Ephesians 3:20

Eph_3:20-21

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.

Grace abounding

It is necessary that we should emphasize the fact that this describes the Divine disposition; for although men think, perhaps, that it makes but little difference, if God only does what we ask, whether He does it from a direct, voluntary purpose, or whether it is the tendency of the Divine mind previous to our petition, yet it does make a great deal of difference. It makes, perhaps, but little difference to me whether a river is supplying Brooklyn with water, or whether it is supplied by a reservoir; but it does make a difference in respect to abundance and continuity. There is that old iron slave, the steam engine--the only slave that you have a right to keep in bondage--and night and day it stands lifting, and lifting, and lifting the vast supplies of water, and pouring them over into the Ridgewood reservoir. I know that there will be enough; but when you are talking about endlessness, copiousness, what is this compared with that which I see every day under my chamber window, where the whole ocean sweeps in and out, and, night and day, without pump, or steam, or any like mechanical force, is always there, as it was before there was a man on these shores, and as it will be after the last man shall have died in future ages? The copiousness, the abundance of the ever-flowing ocean, may fitly represent the abundance of the Divine thought, and mercy, and goodness; where most men think of God as one from whom favours are obtained, if at all, by what may almost be called the pleading of prayer; by the bringing to bear upon Him influences which at last persuade Him to grant the things asked for, so that when the persuasion stops, the supply stops. Many seem to think that prayer is but an engine that lifts--abundantly lifts, it may be--blessings upon the heads of those that employ it; but that if the engine stops for a moment, the reservoir will run dry. No! it is the eternal disposition of God to be full of love, and mercy, and kindness, and He inspires in you those impulses which lead you to go and ask Him for those things which you need. Now this quality of the Divine disposition is shadowed forth in Gods natural government. When I look into nature, I see--what? Not sticks, stones, flowers, trees--I see Him that made them. I see things that were created by Christ Jesus. When I look upon the heavens of the natural world, I behold Him who made the natural world. If I see frugality, narrowness of compass, want of variety, I am not mistaken as to the disposition of the Creator; but if, on the other hand, I find abundance, superabundance, endless change, and endless variety, I cannot be mistaken as to their meaning. In the revelations of nature, then, we see Gods disposition. We see His housekeeping. These are His gardens; these are His fields; this is His colouring--His frescoing; these are His seasons; and I can, from these elements in nature, infer His disposition, as much as I can infer a mans disposition from those things which go to make up His housekeeping. What is their language? Do they not corroborate the declaration of our text? Is He not a God that does exceeding abundantly beyond what we ask or think? Variety is another term for abundance. From the infinite variety that abounds throughout nature, one would think that God never wanted to have two things to be alike. An endless diversity, that tends to endless unity, is the characteristic of creation. Abundance by continuity and succession is another of these hints; for everything which takes place in nature occurs in such a way as constantly to link it with something that is to come. There is a tendency in nature to reproduce and continue, so that there shall not only be great variety and great abundance at any one time, but greater variety and greater abundance in time to come. Abundance by increase affords an illustration of the Divine nature. Men say, We get just according to what we do. They suppose that the effect which we gain from natural laws is measured by the cause which we employ. It is not true. I plant a single kernel of Indian corn, and I gain from that kernel a stalk with two or three ears, and not less than a hundred kernels on each ear. I plant one kernel and get three hundred. Is there any proportion between what I do and what I get? The seedsman goes forth, sowing not one seed, but many seeds. He, taking them, and scarcely knowing their nature, gives them to the furrow, and they germinate, and the earth nurses them in its bosom, and persuades them to come forth, and the wind searches for them, and the dews and rains hunt them, and all warming and stimulating influences begin to play upon them, and they give back not according to what the sower gave to the earth, not according to the power which he has exerted upon them, but according to that nature which God has infused into the material creation; and therefore they give abundantly beyond what the sower did, and beyond what he had reason to expect before he had experience of Gods bounty. On my summer nook stands a venerable apple tree, probably a hundred and fifty years old. It has now lost much of its hair. It is dead and bald at the top. I let it stand because it is a sentinel of ages. It has buried generation upon generation. It heard the old revolutionary cannon; balls fell not far from its foot. For probably a hundred years it has borne its annual crop of apples, and a great abundance of them. There was a time when a boy eating an apple, took from his mouth a seed, and snapped it, and it fell into the grass, and the rain worked it into the soil, and the soil coaxed it to grow. That little seed of an apple, not so large as your fingernail, struck down its root, and lifted up its trunk, which has stood the greater part of two centuries, and produced a thousand bushels of fruit and myriads of seeds. Now, is Gods nature indicated by this? Yes, because the way God makes the natural world act indicates how He thinks. It indicates what His thoughts and tendencies are, and these mark His disposition. Would that we had a more frequent sense of Gods bounty! No man can look upon what he brings to the work, and what the work becomes in his hand, without being humbled in view of his own weakness, nor I trust, also, without being filled with admiration and reverence for that loving Heart that does exceeding abundantly more than we ask or think. If these views and experiences are correct, there is every encouragement for men to ask in prayer for what they need. Now how have you been dealing with this God who has dealt with you on this pattern of doing exceeding abundantly more than you asked or thought? You have treated Him on the assumption that He was penurious, and willing to give only on terms that were strict and severe. Many men seem to shrink from prayer as though it were a matter of doubt whether they could pray. God, then, does not limit Himself by the desert of those to whom He gives mercies, but takes His patterns from the largeness and generosity of His own nature. He pleases Himself by giving. (H. W. Beecher.)

Measureless power and endless glory

The form of the text marks the confidence of St. Pauls prayer. The exuberant fervour of his faith, as well as his natural impetuosity and ardour, comes out in the heaped up words expressive of immensity and duration. He is like some archer watching, with parted lips, the flight of his arrow to the mark. He is gazing on God, confident that he has not asked in vain. Let us look with him, that we, too, may be heartened to expect great things of God.

I. The measure of the power to which we trust. Now there are three main forms under which this standard, or measure, of the Redeeming Power is set forth in this Epistle, and it will help us to grasp the greatness of the apostles thought if we consider these. Take, then, first, that clause in the earlier portion of the preceding prayer, that He would grant you according to the riches of His glory. The measure then, of the gift that we may hope to receive is the measure of Gods own fulness: The riches of His glory can be nothing less than the whole uncounted abundance of that majestic and far-shining nature, as it pours itself forth in the dazzling perfectnesses of its own self-manifestation. And nothing less than this great treasure is to be the limit and standard of His gift to us. But another form in which the standard, or measure, is stated in this letter is: The working of His mighty power, which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead (Eph_1:19-20); or, as it is put with a modification, grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ (Eph_4:7). That is to say, we have not only the whole riches of the Divine glory as the measure to which we may lift our hopes, but lest that celestial brightness should seem too high above us, and too far from us, we have Christ in His Human-Divine manifestation, and especially in the great fact of the resurrection, Set before us, that by Him we may learn what God wills we should become. In Him we see what man may become, and what His followers must become. The limits of that power will not be reached until every Christian soul is perfectly assimilated to that likeness, and bears all its beauty in his face, nor till every Christian soul is raised to participation in Christs dignity and sits on His throne. But there is a third form in which this same standard is represented. That is the form which is found in our text, and in other places of the Epistle According to the power that worketh in us. What power is that but the power of the Spirit of God dwelling in us? And thus we have the measure, or standard, set forth in terms respectively applying to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. For the first, the riches of His glory; for the second, His resurrection and ascension; for the third, His energy working in Christian souls. The first carries us up into the mysteries of God, where the air is almost too subtle for our gross lungs; the second draws nearer to earth and points us to an historical fact that happened in this every day world; the third comes still nearer to us, and bids us look within, and see whether what we are conscious of there, if we interpret it by the light of these other measures, will not yield results as great as theirs, and open before us the same fair prospect of perfect holiness and conformity to the Divine nature.

II. The relation of the Divine working to our thoughts and desires. The apostle, in his fervid way, strains language to express how far the possibility of the Divine working extends. He is able, not only to do all things, but beyond all things--a vehement way of putting the boundless reach of that gracious power. And what he means by this beyond all things is more fully expressed in the next words, in which he labours by accumulating synonyms to convey his sense of the transcendent energy which waits to bless: exceeding abundantly above what we ask. And as, alas! our desires are but shrunken and narrow beside our thoughts, he sweeps a wider orbit when he adds, above what we think. He has been asking wonderful things, and yet even his farthest reaching petitions fall far on this side of the greatness of Gods power. One might think that even it could go no further than filling us with all the fulness of God. Nor can it; but it may far transcend our conceptions of what that is, and astonish us by its surpassing our thoughts, no less than it shames us by exceeding our prayers. Of course, all this is true, and is meant to apply, only about the inward gifts of Gods grace. That grace is like the figures in the Eastern tales, that will creep into a narrow room no bigger than a nutshell, or will tower heaven high. Our spirits are like the magic tent whose walls expanded or contracted at the owners wish--we may enlarge them to enclose far more of the grace than we have ever possessed. We are not straitened in God, but in ourselves. According to thy faith, is a real measure of the gift received, even though. according to the fiches of His glory be the measure of the gift bestowed. Note, again.

III. The glory that springs from the Divine work. The glory of God is the lustre of His own perfect character, the bright sum total of all the blended brilliancies that compose His name. When that light is welcomed and adored by men, they are said to give glory to God and this doxology is at once a prophecy that the working of Gods power on His redeemed children will issue in setting forth the radiance of His name yet more, and a prayer that it may. So we have here the great thought expressed in many places of Scripture, that the highest exhibition of the Divine character for the reverence and love--of the whole universe, shall we say?--lies in His work on Christian souls, and the effect produced thereby on them. Amid all the majesty of His works and all the blaze of His creation, this is what He presents as the highest specimen of His power--the Church of Jesus Christ, the company of poor men, wearied and conscious of many evils, who follow afar off the footsteps of their Lord. How dusty and toil worn the little group of Christians that landed at Puteoli must have looked as they toiled along the Appian Way and entered Rome! How contemptuously emperor and philosopher and priest and patrician would have curled their lips, if they had been told that in that little knot of Jewish prisoners lay a power before which theirs would cower and finally fade! Even so is it still. Among all the splendour of this great universe, and the mere obtrusive tawdrinesses of earth, men look upon us Christians as poor enough; and yet it is to His redeemed children that God has entrusted His praise, and in their hands He has lodged the sacred deposit of His own glory. Think loftily of that office and honour, lowly of yourselves who have it laid upon you as a crown. His honour is in our hands. We are the secretaries of His praise.

IV. The eternity of the work and of the praise. As in the former clauses, the idea of the transcendent greatness of the power of God was expressed by accumulated synonyms, so here the kindred thought of its eternity, and consequently of the ceaseless duration of the resulting glory, is sought to be set forth by a similar aggregation. The language creaks and labours, as it were, under the weight of the great conception. Literally rendered, the words are--to all generations of the age of the ages--a remarkable fusing together of two expressions for unbounded duration, which are scarcely congruous. We can understand to all generations as expressive of duration as long as birth and death shall last. We can understand the age of the ages as pointing to that endless epoch whose moments are ages; but the blending of the two is but an unconscious acknowledgment that the speech of earth, saturated, as it is, with the colouring of time, breaks down in the attempt to express the thought of eternity. Undoubtedly that solemn conception is the one intended by this strange phrase. The work is to go on forever and ever, and with it the praise. As the ages which are the beats of the pendulum of eternity come and go, more and more of Gods power will flow out to us, and more and more of Gods glory will be manifested in us. It must be so. For Gods gift is infinite, and mans capacity of reception is indefinitely capable of increase. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

