“That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, 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 ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.” (Ephesians 3:17-19)

Aleading psychologist once stated that “if any thing existed it was measurable.” Since he was primarily interested in testing, his statement could be accepted, except that it was entirely too broad, and the person and work of God could not have been included. When a human being measures something he is attempting to arrive at a figure, extent, or certain amount. Measuring things is a part of everyday life, and is important. However, to assume that everything is measurable is, at the very least, presumptuous. No one will ever really know or ascertain the extent or amount of God’s love!

The apostle Paul uses terms of measurement to describe God’s love; however, he is careful to state this love “passeth knowledge” (vs. 19). A mere casual reading of the text (Ephesians 3:17-19) would lead the reader to think Paul was teaching that we could “comprehend” the love of Christ. The word “comprehend” does not mean to fully understand, but really to apprehend or grasp for, such as Paul uses in Philippians 3:1213. We can “know” the love of Christ through experience, but mere human knowledge can never be able to fully understand, describe, or measure this wonderful love.

There are four terms of measurement used in these Scriptures to picture the love of Christ. They are breadth, length, depth, and height.

The breadth of His love is as broad as humanity, yet as narrow as one person. Humanity, in general, has many common characteristics. For example, we all suffer, sin, hunger, hope and aspire, and die. It is easy to see, therefore, that when Christ died on the Cross, He died for all, because “all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). In view of this, it becomes very clear that, He loves all, therefore He loves you, and because He loves you, therefore He loves all. His love is not shallow because it is broad!

The length of His love, no doubt refers to time. God is timeless. Who knows the age of God? In the beginning, God loved. Man measures time by ages, years, hours, minutes, and seconds, however, His love out-measures all time. God has always loved. He has loved sinners of all ages. He loved Adam. He loves you. In the 136th Psalm, which consists of 26 verses, every verse ends with, “for his mercy endureth forever.” He is merciful because He loves.

The depth of His love could be described by the truth that it extends from His throne (heaven) to earth (where we live). It is always more than just interesting that when Christ died on the Cross the “veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom” (Matthew 27:51). The Lord Jesus went to the depths of sin for us. He went to the depths of despair for us.

The height of His love can be illustrated by the truth that His love reaches from the Cross to the Throne, from earth to heaven. There is beautiful teaching in Philippians 2:5-11. Verses 5-8 show how “He humbled himself and became obedient to death, even the death of the cross.” Verses 9-11 teach us that “God hath highly exalted him, and given him a name above every name.” No wonder Paul instructs believers to, “Set your affection on things above, not on things of the earth” (Colossians 3:2). Seeing then, that God’s love is from top to bottom (depth) and from bottom to top (height), we can rejoice that Christ came from heaven to earth to die for our sins, and that He ascended back to heaven, there to be the head of the Church for believers today.

Would it be possible to “know” or measure love so wonderful? The answer is “no.” However, the most miserable sinner can have this love by experience when they trust Him as Saviour and Lord. And then how wonderful to “know” that He keeps on loving us still!

Treasures in heaven are laid up only as treasures on earth are laid down.