Christians are, through Christ, better fortified. We
are assured that he dwells everywhere, be it in honor or dishonor,
hunger, sorrow, illness, imprisonment, death or life, blessing or
affliction. It is Paul's desire for the Ephesians that God give them
grace and strength to have such heart-apprehension of his kingdom. He
concludes the details of his prayer in these words:

"And to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that ye may
be filled unto all the fulness of God."

47. He means: "I desire you, in addition to having faith and
apprehending the four proportions of Christ's kingdom, to know the
love of Christ we should have--the love Christ bears toward us, and
the love we owe our neighbor. This knowledge transcends all other,
even familiarity with the Gospel; for, know as much as you may, your
knowledge will avail little or nothing without love."

48. Paul's desire, briefly summed up, is that the faith of Christians
may be strengthened unto efficacy, and that love may be warm and
fervent, and the heart filled with the fullness of God. "Filled unto
all the fullness of God" means, if we follow the Hebrew, filled with
everything God's bounty supplies, full of God, adorned with his grace
and the gifts of his Spirit--the Spirit who gives us steadfastness,
illuminates us with his light, lives within us his life, saves us
with his salvation, and with his love enkindles love in us; in short,
it means having God himself and all his blessings dwelling in us in
fullness and being effective to make us wholly divine--not so that we
possess merely something of God, but all his fullness.

CHRISTIAN PERFECTION.

49. Much has been written about the way we are to become godlike.
Some have constructed ladders whereby we are to ascend to heaven, and
others similar things. But this is all patchwork. In this passage is
designated the truest way to attain godlikeness. It is to become
filled to the utmost with God, lacking in no particular; to be
completely permeated with him until every word, thought and deed, the
whole life in fact, be utterly godly.

50. But let none imagine such fullness can be attained in this life.
We may indeed desire it and pray for it, like Paul here, but we will
not find a man thus perfect. We stand, however, upon the fact that we
desire such perfection and groan after it. So long as we live in the
flesh, we are filled with the fullness of Adam. Hence it is necessary
for us continually to pra