Gods ability

The apostle does not give this text as a detached sentence. It is the culmination of a statement; it is something that comes after a serious, anxious effort which he himself has made; and we must look into the preliminary statement if we would know how Paul was dazzled, overwhelmed, made speechless by the infinite capacity of God to transcend all mortal prayer and all finite imagination. The apostle has been uttering a prayer which reads thus:--That He would grant you according to the riches of His glory to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man--able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask: That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith--able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask: That ye being rooted and grounded in love--Able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask: 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--Able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask: That ye might be filled with all the fulness of God--Able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask. Reading the prayer in this manner, using the text as a kind of refrain to each petition, and each petition itself seeming to exhaust the very mercy and love of God, we get some notion of the apostles conception of Gods infinite wealth, infinite grace, and infinite willingness to give. Understand, then, that in coming to God and availing ourselves of the doctrine of this text, it is incumbent upon us that we should specify what we want from God. Suppose that a number of petitioners should go to the legislature with a petition worded thus: We humbly pray your honourable house to do everything for the nation, to take infinite care of it, to let the affairs of the nation tax your attention day and night, and lavish all your resources upon the people. Suppose that a petition like that should be handed into the House of Commons, what would be the fate of it? It would be laughed down, and the only reason, the only good reason, why the petitioners should not be confined to Bedlam would be, lest their insanity should alarm the inmates. That is not a petition. It is void by generality; by referring to all it misses everything. You must specify what you want when you go to the legislature. You must state your case with clearness of definition, and with somewhat of argument. If it be so in our social, political prayers, shall we go to Almighty God with a vagueness which means nothing, with a generality which makes no special demand upon his heart. Read the text in the light of the gospel, and you will see the fulness of its glory, so far as it can be seen by mortal vision. Ask anything of God and I am prepared to quote these words of the text in reply. What will you ask? Let us in the first instance ask what we all want--whatever may be our condition, age, circumstances. Let us ask for pardon. Is your prayer, God forgive my sins? Now you may apply the apostles words: He is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that you ask. You cannot conceive Gods notion of pardon. You have an idea of what you mean by forgiveness; but when you have exhausted your own notion of the term forgiveness, you have not shown the Divine intent concerning the soul that is to be forgiven. When God forgives, He does not merely pardon, barely pardon--He does not by some great straining effort of His love, just come within reach of the suppliant, and lay upon his heart the blessing which is besought. He pardons with pardons. He multiplies to pardon! What will you ask for now? Ask for sanctification. Is your prayer, Sanctify me body, soul, and spirit? Then I am ready once more to quote you the apostles text: He is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think. Now this ought to stimulate us in all saintly progress, to inspire us in the study of Divine truth, to recover our jaded energies, and tempt, lure, and draw us by the mighty compulsion of inexhaustible reward. This is the peculiar glory of Christian study--that it does not exhaust the student. His weakness becomes his strength. At sunset he is stronger than at sunrise; because Christian study does not tax any one power of the mind unduly. It trains the whole being, the imagination, the fancy, the will, the emotion; lifts up the whole nature equally, with all the equability of complete power--not by snatches and spasms of strength, but with the sufficiency, breadth, and compass of power which sustains the balance always. This ought to rebuke those of us who imagine we have finished our Christian education. I believe there are some persons in the world who are under the impression that they have finished Gods Book. They say they have read it through. There is a poor sense in which it may be read through; but there is a deeper, truer sense in which we can never get through the Book of God. It is an inexhaustible study--new every day, like morning light. You have seen splendour before, but until this morning you never saw this light. So it is with this great wonderful Book of God in the study of it. God is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think. Here then is a stimulus, a spur to progress, a call to deeper study. We think we have attained truth. We have not attained all that is meant by the word truth. No man who knows himself and who knows God will say that he has been led into all the chambers of Gods great palace of truth. This is the sign of progress; this is the charter of the profoundest humility. The more we know the less we know. We see certain points of light here and there, but the great unexplored regions of truth stretch mile on mile beyond all our power to traverse the wondrous plain. How is it with us today then? Are we fagged men, exhausted students? Do we sit down under the impression that there is nothing more to be known? If we have that idea let us seek to recover our strength and to recover our inspiration by the word--He is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think. There are attainments we have not made, depths we have not sounded, and heights, oh, heights! We can but look up and wonder, expect, adore. If this be so, we ought to look calmly, with a feeling of chastened triumph, upon all hindrances, difficulties, and obstacles in the way of Christs kingdom upon the earth. We may look at these in relation to our own puny strength, and quail before them. But, we are not to depend upon our own resources, but upon Gods, in attempting the removal of everything that would intercept the progress of His holy kingdom in the world. There is a great mountain: I cannot beat it down, all the instruments I can bring to bear upon it seem utterly powerless. But God touches the mountains and they smoke. The Alps, the Apennines, the Pyrenees, and great Himalayas, shall go up like incense before Him, and His kingdom shall have smooth uninterrupted way. I say, in my hours of weakness, yonder is a stone which I cannot remove. If I could get clear of that obstacle all would be right; but the stone is heavy, the stone is sealed, the stone is watched. What can I do? I go up the hill wearily, almost hopelessly, and behold! the stone is rolled away, and on the obstacle there sits the angel of God. Able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think! It may be difficult for some minds to follow the argument out spiritually; we must therefore descend to illustration. Here is a very clever artist, who has made a beautiful thing he brings before us, and we gather round it and say, It is most exquisitely done. What is this, sir? That, replies the artist, is my notion of a flower, and I am going to call that flower a rose. Well, it is a beautiful thing--very graceful, and altogether beautifully executed: you are very clever. So he is, and now that exhausts his notion of the rose. But let God just hand in a full-blown rose from the commonest garden in the world, and where is your waxen beauty? Underneath every leaf is written, He is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think. Let Him just send the sweet spring morning in upon us with the first violet, and all your artificial florists, if they have one spark of wit left, will pick up their goods and go off as soon as possible. He is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think. The meanest insect that flutters in the warm sunlight is a grander thing than the finest marble statue ever chiselled by the proudest sculptor. Now we are going to have a very festive day. We are going to pluck flowers and fashion them into arches, and we shall make our arches very high, very beautiful--and, so far as the flowers go, they are most gorgeously and exquisitely beautiful. We have put up the wires; we have festooned these wires, and we say, Now, is not that very beautifully done? and of course, we who always drink the toast our noble selves, say yes. But God has only to take a few raindrops and strike through them the sunlight, and where are your pasteboard arches and your skilful working! He is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we can ask or think. My fellow students, in this holy mystery, believe me, as in nature, so in the higher kingdom of grace. As in matter He beats all your sculptors, and is in all schools infinitely superior to men, so in the revelation of truth to the heart, in the way of redeeming man from sin, in the way of sanctifying fallen corrupt human nature--all your theorists and speculators, all your plaster dealers and social reformers and philanthropic regenerators, must get out of the way as artificial florists when God comes to us with the rose of Sharon and the lily of the valley. Then let us leave all inferior teachers and go straight to the Master Himself. We have to deal with sin, and the only answer to sin, which answer is comprehended in one word, is the Cross. Gods foolishness is better than our wisdom. Gods weakness is infinitely superior to our strength. He everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters. (J. Parker, D. D.)

Abundant answer to prayer

Miss Hopkins, in her story of Miss Robinsons work among our soldiers at Portsmouth, relates that when the Institute was first projected Miss Robinson one day went to her, almost in despair at the hopeless aspect of affairs. Opposition to the scheme was strong, and funds were sorely needed. The lookout was dark enough, but the eye of faith pierced the gloom. We knelt down, says Miss Hopkins, and prayed that, if it was His will, He would give us the means to stay this flood of iniquity that was sweeping away His work in the army, and enable us to do the right thing. I fear our faith was not strong enough, she continues, to ask for more than a few hundreds, but still it was the prayer of faith. The answer to that prayer was £15,000.

Divine ability for human necessity

In this remarkable verse we have a wonderful instance of St. Pauls cumulative way of speaking. Whenever I get fairly into one of St. Pauls Epistles, I always feel as though the man is in bonds. Language is too poor a medium for him. He cannot get out all that is in for the dear life of him, eloquent though he was. If you had asked him about it, he would have said, Language is bankrupt. It will not meet the case. I remember once, in the north of England, hearing a very celebrated, and eloquent, and powerful Welsh preacher, who was wonderfully fluent in the English tongue, too, but he was preaching to a full congregation of English people, and his soul was in his message. It flashed in his eye, it fired his Celtic tongue, and he was so thoroughly elevated and raised by the nobility of his theme, and the thoughts within him burned and breathed at such a rate, that Saxon would not do, and he paused a moment and said, Oh, if you only understood Welsh! Then he would have been able, in his more familiar tongue, to climb somewhat higher to the point he aimed at. I think that it is, just like that with St. Paul. He beggars language, and then he says: It is not enough. Now look at it. There is that passage in which he compares the light afflictions of the present with the glory of the future. Do you see how he piles it up? He says, A far more exceeding weight of glory. And if you analyse this verse, it will take you a long time to read it. Let us try; it is worth it. God is able. Thank God for that. God is able. God is able to do. Plenty of gods who can boast. God is able to do. God is able to do abundantly. God is able to do exceeding abundantly. God is able to do exceeding abundantly all. God is able to do exceeding abundantly above all. God is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we can ask. God is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we can ask or think. Here I think he flung his pen down and said, It is no use. It could not be. He climbed up the ladder to the very highest rung that words could take him; and then he got on a higher ladder, and climbed up as far as thoughts could take him; and then he wanted Jacobs ladder to reach to the throne of God in order to tell us what God will do to any man who says in his heart, Be my God. The way in which Paul moves upward in his passion, struck me once when I was in Wales. I was moving up a high and rocky slope. First of all it led me through a meadow. After the meadow there was an upward pathway through a wood. Up a little higher and I caught a gleam of the river beyond. Higher still I saw the shaggy rocks, and tall hills behind; higher still and I saw the golden cornfields at their feet. And still higher went I, until right away yonder on the horizon I saw the black-capped mountains higher than them all. And still I had to rise, and rising at last I stood upon the summit, and said, as I looked around, This is perfection. But it was not; for on turning in one direction I perceived a sight I had not caught before. What do you think it was? It was a glimpse of the infinite sea stretching away beyond all ken, to meet the infinite sky. St. Paul gets up to that height, and then he wants a pair of wings to fly with. (J. J. Wray.)

An Omnipotent Helper

Let us note some of the applications of the truth here taught of Gods Almightiness to help. I am in the grasp of some great temptation. I long to break away. I have tried; but I am impotent. The case seems hopeless. Like a spent, exhausted swimmer, I am about to give over, and to sink helpless beneath the dark waves. But what is that I hear above the noise of the waves? Call on Him who is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that thou canst ask or think; call on Him. He is mightier than sin, stronger than the strongest temptation. Satan is bold. He has great courage. His victories are countless. But Satan trembles, when he sees the weakest saint upon his knees. I once walked the deck of an ocean steamer with a man who related to me the sad story of his life. There had been a time when he thought he was converted, and was united to a Christian Church. For years he thought he knew the peace and joy of a justifying faith. But he had yielded to passion, and now thought his case utterly hopeless. I spoke to him of reform, recovery. Impossible, he said. You know nothing, he added, of the terrible might of a reigning passion. Resolution and effort are useless. I am lost. Such were his declarations, as we paced the deck beneath the midnight stars. And it was then that, admitting all that he said, I rejoiced to point him to One who is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that he could ask or think, an Omnipotent Helper. Reader, I know not what there may be that is peculiar and disheartening in your case, but I do knew you are not beyond the help of the Infinite Helper. All you can ask, or even think, and more too, He is able to do. Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it. (W. Lamson, D. D.)

Abundance

The grace of God is marked by the affluence which characterizes all His works. What abundance in that sun which has shone so many thousand years, and yet presents no appearance of exhaustion, no sign of decay! What abundance of stars bespangle the sky; of leaves clothe the forest; of raindrops fall in the shower; of dews sparkle on the grass; of snowflakes within the winter hills; of flowers adorn the meadow; of living creatures that, walking on the ground, or playing in the waters, or burrowing in the soil, or dancing in the sunbeams, or flying in the air, find a home in every element--but that red fire in which, type of hell, all beauty perishes and all life expires! This lavish profusion of life, and forms, and beauty, in nature, is an emblem of the affluence of grace, of Gods saving, sanctifying grace. In Christ all fulness dwells. We are complete in Him. There is in His blood sufficient virtue to discharge all the sins of a guilty world, and in His Spirit sufficient power to cleanse the foulest and break the hardest heart. Ye are not straitened in Me, says God, but in yourselves. Try Me herewith, He says--ask, seek, knock! Who does will find that it is only a faint image of the plenitude of grace we behold in that palace scene where the king, looking kindly on a lovely suppliant, bends from his throne to extend his golden sceptre, and says, What is thy petition, and what is thy request, Queen Esther, and it shall be given thee to the half of my kingdom? (T. Guthrie, D. D.)

Men do not avail themselves of the riches of Gods grace

They love to nurse their cares, and seem as uneasy without some fret, as an old friar would be without his hair girdle. They are commanded to cast their cares upon the Lord; but, even when they attempt it, they do not fail to catch them up again, and think it meritorious to walk burdened. They take Gods ticket to heaven, and then put their baggage on their shoulders, and tramp, tramp, the whole way there afoot. (H. W. Beecher.)

Distrusting Gods sufficiency

A man says to his agent, I want you to go on a business tour for me. First go to Buffalo. Here is the money, and here are the directions that yea will need while there. Thence go to Cleveland, and there you will find remittances and further directions. When you get to Cincinnati you will find other remittances and other directions. At St. Louis you will find others; and at New Orleans still others. But, says the agent, suppose when I get to Cleveland, or any of the other places, I should not find anything? He is so afraid that he will not, that he asks the man to give him money and directions for the whole tour before he starts. No, says the man, it will be sufficient if you have the money and directions you need for each place when you get to it: and when you do get to it you will find them there. Now, God sends us in the same way. He says, Here is your duty for today, and the means with which to do it. Tomorrow you will find remittances and further directions; next week you will find other remittances and other directions; next month you will find others; and next year still others. I will be with you at all times, and will see that you have strength for every emergency. (H. W. Beecher.)

Unmeasured bounty

Exceeding poverty of thought is one of the characteristics of fallen man. When the poison of sin began to work, it introduced this poverty--those poor low thoughts about God, which made man think that his Maker was jealous of his knowing too much. And ever since, has this pauperizing influence kept working--always narrowing, always lowering, ever tending to what is mean and small. And with our poverty of mind has come poverty of action. Small thoughts produce small deeds: we do not run in the way of Gods commandments, until He has enlarged our hearts. How merciful, then; it is of God to deal with us in the power of His own thoughts, and not ours. God is very merciful and long suffering in doing this; for he might have said According to their thoughts so be it unto them. And what could we have said, if this had been His method of acting? We might have sorely felt our loss, as there was revealed to us that to which we might have attained; but we must have acknowledged that we had been dealt liberally with, nevertheless. He might have said, As they expected but little from Me, they shall get but little--they shall get up to file full measure of their own poor mean thoughts, but nothing more; and that would leave us very poor indeed. The teaching is this. Leave all of eternity to the thought of God; do so as a child; do not perplex yourself with your thinkings, you will soon come to things too deep for you; let it be enough for you that you shall enjoy the fruit of His thought. You will begin to reap the fruit thereof the moment you close your eyes on earth; you will find yourself encompassed with it; like the newborn babe you will find yourself provided for in every particular; and wherever you go, whatever you are, throughout eternity, you will always find yourself surrounded by the thoughts of God. No doubt we could think of many things which would, if we were sure that matters would be so arranged, calm and assure us much as regards the other life. Whatever these thoughts are, we may be certain we shall have what is better than the best of them--God will have thought kinder, tenderer, nobler things by far. In all things concerning eternity, I wish to repose myself upon the fact that God has thought. Further: this little sentence says, Never be afraid of thinking a great thought of God; for if it be one worthy of Him in kind, He will be sure to be far greater than it, in degree. Let your mind go out in a great thought of God. Do not cramp yourselves by the limitations with which you are so familiar in practical life; your mind is dealing with One to whom mere earthly rules and reasonings do not apply.

Never be afraid of expecting a great thing from God

We have no desire for any real good, but that it is overtopped by His desire that we should have good; we have no imagination of a good, but lo! it has been surpassed by a previous thought of His, out of which He has prepared a greater good. With the world the rule is, not up to what we can think; with God it is above what we can think. The water pots which are to hold our wine He wills to be filled up to the brim; the feast which He spreads is to have baskets of fragments which remain. And as coming after the idea, above what we can ask, these two words are very useful. Our want of faith makes us afraid to ask; this little sentence takes the most effectual way of lifting us above our fears; for it says, You cannot think, how much less ask too much. The region of thought must, here at least, always be vaster far than that of fact; God says, you could not exhaust that great field, then how can you the little one; therefore, ask largely, leaving me to act out of resources beyond your thought--resources unseen. (P. B. Power, M. A.)

The inworking power

According to the power that worketh in you. What does this mean? St. Paul is speaking here of the conditions upon which the Divine ability will be exerted for us. The dew and the rain will refresh the plant and the flowers according as they open their hungry pores to take them in. You cannot get much verdure--you cannot get much green life and beauty off a rock, however heavily the dew falls upon it. No; it is the open pores that take it in. Never forget that Gods blessings are bestowed according to the desires and the askings of our heart. The flow and volume of the river are according to the height at which the hills and mountains draw to themselves the wealthy clouds; and the good gifts of God are poured out according as the soul lifts up its thoughts and wishes to the skies. The produce of the farm is according to the diligence of the farmer and the generous character of the soil. You have got soil the most generous in the world. All you want is the farmers intelligence, and the power that worketh in you. Then comes the able to do abundantly above all you think. If the miller lift the sluice so as to turn aside the water, his mill is silent; the stones are idle. No flour in his meal bag, no coin in his purse--however full the millstream is. And if you and I are so guilty before God as by our indifference to turn aside the rivers of possibility and privilege and help that He pours out, then there will be no reward for us. (J. J. Wray.)

