Paul prays in Ephesians 3:19 that believers might “know the love of Christ which passes knowledge.” At first, the words seem contradictory. How can we know something that surpasses knowledge?

Paul is not saying that Christ’s love cannot be known. He is saying that it cannot be known exhaustively. We can know the love of Christ but never come to the end of it.

In the previous verse, Paul prays that believers might comprehend “the width and length and depth and height” of Christ’s love. It is as though he invites us to measure something that cannot be fully measured. We can explore its width, descend into its depth, rise toward its height, and trace its length, but we will never reach its boundaries.

The love of Christ is not unknowable because it is hidden. It surpasses knowledge because it is inexhaustible.

We see that love most clearly at the cross. Christ “loved us and gave Himself for us” (Ephesians 5:2). The cross gives us a concrete revelation of His love, but even there the depths remain beyond our full comprehension. We can know what He did for us without ever fully comprehending the magnitude of the love that compelled Him to do it.

There is also a difference between knowing about Christ’s love and knowing Christ’s love. Paul is not merely praying that these believers would accumulate more information. He is praying that the reality of Christ’s love would become increasingly real to them—that it would shape the way they see themselves, the way they see others, and the way they live.

The Christian life is therefore a lifelong discovery of a love we can never exhaust. The newest believer can know it, and the most mature believer can still discover depths in it that he has never known before.

We can know the love of Christ truly, but never completely.

His love can be experienced without being exhausted, known without being mastered, and explored without ever reaching its boundaries.

There will never come a day when we have learned all there is to know about the love of Christ. There will always be more than more. ©

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