“25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.
28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church— 30 for we are members of his body.
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In 1991 a hard rock/metal band out of Boston released a song that was quite a departure for them; it was an acoustic ballad; it went to number one. ‘Saying, “I love you,” is not the words I want to hear from you. It’s not that I want you not to say, but if you only knew how easy it would be to show me how you feel. More than words is all you have to do to make it real then you wouldn’t have to say that you love me ‘cause I'd already know.’
That song by Extreme was a monster hit. It was and remains particularly popular with the ladies. Part of that popularity could be due to the music video, which heavily features the vocalist and the guitarist in some pretty amazing shirts, but I imagine that its popularity is due more to the message of the song—“if you only knew how easy it would be to show me how you feel.” Men aren’t always the quickest to show the way they feel. The apostle Paul would agree. He calls each husband to words of love and more than words. Every husband is called to show practical love to his wife. That’s the claim of this sermon: every husband is called to show practical love to his wife.
We will study this in two points. First: love your wife. Second: you and your wife are one. We see the call for each husband to love his wife in verses 25-27. We see the reminder that the husband and wife are one in verses 28-30.
First: love your wife. Paul begins this section on husbands with a command to love; “Husbands, love your wives.” Please notice that he doesn’t give the Ephesians a definition of love; he displays it by telling them about Christ; verse 25, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.”
Paul explains love by showing it in action—in Christ’s actions. This display is helpful for us today because, as a wider culture, we have no clear understanding of love. It’s as if love has been set loose and gone made. As GK Chesterton put it, “When a religious scheme is shattered… it is not merely the vices that are let loose. The vices are, indeed, let loose, and they wander and do damage. But the virtues are let loose also; and the virtues wander more wildly, and the virtues do more terrible damage. The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad.” That’s what we see in our culture right now—love gone mad. We might be seeing justice gone mad. In previous ages we saw temperance gone made. These are virtues gone mad.
Paul’s explanation of love by way of Christ gives us boundaries and motivations by which to understand love’s place. The apostle John would say the same, “this is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.” This is the love that a husband is to show to his wife. It is, as Markus Barth explained, “other-directed, creative, [and] self-sacrificial.”
Jesus’ love was other-directed, creative, and self-sacrificial. He was and is interested in his people’s welfare; he makes us a “radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.” He did and does so in creative ways, “cleansing her by the washing with water through the word.” He sacrificed himself for his beloved; “he gave himself up for her.” Husbands are to do the same. Each husband is to show his wife other-directed, creative, self-sacrificial love.
The husband is to give of himself for his wife’s good. He is to step out of himself and think about her. He is to do what Wayne Mack advises when he borrows from the Scriptures in his book Strengthening Your Marriage; he is to affirm her, to satisfy her needs, to protect her, to share his inmost life with her, to refuse to compare her with other women, and to give her first place in his life after Christ. Every husband hearing these words knows he can grow in some if not all of these areas.
We husbands need to be commanded by God to show this love because, by nature, this is not our strong suit. As CS Lewis argued, we men tend to think of loving our neighbor in terms of not giving them any trouble, while women tend to think of loving their neighbor in terms of taking trouble for them. This is one reason that many husbands assume their wives are satisfied as long as she isn’t complaining. “After all, no news is good news.” Paul knew this weakness of men an so commanded us to give other-directed, creative, self-sacrificial love. “Saying, “I love you,” is not the words I want to hear from you. It’s not that I want you not to say, but if you only knew how easy it would be to show me how you feel.”
We husbands do so by imitating Christ. Jesus took initiative in his relationship with the church. He decided to give himself over to death for her good. That required stepping out of his comfort zone. That required him taking trouble for us. “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy.”