Gods grace inexhaustible

As the scattered rays of light are all included in the focus, as the fountain contains the streams, as the object reflected is prior to and nobler than the different reflections of it--so all finite and created good is contained in Him who is the supreme good; all earthly excellence is but the partial emanation, the more or less bright reflection of the Great Original. To have a portion, therefore, in God, is to possess that which includes in itself all created good. The man who is in possession of some great masterpiece in painting or sculpture, need not envy others who have only casts or copies of it. The original plate or stereotype is more valuable than any impressions or engravings thrown off from it; and he who owns the former owns that which includes, is capable of producing all the latter … Surveying the wonders of creation, or even with the word of inspiration in his hand, the Christian can say, Glorious though these things be, to me belongs that which is more glorious far. The streams are precious, but I have the Fountain; the vesture is beautiful, but the Weaver is mine; the portrait in its every lineament is lovely, but that Great Original, whose beauty it but feebly depicts, is mine, my own. God is my portion, the Lord is mine inheritance. To me belongs all actual and all possible good, all created and uncreated beauty, all that eye hath seen or imagination conceived; and more than that, for eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive what God hath prepared for them that love Him. All things and beings, all that life reveals or death conceals, everything within the boundless possibilities of creating wisdom and power is mine; for God, the Creator and Fountain of all, is mine. (J. Caird, D. D.)

Christ more than satisfies

But you will tell me that mans wishes are very large, and that it is hard to satisfy them. Ah! my brethren, I know it is--with anything here below. You may have heard, I dare say, of the gentleman who told his servant--You have been a very faithful servant to me, John, and as you are getting old, I should like to give you a pension. Now, what do you think would satisfy you? Well, master, said he, I think if I had fifty pounds a year I should be very well satisfied indeed. Well, think it over, said the master, and come to me and let me know. So the day comes. Now, what do you want to satisfy you? Well, sir, as I said before, I should never want for anything, or wish for anything in this world, if I had fifty pounds a year. Well, John, it shall be done; there is the settlement for you: you shall have it. That man went out of the door, and said to a friend, I wish I had said a hundred. So, you see, it is not easy to satisfy man. When he thinks he is satisfied, he still sees something beyond, the horse leech in his heart still cries, Give, give. But God is a satisfying portion. You cannot wish for anything more than this. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Unknown riches of grace

There are shores paved with shells which no human foot has trod; there are fields carpeted with flowers which human eyes have never seen; there are seas inlaid with pearls which human research has never found out; so there are things in the great mind of God itself, and in the Scriptures, which lie concealed from the most powerful mental efforts of human intellect. (T. Guthrie, D. D.)

The work of the Spirit

I. What this work is. It is the direct acting of God the Holy Ghost, the third Divine Person in the adorable Trinity, as a Person, upon our spirit. It is, farther, His working in us to restore perfectly that image of God in our soul which the fall of man into sin has so grievously blurred, and which in all those who have fallen into wilful sin has been by their own act still more obliterated. On the one side, then, it is, so far as regards the agent, supernatural. It is the working in us, and on us, of the creative Spirit. It is the power of another within us: and that other the eternal God; the self-existent Being; to whose gracious will we owe our existence; by whose perpetual power encompassing and upholding us we continue to be; in whom we live, and move, and have our being; of Him whose all pervading power upholds the universe, whose presence and whose will rolls the countless worlds which people universal space along their pathless way. He is working within us; working upon our souls by the one, indivisible, Almighty power of Godhead. Now though, on the one side, that into which we are inquiring is thus truly a power far above any natural to man, even the energy of the Divine power working within us; yet, on another side, it is most really a work in which we have a share; it is, as I have said, a work in us, as well as on us; it is a work in the will of a being with a will--in the affections, heart, desire, and reason of one who can pervert that reason so that it cannot be wrought on, or can yield it up to this power; can harden the heart, can freeze up the affections, can poison the desires, can stiffen the will, against the operation even of Him who is Almighty. But again: not only may we discover that this work is thus on the one hand wrought upon us supernaturally, whilst on the other it advances through the action of our natural powers, and with our conscious cooperation; but further, we may trace the part of us on which it operates. It is in the spirit of our minds that we are to be renewed; it is in the inner man that we are to be strengthened with might by His Spirit.

II. But further still: we may trace in many particulars the law of this Divine work, as it advances in those who yield themselves to its blessed processes for their renovation. For it has about it special characteristics of its own, on which we shall do well to meditate.

1. It is a real work. It is not the mere calling up out of the depths of our nature certain passing impulses or actions, but it is so truly a new modification of its very constitution that there are cast forth new emanations of desire and action, which show that the very fountain of spiritual being from which they arise has undergone a change. There is first a desire to act in all things with an eye to God. Next, there is the practice of offering up to Him each day as it passes by; and with this a crying of the soul to Him against its remaining selfishness, earnest supplications for a clearer eye, truer affections, and a simpler purpose. And all of these mark on the soul which He is training this first great character of His working, that a real change is passing on it; a change of the nature itself in true harmony with the laws of its own constitution, and yet a change which could not have sprung from itself, and so which proves that the power of One above itself is working on it by His own might.

2. But again, it is another characteristic of this work that in each one in whom it is wrought it is an increasing work. No mark is set down oftener than this in Holy Scripture. It is a growth: Grow in grace. It increaseth with the increase of God. And in nothing is the distinction between this heavenly work and any lower change more clearly shown than in this, that whereas the vigour of all inferior powers is soon exhausted, this tends ever to perfection.

3. Further, this is a gradual work. The very word growth implies so much. That which increases by the putting forth of an inner life is always distinguished by this feature from that which is enlarged by occasional and external increment: and this is eminently true of the work of Gods grace in the soul. The conflict of the spirit with the flesh is inevitable, and so the progress of the final victory is of necessity gradual.

4. This may lead us to another mark of this great work. Marvellous as it is in its results, it is in its progress most secret. Here, too, it is as in nature so in grace. All growth is secret, so secret that eye of man never saw the separate parts of that mighty mystery of growth which every succeeding springtime repeats so profusely around him. The grass, the green herb, the tree, each leaf, each blade, each bough, each flower, in gradual living growth most secretly accomplishes around us its own law of increase. We see the result as we mark each developed part, and gaze upon the rich beauty which, unseen by us, though close beneath our sight, has painted the glowing flowers with all the lights of heaven. But we saw not the process. This is that path of Gods secret doings which the vultures eye hath not seen. And so most truly is it with that kingdom of heaven within the renewing soul which is like leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal until the whole was leavened. That marvellous life which the Spirit is quickening in the soul which He renews, which is hid with Christ in God, is secret as is the quickening of the living flesh in the dark chambers of the womb, or as the growth of those members which day by day were fashioned when as yet there was none of them.

5. But there is yet another mark of this work, where it is truly accomplished, which we shall do well to note. Though gradual and secret, it is also universal. Herein again it differs palpably from all merely human operations. For every reform of the moral character which is accomplished by secondary powers is more or less partial. There is no object short of God which can duly draw forth all the capacities which He has implanted in mans nature, and there is no power less than that of God which can duly accomplish that development. There is, moreover, about this universal progress one essential character of all true life. The change which proceeds from an inward principle, essentially one and indivisible, is yet multiform in its external manifestation. The same one inward power of life casts itself equably forth in the growth of every several limb, and every other adjunct of the body; the growing tree at the same moment expands in its stem and thickens in its branches, and multiplies its leaves and adorns itself with flowers: and the fruit of the living Spirit, in like manner, is love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. And from this it follows, that whilst each character is growing in all graces, yet every separate character, as it has its own law of perfection, grows and ripens according to its separate kind. And hence the beauty of the army of the saints of Christ: they are uniform in the midst of their diversity, and multiform in their unbroken unity. (Bishop Samuel Wilberforce.)

Latent power

It is impossible to over-estimate, or rather to estimate, the power that lies latent in the Church. We talk of the power that was latent in steam--latent till Watt evoked its spirit from the waters, and set the giant to turn the iron arms of machinery. We talk of the power that was latent in the skies, till science climbed their heights, and, seizing the spirit of the thunder, chained it to our surface, abolishing distance, outstripping the wings of time, and flashing our thoughts across rolling seas to distant continents. Yet what are these to the moral power that lies asleep in the congregations of our country, and of the Christian world. (T. Guthrie, D. D.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Eph 3:20-21. Now unto him, &c. — This doxology is admirably adapted to strengthen our faith, that we may not stagger at the great things the apostle has been praying for, as if they were too much for God to give, or for us to expect to receive from him. Unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly, &c. — Here is a most beautiful gradation. When God has given us abundant, yea, exceeding abundant blessings, still we may ask for more, and he is able to give, or do for us, what we ask. But we may think of more even than we have asked, and he is able to do this also; yea, and above all this; above all we ask, above all we can think, nay, exceeding abundantly above all that we can either ask or think: according to the power that worketh in us — Which is already so illustriously displayed, and worketh so efficaciously in us. The change which the Ephesians had already experienced, not only in their views of things, but in their hearts and lives, their dispositions, words, and actions, yea, in all the powers and faculties of their souls, through the mighty working of the power of God in them, was a sufficient foundation on which to build their hope of receiving all the blessings promised to them in the gospel; and particularly the blessings of a complete restoration to a conformity to the image of God’s Son (Rom 8:28; 1Jn 4:17) in this life, and happiness greater than can be now conceived in the life to come. To him be glory in the church — On earth and in heaven; by Christ Jesus — Its glorious Head, through whom all his blessings descend to us, and our praises ascend to him; throughout all ages — Through the most distant ages and periods, as long as the earth with its successive generations shall continue; and world without end — Or, as the original, εις πασας τας γενεας του αιωνος των αιωνων, literally signifies, through all the successive generations of the age of ages. “The variety,” says Blackwall, in his Sacred Classics, “and emphasis of the elegant and sublime repetitions in these two last verses of this chapter, are such as cannot be reached in any translation.” And with this sublime doxology the apostle ends the doctrinal part of the epistle.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

5. Closing doxology, Eph_3:20-21.

If any caviller would fling in the charge that this prayer of Paul’s is extravagant, both in language and in petition, Paul will drown his voice with a burst of lofty ascription of glory to him who is able to confer immeasurably more than we can ask or even think.

20. Now—This rendering of the Greek transitive particle δε is very beautiful. As if St. Paul, at the dedication of the glorious Church, had said, The dedication prayer is finished, now let the choral begin.

Unto him— Compare the doxology with which St. Paul closes the argumentative part of Rom_11:36, and still rather, that with which he closes Rom_16:25-27. These doxologies are finishing shouts of triumph. For, as we have elsewhere noted, (Rom_8:39,) St. Paul always climactically ends, after struggle, in victory and glory.

Him—Not fabulous Artemis, nor Jove, but

Him—the God of all worlds and of all ages.

Exceeding abundantly—St. Paul’s Greek piles up hyperboles to express the plenitude of the prayer-hearing Jehovah.

Ask or think—Our think is likely to be broader than our ask; but God’s able is broader than either. The Jews asked and thought a human hero-Messiah; God gave a divine Redeemer for the race. According to the divine power that worketh by his Spirit in us. It is for the rich plenitude of God within the soul that Paul has prayed.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

3. Conclusion in the form of a Doxology

(Eph_3:20-21)

20Now unto [to] him that [who] is able to do [above all things], exceeding abundantly above all that [above what] we ask or think, according to the power that 21worketh in us, Unto [to] him be [the] glory in the church by [in]44 Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end [lit., unto all the generations of the age of the ages]. Amen.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

In general the doxology is frequent, either at the beginning (Eph_1:3-14; 1Pe_1:3-5), or at the close of an Epistle (Rom_16:25-27; Php_4:20; 2Ti_4:18; 1Pe_5:11; Jude 25; Heb_13:21), or at the close of a section, as here, Rom_11:33-36; Gal_1:5; 1Ti_1:17.

Eph_3:20. Now to him who is able to do above all things—Τῷδὲ45 δυναμένῳ stands emphatically first, because the matter in hand is the manifestation of God’s power and almightiness (Eph_3:16 : δυνάμει Eph_3:18 : ἐξισχύσητε). With the infinitive ποιῆσαι [“to do,” to effect], we must closely connect ὑπὲρ πάντα “above all,” under which we should understand creatures, powers and events, which may act in a hindering, disturbing or destructive way.

Exceeding abundantly above what we ask or think [ὑπερεκπερισσοῦ ὦν αἰτούμεθα ἤ νοοῦμεν].—In this added qualification the Apostle places God’s almightiness in comparison with his prayer, and that in a most striking manner. Hence ὑπετρεκπερισσοῦ, found also in 1Th_3:10; 1Th_5:13 [a.]. Similar expressions, strengthening the sense, occur in Eph_1:21; Eph_4:10; Rom_5:20; 2Co_7:4; 2Co_7:13; 2Co_11:5; 2Co_12:11; 1Ti_1:14; Mar_7:37; Mar_14:31; Mar_6:51. In its comparative signification it governs, as in Eph_3:19 : ὑπερβάλλουσαν τῆς γνώσεως the genitive ὦν, which is=τῶν ἃ αἰτούμεθα ἢ νοοῦμεν. Bengel: Cogitatio latius patet quam preces; gradatio. God is greater than our heart (1Jn_3:20). Chrysostom: ἐγὼ μὲν γὰρ εὔχομαι, αὐτὸς δὲ καὶ χωρὶς τῆς ἐμῆς εὐχῆς μείζονα ἐργάσεται τῶν ἡμετέρων αἰτήσεων οὐχ ἁπλῶς μείζονα ἢ ἐκ περισσοῦ ἀλλʼ ὑπερεκπερισσοῦ, τὸ μέγεθος ἐμφαίνων τῆς δωρεᾶς.

[The relative does not refer to πάντα; it introduces a new but related subject. The two phrases are not in apposition, but the second member explains the first. There is no tautology therefore, since subjoined to the expression of God’s super-abundant power, we have a definition of the mode in which it displays itself, viz., by conferring spiritual gifts in super-abundance (Eadie). There is no hyperbole as Harless thinks, though Paul has such a marked predilection for ὑπέρ and its compounds; it “occurs nearly thrice as many times in Paul’s Epistles and that to the Hebrews as in the rest of the New Testament; and of the 28 words compounded with ὑπέρ, 22 are found in these Epistles, and 20 of them there alone.—R.]

