing Paul actually wants them to have.
The prayer begins with a request for strength, moves to the dwelling of Christ in the heart, then to comprehension of four dimensions, and finally arrives at the center: knowing a love that surpasses knowledge.
That phrase at the center is one of Paul’s most deliberate paradoxes.
He is not being careless when he prays that people will know something he simultaneously says cannot be known.
He is describing a kind of knowing that is different in kind from intellectual comprehension, a knowing that comes through dwelling, rooting, and filling rather than through information.
Following the structure of the prayer itself, this post moves ring by ring toward what Paul is asking for.
Ring One: The Outer Frame of the Prayer
What Paul Was Asking For, and Why
“For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.” (Ephesians 3:14–17a, ESV)
Paul is writing from prison.
The church at Ephesus is young, made up of both Jewish and Gentile believers who have been brought together by something they are still learning to inhabit.
His prayer is not for their safety, their prosperity, or their doctrinal precision.
He prays for power in the inner being and for the dwelling of Christ in the heart.
Why Strengthening Precedes Understanding
The prayer begins with strength because what Paul is about to ask them to comprehend requires it.
The Spirit’s power in the inner being is the foundation on which everything else in the prayer rests.
Without that internal strengthening, the dimensions of Christ’s love will remain abstract measurements rather than experienced realities.
Paul knows that no one grasps this love through effort or intelligence alone.
It requires the infrastructure of an inhabited, Spirit-strengthened heart.
Ring Two: The Four Dimensions
What Breadth, Length, Height, and Depth Describe
“That you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth.” (Ephesians 3:17b–18, ESV)
Paul uses four spatial dimensions before he even names what he is measuring.
He asks that the Ephesians have the strength to comprehend something so vast that four directions are needed to begin to trace its outline.
The object of those four dimensions is named only in the next verse: the love of Christ.
The word “comprehend” here carries the sense of grasping, taking hold of something with the full capacity of the mind and will.
Why the Dimensions Are Inexhaustible
No commentator has ever settled what the breadth, length, height, and depth refer to specifically, and that is likely the point.
The four directions exhaust the vocabulary of spatial measurement without actually locating a boundary.
No matter which direction the mind travels in measuring the love of Christ, it does not find an edge.
The dimensions are meant to convey inexhaustibility, not to invite a chart.
Paul is not giving a geometric description.
He is praying that the Ephesians will develop enough of a grasp on this love’s scale that they stop measuring it against anything human.
Ring Three: The Paradox at the Center
Knowing What Cannot Be Fully Known
“And to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” (Ephesians 3:19, ESV)
“May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully.” (Ephesians 3:19, NLT)
“And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.” (Ephesians 3:19, KJV)
The phrase “to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge” is Paul’s deliberate paradox.
He does not arrive at it by accident or loose language.
He has just spent two verses establishing the four-dimensional scale of this love, and now he uses the word “know” for something he immediately qualifies as beyond knowing.
What Kind of Knowing Paul Has in Mind
The Greek word translated “know” here is ginosko, which in the New Testament carries the sense of experiential, relational, and participatory knowledge rather than merely propositional knowledge.
This is the word used when Scripture speaks of knowing God, knowing a person intimately, or being known by God.
It is fundamentally different from knowing a fact.
Paul is not contradicting himself by saying “know a love that surpasses knowledge.”
He is distinguishing between two modes of knowing: the intellectual comprehension that information produces, and the relational immersion that encounter produces.
A person can know facts about the love of Christ without having been inhabited by it.
A person can be inhabited by the love of Christ without being able to produce a complete theological account of it.
Paul is praying for the second kind of knowing.
Why the Paradox Cannot Be Resolved
The love of Christ surpasses knowledge not because it is irrational or resistant to thought, but because it exceeds what thought alone can contain.
Every genuine encounter with this love leaves the person aware that they have touched something far larger than what they can hold.
The more a person actually knows the love of Christ in Paul’s experiential sense, the more clearly they understand that they have not arrived at its boundary.
The paradox is the most honest possible description of the experience.
Ring Four: The Destination
What Being Filled With the Fullness of God Means
The prayer does not end with the paradox.
It ends with a destination: “that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”
The Greek phrase translated “fullness of God” (to pleroma tou Theou) is the same language used elsewhere of the fullness that dwells in Christ.
Paul’s final petition is that knowing the love of Christ leads to being filled with whatever fills Christ himself.