Jesus did everything he could to beautify what was wrong with us—“cleansing her by the washing with water through the word and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.” This most likely comes from Ezekiel 16:1-14, which talks about God finding Israel abandoned as a bloody and unkempt woman. He bathes her with water. He covers her with the finest clothes and jewelry. He makes her beautiful. That’s what Christ has done to us. He has cleansed us from our sin. He has changed us by his word and continues to do so. He is working toward our splendor. On the day we stand before him, we will be as verse 27 puts it, “without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.” A husband is to do that for his wife.
Being a Christlike husband doesn’t necessarily mean that you give your wife a better standard of living than her father did. It doesn’t necessarily mean that you give her jewelry every anniversary and a card every Mother’s Day. It means that have a goal in mind for her and that goal is to see her radiant, “without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.”
This final duo, “holy and blameless,” appear at the beginning of Ephesians, “He chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight.” The message here is that you are to want for your wife what God wants for His people. You are to want for your wife what God wants for you.
How are you putting that into practice? In what ways is your wife more like Jesus because she married you? Ask her. That would be a worthwhile conversation to have, and if you ask, listen. In what ways is she becoming more and more the woman God created her to be because God has placed her with you? That would be a valid question for my wife’s Creator to ask me on the final day. I would do well to keep that in mind.
Husbanding a wife is a big responsibility. It takes effort to lean in toward your wife in her weakness and shame to beautify her rather than leaning away from her. It takes effort to work toward her radiance. Other-directed, creative, self-sacrificial words and acts take effort. You might have to spend less time on a hobby you enjoy. You might have to try something new. You might have to give of what you would rather keep. In other words, showing other-directed, creative, self-sacrificial love will require us husbands to act in ways that are actually other-directed, creative, and self-sacrificial. In other words, we will lose some of our lives, but we will find life. Matthew 16:25 applies to marriage too, “whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.”
God wants to teach us husbands something about love through marriage. He wants to teach us all something about love in each of His commands, but here in marriage, He wants to teach husbands something about oneness; we see that in our second point: you and your wife are one. In our sin, we are all radically selfish. Each of us is far more self-absorbed than we will ever begin to understand. I am. You are. None of us is concerned about others in the way we are concerned about ourselves.
Jesus is different. He is so unselfish that he views his people as if they were himself. We saw that at Christmas, “and he feels for all our sadness and he shares in all our gladness.” We see this in the early church. When Jesus’ people were being persecuted and Jesus confronted their persecutor, he didn’t say, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute my people?” He said, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” That’s just verse 30 in action, “for we are members of his body.”
As a husband, I am to think like Jesus. I am to think of my wife as if she were part of me; verse 28, “In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.”
Now I hope this language of loving your wife as if she were yourself sounds familiar. Where else do we hear a command to love someone else as if they were you? This is the greatest command, “love your neighbor as yourself.”
If you are a husband, your wife is your nearest neighbor. You are to love her as if she were yourself. You are to consider her desires as if they were your own. You are to consider her situation as if it were your own. You are to consider her weaknesses as if they were your own. Now we men tend to view weakness with the eye of competition. We see weakness and tend to pounce as if our wives were the opposing team. They aren’t the other team. You are on the same team. You two are one. When you see her weakness and shame, work to beautify it with affection. That’s what Jesus did for you, “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” While the wife was still nowhere near what she should be, the husband loved her. This “other-directed, creative, self-sacrificial,” love in the face of shame and weakness will do far more to produce radiance in our wives than our frequent attempts to fix the problem with advice.
We see a beautiful picture of this in the Grudem marriage. Wayne Grudem has devoted much of his academic career to studying this passage. He has published any number of articles on Paul’s words here and God showed him how to put them into practice for his wife’s good. If you’ve been joining us for The Art of Marriage, you know the Grudems’ story. Dr. Grudem was the chair of the Biblical and Systematic theology department at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School outside a Chicago. That’s a big deal. His wife, Margaret, had been in a car accident years before and was left with debilitating pain. One year a friend of theirs opened up his home in Phoenix for them to use for a getaway. While they were in that arid climate, Margaret found that her pain had lessened significantly. She found it easier to move around. Wayne thought to himself if he had his wife’s body with that pain, he would want to live in a climate like this. “In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.” There was a tiny seminary in Phoenix. It was nothing compared with Trinity. Wayne Grudem moving from Trinity to Phoenix Seminary would be like Tom Brady deciding to start playing football for George-Little Rock. That’s what Grudem did. They moved to Phoenix because he treated her as if she were him. Ask yourself a question—do you think that Margaret Grudem knows that her husband loves her? “More than words is all you have to do to make it real then you wouldn’t have to say that you love me ‘cause I'd already know.’