According to the power that worketh [or is working] in us, κατὰ τὴν δύναμιν τὴν ἐνεργουμἐνην ἐν ἡμῖν.—This belongs to the phrase: “able to do.” The present middle participle marks the continued efficiency of His power, while “in us” indicates both the object and the sphere of activity. Paulus allegat ezperientiam (Bengel) and full of confidence turns from the beginning to the future. Comp. Col_1:29. Miraculous gifts (Michael) are not referred to, nor should ὑπὲρ πάντα, “above all,” be limited to quæ hactenus visa sunt (Grotius), or the preposition ὑπὲρ be taken adverbially (Bengel), as in 2Co_11:23 alone. [The power, so frequently referred to in this Epistle, is the might of the indwelling Spirit. The middle (comp. Gal_5:6) is used mainly in non-personal references; see Winer, p. 242.—R.]

Eph_3:21. To him be the glory, αὐτῷἡ δόξα.—The pronoun sums up vigorously and emphatically what is predicated in Eph_3:20. The dative denotes that the glory is due, will be given to Him (Luk_17:18; Joh_9:24; Act_12:23; Rom_4:20; 1Pe_1:21; Act_4:9; Act_11:13; Act_14:7; Act_16:9; Act_19:7). [So most commentators]. Accordingly the article, ἡδόξα does not indicate the “glory,” which He has (Harless); in that case the pronoun αὐτοῦ would occur, as in the interpolated doxology at the close of the Lord’s prayer: ὅτι σοῦ ἐστὶν ἡ βασιλεία, κ. τ. λ. But it is the glory of the church, which indeed she has first from God, but which as received from Him, properly His and yet appropriated by her, she returns to Him with gratitude and praise. It is not=ἔπαινος, praise, which consists in words, nor=τομή, honor, which consists in the judgment of those who praise, but refers to the life, worship, and character of the church. Comp. Eph_1:12, Eph 14: εἰς ἔπαινον τῆς δόξης αὐτοῦ, “unto the praise of his glory.” It is most natural to supply ἔστω.

In the church in Christ Jesus, [ἐν τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ].—The preposition ἐν before τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ points to the sphere in which the glory of God is given back, defining more closely either the omitted ἔστω or ἡ δόξα. By ἡ ἐκκλησία, “the church,” we should understand the assembly of those in whom God’s power has become efficient and works (Eph_3:20 : “in us”); it is accordingly no external region (Meyer), which is indifferent internally, and beside which an inner spiritual sphere is to be indicated (ἐν Χριστῷ); the church is indeed herself such a sphere. Hence the phrase “in Christ Jesus,” defines more closely the church, its character and status, in order to explain, in what church the glory can and shall be given to God. Luther has rendered it properly as one notion: die in Christo Jesu lebendige Gemeinde (the church alive in Christ Jesus).

[To this interpretation, which is that of Olshausen, Stier and others, it is properly objected that such a definition of the church is altogether unnecessary. If καί be accepted (see Textual Note) this exegesis is inadmissible. Nor is the view of Meyer (with Harless, De Wette, Eadie, Hodge, Alford and Ellicott) open to the objection urged by Braune that it presents an external region internally indifferent. The sphere of the giving of glory is defined in a twofold manner: “It is offered in the church, but it is, at the same time offered ‘in Christ Jesus,’ or presented by the members of the sacred community in the consciousness of union with Him” (Eadie); “if any glory comes from us to God it is in Christ.” The repetition of ἐν seems to point to such a meaning, even if καί be omitted.—R.] Hence it is not=to διὰ Χριστοῦ (Grotius); comp. Col_3:17; Rom_1:18; Rom_7:25. [Calvin, Beza and Rueckert: per Christum; E. V.: “by Christ Jesus;” σὺν Χριστῷ (Œcumenius), all alike objectionable, for even the instrumental sense of iv is not exactly=διά, and the proper sense of the preposition is the more necessary because it occurs for the second time.—R.]

Unto all the generations of the age of the ages, [εἰς πάσας τὰςγενεὰς τοῦ αἰωνοςτων αἰώνων, ἀμήν͂].—The phrase εἰςπάσας τὰς γενεάς designates the successive groups which are added to this church; γενεαί designates the groups of living persons. Now, at the time when Paul writes, the beginning has been made, the first γενεά, “generation,” which reflects Godward the glory, the light in and from His light, is present; and thus it should and will continue, hence εἰς, “unto.” It is=εἰς γενεὰν καὶ γενεάν, or εἰς γενεὰς γενεῶν (Luk_1:50, various reading); this repetition expressing the same idea as πᾱσαι; “the iterative form of the expression indicated the extension” (Harless).

The phrase τοῦ αἰῶνος τῶν αἰώνων defines to what these γενεαί belong and extend, in omnes generationes, quæ complectitur ὁ αἰών, qui terminatur in τοῦς αἰῶνας perpetuos (Bengel), Ὁ αἰών marks the unity or totality of passing time, which at the same time includes eternity. We have no word which indicates both, as the Greeks had. [True in both English and German]. Bengel: αἰῶνες periodi œconomiæ divinæ ab una quasi scena ad aliam decurrentes; hic amplificantur causa utrumque vocabulum, cum metaphora in γενεά, generatio, conjungitur, ut significetur tempus bene longum; nam in αἰῶσι non jam sunt generationes. Paul says therefore, that the church now begun shall continue through a long series of generations; begun on earth it will be developed throughout these generations, and even when generations shall cease, shall continue in æons, without succession of generations, and these generations and those æons (in which new generations are not added, but the constituent ones continue permanently) form a whole, one αἰών, the αἰὼν μέλλων. Instead of this full formula we find only εἰς τοῦς αἰῶνας, Rom_1:25; Rom_9:5; Rom_11:36; Rom_16:27; Luk_1:33; 2Co_11:31; or αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων, 1Ti_1:17; 1Pe_5:11. Rev_1:6; Rev_1:18; Rev_4:9-10, etc.; εἰς πάντας τοὺς αἰῶνας Jude 25; εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα, Mat_21:19; Mar_11:14, etc.; εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα τοῦ αἰῶνος, Heb_1:8. Comp. Doctr. Notes, 5, 6.

[Only the most extravagant literalism can exclude the idea of eternity from this cumulative expression, and only the most forced exegesis can include “distinct traces of gnosticism.” Harless makes a subtle distinction between αἰῶνες τῶν αἰῶνων and αἰὼν τῶν αἰώνων, taking the former as more extensive, the latter intensive, for which there is little room here. Meyer is perhaps too literal in his view of γενεαί, which Braune apparently adopts. Alford is satisfactory: “Probably the account of the meaning is, that the age of ages (eternity) is conceived as containing ages, just as our ‘age’ contains years; and then those ages are thought of as made up, like ours, of generations. It is used, by a transfer of what we know in time, to express, imperfectly and indeed improperly, the idea of Eternity.”—R.]

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. God’s Omnipotence is unlimited, if we leave out of view His own will: He can do what He will (Psa_115:3).

2. God’s power works in His people (ἐν ὑμῖν, Eph_3:20), not merely over them, and about them; for they do not resist Him with that will which He has given from His own will to those created in His image. He will not, with His omnipotence, force any into the Church in Christ Jesus, into salvation. Man has might to resist God’s Almightiness within himself. [The limitation or extension of meaning which theologians of different schools may put upon this last sentence, need not be discussed here. Given free-will, the sacred right of personality, and it is true in some sense—awfully true, since this is the fearful price of our privilege as free men. How God’s Almightiness, notwithstanding, never fails of its purpose, we do not know; that it never does, lies at the foundation of all proper theology.—R.]

3. The Essence of worship is the thankful return of what God has bestowed and the recipient has accepted and appropriated; hence the approach of the recipient to the Bestower, in gratitude for the gift, praise for the Giver; the deepest ground of adoration is, however, the condescending grace and imparting love of the Almighty God. He who is blessed begins to bless the Blesser (Eph_1:3) and ends in praise of the God of glory (Eph_3:20-21).

4. The true Church, a creation of God (Eph_3:20), a living congregation, an assembly of sanctified persons, is Christian, having and needing no other Mediator than Christ Jesus, proving and defining the relation to the church according to the relation to Him.

5. The Christian Church has a history, a development through a long series of generations even into eternity. Hofmann (Sehriftbeweis, II. 2, p. 127) retains the καί before ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ and thinks the glorifying of God “in the church” takes place only in time and on earth, but “in Christ” eternally, as though the church were a temporal thing and nothing more. [Eadie: “The obligation to glorify God lasts through, eternity, and the glorified church will ever delight in rendering praise, ‘as is most due.’ Eternal perfection will sustain an eternal an them.”—R.]

6. The Church of Jesus Christ does not find her final issue in the State (Rothe), or in a higher grade of culture;46 she has a rising without a setting. Rescued through all the changes of national life, she is herself the rescuer of individuals, and of larger groups as well, unto the future of eternity.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

Prayer is no limit to God’s working in thee, but a condition, which He Himself has appointed, without which thou canst not experience His almighty grace.—Thou art a creature of God, and shouldst become a work of His, praising the Master hand in word and deed, and above all in private character and conduct.—“Exceeding abundantly!” Hagar asked a drop and found a well (Gen_21:19); Saul sought his father’s asses and found a crown (1Sa_9:3; 1Sa_10:1); David asked bread and received a kingdom (1Sa_21:3).

Starke: God does more than we desire. Joseph wishes only to be free from the iron chains: behold, God not only does what he desires, but gives him golden chains besides.

Heubner:—In the synagogues, mosques, and pagodas there is no true praise of God, nor yet in our churches, if Christ be not known.—The prayer of Paul for the church (Eph_3:13-21). 1. It was prompted by the impulse of love (Eph_3:13). 2. Full of confidence toward God, the Father of all churches (Eph_3:14-15). 3. It was holy in its purport (Eph_3:16-19). 4. Hopeful, certain of hearing (Eph_3:20-21).—God the true Father. 1. Exposition: a) He is not only the physical Creator and Upholder, but b) spiritual Father (Eph_3:14-16). 2. Ground of our belief in this: a) not mere reason and experience, but b) the gospel of Christ (Eph_3:17-18). 3. Power of this belief: a) it attracts our heart to God (Eph_3:18), so that we understand God’s heart, b) it strengthens unto obedience, c) it gives comfort and hope (Eph_3:19-21).—The intimate fellowship of the Apostles and their churches as an example for us.—The inner growth of a Christian church.

Rieger: What occurs to each one at his conversion and during his daily renewal, is as good an evidence of the “exceeding abundant” power of God, as what occurs in the creation, preservation and government of all things.

[Eadie:—The Trinity is here again brought out to view. The power within us is that of the Spirit, and glory in Christ is presented to the Father who answers prayer through the Son, and by the Spirit; and, therefore, to the Father, in the Son, and by the Spirit, is offered this glorious minstrelsy: “As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.”—R.]

Footnotes:

[44] Eph_3:21.—After ἐν τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ א. A. B. C. insert καί before ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ. A few authorities [D.1 F.] read: ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ καὶ (ἐν) τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ, evidently from doctrinal hesitation about placing the church before Christ; in single minor authorities ἐν τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ is wanting. This arises from the inappropriate καί, which only disturbs, and although well supported externally, is inadmissible on internal grounds. It may be rejected, and is rejected by Tischendorf, on the authority of a number of important MSS. [These are D.2 K. L., besides the great majority of cursives, oldest versions, and many fathers. Rejected by Tischendorf, Meyer, and most, bracketted by Alford accepted by Lachmann, Ellicott (ed. 3, 4 only). Before the discovery of א. the internal grounds were sufficiently strong to outweigh the preponderant uncial testimony in its favor, but now the question is more doubtful. The sense is not affected materially by the variation, though the insertion precludes one interpretation. The word may have been inserted to indicate the other meaning, hence its omission presents a lectio difficilior.—R.]

[45][Alford: “δέ brings out a slight contrast to what has just preceded—viz., ourselves, and our need of strength and our growth in knowledge and fulness,” but the contrast is not strong enough to justify our rendering the particle: “but.”—R.]

[46] [When De Wette asks: “Was the Apostle warranted in expecting such a long duration for the Church?” he proves his utter want of sympathy with this Epistle, and abundantly justifies the criticism made on his commentary by Alford (see Introd. § 3, 5).—R.]

Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

EPHESIANS

MEASURELESS POWER AND ENDLESS GLORY

Eph 3:20

One purpose and blessing of faithful prayer is to enlarge the desires which it expresses, and to make us think more loftily of the grace to which we appeal. So the Apostle, in the wonderful series of supplications which precedes the text, has found his thought of what he may hope for his brethren at Ephesus grow greater with every clause. His prayer rises like some songbird, in ever-widening sweeps, each higher in the blue, and nearer the throne; and at each a sweeter, fuller note.

‘Strengthened with might by His Spirit’; ‘that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith’; ‘that ye may be able to know the love of Christ’; ‘that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.’ Here he touches the very throne. Beyond that nothing can be conceived. But though that sublime petition may be the end of thought, it is not the end of faith. Though God can give us nothing more than it is, He can give us more than we think it to be, and more than we ask, when we ask this. Therefore the grand doxology of our text crowns and surpasses even this great prayer. The higher true prayer climbs, the wider is its view; and the wider is its view, the more conscious is it that the horizon of its vision is far within the borders of the goodly land. And as we gaze into what we can discern of the fulness of God, prayer will melt into thanksgiving and the doxology for the swift answer will follow close upon the last words of supplication. So is it here; so it may be always.

The form of our text then marks the confidence of Paul’s prayer. The exuberant fervour of his faith, as well as his natural impetuosity and ardour, comes out in the heaped-up words expressive of immensity and duration. He is like some archer watching, with parted lips, the flight of his arrow to the mark. He is gazing on God confident that he has not asked in vain. Let us look with him, that we, too, may be heartened to expect great things of God. Notice then-

I. The measure of the power to which we trust.

This epistle is remarkable for its frequent references to the divine rule, or standard, or measure, in accordance with which the great facts of redemption take place. The ‘things on the earth’-the historical processes by which salvation is brought to men and works in men-are ever traced up to the ‘things in heaven’; the divine counsels from which they have come forth. That phrase, ‘according to,’ is perpetually occurring in this connection in the epistle. It is applied mainly in two directions. It serves sometimes to bring into view the ground, or reason, of the redemptive facts, as, for instance, in the expression that these take place ‘according to His good pleasure which He hath purposed in Himself’ It serves sometimes to bring into view the measure by which the working of these redemptive facts is determined; as in our text, and in many other places.

Now there are three main forms under which this standard, or measure, of the Redeeming Power is set forth in this epistle, and it will help us to grasp the greatness of the Apostle’s thought if we consider these.

