In our last post we demonstrated that the priority of the husband toward his wife is to help her flourish. We ended that article with the last and most important way a husband helps his wife flourish, and that is, to love her, “as Christ loved the church” (Ephesians 5:25). I wanted to give this topic its own post because it is so important.
As we unpack the main passage that calls husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the church, we discover there are three directives essential to remember.
A Husband Is To Love His Wife Like Christ By Sacrificing For Her.
In verse 25 we read: “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her....” Jesus Christ humbled Himself by taking on flesh and being born in the likeness of man so that He could live, die, and be raised in the place of His bride. Though he could have said, “The penalty for the sins of sinners is not mine to pay, I don’t deserve this, and I deserve not to do this!” Yet, He was willing to suffer so that His bride, whom He loved (wanting her to flourish in the greatest of ways) could be saved.
It is, however, easy for husbands to ignore this. After all, why should we want to love our wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her? This goes against so much of what we naturally want and what our culture tells us. Where we find help is by seeing that are a number of deep, strong motivations given in Ephesians.
1. God Commands It.
Since Paul is “an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God” (1:1), and Paul commands husbands to love in this way, it means our Lord is commanding husbands to do this. Men should do it if we have a reverence for Christ (5:21).
2. It Glorifies God.
Since God saves for His glory (1:6, 12, 14) and marriage give a picture of the gospel behind that salvation (5:32), husbands must realize just how important their love of wife is. It accomplishes the greatest and most lasting of purposes.
3. It Fits With New Life.
When God effectively calls us to salvation and transforms us (4:1), this enables the Christian to live like the new man they are, that is, like Jesus Christ (4:22-24). When we live in this manner, it also demonstrates the worth of God, as was seen in the previous motivation.
4. It Is Part Of The Spirit Leading Husbands.
After Paul highlights how husbands have been changed in Jesus Christ—including the fact they are the temple of God (chapters 1-3), he exhorts them to walk worthy of God (4:1), and to allow the Spirit of God to fill them, as God’s glory filled the Old Testament temple (5:18). This means they allow the Holy Spirit to lead and to be in control of their lives. The call to love wives is a direct outcome of all this (5:25-27).
5. It Addresses The Heart Of A Man.
God has designed men to flourish when they are strong and courageous (Joshua 1:9; 1 Corinthians 16:13). So, if men keep their focus on what all their sacrificial love for wife accomplishes, even beyond her own flourishing, it motivates the man to be the one who goes without something if someone must, works the extra hours before the wife does, helps her with work around the house, and wants to fulfill all his responsibilities.”
It is one thing to focus on these motives and to offer a few examples of sacrificial love, but what are the main ways a husband sacrificially loves? This is revealed in verses 26-27.
A Husband Is To Give Priority To His Wife Knowing God.
In verse 26 we read that a husband is to love sacrificially his wife, as Christ loved the church for this purpose: “that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word....” (26) Jesus gave himself for His bride that she would be cleansed and justified (1 Cor. 6:11), as well as set apart to live for and to serve God, in other words, that she would be saved (Acts 16:31). Husbands should pray for their wife to be saved, if he is not sure about that, should commend the gospel to her through his love for her, and should look and pray for open doors to share the gospel with her (Col. 4:3).
The second way that Paul says a husband sacrificially loves has to do with his wife’s growth in Christ.
A Husband Is To Give Priority To His Wife Growing In Christ.
In verse 27 Paul uncovers the second key purpose for a husband sacrificially loving and it is this: “so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.”
Here Paul uses the picture of a wedding when a bride stands before her husband in all her beauty as the future goal of the ultimate bridegroom, Jesus Christ for His bride. Unlike most husbands who have nothing to do with their wife’s beauty, Jesus Christ must make His wife, the church, beautiful (cf. Psalm 149:4) and this to redound to His glory. This is another way of saying that Jesus Christ lived, died, and was resurrected in the place of His bride that she might someday be sanctified in the ultimate sense when she is in His presence.
The model this sets for the husband is that he should be praying for, caring for, and sharing God’s Word with his wife for the sake of her sanctification (her becoming more like Jesus Christ: 2 Cor. 3:18).
Husbands, this passage sets a high bar for you as the head of your wife. However, as Paul says elsewhere in the letter to the Ephesians, you can be strong in the Lord Jesus Christ and the strength that comes from His might (6:10), remembering that you are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works (which includes loving your wife as Christ loved the Church) which God has prepared beforehand that you can walk in them (2:10).
Joyously Loving Like Christ With You,
Tom
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