If you are a husband, your wife’s concerns are your concerns. Her weaknesses are your weaknesses. You two are one. This is why marital strife is so tragic. When each partner makes it their business to hurt the other, they not only hurt someone they love—or once loved—they hurt themselves. You never win an argument with your spouse because you two are on the same team.
You two are one and if that seems laughable given the state of your marriage, remember the miracle marriage is patterned out—Christ’s love for us. Now, no one gets married hoping for marital strife. No one gets married hoping for a lifeless marriage. If as a husband, this is where you find yourself, verse 29 is for you, “no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church—for we are members of his body.” Think about the ways in which Christ nourishes you. He does what is good for your inmost being. His words to you are life giving. Do that for your wife. Think about the ways in which Christ cherishes you. You are his joy and crown. His love for you is jealous because you are his. Treat your wife like that.
Now you might be thinking, “yeah, but she treats me like dirt.” Okay. That doesn’t change your responsibility. Paul didn’t write, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her… that is unless she isn’t treating you well and then treat her the way she treats you.” Remember, while you were still a sinner, Christ loved you and gave himself up for you. You aren’t to treat your wife the way she treats you. You are to treat your wife the way Christ treats you.
If you are going to love a sinner—and you married a sinner just like your wife married a sinner—you are going to need to remember that you’ve been loved in the face of sin and so you must love in the face of sin. To do otherwise is to act like the unforgiving servant in Jesus’ parable. That man refused to forgive a debt of $10,000. Now that might seem understandable until you recognize that he had just been forgiven a debt of $7 billon. You only recognize he’s unmerciful once you recognize that he had received mercy. God has forgiven you your $7 billion debt. How can you not forgive your wife’s $10,000 debt? What you learned as a kid applies to your marriage, “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” God has placed you in a marriage with a sinner to teach you how to become more like Him, the One who loves sinners.
Now it’s likely that your decision to start loving your wife as Christ loves you—in other-directed, creative, self-sacrificial ways, working toward your radiancy, and caring for you as if you were him—will be used by the Spirit to make your marriage better. Your obedience will certainly make it easier for your wife to keep God’s commands to her in marriage and remember that is your goal; you want her to grow in grace. However, you don’t keep God’s commands to you in hopes of changing your spouse. Marriage isn’t designed as a, “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours,” relationship. It is your context for obedience. You are a husband and so you obey by loving your wife as Christ loves you. You are a husband and so you obey by other-directed, creative, and self-sacrificial words and actions that benefit your wife. You don’t do so to change her into what you want her to be for your benefit. You do so because of what Christ has done for you. That’s a Christian husband—a little Christ husband.
Consider what Christ has done for you. Consider what he’s doing for you. He gave himself up for you. He leaned into your sin and took pains for your benefit. He believed that you could be and will be radiant and worked and works toward that. If that does anything inside you, you will want to be the sort of person who does that for others. With that recognition husbands, Christ puts your wife’s in hand in your hand says, “obeying here in this relationship is the way you become more like me.”
Do you know that Christ loves you? How—because he said the three right words? ‘Saying, “I love you,” is not the words I want to hear from you. It’s not that I want you not to say, but if you only knew how easy it would be to show me how you feel. More than words is all you have to do to make it real then you wouldn’t have to say that you love me ‘cause I’d already know.’ If you know Christ loves you, love. Amen.