Take, then, first, that clause in the earlier portion of the preceding prayer, ‘that He would grant you according to the riches of His glory.’ The measure, then, of the gift that we may hope to receive is the measure of God’s own fulness. The ‘riches of His glory’ can be nothing less than the whole uncounted abundance of that majestic and far-shining Nature, as it pours itself forth in the dazzling perfectness of its own Self-manifestation. And nothing less than this great treasure is to be the limit and standard of His gift to us. We are the sons of the King, and the allowance which He makes us even before we come to our inheritance is proportionate to our Father’s wealth. The same stupendous thought is given us in that prayer, heavy with the blessed weight of unspeakable gifts, ‘that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.’ This, then, is the measure of the grace that we may possess. This limitless limit alone bounds the possibilities for every man, the certainties for every Christian.

The effect must be proportioned to the cause. And what effect will be adequate as the outcome of such a cause as ‘the riches of His glory’? Nothing short of absolute perfectness, the full transmutation of our dark, cold being into the reflected image of His own burning brightness, the ceaseless replenishing of our own spirits with all graces and gladnesses akin to His, the eternal growth of the soul upward and Godward. Perfection is the sign manual of God in all His works, just as imperfection and the falling below our thought and wish is our ‘token in every epistle’ and deed of ours. Take the finest needle, and put it below a microscope, and it will be all ragged and irregular, the fine, tapering lines will be broken by many a bulge and bend, and the point blunt and clumsy. Put the blade of grass to the same test, and see how regular its outline, how delicate and true the spear-head of its point. God’s work is perfect, man’s is clumsy and incomplete. God does not leave off till He has finished. When He rests, it is because, looking on His work, He sees it all ‘very good.’ His Sabbath is the Sabbath of an achieved purpose, of a fulfilled counsel. The palaces which we build are ever like that one in the story, where one window remains dark and unjewelled, while the rest blaze in beauty. But when God builds, none can say, ‘He was not able to finish.’ In His great palace He makes her ‘windows of agates’ and all her ‘borders of pleasant stones.’

So we have a right to enlarge our desires and stretch our confidence of what we may possess and become to this, His boundless bound-’The riches of glory.’

But another form in which the standard, or measure, is stated in this letter is: ‘The working of His mighty power, which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead’ {i.19, 20}; or, as it is put with a modification, ‘grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ’ {iv.7}. That is to say, we have not only the whole riches of the divine glory as the measure to which we may lift our hopes, but lest that celestial brightness should seem too high above us, and too far from us, we have Christ in His human-divine manifestation, and especially in the great fact of the Resurrection, set before us, that by Him we may learn what God wills we should become. The former phase of the standard may sound abstract, cloudy, hard to connect with any definite anticipations; and so this form of it is concrete, historical, and gives human features to the fair ideal. His Resurrection is the high-water mark of the divine power, and to the same level it will rise again in regard to every Christian. The Lord, in the glory of His risen life, and in the riches of the gifts which He received when He ascended up on high, is the pattern for us, and the power which fulfils its own pattern. In Him we see what man may become, and what His followers must become. The limits of that power will not be reached until every Christian soul is perfectly assimilated to that likeness, and bears all its beauty in its face, nor till every Christian soul is raised to participation in Christ’s dignity and sits on His throne. Then, and not till then, shall the purpose of God be fulfilled and the gift which is measured by the riches of the Father’s glory, and the fulness of the Son’s grace, be possessed or conceived in its measureless measure.

But there is a third form in which this same standard is represented. That is the form which is found in our text, and in other places of the epistle: ‘According to the power that worketh in us.’

What power is that but the power of the Spirit of God dwelling in us? And thus we have the measure, or standard, set forth in terms respectively applying to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. For the first, the riches of His glory; for the second, His Resurrection and Ascension; for the third, His energy working in Christian souls. The first carries us up into the mysteries of God, where the air is almost too subtle for our gross lungs; the second draws nearer to earth and points us to an historical fact that happened in this everyday world; the third comes still nearer to us, and bids us look within, and see whether what we are conscious of there, if we interpret it by the light of these other measures, will not yield results as great as theirs, and open before us the same fair prospect of perfect holiness and conformity to the divine nature.

There is already a Power at work within us, if we be Christians, of whose workings we may be aware, and from them forecast the measure of the gifts which it can bestow upon us. We may estimate what will be by what we know has been, and by what we feel is. That is to say, in other words, the effects already produced, and the experiences we have already had, carry in them the pledge of completeness.

I suppose that if the mediaeval dream had ever come true, and an alchemist had ever turned a grain of lead into gold, he could have turned all the lead in the world in time, and with crucibles and furnaces enough. The first step is all the difficulty, and if you and I have been changed from enemies into sons, and had one spark of love to God kindled in our hearts, that is a mightier change than any that remains to be effected in order to make us perfect. One grain has been changed, the whole mass will be so in due time.

The present operations of that power carry in them the pledge of their own completion. The strange mingling of good and evil in our present nature, our aspirations so crossed and contradicted, our resolution so broken and falsified, the gleams of light, and the eclipses that follow-all these in their opposition to each other, are plainly transitory, and the workings of that Power within us, though they be often overborne, are as plainly the stronger in their nature, and meant to conquer and to endure. Like some half-hewn block, such as travellers find in long abandoned quarries, whence Egyptian temples, that were destined never to be completed, were built, our spirits are but partly ‘polished after the similitude of a palace,’ while much remains in the rough. The builders of these temples have mouldered away and their unfinished handiwork will lie as it was when the last chisel touched it centuries ago, till the crack of doom; but stones for God’s temple will be wrought to completeness and set in their places. The whole threefold divine cause of our salvation supplies the measure, and lays the foundation for our hopes, in the glory of the Father, the grace of the Son, the power of the Holy Ghost. Let us lift up our cry: ‘Perfect that which concerneth me, forsake not the works of thine own hands,’ and we shall have for answer the ancient word, fresh as when it sounded long ago from among the stars to the sleeper at the ladder’s foot, ‘I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.’

II. Notice the relation of the divine working to our thoughts and desires.

The Apostle in his fervid way strains language to express how far the possibility of the divine working extends. He is able, not only to do all things, but ‘beyond all things’-a vehement way of putting the boundless reach of that gracious power. And what he means by this ‘beyond all things’ is more fully expressed in the next words, in which he labours by accumulating synonyms to convey his sense of the transcendent energy which waits to bless: ‘exceeding abundantly above what we ask.’ And as, alas! our desires are but shrunken and narrow beside our thoughts, he sweeps a wider orbit when he adds ‘above what we think.’ He has been asking wonderful things, and yet even his farthest-reaching petitions fall far on this side of the greatness of God’s power. One might think that even it could go no further than filling us ‘with all the fulness of God.’ Nor can it; but it may far transcend our conceptions of what that is, and astonish us by its surpassing our thoughts, no less than it shames us by exceeding our prayers.

Of course, all this is true, and is meant to apply, only about the inward gifts of God’s grace. I need not remind you that, in the outer world of Providence and earthly gifts, prayers and wishes often surpass the answers; that there a deeper wisdom often contradicts our thoughts and a truer kindness refuses our petitions, and that so the rapturous words of our text are only true in a very modified and partial sense about God’s working for us in the world. It is His work in us concerning which they are absolutely true.

Of course we know that in all regions of His working He is able to surpass our poor human conceptions, and that, properly speaking, the most familiar, and, as we insolently call them, ‘smallest’ of His works holds in it a mystery-were it none other than the mystery of Being-against which Thought has been breaking its teeth ever since men began to think at all.

But as regards the working of God on our spiritual lives, this passing beyond the bounds of thought and desire is but the necessary result of the fact already dealt with, that the only measure of the power is God Himself, in that Threefold Being. That being so, no plummet of our making can reach to the bottom of the abyss; no strong-winged thought can fly to the outermost bound of the encircling heaven. Widely as we stretch our reverent conceptions, there is ever something beyond. After we have resolved many a dim nebula in the starry sky, and found it all ablaze with suns and worlds, there will still hang, faint and far before us, hazy magnificences which we have not apprehended. Confidently and boldly as we may offer our prayers, and largely as we may expect, the answer is ever more than the petition. For indeed, in every act of His quickening grace, in every God-given increase of our knowledge of God, in every bestowment of His fulness, there is always more bestowed than we receive, more than we know even while we possess it. Like some gift given in the dark, its true preciousness is not discerned when it is first received. The gleam of the gold does not strike our eye all at once. There is ever an unknown margin felt by us to be over after our capacity of receiving is exhausted. ‘And they took up of the fragments that remained, twelve baskets full.’

So, then, let us remember that while our thoughts and prayers can never reach to the full perception, or reception either, of the gift, the exuberant amplitude with which it reaches far beyond both is meant to draw both after it. And let us not forget either that, while the grace which we receive has no limit or measure but the fulness of God, the working limit, which determines what we receive of the grace, is these very thoughts and wishes which it surpasses. We may have as much of God as we can hold, as much as we wish. All Niagara may roar past a man’s door, but only as much as he diverts through his own sluice will drive his mill, or quench his thirst. God’s grace is like the figures in the Eastern tales, that will creep into a narrow room no bigger than a nutshell, or will tower heaven high. Our spirits are like the magic tent whose walls expanded or contracted at the owner’s wish-we may enlarge them to enclose far more of the grace than we have ever possessed. We are not straitened in God, but in ourselves. He is ‘able to do exceeding abundantly above what we ask or think.’ Therefore let us stretch desires and thoughts to their utmost, remembering that, while they can never reach the measure of His grace in itself, they make the practical measure of our possession of it. ‘According to thy faith’ is the real measure of the gift received, even though ‘according to the riches of His glory’ be the measure of the gift bestowed. Note, again,

III. The glory that springs from the divine work.

‘The glory of God’ is the lustre of His own perfect character, the bright sum total of all the blended brilliances that compose His name. When that light is welcomed and adored by men, they are said to ‘give glory to God,’ and this doxology is at once a prophecy that the working of God’s power on His redeemed children will issue in setting forth the radiance of His Name yet more, and a prayer that it may. So we have here the great thought expressed in many places of Scripture, that the highest exhibition of the divine character for the reverence and love-of the whole universe, shall we say?-lies in His work on Christian souls, and the effect produced thereby on them. God takes His stand, so to speak, on this great fact in His dealings, and will have His creatures estimate Him by it. He reckons it His highest praise that He has redeemed men, and by His dwelling in them fills them with His own fulness. And this chiefest praise and brightest glory accrues to Him ‘in the Church in Christ Jesus.’ The weakening of the latter word into by Christ Jesus,’ as in the English version, is to be regretted, as substituting another thought, Scriptural no doubt and precious, for the precise shade of meaning in the Apostle’s mind here. As has been well said, ‘the first words denote the outward province; the second, the inward and spiritual sphere in which God was to be praised.’ His glory is to shine in the Church, the theatre of His power, the standing demonstration of the might of redeeming love. By this He will be judged, and this He will point to if any ask what is His divinest work, which bears the clearest imprint of His divinest self. His glory is to be set forth by men on condition that they are ‘in Christ,’ living and moving in Him, in that mysterious but most real union without which no fruit grows on the dead branches, nor any music of praise breaks from the dead lips.

So, then, think of that wonder that God sets His glory in His dealings with us. Amid all the majesty of His works and all the blaze of His creation, this is what He presents as the highest specimen of His power-the Church of Jesus Christ, the company of poor men, wearied and conscious of many evils, who follow afar off the footsteps of their Lord. How dusty and toil-worn the little group of Christians that landed at Puteoli must have looked as they toiled along the Appian Way and entered Rome! How contemptuously emperor and philosopher and priest and patrician would have curled their lips, if they had been told that in that little knot of Jewish prisoners lay a power before which theirs would cower and finally fade! Even so is it still. Among all the splendours of this great universe, and the mere obtrusive tawdrinesses of earth, men look upon us Christians as poor enough; and yet it is to His redeemed children that God has entrusted His praise, and in their hands that He has lodged the sacred deposit of His own glory.

Think loftily of that office and honour, lowly of yourselves who have it laid upon you as a crown. His honour is in our hands. We are the ‘secretaries of His praise.’ This is the highest function that any creature can discharge. The Rabbis have a beautiful bit of teaching buried among their rubbish about angels. They say that there are two kinds of angels-the angels of service and the angels of praise, of which two orders the latter is the higher, and that no angel in it praises God twice, but having once lifted up his voice in the psalm of heaven, then perishes and ceases to be. He has perfected his being, he has reached the height of his greatness, he has done what he was made for, let him fade away. The garb of legend is mean enough, but the thought it embodies is that ever true and solemn one, without which life is nought-’Man’s chief end is to glorify God.’

And we can only fulfil that high purpose in the measure of our union with Christ. ‘In Him’ abiding, we manifest God’s glory, for in Him abiding we receive God’s grace. So long as we are joined to Him, we partake of His life, and our lives become music and praise. The electric current flows from Him through all souls that are ‘in Him’ and they glow with fair colours which they owe to their contact with Jesus. Interrupt the communication, and all is darkness. So, brethren, let us seek to abide in Him, severed from whom we are nothing. Then shall we fulfil the purpose of His love, who ‘hath shined in our hearts’ that we might give to others ‘the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ’ Notice, lastly,

IV. The eternity of the work and of the praise.

As in the former clauses the idea of the transcendent greatness of the power of God was expressed by accumulated synonyms, so here the kindred thought of its eternity, and consequently of the ceaseless duration of the resulting glory, is sought to be set forth by a similar aggregation. The language creaks and labours, as it were, under the weight of the great conception. Literally rendered, the words are-’to all generations of the age of the ages’-a remarkable fusing together of two expressions for unbounded duration, which are scarcely congruous. We can understand ‘to all generations’ as expressive of duration as long as birth and death shall last. We can understand ‘the age of the ages’ as pointing to that endless epoch whose moments are ‘ages’; but the blending of the two is but an unconscious acknowledgment that the speech of earth, saturated, as it is, with the colouring of time, breaks down in the attempt to express the thought of eternity. Undoubtedly that solemn conception is the one intended by this strange phrase.

The work is to go on for ever and ever, and with it the praise. As the ages which are the beats of the pendulum of eternity come and go, more and more of God’s power will flow out to us, and more and more of God’s glory will be manifested in us. It must be so; for God’s gift is infinite, and man’s capacity of reception is indefinitely capable of increase. Therefore eternity will be needful in order that redeemed souls may absorb all of God which He can give or they can take. The process has no limits, for there is no bound to be set to the possible approaches of the human spirit to the divine, and none to the exuberant abundance of the beauty and glory which God will give to His child. Therefore we shall live for ever: and for ever show forth His praise and blaze out like the sun with the irradiation of His glory. We cannot die till we have exhausted God. Till we comprehend all His nature in our thoughts, and reflect all His beauty in our character; till we have attained all the bliss that we can think, and received all the good that we can ask; till Hope has nothing before her to reach towards, and God is left behind: we ‘shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord.’

