PH 3:4-21{In Eph. 1:16-23, the revelation of the ways of God presents Christ to us as man raised up by God from the dead, in order that we should be raised up also to have part with Him, and that the administration of the counsels of God should thus be accomplished.
But in Eph. 3:14-21 (in verse 15 the whole family' should be every family) Christ is presented to us as the center of all the ways of God, the Son of the Father, the Heir of all things as the Creator Son, and the center of the counsels of God. It is to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ that the apostle now addresses himself; as in chapter i., it was to the God of our Lord Jesus Christ. Every family (not the whole family ') ranges itself under this name of Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Under the name of Jehovah there were only the Jews (" You only have I known of all the families of the earth, therefore will I punish you for your iniquities." Amos 3:2); but under the name of Father of Jesus Christ all families-the assembly, angels, Jews, Gentiles, all-range themselves. All the ways of God in that which He had arranged for His glory were co-ordained under this name, and were in relation with it: and that which the apostle asked for the saints to whom he addressed himself was, that they should be able to apprehend the whole import of those counsels, and the love of Christ which formed the assured center for their hearts.
For this purpose he desires that they should be strengthened with all might by the Spirit of the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and that the Christ, who is the center of all these things in the counsels of God the Father, should dwell also in their hearts, and thus be the intelligent center of affection to all their knowledge-a center which found no circle to limit the view that lost itself in infinitude which God alone filled-length, breadth, height, depth. But this center gave them at the same time a sure place, a support immovable and well known, in a love which was as infinite as the unknown extent of the glory of God in its display around Himself. " That Christ," says the apostle, " may dwell in your hearts." Thus He, who fills all things with His glory, fills the heart Himself, with a love more powerful than all the glory of which He is the center. He is to us the strength which enables us in peace and love to contemplate all that He has done, the wisdom of His ways, and the universal glory of which He is the center. And Christ being the center of all the display of divine glory thus dwells in our hearts so as to set them, so to speak, in this center, and make them look out thence on all the glory displayed. Here we might lose ourselves; but He brings them back to the well-known love of Christ, yet not as anything narrower, for He is God, and it passes knowledge, so that we are filled up to all the fullness of God."