24. Husbands Love Your Wives

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Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians

Knowing Your Privilege in Christ

 “Husbands Love Your Wives”

Ephesians 5:25-33 (KJV) 

25Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; 26 That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, 27 That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. 28 So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. 29 For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church: 30 For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. 31 For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. 32 This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church. 33 Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife seethat she reverence herhusband.

OUTLINE

  • Husbands Love Your Wives

INTRODUCTION

This command to the husbands is really more important than the command to the wives. Both are important, but I believe, this one is more important. In this command, there is no looking around as to how the others in the church are loving their wives. This standard for husbands is set and it is permanent. This standard for the husband. This stand for the husband is serious. The husband is to love his wife as Christ love the church. 

  • Husbands love your Wives (v25-33)

25Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; 

Love is the priority for husbands. Authority is not the priority. Following Paul’s instructions to the wives (5:22-24), which state that the husband is the head of the wife, you would have expected him to say next, “husbands are exercise your headship over your wives diligently, just as Christ is the head of the church.” If you were to ask Christian husbands, “What is your main responsibility toward your wife?” you would often hear, “To be the head of my home!” While that is a serious responsibility, that is not what Paul says when he addresses husbands. Rather, he says (literally), “Husbands, be continually loving your wives….” The husband primarily (not the wife) is responsible to set an atmosphere of love in the home. This is a command and in the present tense, active voice. It is to be done continually, habitually.

Material provision is not the priority. Many Christian husbands think that their main responsibility is to provide an increasingly comfortable lifestyle for their wives and children. In fact, they would say that the long hours that they work are an expression of their love for their families. The truth is, many men find it easier to give their wives and children things than to spend time with them and share their hearts with them in deep, loving relationships.

The Bible bluntly states that if a man does not provide financially for his family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever (1 Tim. 5:8). Those are strong words, and we should not disregard them! But, Paul is saying that we must provide our families with basic needs, not with all of the stuff that the world says we need to be happy. Rather, your main responsibility toward your wife is, “Love her!” It’s not easy, but it is your priority.[1]

Today, we have all kinds of fornication, unfaithfulness and adultery. 

And we are reminded in the book of Genesis, marriage has been assaulted formidably from the outside since its inception as it is today. In chapter 4 of Genesis is polygamy. In chapter 9, pornography is born. In chapter 16, adultery. In chapter 19, homosexuality. In chapter 34, fornication and unequal marriages. In chapter 38, incest. In chapter 38 also the first prostitute is mentioned. And in chapter 39 the first specific case of seduction.[2]

God says that this “martial love” is limited to the husband’s own wife, and no other woman. The husband or wife will say, but there is no more romance?

Like most people of both sexes today, many Jewish men in New Testament times looked on marriage only as a means of gratifying their own lusts and of fulfilling their own purposes. Marriage was the accepted means of sexual indulgence and of procreating children, and it also provided a convenient cook and housekeeper. Unlike modern people, however, most Jewish men appear to have been little concerned about romance. 

Romance or biblical love can be a beautiful part of marriage that lasts even through old age. But romantic feelings cannot be the basis for a sound and enduring marriage, because they are largely composed of pleasant sensations toward the other person that are easily subject to change. A sound marriage is based on permanent, unconditional commitment to one’s spouse, even if romantic feelings flicker or are extinguished altogether. If romantic feelings are the basis of a marriage, when a spouse begins to lose attractiveness, the other’s attention is turned to someone else who seems more promising and exciting. When one romantic fling after another is pursued, emotional burnout is inevitable. Such a superficial relationship cannot last long and never achieves the expected fulfillment. Each successive failure brings less satisfaction and more disappointment, disillusionment, and emptiness. The collective result, as seen so dramatically and tragically in modern society, is a generation of disoriented, lonely, isolated, untrustworthy untrusting, and emotionally bankrupt misfits looking for the next arousing sensation.”

It is more difficult being a husband than being a wife in this situation. The husband has to continuously love his wife with the same standard of love that the Lord Jesus Christ has, as He loves the church. What kind of love is that?  “Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for it.” That word for “gave” means “to deliver up one too custody, to be judged, condemned, punished, scourged, tormented, put to death.” That is what the Lord Jesus did for the sins our sins. That is the measure, that is the standard given in the Bible as a measure by which Christian husbands must love their wives. That standard will never change. It is an infinite standard which can never be fully met by any husband who ever lived. Man must love their wives to such an extent that you would be gladly willing to die for them, in their place, if necessary. If you are not willing to die for your wife, you are not loving your wife “as Christ lived the church and gave Himself for it.”

26That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, 

This is the purpose for Christ’s death. This is why the Lord Jesus died for the believers. He separated the Church of believers unto Himself so that He might “sanctify and cleanse it”. He wants us clean He does not want us to be dirty, filthy Christians. That comes when we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. That cleansing is by the “washing of water by the Word.” The Word of God cleanses. That is the water of life, the Samaritan woman was seeking, the living water that is the water that Nicodemus imbibed to be born again. This word here is reference to the spoken word, as it is preached sound and straight right from the Bible we experience the “washing” of the Scriptures.

