The Epistles to the Colossians, to Philemon, and to the Ephesians by F. F. Bruce

Author:F. F. Bruce [Bruce, F. F.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Religion, Biblical Commentary, New Testament, Biblical Criticism & Interpretation
ISBN: 9780802825100
Google: oza_DbyQS2IC
Goodreads: 898818
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
Published: 1984-10-23T00:00:00+00:00

The divine “wisdom in a mystery”98 which is unfathomable to mortal intelligence has been made incarnate in Christ and revealed to his servants—not least to Paul, whose mission is to make known to all “the mystery which was hidden from eternity in God” (v. 9). To grasp this revelation in its totality is not the achievement of a moment—Paul himself, toward the end of his apostolic career, did not suppose that he had fully comprehended it—but to grasp it was his personal ambition, and he prayed that his Christian friends might share and attain that ambition.99 Here was a spiritual exercise that would make demands on them all their lives.

Nor is it only the immediate circle of his own converts and friends that he has in view: he prays that his readers may have strength to grasp the eternal mystery in common with “all the saints.”100 The disclosure of this mystery is the heritage of all the people of God: it is fitting that they should have an intelligent appreciation of it.101 There may be the further thought that the deep things of God are more likely to be apprehended by his children in fellowship one with another than in isolation. The idea that spiritual illumination is most likely to be received by followers of the solitary life has been widely held: Paul does not appear to have favored it either for himself or for his Christian friends.102

19 The NEB rendering of v. 18b—”what is the breadth and length and height and depth of the love of Christ”—represents a popular interpretation, attested as early as Origen,103 but it is not precisely what the text says. Yet it is not a misrepresentation of the general sense, for it is impossible to grasp the divine purpose in all its dimensions without knowing the love of Christ—and this cannot be other than an experimental knowledge. The disclosure of the eternal mystery is no object of merely intellectual comprehension, although it calls for all the intellectual power at one’s command; it requires personal acquaintance with the revealer, whose nature is perfect love. “If one loves God, one is known by him” (1 Cor. 8:3)—and to be known by him is the antecedent to knowing him. If Paul was prepared to sacrifice everything for “the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Phil. 3:8), the one to whom he thus refers is the one whom he describes elsewhere as “the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal. 2:20). Both the knowledge and the love are mutual, and in both it is God in Christ who takes the initiative. To know104 the love of Christ is to know Christ himself, in ever widening experience, and to have his outgoing and self-denying love reproduced in oneself. It could not be otherwise, if he dwells in his people and they in him.

To speak of knowing something that “surpasses knowledge” is to be deliberately paradoxical; but however much one comes to know of the love of Christ, there is always more to know: it is inexhaustible.

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