Let His grace work on you, and yield yourselves to Him, that His fulness may fill your emptiness. So on earth we shall be delivered from hopes which mock and wishes that are never fulfilled. So in heaven, after ‘ages of ages’ of growing glory, we shall have to say, as each new wave of the shoreless, sunlit sea bears us onward, ‘It doth not yet appear what we shall be.’

Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

3:20-21 This doxology concludes the first section of the letter (see also Rom 16:25-27; Gal 1:5; 1 Tim 1:17; 2 Tim 4:18; Jude 1:24-25).

3:20 all glory to God: Because of the grace God has shown in Jesus Christ, he deserves nothing less. • The mighty power at work within us is the power of the living God that raised Christ from the dead (see 1:19-20). By that power, he is able to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think, because God is at work in the lives of his children (see Rom 8:31-39; Phil 4:13; Col 1:29).

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Eph 3:20. Ὑπὲρ πάντα) πάντα is governed by ποιῆσαι, whence ὑπὲρ is put adverbially, as presently after ὑπερεκπερισσοῦ, and ὑπερλίαν, 2Co 11:5; ὑπὲρ may however be construed with πάντα: comp. ch. Eph 1:22, where ὑπὲρ πάντα means, that which is above all: this [His exaltation as Head of the Church] is above all exaltation, that He Himself is the Head of the Church, etc.[54]—ὑπερεκπερισσοῦ, exceedingly abundant) Construe with to do.—ὧν) The Genitive is governed by the comparative, which is contained in περισσοῦ.—ἢ νοοῦμεν, or think) Thought takes a wider range than prayers. A gradation.—κατὰ, according to) Paul appeals to their and his experience.

[54] Beng. would render ch. Eph 1:22, “He hath given Him to be Head over the Church, an elevation which is above every other kind of elevation” (ὑπὲρ πάντα).—ED.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Eph_3:20-21. That which is strictly speaking the prayer, the petition, is at an end; but the confidence in the Almighty, who can still do far more, draws forth from the praying heart a right full and solemn ascription of praise, with the fulness of which that of Rom_16:25-27 is to be compared.

ὑπὲρ πάντα ποιῆσαι] to be taken together. To he able to do beyond all, i.e. more than all, is a popular expression of the very highest active power; so that πάντα is quite unlimited, and it is not, with Grotius, arbitrarily to be limited by quae hactenus visa sunt. This ὑπὲρ πάντα does not belong to δυναμένῳ (Holzhausen), because otherwise ποιῆσαι would be superfluous; nor does ὑπέρ stand adverbially (2Co_11:23), as Bengel would have it, which could not occur to any reader on account of the πάντα standing beside it. There is nothing at which the action of God would have its limit; He can do still more.

ὑπερεκπερισσοῦ ὧν αἰτούμ. ἢ νοοῦμ.] a more precise definition to the universal and indefinite ὑπὲρ πάντα, specializing and at the same time enhancing the notion of ὑπέρ: above measure more than what we ask or understand. According to Rückert, ὧν αἰτούμ. has reference to πάντα: Paul namely, instead of adding ὧν αἰτούμ. immediately after πάντα, has first for the strengthening of the ὑπέρ introduced the additional ὑπερεκπερ., and now must needs annex in the genitive what ought properly, as construed with πάντα, to follow in the accusative. A course in itself quite unnecessary; and if the apostle had been concerned only about a strengthening of the ὑπέρ, and he had, in using πάντα, already had ἃ αἰτούμ. in his mind, he must have written after ὑπερεκπερ.: πάντων ἃ αἰτούμ.; so that the sense would be: more than all (which we ask, etc.), exceeding more than all, which we ask, etc.

ὑπερεκπερισσοῦ] is, with the exception of 1Th_3:10; 1Th_5:13 (Elz.), codd. at Dan_3:22, nowhere else preserved. Comp., however, ὑπερεκπερισσῶς, 1Th_5:13; Clem. Cor. I. 20; λίαν ἐκ περισσοῦ, Mar_6:51; ὑπερπερισσῶς, Mar_7:37; ὑπερπερισσεύω, Rom_5:20; 2Co_7:4. The frequent, and in part bold, compounds with ὑπέρ used by Paul are at such places in keeping with the intensity of his pious feeling, which struggles after adequate expression.

ὧν, for τούτων ἅ, is genitive of comparison. See Bernhardy, p. 139.

ἤ] Whether our asking or our apprehending be regarded, the one as the other is infinitely surpassed by Gods active power. Cogitatio latius patet quam preces; gradatio, Bengel.

τὴν ἐνεργουμ.] not passive (Estius), but middle. See on Gal_5:6.

ἐν ἡμῖν] in our minds, appeal to the consciousness of experience with regard to the divine power, which is at work in the continued enlightenment and whole Christian endowment of the inner man.[195] Michaelis arbitrarily refers it to the miraculous gifts, which in fact would be applicable only to individuals.

[195] Chrysostom aptly remarks that this, too, we should neither have asked nor hoped.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Eph 3:20-21 . A fervent ascription of praise to God evoked by the thought of the great things which His grace has already wrought in these Gentiles, and the greater things of the future which the same grace destines for them and would have them attain to.

Eph 3:20 . τῷ δὲ δυναμένῳ ὑπὲρ πάντα ποιῆσαι ὑπερεκπερισσοῦ ὧν αἰτούμεθα ἢ νοοῦμεν : Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think . So both AV and RV; as also the old English Versions, excepting Wicl. (“more plenteously than we axen”), Cov. and Rhem. (“more abundantly than we desire”). More exactly it = “able to do beyond all things, superabundantly beyond what we ask or think” (Ell.). The τῷ refers naturally to God , the main subject of the whole paragraph. The δέ has something of its proper adversative force, the contrast between the subjects of the Divine grace and the Divine Giver of the grace being to some extent in view. The doxology brings the whole preceding paragraph and the first main division of the Epistle to a fitting close. Its best parallel is in Rom 16:25-27 . The ὑπὲρ cannot be taken as an adverb (Beng.), but governs the πάντα . The πάντα again is not to be connected with the ὧν as if = “all that we ask”; the gen. ὧν is due to the comparative in the ὑπερεκπερισσοῦ , as in the previous case of the ὑπερβάλλουσαν τῆς γνώσεως . Further, the ὑπὲρ πάντα does not belong to the δυναμένῳ , but makes one idea with the ποιῆσαι . Thus we have two distinct descriptions of God here, the second of which explains and develops the thought of the first. He is described first generally in respect of the absoluteness of His power, as “able to do beyond all things,” “able to do more than all,” i.e. , One to whose efficiency there is no limit; and then with more particular reference to the case of Paul and his fellow-believers, as able to do above measure beyond anything with which our asking or even our thinking is conversant; superabundantly beyond the utmost requests we can make in prayer, nay beyond all that can suggest itself to our minds in their highest ventures. The verb νοεῖν , here used of thinking of as distinguished from asking for, has two main lines of meaning, viz. , to understand and to ponder or consider . The latter is in view here. The strong, cumulative ὑπερεκπερισσοῦ occurs again in 1Th 3:10 ; 1Th 5:13 . Such compounds with ὑπέρ ( ὑπερλίαν , ὑπερπερισσεύω , ὑπερινικάω , ὑπερυψόω , ὑπεραυξάνω , ὑπερπλεονάζω ) are characteristic of Paul. They are not entirely limited to him ( e.g. , ὑπερπερισσῶς , Mar 7:37 ; ὑπερεκχυννόμενον , Luk 6:38 ). But they are much more used by him than by any other NT writer, occurring nearly thrice as often in the Pauline Epistles and the Epistle to the Hebrews as in all the other NT books ( cf. Ell., in loc. ). Such bold compounds are “in keeping with the intensity of his pious feeling, which struggles after adequate expression” (Mey.). κατὰ τὴν δύναμιν τὴν ἐνεργουμένην ἐν ἡμῖν : according to the power that worketh in us . The “power” in question is doubtless the inward operation of the Holy Spirit. The ἐν ἡμῖν has the force of an appeal to consciousness. The power that we know to be operative in ourselves is a witness to God’s ability to do superabundantly beyond what we ask or think. The efficient power of which we have experience in ourselves represents the measure and mode of the limitless capacity that is in God, and by the one we can conceive of the other and trust it. The ἐνεργουμένην must be taken here not as pass., but as middle ( cf. Gal 5:6 ). In Col 1:29 we have the similar phrase κατὰ τὴν ἐνέργειαν αὐτοῦ τὴν ἐνεργουμένην ἐν ἐμοὶ ἐν δυνάμει . There it is used with reference to the Apostle’s labour and striving at the time; here with reference to the possibilities of God’s future dealings with his converts.

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Eph_3:20, Eph_3:21

Pauls prayer had apparently reached a height beyond which neither faith, nor hope, nor even imagination could go, and yet he is not satisfied. An immensity still lay beyond. God was able to do not only what he had asked, but infinitely more than he knew how either to ask or think. Having exhausted all the forms of prayer, he casts himself on the infinitude of God, in full confidence that he can and will do all that omnipotence itself can effect. His power, not our prayers nor our highest conceptions, is the measure of the apostles anticipations and desires. This idea he weaves into a doxology, which has in it more of heaven than of earth.

There are two forms of expression here united; Paul says, τῷ ὑπὲρ πάντα ποιῆσαι δύναμένῳ, to him who is able to do more than all things; and as though this were not enough, he adds, ὑπερ ἐκπερισσοῦ ὧν αἰτούμεθα ἤ νοοῦμεν, exceeding abundantly above all we ask or think. God is not only unlimited in himself, but is unrestricted by our prayers or knowledge. No definite bounds, therefore, can be set to what they may expect in whom Christ dwells, and who are the objects of his infinite love.

Κατὰ τὴν δύναμιν τὴν ἐνεργουμένην ἐν ἡμῖν, according to the power that worketh in us. The infinite power of God from which so much may be expected, is the same of which we are now the subjects. It is that power which wrought in Christ when it raised him from the dead, and set him at the right hand of God, Eph_1:19-20, and which has wrought an analogous change in the believer in raising him from the death of sin, and making him to sit in heavenly places in Christ Jesus; and which still sustains and carries on the work of salvation in the soul. The past is a foretaste and pledge of the future. Those who have been raised from the dead, who have been transformed by the renewing of their minds, translated from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of Gods dear Son, and in whom God himself dwells by his Spirit, having already experienced a change which nothing but omnipotence could effect, may well join in the doxology to Him who is able to do exceeding abundantly above all we can ask or think.

The glory; ἡ δόξα is either the glory that is due, or the glory which God has. To give glory to God, is either to praise him, or to reveal his glory, i.e. cause it to be seen and acknowledged. Thus the doxology, To Him be glory may mean either, Let Him be praised; or, Let His glory be acknowledged.

In the church by Christ Jesus.‹11› The original is, ἐν τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ καὶ ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ, which Luther renders, in the church which is in Christ, i.e. the Christian church. This interpretation is adopted by several modern commentators. But in that case the article τῇ before ἐν Χριστῷ ought not to be omitted. Besides, as the Christian church is the only church which could be thought of, the addition of the words in Christ would be unnecessary. The ordinary interpretation, therefore, is to be preferred. Glory is to be rendered to God in the church, and in and through Christ Jesus, as her head and representative. The church is the company of the redeemed here and in heaven; which constitutes one body through which God is to manifest his manifold wisdom, and which is through all ages to ascribe unto him glory, honor, and dominion.

The idea of eternity or of endless duration is variously expressed in Scripture. Sometimes eternity is conceived of as one, and the singular αἴων is used; sometimes as an endless succession of periods or ages, and then the plural αἰῶνες is used. Thus εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα, to eternity, and εἰς τούς αἰῶνας, or εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰῶνων, to the ages indefinitely, i.e. endless ages, alike mean, forever. So, βασιλεὺς τοῦ αἰῶνος, king of eternity, and βασιλευς τῶν αἰῶνων, king of endless ages, both mean the king eternal. The peculiarity of the case before us is, that the apostle combines these two forms: εἰς πάσας τὰς γενεὰς τοῦ αἰῶνος τῶν αἰώνων, to all the generations of an eternity of ages. There is in keeping with the cumulative character of the whole context. Finding no ordinary forms of expression suited to his demands, the apostle heaps together terms of the largest import to give some vent to thoughts and aspirations which he felt to be unutterable. These things belong to the στεναγμοὶ ἀλαλήτοι of which he speaks in Rom_8:26.

Charles Hodge — Commentary on Romans (1835), First Corinthians (1857), and Ephesians (1856) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

He breaketh forth into a thanksgiving, whereby the Ephesians also may be confirmed to hope for anything of God.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

unto him--contrasted with ourselves and our needs. Translate, "that is able above all things (what is above all things) to do exceeding abundantly above what we ask or (even) think": thought takes a wider range than prayers. The word, above, occurs thrice as often in Paul's writings, as in all the rest of the New Testament, showing the warm exuberance of Paul's spirit.

according to the power--the indwelling Spirit (Rom 8:26). He appeals to their and his experience.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 20. Now unto him] Having finished his short, but most wonderfully comprehensive and energetic prayer, the apostle brings in his doxology, giving praise to Him from whom all blessings come, and to whom all thanks are due.

That is able to do exceeding abundantly] It is impossible to express the full meaning of these words, God is omnipotent, therefore he is able to do all things, and able to do υπερ εκ περισσου, superabundantly above the greatest abundance. And who can doubt this, who has any rational or Scriptural views of his power or his love?

All that we ask or think] We can ask every good of which we have heard, every good which God has promised in his word; and we can think of, or imagine, goods and blessings beyond all that we have either read of or seen: yea, we can imagine good things to which it is impossible for us to give a name; we can go beyond the limits of all human descriptions; we can imagine more than even God has specified in his word; and can feel no bounds to our imagination of good, but impossibility and eternity: and after all, God is able to do more for us than we can ask or think; and his ability here is so necessarily connected with his willingness, that the one indisputably implies the other; for, of what consequence would it be to tell the Church of God that he had power to do so and so, if there were not implied an assurance that he will do what his power can, and what the soul of man needs to have done?

According to the power that worketh in us] All that he can do, and all that he has promised to do, will be done according to what he has done, by that power of the holy Ghost την ενεργουμενην, which worketh strongly in us-acts with energy in our hearts, expelling evil, purifying and refining the affections and desires, and implanting good.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

20. Now to him. He now breaks out into thanksgiving, which serves the additional purpose of exhorting the Ephesians to maintain “good hope through grace,” (2 Thessalonians 2:16,) and to endeavor constantly to obtain more and more adequate conceptions of the value of the grace of God.

Who is able. This refers to the future, and agrees with what we are taught concerning hope; and indeed we cannot offer to God proper or sincere thanksgivings for favors received, unless we are convinced that his goodness to us will be without end. When he says that God is able, he does not mean power viewed apart, as the phrase is, from the act, but power which is exerted, and which we actually feel. Believers ought always to connect it with the work, when the promises made to them, and their own salvation, form the subject of inquiry. Whatever God can do, he unquestionably will do, if he has promised it. This the apostle proves both by former instances, and by the efficacy of the Spirit, which was at this very time exerted on their own minds.

