separated from His Word. "Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly." The Word of

Christ represents His authority, His grace, His teaching.

If the apostle could say to the church at Corinth during the Acts: "What, know ye not

that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost?" he could say to the church at Ephesus,

"Know ye not that your inner man is the temple of the Lord and the shrine of His Word?"

Brethren, do we sufficiently realize our calling? Do we seek enough to turn doctrine

(Eph. 2:) into experience (Eph. 3:)? Has this model prayer been ours recently? or

frequently? Let us, with the apostle, bow our knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus

It would be pardonable for the believer to feel that the prayer which leads up to the

petition "that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith" can reach out no further. Yet this

is not so. Wonderful as the thought is that the Church is the temple of the Lord and that

each individual member may experience this blessedness, this blessing is not to be

desired for its own sake. The second petition of the prayer leads on from this, and from

the inner shrine of the temple reaches out to all saints and to fathomless depths.

The words "in love having been rooted and having been founded" form a connecting

link much in the same way as do the words of Eph. 1: 18, "The eyes of your heart having

been enlightened". The first prayer (Eph. 1:) does not ask that the saints' eyes may be

enlightened, but makes the petition upon the assumption that they have been enlightened.

So in the second prayer (Eph. 3:), "Having been rooted and founded in love" is not a

subject for prayer but a basis for further advance.  The double figure "rooted and

founded", which refers to a tree "rooted" and a building "founded", is employed again in

Col. 2: 7. There the words are "having been rooted and having been built up in Him".

May we once again emphasize the value of comparing Ephesians with Colossians?

Where the idea is that of "founding", the context is that of "dwelling IN US"; where the

active and progressive word is "built up", the context is that of "walking IN HIM".

The prayer in Eph. 3: leads on to "being filled unto all the fulness of God"

(verse 19). The exhortation of Col. 2: leads on to being "filled to the full in Him"

(verse 10). Resurrection power, in other words life in all its fulness, must enter the inner

man before the heart can become the dwelling place of Christ, but love must be the

root-hold and the rock foundation of that one who would go further and know something

of the nature of his glorious Guest.

In the first case love alone will enable us to comprehend with "all saints", for all saints

in themselves are not altogether lovely. Love as well as life moves on resurrection

ground, and it is as those "accepted in the Beloved" that all saints are seen.