Ephesians 3:17 – Indwelling Christ
that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love,
Truth to Learn
Christ dwells in the heart of every Christian.
Behind the Words
“Dwell” is from the Greek verb katoikeō, which is made up of kata, meaning “down” used here as an intensifier, and oikeō, meaning “to dwell” or “to reside.” Thus, katoikeō means to dwell permanently. In Greek it represents a distinct difference from paroikeō, meaning “to dwell temporarily.”
The Greek word translated “hearts” is kardia, from which we get the medical term “cardiac” referring to the heart.
The word “rooted” is from the Greek verb rhidzoō, which is based on the noun rhidza (from which we get the botanical term rhizome, meaning “a root”). It is expressed here in the perfect tense indicating past completed action with an ongoing effect, where the emphasis is on the effect.
“Grounded” is translated from themelioō, which is indirectly based on the verb tithemi, meaning “to put in place.” Themelioō means “to put a foundation in place.” This word is also expressed in the prefect tense.
Meaning Explained
Paul is in the midst of worshipping God through prayer. It is a prayer specifically for the Christians in the church at Ephesus, but in general it is intended for all Christians. As we noted in yesterday’s verse, there are five specific petitions contained in this prayer. The first, which we looked at yesterday, was that God the Father would strengthen our inner man; this is to be done by God the Holy Spirit.
The second petition of Paul’s prayer is for Christ to dwell in our hearts through faith. In translating from any language into another language there are situations where the exact meaning of the source language is difficult to express in the target language. This is the case here. It appears from the translation that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith, but then again, He may not. That is NOT what the Greek text says. In fact, in the Greek the verb translated “dwell” is expressed as an infinitive, so a literal translation might be “that Christ to dwell in your hearts …” but that doesn’t make sense in English. This particular infinitive is an aorist infinitive which indicates completed action, so we could actually translate this as “that Christ dwells in your hearts …” Paul is praying to the Father for all those in Ephesus to be born-again Christians.
Notice, also, that from verses fourteen through seventeen Paul is praying to the Father to strengthen by the Holy Spirit and to indwell the believer with Christ (the Son) through faith. All three persons of the Godhead are at work together here in the lives of believers.
Based on the Greek grammatical structure of this and the following verse, the second half of this verse is actually part of the next verse, so we will look at it tomorrow.
Application
Does Christ dwell in your heart (a completed action)? If you have accepted His blood, through faith, as payment for your sins, then He does. This indwelling is not a process; it doesn’t gradually happen. It happened once and for all the moment you believed the gospel message.
In God’s service, for His glory,
Copyright © 2011 Will Krause. All rights reserved.
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