27That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. 

The Lord wants the church to be present to Himself. We are considered to be the bride, and Jesus is considered to be the bridegroom. In Heaven, the saved one are going to be presented as a glorious church. He wants us not to have “spot or wrinkly or any such thing.” The church should be “holy and without blemish”. We have spiritual spots and wrinkles over us that require cleansing. 

28So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. 

The standard is that believing husbands are to love their wives as they love their own bodies. We do not purposely harm our own body. Some men abuse their own body by using alcohol, smoking, using drugs and even having unhealthy eating habits. We, normally, want to help our body. If we are hungry, we feed our body, if we are thirsty we drink so that our body is satisfied. If we are cold, we put on some warm clothings. If we are warm, we turn on the air conditioning. There is no man in his right mind who wants to hurt his own body. Then why hurt our wives? She is a part of us. God has made the two to become one flesh (Gen. 2:24; Matt. 19:5-6; Eph. 5:31). This one flesh is not only in the physical sense, a sexual relationship but also in every other sense both spiritual and physical. Our wives are part of us, and we ought to love them as we love our bodies.

29For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church: 30For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. 

The word “nourish” refers to physical, spiritual and in every other way. It means to nourish up to maturity. The Lord Jesus wants His children to be brought up into maturity. That word for “cherish” means to warm, to keep warm. The husband is to keep the wife warm spiritually as well as physically. It says in Scripture that she is a weaker vessel (1 Peter 3:7).

1 Peter 3:7 Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with themaccording to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered.

31For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. 32This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church. 33Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife seethat she reverence herhusband.

Close with this testimony, “Some years ago I heard the story of an elderly minister who had been married for fifty years. One morning at breakfast his wife slumped over the table, unconscious. By the time her husband got her to the hospital she was dead. After the funeral he said to his sons, “This is a good day, a wonderful day.” When they asked what he meant, he explained, “Well, I know she is with the Lord now. And I am glad she went first. That’s the way I wanted it to be, because I didn’t want her to have the grief of burying me and of having to live alone.”

Some years later that minister was asked to speak at a feminist meeting on the subject of marriage. He recounted his wife’s death and his gratitude that she had died first. “Listen,” he told them, “anybody who knows the meaning of true love always wants the other person to go first, because they don’t want them to endure the pain and the sorrow and the anxiety and loneliness of burying the one they’ve loved. I daresay that the modern romantic relationships that try to pass for love are a far cry from that kind of feeling and that kind of reality.” He was right.

Most people, including many Christians, know little of the self-giving, self-committing, and self-sacrificing love that knits two souls together for a lifetime of sharing and happiness. Instead of the rich, deepening, meaningful, and thrilling friendship that only such love can bring, they settle for a cheap, shallow substitute that fluctuates with every mood and that is doomed from the beginning to be disappointing and short-lived. A relationship that is built only on pleasant emotions and good feelings will soon die, because those emotions and feelings are built on circumstances and on superficial and selfish expectations. But amazingly, a relationship that is built on loving commitment and self-giving concern for the other person will produce emotions and feelings that not only do not die but grow richer and more satisfying with every year. Feelings are a poor foundation for marriage, but they can be a wonderful, glorious by-product.

The committed marriage is the only happy and enduring marriage. When two Christians love each other for the other’s sake rather than their own and live their lives in humble submission to God’s Word and to each other, a bond is formed that can withstand every temptation, disappointment, and failure that Satan and the world can hurl against them. They become lovers and friends in a way that the unbeliever and the disobedient Christian can never know. In sharing everything together, they forge a friendship that knows no limitations, no bounds, no secrets, and no conditions.

Like the disciples, some Christians today seem afraid that lifelong, unconditional commitment would destine them to a life of boredom and frustrating restrictions. They conclude with the Twelve that it is therefore simply better not to marry. But God planned and designed marital commitment to bring just the opposite. No marriage can be happy and satisfying, much less enduring, without it. God blesses a committed union in ways that a single person, or an uncommitted husband and wife, can never experience and hardly imagine. Far from being a reason to avoid marriage, lifelong and loving commitment is the very thing that makes it most fulfilling and desirable.

Obviously, a Christian’s marriage partner should be chosen carefully and with much prayer. Marriage commitment should only be given to a person who shares one’s spiritual values and commitments. But there is no human joy or fulfillment that can measure up to that which is experienced by a husband and wife who love Jesus Christ and each other and who live together in obedience to His Word and in the power of His Spirit.”[3]

CONCLUSION

Wives submit, husbands love. This is the biblical pattern, blueprint for success in marriage. May we learn well these truths that our marriages, families, may indeed be a testimony to the world. 

[1] Steve Cole, Do you really love your wife?, 2008, 2-3. 

[2] John MacArthur, God’s Pattern for Wives Part 1 & 2, 1996.

[3] MacArthur, J. F., Jr. (1985). Matthew. MacArthur New Testament Commentary. Chicago: Moody Press.