Others Minded - Husbands

Ephesians 5:25-32

1. The Context

The end of 5:20 - "giving thanks at all times for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God even the Father". New paragraph really begins with verse 21 which sets the stage for the following passage: "submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God, wives to your own husbands in the Lord."

That is, the submission is to be a voluntary response to God’s will in giving up one’s independent rights to other believers in general and to ordained authority in particular—in this case the wife’s own husband. MacArthur

There is a sense in which the context demands mutual submission of husband and wife to each other.

She willingly makes herself subject to the one she possesses as her own husband (cf. 1 Cor. 7:3-4). Husbands and wives are to have a mutual possessiveness as well as a mutual submissiveness. They belong to each other in an absolute equality. The husband no more possesses his wife than she possesses him. He has no superiority and she no inferiority, any more than one who has the gift of teaching is superior to one with the gift of helps. MacArthur

2. The husband

Paul already announced the relationship between the husband and wife - headship. God's notion of headship and the nature of the marriage union as he designed it and as it existed pre-Fall are light years removed from the contemporary ideas of the family. Adam loved Eve before the Fall in the same way "Christ loved the church and gave himself for it". His love for her was sacrificial and influenced every part of his relationship with her, extending even to giving his life for her if required.

Because of the Fall, that sort of sacrificial loving relationship is atypical making it necessary for Paul to instruct his readers, husbands, what they need to recover. Remember what the overarching theme of Ephesians includes - God reconciling his creatures to one another through Christ in the church to the praise of his glory. Reconciliation to one another and restoration of the imago Dei extends to the marriage relationship and repairing it so it is an accurate representation of Christ and the church.

The relationship is to be characterized by love and of the sort Christ displays toward the church as is working out his ultimate goal for her.

Tertullian (ca. 155-230), in his address to his wife, written before he became a Montanist, describes the happiness of a marriage in the Lord in the following glowing terms:—“How can we find words to express the happiness of that marriage which the church effects, and the oblation confirms, and the blessing seals, and angels report, and the Father ratifies? What a union of two believers, with one hope, one discipline, one service, one spirit, and one flesh! Together they pray, together they prostrate themselves, and together keep their fasts, teaching and exhorting one another, and sustaining one another. They are together at the church and at the Lord's supper; they are together in straits, in persecutions, and refreshments. Neither conceals anything from the other; neither avoids the other; neither is a burden to the other; freely the sick are visited, and the needy relieved; alms without torture; sacrifices without scruple; daily diligence without hindrance; no using of the sign {of the cross} by stealth; no hurried salutation; no silent benediction; psalms and hymns resound between the two, and they vie with each other which shall sing best to their God. Christ rejoices on hearing and beholding such things; to such persons He sends His peace. Where the two are, He is Himself; and where He is, there the Evil One is not.” Tertullian, Ad Uxorem, Book II, Chapter VIII

Obviously no mere human can perfectly or fully model Christ's love including his ultimate sacrifice; however, if the husband is attending to his spiritual duties especially with respect to being filled by the Spirit, he will be able to love his wife with the same kind of love Jesus loves his own bride although in lesser measure. The implication is that Paul expected the submission of the wife to be gained by the love of the husband, something which could never be truly accomplished by harsh or forcible means.

As Christ loved the church and died for her while she was yet sinful and undesirable, doing so because it was his Father's will, so, too, should the husband love his wife because it is the Father's will. In healthy and godly relationships God graciously supplies romantic love between husband and wife, but as a complement to love for God demonstrated by love for the spouse. Yes, it is our duty to love our wives, but it is not solely our duty; it is to be our pleasure and delight as well. Stark contrast to the world's view!

God's purpose for the church is her ultimate holiness and he has purposed to do all that is necessary to accomplish that. In so doing, she is a living example of God's grace and power before a watching world. Similarly, the Christian marriage is to be a living example of Christ's love for his people and a "reminder" of how life should be for all mankind. Every human being has a sense of "oughtness", that branch of ethics dealing with how things ought to be in contrast (maybe) with how they are.

Since God has ordained the husband to be the head of the wife, that is, the "responsible one" in the relationship, the husband must take the lead in making sure the marriage is healthy. It is his responsibility to ensure that it is a proper copy of the model, at least insofar as is humanly possible. Even though Paul was to a degree mystified by the oneness of marriage, he still held it up as an attainable goal provided husband and wife live in absolute dependence on the third party to the marriage - Christ himself.

How Christ loved the church and gave himself for her - (see also Eph_5:2)

"The general idea is, that Christ's love led to his self-surrender as a sacrifice. He was no passive victim of circumstances, but in active and spontaneous attachment he gave up himself to death, and for such as we are - His poor, guilty, and ungrateful murderers. ...Jesus gave himself as a sacrifice in its completest sense - a holy victim, whose blood was poured out in his presentation to God." Eadie on Eph 5.2

We think that willingness to die is sufficient for a husband but he probably will only be called to that as a last resort. "When Jesus beckons us to come and follow Him, He bids us to come and die." Dietrich Bonhoeffer The reality is that death is where it starts - death to self, putting his own wishes and desires aside in order to meet the needs of his wife.

"The church did not crave his love: he bestowed it. It was not excited by any loveliness of aspect on the part of the church, for she was guilty and impure - unworthy of his affection. But his love for her was a fondness tender beyond all conception, and ardent beyond all parallel." Eadie on Eph 5.25

The command is to love as Christ loved - whether or not the wife craves it, whether or not she has any loveliness at that particular moment, whether or not she deserves his sacrificial love or not.