According to the power that worketh in us, — according to what we feel within ourselves; for every benefit which God bestows upon us is a manifestation of his grace, and love, and power, in consequence of which we ought to cherish a stronger confidence for the future. Exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, is a remarkable expression, and bids us entertain no fear lest faith of a proper kind should go to excess. Whatever expectations we form of Divine blessings, the infinite goodness of God will exceed all our wishes and all our thoughts.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

20, 21. Ascription of praise, closing a main section of the Epistle

20. Now unto him] The Father, in Whose “glory” all things terminate. As it is of His essence to demand praise, so it is of the essence of regenerate life to yield it to Him.

that is able] For this phrase in doxology cp. Act_20:32; Rom_16:25; Jude 24. Faith both rests and is reinvigorated in the assurance, and re-assurance, of the Divine Ability, wholly objective to the believer. Cp. Mat_19:26; Rom_4:21; Rom_11:23; Rom_14:4; 2Co_9:8 (a good parallel here); Php_3:21; 2Ti_1:2; Heb_7:25. (In the three last passages the reference is to the Saviour.)

exceeding abundantly] One compound word in the Greek; elsewhere, 1Th_3:10, and (nearly identical) Eph_5:13. Strong expressions of largeness, excess, abundance, are deeply characteristic of St Paul.

all that we ask or think] The word rendered “think” means more specially understand. Cp. e.g. Mat_15:17 and above, Eph_3:4. So the Latin versions here; intelligimus. No narrow logic will be applied to such a clause, if we seek its true meaning. To be sure we can, if we please, “ask for,” and in a certain sense “conceive of,” infinite gifts of grace; though it is to be observed that the phrase is, not “all that we can ask” but “all that we ask.” But the reader who studies the words in their own spirit will not perplex himself thus. He will see in them the assurance that his actual petitions and perceptions, guided and animated by Scripture and by grace, yet always fail to include all that He is able to do, in the range and depth of His working.

according to the power, &c.] The power of the indwelling Spirit. See for a remarkable parallel Col_1:29, where the Apostle speaks of his own toils and wrestlings as “according to that working of His which worketh in me in power.” There he speaks of the present and actual, here of the possible. In the saint and in the true Church resides already a Divine force capable in itself of the mightiest developments. To attain these, not a new force, but a fuller application of this force, is required.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus,.... This is a doxology, or an ascription of glory to God, with which the apostle concludes his prayer; glory is to be given to God on account of his perfections, which are to be celebrated; and on account of the works of creation and Providence, which are to be commended and acquiesced in; and on account of temporal mercies, for which thanks should be given; and especially for spiritual mercies, and above all for Jesus Christ: the glory of salvation, from first to last, is to be ascribed to his free grace; and his worship is to be regarded and constantly attended on; faith is to be exercised on him, as a promising and covenant keeping God; and our lives and conversations are to be ordered aright according to his word; and we are cheerfully and patiently to suffer for his cause and interest, in all which instances he is glorified: and the place where this glory is to be given, is the "church"; for the church, and true believers, only know the blessings and mysteries of divine grace; and they only know how to glorify God aright; and besides, glory must be given to God by believers, not only separately and apart, but conjunctly and together, in a church state; because there the Lord appears glorious, grants his presence, and displays his mighty grace: and this is to be done by "Christ Jesus", or "in" him; and may refer either to the church, which is in Christ; or to him as the medium by whom praise and glory are to be given to God; for all blessings are in Christ, and come to us through him, and he is the only way of access to God; nor can our praises and thanksgivings be acceptable unto God, but through him: and this glory is to be given

throughout all ages, world without end, Amen; for the church will abide for ever, in which it is to be given; the blessings of grace will be for ever dispensing, for which it is to be given; and Jesus Christ, the Mediator, will continue for evermore, by whom it is given: to all which is added the word "Amen", signifying his wish, that so it might be, and his faith, that so it would be.

Next: Ephesians Chapter 4

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

20 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,

Ver. 20. Exceeding abundantly] Gr. υπερ εκ περισσου, more than exceedingly or excessively. God hath not only a fulness of abundance, but of redundance; of plenty, but of bounty. He is often better to us than our prayers.

According to the power] The apostle begins his prayer with mention of God’s fatherly mercy; he shuts it up with a description of his power. These two, God’s might and God’s mercy, are the Jachin and Boaz, the two main pillars of a Christian’s faith, whereon it rests in prayer.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Now unto him - It is not uncommon for Paul to utter an ascription of praise in the midst of an argument; see Rom 9:5; Rom 11:36; Gal 1:5. Here his mind is full of the subject; and in view of the fact that God communicates to his people such blessings - that they may become filled with all his fulness, he desires that praise should be given to him.

That is able to do - see the notes, Rom 16:25.

Exceeding abundantly - The compound word used here occurs only in this place, and in 1Th 3:10; 1Th 5:13. It means, to an extent which we cannot express.

Above all that we ask or think - More than all that we can desire in our prayers; more than all that we can conceive; see the notes on 1Co 2:9.

According to the power that worketh in us - The exertion of that same power can accomplish for us more than we can now conceive.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Now unto him; i.e. God the Father.

That is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think; and therefore is able to stablish you to the end, and do all for you that hath been desired.

According to the power that worketh in us; the exceeding greatness of his power, Eph 1:19; whereby God works faith, and preserves to salvation, 1Pe 1:5, and enables to bear afflictions, 2Ti 1:8.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Vers. 20, 21. DOXOLOGY. The study and exposition of the amazing riches of the grace of God gives birth to an outburst of praise toward the Divine Source of all this mercy, past, present, and to come. Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we can ask or think. In thinking of God it is as if we thought of space however far our conceptions may travel, there is still infinity beyond. Paul had asked much in this prayer, and thoughts can always travel beyond words, yet the excess of God"s power beyond both was infinite. This excess is denoted by a double term of abundance (poihsai uJpenta and uJperekperissou), as if the apostle wished to fill our minds with the idea of absolute infinity of gracious power in God. According to the power that worketh in us, which is none other than the power "which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead". (Eph_1:20) The power that is actually at work in us has only to be exerted a little more to accomplish wonders of sanctification, and confer on us immense spiritual strength. Unto him be the glory in the Church in Christ Jesus, world without end. Amen. To God the whole credit of the scheme of grace and the work of grace as carried out in his people is due ("Not of works, lest any man should boast"); therefore let the Church acknowledge this, and cordially and openly ascribe to God his due. Let this feeling be universally encouraged and cherished in the Church, and let it find in the Church services suitable occasions of breaking forth in song and prayer. Again the apostle"s favorite formula comes in" in Christ Jesus," to denote that this act of adoration is to be done in immediate connection with the work and person of Christ; for it is he who has brought about the whole condition of things from which the act of adoration springs. And this ascription of praise is not transitory; this view of the Divine character and actings will never become obsolete or be superseded by other views; it will claim their cordial ascriptions forever literally, to all the generations of the age of the ages.

Vers. 20, 21.

A great doxology.

The apostle had exhausted all the forms of supplication, and now he casts himself upon the very infinitude of God, which was able to supply more than the thoughts or desires of men could suggest in the sphere of prayer.

I THE THEME OF THE DOXOLOGY. It is no abstract ascription of glory to God; it is one full of hope and cheer to the Church the ability of God to do great things for his people. There is a sort of climax in the language employed: God is able to do what we ask or think; he is able to do above all we ask or think; nay, abundantly above it; nay, exceeding abundantly above all we ask or think; and our thinking is very much wider than our asking. Two things make us strong in prayer a deep sense of need and a strong hope of supply. Perhaps we shall hardly venture to ask some blessings, but we ought to consider that we are either to approach God on our own merits or on the merits of Christ. If we pray for blessing on our own merits, we can hardly be too stinted in our asking; but if on the merits of Christ, we ought not to disgrace God by asking little things on such a wide basis of encouragement. We have, in fact, got a carte-blanche put into our hands by Christ, saying, "Ask what you will, and it shall be done unto you." We are to ask up to our power of thinking, and far beyond it; for "God giveth liberally and upbraideth not?" "Prove me now... if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing that there shall not be room enough to receive it." But Paul says merely that God is "able" to do so; what about his will to do so? We remember, when speaking of God"s ultimate restoration of the Jews, Paul says, "And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be grafted in; for God is able to graft them in again." That is, they shall be, because God is able to do it. Therefore, we shall never have asked too much till we have asked beyond God"s ability.

II THE MEASURE OF THE POWER REFERRED TO. "According to the power that worketh in us." It is not abstract or intrinsic omnipotence, such as merely suggests a possibility that may never pass into a reality. It is a power in actual exercise for the benefit of the Church of God. It is in actual operation even before we have begun to ask or think; it is "the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe;" it is the glorious and surpassing power of God, not only irreversibly pledged, but irrevocably in operation. The principal thing that God does for us is what he does in us. "According to the power that worketh in us." There is a power that worketh for us, in virtue of whose supreme disposal "all things work together for good to them that love God;" but there is a power that worketh in us, to will and to do of his good pleasure, that perfecteth that which concerneth us, keeping us from falling, so that we may be presented blameless before the presence of his glory.

III THE DEBT OF GLORY DUE TO SUCH A GOD. Unto him... be the glory." What shall we not render unto him? Is it not a glorious work he has done? We cannot make him glorious, but we can tell how glorious he is in his gracious and mighty administration. Thine is the glory," said Christ. All glory belongs to him. Many glorious things exist in creation. The sun is glorious, the stars are glorious, even one star differing from another star in glory; but it is God who feeds their wonderful fires. They belong unto Jehovah. "No flesh must glory in his presence;" and the only way not to glory before him is to glory in him. "He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.

IV THE SPHERE OR SCENE OF THIS GLORY. "Unto him be the glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus." "The locality or sphere is the Church, the outward theatre on which this glory is manifested before men;" and "Christ Jesus is" the Minister of this glory to God, the Minister of the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched, and not man, by whom the glory in question is presented with acceptance. In fact, it is in him God manifests the glory of his perfections as the God of grace and salvation; it is through him he shines into our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God. Thus the blessings descend through Christ to the Church, just as all the Church"s service goes up to God through the hands of Jesus Christ.

V THE PERIOD OF THIS GLORY. "To all the generations of the age of the ages." A cumulative expression of great force. This glory is to be given to God during all the ages of time. "His Name shall endure forever; men shall be blessed in him; all nations shall call him blessed;" "I will make thy Name to be remembered in all generations." The stream of time rolls on world without end, but the glory is to continue through all the ages of eternity. "Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, be to him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb forever and ever. Amen.

VI LESSONS TO BE DRAWN FROM THIS DOXOLOGY. Let us not be poor any more in cur supplications; let us not be stinted in asking to the dishonor of his abounding grace. Let us be encouraged to ask by the recollection of the blessings we have already received. Let us show a more signal gratitude for all our mercies. Are not the extent of our obligations and the perfection of the holiness to which they bind us, far beyond our powers of apprehending or appreciating them? and ought they not to leave us with the similar question of bewildered gratitude, "What manner of persons ought we to be? T.C.

Vers. 20, 21.

Doxology.

I HOW GOD IS GLORIFIED. "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." We adore God as able to do for us in answer to our prayers. It is expected of us that we ask, that is, actually desire the blessing, and express the desire. But, beyond all that we ask, there is what we think, that is, what comes into our mind as to what we should desire and express. Now, God is able to do above all that we ask or think. And not only so, but the apostle is so struck with the disproportion between our asking and thinking, and the Divine ability, that he has to add the expression, exceeding abundantly." And then he would have us look to our being answered, not according to our own poor asking and thinking, but according to the power that worketh in us, all our experience of which is fitted to raise our expectation.

II IN WHAT SPHERE HE IS GLORIFIED. "Unto him be the glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus." We are to praise God for what has been done for the Church and for what is gifted to the Church. "And the glory which thou hast given me I have given unto them; that they may be one, even as we are one; I in them, and thou in me, that they may be perfected into one; that the world may know that thou didst send me, and lovedst them, even as thou lovedst me. Father, that which thou hast given me, I will that, where I am, they also may be with me; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world." It is only in Christ that there is the Church, and that it is what it is (being the receptacle of Christ"s glory), and therefore it is only in him that we can praise God for the Church.

III THE TIME DURING WHICH HE IS TO BE GLORIFIED. "Unto all generations forever and ever." Literally it is, "unto all the generations of the age of the ages." There are generations which make up an age; then there are ages which make up the grand age. There is suggested the length of time (beyond our narrow conception) which God has for completing his purpose regarding the Church; and also the length of time thereafter, during which the full-volumed doxology will be chanted to God. It becomes us each to arid our "Amen.

Through all eternity to thee A joyful song I"ll raise; For oh, eternity"s too short To utter all thy praise.

R.F.

Vers. 20, 21.

Exultant praise.

unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, unto him be glory in the Church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen." The passage leads us to consider the subject of exultant praise. Worship is praise; it is a higher service than prayer. It is in truth the highest end and. the completest answer to prayer. In the preceding verses Paul Trays; here he praises. He passes from asking to adoring. The passage leads us to consider religious praise in relation to the Object, the Church, the Redeemer, and the ages.

I In relation to the OBJECT. He is here represented in his absolute and relative capacity for helping man.

1. In his absolute capacity. He is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think.

(1) Men can ask for much. They can ask for ages of blessedness, paradises of beauty and of bliss.

(2) They can think of more. Imagination transcends desires. We only ask for what we desire; but we can conceive of a universe of things which it has never entered into the heart to crave for. But the Divine capacity to give is "exceeding abundantly" beyond the power of asking or of thinking, Nay, it is "beyond all thin g s:" all things that ever have been. It is greater than the universe. All things that ever will be; the possible with God will always be greater than the actual. How great is God"s capacity for helping! What a God does the gospel give us to love, worship, and adore! And yet, strange to say, finite though we be, no God of meaner type could match the measure of our souls.

2. In his relative capacity. "According to the power that worketh in us." Infinite as is his capability to help, his power to help us is determined by the nature and measure of those spiritual aspirations and cravings which the power of his grace within us has produced. Unless we desire knowledge, he cannot enlighten us; purity, he cannot purify us; pardon, he cannot pardon us; spiritual strength, he cannot strengthen us. Our moral contractedness limits his power to help us. His communications will be according to our receptivity. As the indolence of the farmer limits those fructifying influences of nature that would yield to him a golden harvest; as the stolid ignorance and base sensuality of the people limit the influence of the genuine reformer to raise the millions in the social and political scale; as the dullness or idleness of the pupil limits the power of a great teacher to enrich him with the treasures of knowledge; so the moral contracted-ness of the heart limits the power of the Holy One. He cannot do many mighty works for us, because of our unbelief. It is "according to the power that worketh in us" that God"s power to help us is determined.

