(Eph. 3:11-21.)

This wondrous prayer is the complement of that which is recorded in chap, i:15-23, and is full of attractiveness to our souls. In the prayer of chap, i God is set forth in the exercise of His mighty power, making good His counsels concerning us, for His own glory, as connected with Christ Jesus our Lord. In the prayer recorded in chap. 3 we have set before us the love of the Father as seen working in and through His counsels.

In the first verse of this chapter the apostle begins His prayer, but is led aside by the blessed Spirit of God into a further unfolding of the theme of the epistle so that verses 2 to 13, inclusive, form a parenthesis, unfolding to us, in some of its main particulars, the mystery of the present parenthetical dispensation. In verse 14 the apostle returns to his starting point, and so connects his prayer with verse i:"For this cause, I Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles." Here he gives the reason of his being in prison at Rome. It was on account of his ministry to the Gentiles. That memorable scene recorded in Acts 22 comes before us:Paul, charged with having spoken against the law and with having done despite to the holy temple, faces his accusers. A multitude, inflamed with passion against him, a sea of angry faces upturned towards him, he begins his address, and astonished at being spoken to in their own tongue, they gave him respectful audience, until reaching that point in the narrative of events connected with his conversion:"And He (the Lord) said unto me, Depart, for I will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles." Then they lifted up their voices and said, "Away with such a fellow from the earth, for it is not fit that he should live" (Acts 22:21, 22). From that time onward the Jews gave him no rest until they had forced him into prison at Rome.

In chapter 4:i the apostle styles himself "the prisoner of the Lord." This is a beautiful example of one who, having taken the yoke of Christ upon himself, finds in circumstances of extreme trial to his ardent spirit, full rest to his soul. For the apostle looks beyond everything of an intermediate character, and refers his imprisonment to the Lord, recognizing that He, had He so willed it, could have ordered otherwise. He had learned the secret of rest for the soul, found it in the yoke of Christ, in subjection to the Hand that was pierced for Him on the cross of Calvary. How ashamed one is at the lack of this subjection; but how good to know that to that Hand has been committed the rule and the destiny of the universe-all authority being given unto Him in heaven and in earth. Lord, increase our faith!

For this cause-for the reason that those who had been far off (excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, from the covenants and from the promises) had now been made nigh by the blood of Christ and were no more foreigners and strangers, but fellow-citizens with the saints and of the household of God, Jew and Gentile made one in Christ and builded together for a habitation of God through the Spirit-"for this cause I bow my knees to the Father* of whom every family in heaven and earth is named." *There is some question as to the retention of "our Lord Jesus Christ."* It is a happy thing to see God perfectly revealed in Christ as the Father (" He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father"),taking a further interest in, and coming into closer touch with "every family in heave i and earth." Will the angels not know Him better, and possibly adore Him more fervently as they behold the love of the. Father's heart to fallen creatures ? Will not the various families of the redeemed in heaven and earth extol His grace with deeper appreciation as they enter into the revelation of God as the "Father"-God revealed in Christ in all the fulness of divine affection?

It is to God in this aspect that the apostle prays:"That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man." The riches of the Father's glory-the perfect display of His holy, wondrous love-laying hold of the heart, strengthen with might the inner man, the man proper. The perfect love of God casts out all fear and makes the soul to shine in the valor of faith. The consequence is that Christ becomes a constant, conscious presence in the heart; and the soul being rooted and grounded in love, in "the riches of the Father's glory" has full leisure from its own things and is enabled to apprehend, "the breadth and length and depth and height" and the riches of the Father's glory displayed in His counsels, embracing all His creatures, extending throughout the ages and beyond them, going down to the awful cross of shame, and ascending therefrom to the glory where Christ now is.

"And to know the love of Christ that passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God." The love of Christ-which brought Him into the only place where God could be revealed as Father to fallen creatures. There, on that cross, we see the love of Christ which passeth knowledge. The creature – mind can never fathom the infinite and awful depth of suffering into which the Christ of God went for us when, as a sacrifice for sin, He glorified God on the cross of Calvary; and whilst the joy of an ever increasing knowledge of that love may be ours, it ever must remain "the love of Christ that passeth knowledge." It is in the knowledge of this love that the soul is "filled with the fulness of God." In the love of Christ, and the place it brought Him into, is seen the love, the righteousness, the power and the wisdom of God-for truly the glory of God, all His moral perfections, are seen in the person of Jesus Christ.

On earth-God and His Christ on the cross. In heaven-God and His Christ on the throne. Eternally that throne is the throne of God and of the Lamb.

"Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, to Him be glory in the Church, by Christ Jesus, throughout all ages. Amen." Geo. MacKenzie