Exploring the Four-Dimensional Love of Christ
Or a Tesseract in the New Testament
A tesseract, also known as a four-dimensional hypercube, is a popular concept in mathematics and in movies such as A Wrinkle in Time, Interstellar and Marvel’s Infinity Wars.
It is “the extension of the three-dimensional cube into four-dimensional space. Just as a cube is built by extending a square into a third dimension, the tesseract is formed by extending a cube into a fourth dimension.”1
A tesseract is not something we can see with our eyes in this three-dimensional world but it exists in mathematics and can be viewed as projection of its shadow. One author describes it as “a living idea — capable of connecting real and imaginary worlds.”2
Perhaps Paul had something like this – a living idea - in mind when he wrote about Christ’s four-dimensional love in his epistle to the Ephesians.
“For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” Ephesians 3:14-19
Here Paul uses the concept of a four-dimensional measurement to help us grasp the love of Christ; to help us connect something real to something, not imaginary, but even more real. John Calvin calls this “the complete perfection of all wisdom.”3
Interestingly in Revelation 21:16, the New Jerusalem is measured using breadth (width), length and height. Here in Ephesians, Paul adds the fourth dimension – depth (or bathos in Greek which can speak of the deep things of God).
In the Expositor’s Bible Commentary, we read of a familiar evangelical thought on these four different measurements:
It is wide enough to include all people of every tribe, tongue and nation.
It is long enough to stretch from eternity to eternity.
It is high enough to reach God’s very throne and lift both Jew and Gentile to heaven.
It is deep enough to reach the dregs of the sinful human heart and redeem it.
It is worth noting that the reason for this prayer of Paul’s is that now, in Jesus, both Jew and Gentile are incorporated into the church. We only fully experience God’s love as a community.
In verse 19 of Ephesians 3, we see that Paul, paradoxically, wants us to know something that surpasses knowledge. The Greek word for “surpass” is hyperballō. It literally means to throw past or beyond. It is not “merely an increase in size, but a qualitative shift into a realm that defies ordinary measurement.”4
The word is used three times in Ephesians.
In Ephesians 1:19 it describes the immeasurable greatness of God’s power that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead.
In chapter 2:7 it speaks of the immeasurable riches of God’s grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus.
In our passage today it tells us of Christ’s love that we may be filled with all the fullness of God.
In true trinitarian fashion this passage speaks of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It is only by the power of the Spirit that we may begin to comprehend what is incomprehensible and that not merely in our head but in our inner being (verse 16).
Like the tesseract, the love of Christ is not something we can see or comprehend in our naturalistic state. However, it does exist and through the revelation of the Spirit of God we may begin to see beyond its mere shadow to its real substance.
Sergio Gevatschnaider, Tesseract: Beyond the Visible Dimension: https://medium.com/@sergiosear/tesseract-beyond-the-visible-dimension-65a4d14c5de9
Ibid.
John Calvin in Commentaries