II In relation to the CHURCH. "In the Church," etc. The Church is a company of redeemed men, part of which is in heaven and part in various portions of the earth. Why does Paul single out the Church to praise and. adore the great God? Because the Church is under special obligations to do so. All things in heaven and on earth, from the lowest to the highest creature, should praise their Maker. "Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord." But the duty of redeemed souls to do so transcends in urgency that of all others. He has not only created them and preserved them, but he has redeemed them, and redeemed them not with "corruptible things such as silver and gold but with the "precious blood of Jesus Christ." For them his only begotten Son became incarnate, suffered, bled, and died. For them the Holy Spirit is in constant operation. "All things work together for their good." None have engaged so much of the Divine attention as they; none have been recipients of such Divine mercies as they; none are so deep in debt as they. Their hallelujahs ought to be more fervid, more enthusiastic, more incessant than any that echo through the hierarchies of heaven.

III In relation to the REDEEMER. "By Christ Jesus." Why should Paul identify the work of the Church with Christ? Why does he ascribe glory to the Eternal by him or in him? Two reasons may be suggested.

1. Through Christ man is made to see the glory of God. He is the Revealer of the moral glory of God to the soul. We beheld his glory," says the apostle, "the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." He himself is "the Brightness of the Father"s glory." Where but in Christ can man see the moral glory of God; the glory not of mere intellect, power, or outward goodness which you have in nature, but the glory of tenderness, mercy, forbearance, purity, rectitude, faithfulness, boundless compassion? Where Christ is not, God"s glory is not seen.

2. Through Christ man is brought into sympathy with the glory of God. "God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." He it is that inspires, enamors, and transports the soul with the glory of God. Human worship must ever be in connection with Christ. "He loved us, and gave himself for us.

IV In relation to the AGES. "Throughout all ages, world without end. Amen." This implies:

1. That God will be forever. Were he not to be forever, worship would not be forever. He is eternal. "From everlasting to everlasting thou art God? "He inhabiteth eternity." "One day with him is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

2. That the Church will be forever. The redeemed will never cease to exist. They are to live from generation to generation, through endless ages.

3. That the reasons for praise will be forever. God"s infinite excellence, his redemptive and fatherly relation to the Church, and the communications of his love are the grand reasons for praise, and these will be forever.

CONCLUSION. What a sublime destiny is that of the redeemed! Genuine religious praise is the heaven of the soul. It is that in which all the powers find sweet employ." It is that which brings the whole spiritual man within the glow and the sunshine of the fatherhood of God. Praise is not the "service of song," as it is called; it is the spirit of life. It is not until all the activities of our being chime in one triumphant and succeeding psalm that our destiny is realized. D.T.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Now to him - This doxology is admirably adapted to strengthen our faith, that we may not stagger at the great things the apostle has been praying for, as if they were too much for God to give, or for us to expect from him. That is able - Here is a most beautiful gradation. When he has given us exceeding, yea, abundant blessings, still we may ask for more. And he is able to do it. But we may think of more than we have asked. He is able to do this also. Yea, and above all this. Above all we ask - Above all we can think. Nay, exceedingly, abundantly above all that we can either ask or think.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

Concluding doxology:

v. 20. 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,

v. 21. unto Him be glory in the Church by Jesus Christ throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.

As in other instances, Rom 11:33-36; Gal 1:5; 1Ti 1:17, the apostle closes this section of his letter with a doxology. He addresses himself to God, who is able to do beyond all, exceeding abundantly above what we ask or think. The program which Paul has outlined is of a nature to make the average Christian hesitate, so much does it embrace. But his reference to the almighty power of the gracious God quiets all doubts. He is able, according to the power which is active in us, of whose greatness we have indisputable evidence, to do and perform in our behalf far more than we can even think of asking for, far more than our feeble understanding can grasp. "I can do all things through Christ, which strengtheneth me," Php 4:13. The miracles which we have experienced in our own hearts and lives in our state of being Christians, since our conversion, are a guarantee to us that God will be able to carry out all His plans and intentions with regard to our salvation and sanctification. The apostle’s prayer will therefore surely not be in vain. And so we join with him in saying: Unto Him be the glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus to all generations of the eternity of eternities. In the Church His glory shall be proclaimed; the entire Church should confess that the praise is not due to men, neither to the apostles and preachers nor to the individual members, but to God alone; therefore His glory shall be forever extolled. And our prayer of thanksgiving rises to the throne of God in Christ Jesus, our Redeemer and Mediator, forever and ever. Here we make but a feeble beginning with our psalms and hymns of praise; the real chorus will sound forth in a mighty, never-ending anthem when we shall join the choirs of the blessed angels and sing His praises, world without end. Amen, that is, yea, yea, it shall be so.

Summary

The apostle praises the grace which was given him in his ministry to the Gentiles, since its object was to collect the chosen children of God in a Church which was to be the pride and delight of God and the holy angels; he prays that the Christians may grow in faith and love and understand ever better the general character and wide extent of the Church of Christ.

Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Observe here, 1. How our apostle closes his prayer with thanksgiving and praise; intimating to us, that praise should evermore conclude that work which prayer began, and that spiritual blessings principally deserve our praises.

Observe, 2. The title which St. Paul’s faith fixed upon, in his approaches to God in prayer and praise; and that is, his omnipotence or almighty power. In all our addresses to God, it is our duty to have such apprehensions, and use such expressions concerning him, as may most strengthen our faith. He is able, saith the apostle,to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we can ask or think.

Note here, The comprehensive fulness of this expression: he is able to do for us, to do abundantly for us, to do exceeding abundantly for us,above what we ask; yea, to do exceeding abundantly for us above what we can think, as well as ask.

O! how narrow, short, and poor are our prayers, compared with the power of God! It is much that the tongue can ask; it is more that the mind can think: but the Lord is able to do for us, not only above what we can ask, but abundantly above what we can think.

Lord, what an everlasting spring of comfort is this! what encouragement doth it administer to thy people! what encouragement to prayer! what encouragement in prayer! They pray to him who is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that they can ask or think.

Observe, 3. That it is not God’s absolute power that St. Paul bottoms his faith in prayer upon, (for God can do many things that he never will do,) but it is his operative, promised, and formerly experienced power.

According to the power that worketh in us; that is, according to that infinite and almighty power which God had exerted and put forth in their first conversion: this power was, and is, a main prop for confidence in prayer.

Learn hence, That the experience we have had of God’s gracious power in working in us, by converting and quickening grace, may and ought to confirm our faith, that he will do exceeding abundantly for us above what we can ask or think, when we are upon our knees in prayer before him.

Observe, 4. The concluding doxology To him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus, throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.

Where note, 1. The divine praise given to Almighty God, namely, that of glory: To him be glory.--Glory is the fountain of all excellency in the creatures; they all shine with beams borrowed from God’s excellences, as stars shine with the light they receive from the body of the sun. Almighty God is that infinitely glorious being, in whom all the excellences and perfections of the creatures are eminently and transcendently found.

Note, 2. The persons giving this glory unto God: the church, To him be glory in the church. True, it is the duty of all reasonable creatures to set forth God’s glory; but only the church (holy and gracious persons alone) can perform it in an active and acceptable manner.

Note, 3. The person through whom this duty becomes acceptable unto God: through Christ Jesus, To him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus.

The duty of praise and thanksgiving is what we owe to God for received favours, and indeed is all we have to pay him; but neither this, nor any other duty, can find acceptance with God, but by and through the mediation of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Note, 4. The duration and continuance of this duty of thanksgiving: Throughout all ages, world without end. As God shall never want glory from his church, so there shall always be a church to the end of the world to give glory unto God, against which the gates of hell shall never prevail.

Note, lastly, In this divine doxology, after what manner, and with what affection, this praise is given, intimated in the word Amen. World without end, Amen.

This Amen, 1. Is a note of assent, and as such used by the Jews and Christians in all ages at the end of their prayers, to testify that they assented and agreed to what was put up to God in their name, and on their behalf.

Again, 2. It importeth earnest desire.

Hence Jer 28:6 said "Amen" to the prophecy of Hananiah, concerning the return of the captives to their land; to show how earnestly he desired that it might be so.

3. It imports steadfast faith that the thing we pray for shall be granted; and accordingly, in testimony of our desire and assurance to be heard, we say, Amen, so be it; So let it be, O Lord, for ever.

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

20, 21. Now unto him. He has offered a prayer, and closes it with a doxology. According to the power that worketh in us. They knew something of the mighty working of the Spirit, and therefore of the Divine power. But God was able to do for them beyond all that they could conceive.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

Connecting Statement:

Paul concludes his prayer with a blessing.

General Information:

The words "we" and "us" in this book continue to include Paul and all believers. (See: Inclusive "We")

Now to him who

"Now to God, who"

to do far beyond all that we ask or think

"to do much more than all that we ask or think" or "to do things that are much greater than all that we ask him for or think about"

translationWords

power

glory

church

Jesus

generation

amen

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

20 f. THE DOXOLOGY

The Vision and the Prayer find their goal in a Doxology, which is at once an adoring recognition of essential facts and the expression of the deepest longing of a grateful heart. Such an ascription of ‘glory’ to God (see Note D on ὁ πατὴρ τῆς δόξης) is the instinctive response of the human heart to any clear token of His presence and working in Nature or in Grace. That presence has now been brought into living and abiding relation to men in the Church on earth as in Christ Jesus in heaven. The acknowledgement of that Presence in the Doxology recalls the vision and strengthens faith and hope in the certainty of the answer that is in store for the prayer. It is a return to the keynote of the Epistle struck in Eph 1:3, when his lips were opened and he spoke blessing God, cf. δύξα in Eph 1:6; Eph 1:12; Eph 1:14.

20. Τῷ δὲ δυναμένῳ. This recalls Eph 1:19, Eph 3:16. The ascription of power to God is found also in the Doxology of Rom 16:25: cf. Jud 1:24, and note the addition of κράτος (Rev 1:6; Rev 5:13) and δύναμις (Rev 4:11, Rev 19:1) in Doxologies.

ὑπὲρ πάντα. ‘More than all,’ ‘beyond everything.’ This phrase is then picked up by ὑπερεκπερισσοῦ ὦν, ‘transcendently beyond what we ask or think.’ The Western reading gives a smoother but less Pauline cast to the sentence by dropping ὑπὲρ.

ὑπερεκπερισσοῦ, governing ὦν, i.e. τούτων ἄ. A characteristically Pauline word, 1Th 3:10; 1Th 5:13; cf. Dan 3:22 (Theod.).

αἰτούμεθα ἤ νοοῦμεν. What we put into words falls short of the image in our mind and that falls short of the reality. Cf. Eph 3:19; Php 4:7 ὑπερέχουσα πάντα νοῦν.

κατὰ τὴν δύναμιν τὴν ἐνεργουμένην ἐν ἡμῖν. ‘The power that is at work—quickened into activity within us.’ Cf. on Eph 1:11. What is to be done for us is in fact to be done ‘in’ us, and the power which is capable of producing the final transformation is already at work, Eph 1:19, Eph 3:7.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

20.] But to Him (δέ brings out a slight contrast to what has just preceded—viz. ourselves, and our need of strength and our growth in knowledge, and fulness) who is able to do beyond all things (ὑπέρ is not adverbial, as Bengel, which would be tautological), far beyond (reff.: ὧν is not governed by πάντα: but this second clause repeats the first in a more detailed and specified form. “It is noticeable that ὑπέρ occurs nearly thrice as many times in St. Paul’s Epistles and the Epistle to the Hebrews as in the rest of the N. T., and that, with a few exceptions (Mar 7:37. Luk 6:38, &c.), the compounds of ὑπέρ are all found in St. Paul’s Epistles.” Ellic.) the things which (genitive as γνώσεως above, ver. 19) we ask or think (‘cogitatio Iatius patet quam preces: gradatio.’ Beng.) according to the power which is working (not passive: see on Gal 5:6: the power is the might of the indwelling Spirit; see Rom 8:26) in us,

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

20, 21. Doxology suggested by the thought of the glorious things prayed for.

20. τῷ δὲ δυναμένῳ ὑπὲρ πάντα ποιῆσαι ὑπερεκπερισσοῦ ὧν αἰτούμεθα ἤ νοοῦμεν. “Now to Him who is able to do more than all abundantly beyond what we ask or think.”

The object of the prayer was a lofty one; but, lofty as it is, God is able to give more than we ask, and even more than we understand. Neither the narrowness of our knowledge nor the feebleness of our prayer will limit the richness of His gifts. Surely a ground for this ascription of praise, which gives a solemn close to the first portion of the Epistle.

ὑπέρ is not adverbial; coming as it does close to πάντα, no reader could take it otherwise than as a preposition; besides, as an adverb it would be tautological. ὑπερεκπερισσοῦ, which occurs again 1Th 3:10, 1Th 5:13, is one of those compounds with ὑπέρ of which St. Paul was fond, cf. ὑπερλίαν, 2Co 11:5; ὑπερπερισσεύω, Rom 5:20; 2Co 7:4. Indeed, St. Mark also has ὑπερπερισσῶς, 7:37. Ellicott notes that of the twenty-eight words compounded with ὑπέρ, twenty-two are found in St. Paul’s Epistles and Heb., and twenty of these are found there alone.

ὧν is not to be connected with πάντα, as there is no difficulty about joining it with ὑπερεκπερισσοῦ, which by the idea of comparison can govern the genitive (i.e. = τούτων ἅ).

κατὰ τὴν δύναμιν τὴν ἐνεργουμένην ἐν ἡμῖν. “According to (or by virtue of) the power that worketh in us.” ἐνεργ. is clearly middle, not passive (as Estius). Onthovius, indeed, defends the latter view, maintaining that ἐνεργεῖται is always passive in the N.T., even Rom 7:5; 1Th 2:13; Jas 5:16 (Bibliotheca Bremensis, Classis 4ta, p. 474). According to Winer, St. Paul uses the active of personal action, the middle of non-personal. Comp. Col 1:29.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Exceeding abundantly [υπερεκπερισσου] . Only here, 1Th 3:10; 1Th 5:13. Superabundantly. One of the numerous compounds of uJper beyond, over and above, of which Paul is fond. Of twenty - eight words compounded with this preposition in the New Testament, Paul alone uses twenty. For the order and construction, see next note.

Above all [υπερ παντα] . These words should not be connected with that, as A. V. and Rev. : "above all that we ask," etc. They form with do an independent clause. The next clause begins with exceedingly above, and is construed with w=n that which we ask, etc. Read the whole, "Unto Him who is able to do beyond all, exceedingly above that which," etc.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.