“Breadth, Length, Depth, Height”
“Breadth, Length, Depth, Height”
By Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones
“May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height - to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:18-19).
“We must remind ourselves that we are dealing, not with our love to God and to Christ and to the brethren, but with His love to us. The terminology used by the Apostle in and of itself suggests vastness. Indeed, our chief defect as Christians is that we fail to realize Christ’s love to us. So let us try to look at it in terms of the dimensions which the Apostle uses.
First, have you ever considered the ‘Breadth’ of this love? There are several places in Scripture where this particular dimension is put before us in a striking manner. In the Book of Revelation we find the words: ‘. . . and have redeemed us to God by Your Blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation’. And again: ‘. . . and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands and thousands’ (Rev. 5:9, 11). ‘After these things I looked and behold, a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb’ (Rev. 7:9). One day, in the glory, we shall see that perfectly. But in a discouraging time like this in the history of the Church, as Christians we are but a handful of people in this country today, a mere small percentage. Nothing is more encouraging and invigorating than to recollect that even in these days of religious declension there are in the world, in every country, in every continent – though differing in color, in culture, in background, in language – men and women meeting together regularly to worship God and to thank Him for His dear Son and His great salvation.
Second, let us attempt to look also at the ‘Length’ of His love. The length surely conveys the endless character of the love of Christ. Have you ever considered the eternity of Christ’s love towards you and towards all the saints? The dimension of length reminds us that this is a love which began in eternity. It was always there. The superiority of the Reformers, the Puritans and the evangelical leaders of the eighteenth century over us is seen in the fact that they were more theologically-minded than we are. The great evangelical leaders of the past saw the importance of theology and doctrine, and they spoke and wrote about what they called the Covenant of Redemption and the Covenant of Grace.
What they meant was this, before time, before the world and man were ever created, an agreement was entered into between God the Father and God the Son. It was an agreement concerning the salvation of those who were to be saved by the Lord Jesus Christ. The Fall of man was foreseen, everything was known; and the Son, as the Representative of this new humanity, entered into a covenant with His Father that He would save them and redeem them. The Father covenanted with the Son to grant certain privileges and blessings to the people who were now given to the Son.
How important it is to meditate upon such a theme. To do so brings us at once to the realization that the love of Christ to His own began before time, away back in eternity. It was there before the beginning of time. Hence we read that our names were ‘written in the Lamb’s book of life from the foundation of the world’ (Rev. 13:8; 17:8). This is, to me, one of the most staggering things of all, that I was known by Christ in eternity. The love of Christ for His own is from eternity to eternity. It began in eternity, and it continues in time. ‘Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and forever’ (Heb. 13:8). And His love is always the same. There is no interruption in it. Whatever may happen, it goes on; it is not variable, it is constant. It is a love that never gives us up or lets us go; it is a love that never despairs of us.
Third, let us look at the ‘Depth’ of His love. As we consider the depth we can do nothing better than to read Philippians chapter 2, where the Apostle shows that the depth of Christ’s love can be seen in two main respects. First, in what He did! In eternity our Lord was ‘in the form of God’. He was God the Son in the bosom of the Father from all eternity. But the Apostle tells us that ‘He thought it not robbery to be equal with God’. That means that He did not regard His equality with God as a prize to be held on to, to be held on to at all costs. Rather He humbled Himself, He divested Himself of those signs of His eternal glory. And He came into this world of sin and shame in the likeness of man, in the form of a man.
Next, consider what He suffered at the hands of men, the misunderstanding, the hatred, the malice and the spite. Think of His suffering from weariness and hunger and thirst. Think of men laying cruel hands upon Him, arresting Him and trying Him, mocking Him and jeering at Him, spitting in His holy face. Think of cruel men condemning Him to death and scourging Him. Look at Him staggering under the weight of the heavy cross to Golgotha. Look at Him nailed upon the tree, and listen to His expressions of agony at the thirst He endured and the pain He suffered. Think of the terrible moment when our sins were laid upon Him. He even lost sight of the face of His Father for the one and only time, and gave up the ghost and died, and was buried and laid in a grave. He, the Author of life, the Creator of everything, lies in a grave. Why did He do all this? The astounding answer is, because of His love for you and me; because He loved us. Such is the depth of His love! There is no other explanation.
His love shows yet greater and deeper when we remember that there was nothing in us to call forth such love. ‘All we like sheep have gone astray’. We all have ‘come short of the glory of God’. In our natural state we were all hateful and hopeless creatures. That we may have some true conception of our actual state and condition, and the depth of His love, let us turn to what Paul tells us about the condition of mankind until the grace of God in Christ laid hold upon us. ‘There is none righteous, no, not one: there is none that understands, there is none that seeks after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that does good, no, not one’ (Romans 3:10-12). ‘But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we still sinners, Christ died for us’ (Rom. 5:8). ‘For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son . . .’ (Rom. 5:10). He did all this for sinners, for His enemies, for those who were vile and full of sin and who had nothing to commend them. That is the measure of the depth of His love. He came from heaven, He went down to the depths and rose again for such people. It is only as we meditate upon these things and realize their truth that we begin to know something about His love.
Fourth, that brings us to the ‘Height’ of His love. By this dimension the Apostle expresses God’s ultimate and final purpose for us. Most of us tend to think of salvation only in terms of forgiveness, as if the love of Christ only purchases for us the forgiveness of our sins. Anyone who stops at that has clearly never known anything about the height of the love of Christ. He died not only that our sins might be blotted out, but also that we might be given a new birth; not merely to save us from punishment, but also that we might be made children of God, sons of God, heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ. Such is His purpose for us, and all He did had that end in view.
His love to us is so great that He has actually joined us to Himself. We are united with Christ, He has made us part of Himself, of His own body. That is why we were ‘quickened with Him’ and ‘raised with Him’ and are ‘seated in the heavenly places’ with Him. In Ephesians chapter 5 he goes on to say: ‘We are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones’. It is His love that has done that for us. He is not only saving us in a spiritual sense, He is even going to save our bodies. He purposes to redeem us entirely, so we look for the coming from heaven of the Savior, ‘who shall change our vile body that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body, according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself’ (Phil. 3:20-21). Have we realized that Christ will not be satisfied until our very body is glorified as His own body was glorified?
Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, “The Unsearchable Riches of Christ: Ephesians 3”