This is not a request for merely spiritual contentment.
It is a request for completeness that is described in terms of God’s own interior abundance.
How Knowing the Love Produces the Filling
The sequence in the prayer is not accidental.
Strength leads to Christ’s indwelling.
Christ’s indwelling leads to the capacity to comprehend the four dimensions.
Comprehension of the four dimensions leads to knowing the surpassing love.
And knowing the surpassing love leads to being filled with the fullness of God.
The love of Christ, known in Paul’s experiential sense, is the direct pathway to the largest thing Paul knows how to pray for.
It is not one item among many in a list of spiritual goods.
It is the passage that leads to all the others.
Living Inside the Paradox
What This Looks Like in Practice
A person who is growing in the knowledge of Christ’s surpassing love tends to display certain recognizable qualities.
They hold suffering without being destroyed by it because they have located themselves inside a love that does not change with circumstances.
They extend grace toward others that exceeds what can be explained by their own personality or moral effort.
They return to God repeatedly, not because they have new information each time, but because each encounter with his love reveals more territory they have not yet explored.
What This Does Not Look Like
Knowing the love of Christ in Paul’s sense is not the same as feeling emotionally warm about God.
It is not produced by informational accumulation, good intentions, or favorable circumstances.
It is not a state of permanent spiritual intensity.
It is a settled, deepening orientation toward a love that the person knows, through experience, is larger than anything they have so far received.
The paradox is livable because it is not a problem to be solved but a reality to be inhabited.
A Prayer Rooted in the Love That Surpasses Knowledge
Father, I bow with Paul before You. Strengthen me in my inner being. Let Christ dwell in me not as a doctrine I hold but as a presence I carry.
Grant me enough of a grasp on the breadth, the length, the height, and the depth that I stop measuring Your love against things I already know.
Let me know the love that surpasses knowledge. Not only as a fact I have received, but as a reality I am being filled by.
Fill me with all the fullness of God.
In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
Frequently Asked Questions About the Love of Christ That Surpasses Knowledge
What does it mean that Christ’s love “surpasses knowledge” in Ephesians 3:19?
It means the love of Christ exceeds what intellectual comprehension alone can contain. Paul uses the Greek word ginosko, pointing to experiential rather than informational knowing. The phrase is a deliberate paradox: the love can be genuinely encountered and inhabited, but never fully exhausted or bounded by the mind.
What are the “breadth, length, height, and depth” in Ephesians 3:18?
They refer to the four spatial dimensions of the love of Christ, Paul’s way of expressing that no direction of measurement finds its edge. Most commentators agree that the object is the love named in verse 19. The four dimensions convey inexhaustibility rather than a specific geometric description of separate aspects.
Is Ephesians 3:19 a prayer Paul expects to be answered?
Yes. Paul frames it as a genuine petition backed by verses 20–21, which affirm God can do “immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine.” The paradox of knowing a surpassing love is not an impossible standard but a reality Paul expects God to directly produce in believers.
What does “filled with all the fullness of God” mean in Ephesians 3:19?
The Greek pleroma tou Theou describes the completeness that characterizes God’s own nature. Paul uses this as the destination of his prayer: knowing Christ’s love leads to being filled with the same fullness that dwells in Christ. It is completeness oriented toward God’s own abundance, not merely spiritual sufficiency.
How does Ephesians 3:17 connect to knowing the love of Christ in verse 19?
Verse 17 prays for Christ to dwell in the heart and for the believer to be “rooted and grounded in love.” That rootedness is the precondition for comprehension in verse 18 and experiential knowing in verse 19. Without Christ’s indwelling, the surpassing love remains beyond reach.
Study and Reflection Sources
Lincoln, Andrew T. Ephesians. Word Biblical Commentary. Word Books, 1990.
Thielman, Frank. Ephesians. Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament. Baker Academic, 2010.
Arnold, Clinton E. Ephesians. Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament. Zondervan, 2010.
The Love of Christ That Surpasses Knowledge. GotQuestions.org.
Ephesians 3:19 Explained. Crosswalk.
Knowing the Unknowable Love of Christ. Desiring God.
The Four Dimensions of Christ’s Love. The Gospel Coalition.
Understanding Ephesians 3:14–19. Bible Study Tools.
What Does It Mean to Know Christ’s Love? Christianity.com.
Rooted and Grounded in Love. Unlocking the Bible.