This is a self-sacrificial love, a love that impels the one loving to give himself in self-sacrifice for the well-being of the one who is loved. The husband has three other kinds of love for his wife, a love of passion (erōs), a love of complacency and satisfaction (stergō), and a fondness or affection (phileō). All these are saturated with the agapaō love of the Spirit-filled husband, purified and made heavenly in character. Wuest

"Wouldest thou have thy wife obedient unto thee, as the Church is to Christ? Take then thyself the same provident care for her, as Christ takes for the Church. Yea, even if it shall be needful for thee to give thy life for her, yea, and to be cut into pieces ten thousand times, yea, and to endure and undergo any suffering whatever,—refuse it not. Though thou shouldest undergo all this, yet wilt thou not, no, not even then, have done anything like Christ. For thou indeed art doing it for one to whom thou art already knit; but He for one who turned her back on Him and hated Him. In the same way then as He laid at His feet her who turned her back on Him, who hated, and spurned, and disdained Him, not by menaces, nor by violence, nor by terror, nor by anything else of the kind, but by his unwearied affection; so also do thou behave thyself toward thy wife." Chrysostom, Homily on Ephesians 5:25

The love a husband has for his wife is to be an exclusive love - Christ loves the Church as he loves no other. Obviously, for the husband, we are talking in the realm of human relationships; the love a husband has for God is like no other love either. BUT, he cannot pit the love he has for one against the other; he cannot use his love for one as an excuse to neglect his duties toward the other.

Why Christ loved the church and gave himself for her - (see also Eph_5:2)

She was the reward for his suffering. Isa_53:11-12

She was the gift of his Father, her Maker. Joh_6:39 Joh_17:11 Joh_17:24

Most importantly - it was his Father's will that he do so. Joh_4:34 Joh_5:30 Joh_6:38

Since believing husbands are part of the body of Christ, it is his will that husbands properly cherish that other part of his body which is also part of their own body, their believing wife. To mistreat his wife is to mistreat Christ and fail to do his will - remember Paul on the road to Damascus! see Ephesians 5:28-30

Why was it the Father's will? Because He is love 1Jn_4:7-9. Calvin on this text said, "he takes as granted a general principle or truth, that God is love, that is, that his nature is to love men. " And it was to demonstrate that it is his nature to love that he sent his Son that we might live.

To what end Christ loved the church

hina clauses:

that he might sanctify and cleanse her
that he might present her to himself a glorious church
that she should be holy and without blemish

Christ gave up his life that his Bride might be holy. Her holiness and purifying (all under the heading of sanctification) is accomplished through the ministry of the Word.

"That is, this inward ethical purification is accomplished by the Word of God having liberty in the heart of the Spirit-filled believer, displacing sin and substituting in its place, righteousness. The blood of Christ cleanses from actual sin, and thus cleanses the believer. The Word cleanses him in the sense above mentioned, water being a type of the Word of God." Wuest's Word Studies

Husbands do not have the resources to make their wives holy, but they certainly have great responsibility in that department.

"Let us not however be supposed ready to concede, in contradiction to what has been formerly contended, that where the true motive is wanting, the external actions themselves will not generally betray the defect. Who is there that will not confess in the instance so lately put, of a wife and child who should discharge their respective obligations merely from a cold sense of duty, that the inferiority of their actuating principle would not be confined to its nature, but would be discoverable also in its effects? Who is there that does not feel that these domestic services, thus robbed of their vital spirit, would be so debased and degraded in our estimation, as to become not barely lifeless and uninteresting, but even distasteful and loathesome? Who will deny that these would be performed in fuller measure, with more wakeful and unwearied attention, as well as with more heart; where, with the same sense of duty, the enlivening principle of affection should be also associated? ...True practical Christianity (never let it be forgotten) consists in devoting the heart and life to God; in being supremely and habitually governed by a desire to know, and a disposition to fulfill his will, and in endeavouring under the influence of these motives to 'live to his glory.'" Wilberforce, Practical View of Christianity

Everything Christ did during his incarnation (the case could be made that everything he ever has done or will do) represented loving obedience to his Father demonstrated by loving service to the church. He did nothing for himself but rather everything for those whom he came to redeem. But you say, "how can anyone be expected to never do anything for himself?" There's the great irony: our Lord said to his disciples immediately following his conversation with the woman at the well, "The food that keeps me going is that I do the will of the One who sent me, finishing the work he started." John 4:34 MSG

What excited, motivated Jesus, what gave meaning and fulfillment to his life was not doing his own thing, looking out for number 1, but lovingly obeying his Father. Self is never satisfied; Solomon proved that and told the story in Ecclesiastes. If the aim is to satisfy number 1, it will never happen in a lasting way; but if the aim is to satisfy God then we will find rich fulfillment.
Husbands, how can we love our wives as Christ loved the church? First and only by knowing Christ, by being enamored (smitten) with Christ, by loving Christ, by owning him as our Lord, by faithfully following his example of loving service to his Bride. To know him is to love him; the more and better we know him, the more and better we love him. The more and better we love him, the more and better we will love the brethren including our wives - if that is how we are to treat those who are spiritually related to us, how much more so the one who is literally our other half! See 1John 3:11-16.