Author Tim Challies recently wrote an article entitled “If Satan Took up Marriage Counseling.” In it, he gives several pieces of horrible marriage advice that are common currency in our society today—all against God’s word, all promising immediate happiness, and all leading to disaster. One of the pieces of “advice” that jumped out is this:

If Satan took up marriage counseling, he would want husbands to be passive in their leadership and wives to be so disappointed in that lack of leadership that they feel justified in failing to respect their husbands. He would want wives to determine that submission is a mark of weakness and that if it is given at all, it should be given only when it is earned. He would want husbands to treat their wives harshly instead of gently and to express constant disappointment rather than delight.

In other words, Satan would attack the very truths the Holy Spirit lays down in Ephesians 5:25-33. In its place, he would feed the natural inclination we all have to look out for “Number 1” in our own different ways. And that would feel good for a while, and maybe even bring some short-term payoff. But the story wouldn’t be pretty over the long run. 

In a previous blog post, we looked at God’s call to wives—the mission, the task he’s given them in their relationships with their husbands—in Ephesians 5:22-24. In a word, their call is to submit to their husbands’ leadership. 

We’ll now be looking at verses Ephesians 5:25-33 and God’s call to husbands, a call that’s equally straightforward. Verse 25: “Husbands, love your wives…” Straightforward, yes. Simplistic, easy? Not a chance. But, as you’ll see, this difficult path God has called husbands to walk is the path to joy—and a path that tells us a lot about the beautiful love that Jesus has demonstrated to his people, the Church.  

Let’s break this basic call to love under three headings. 

1. The Call to Lay Down Your Life. 
2. The Call to Care. 
3. The Call to Live as One. 

The Call to Lay Down Your Life (v. 25)

If you’ve watched sitcoms at all over the last 25-30 years, you’re familiar with how the husband is usually portrayed. He’s dumb, slovenly, gullible, unkempt, inept, lazy, and about as romantic as a two-by-four. He wants to be left to himself, hanging out in the man cave or the garage or down at the pub, removed from the rest of the family except for the snippets he comes around for his own purposes. 

Unfortunately, there is some truth behind this stereotype. Ever since Adam abdicated his duty to honor and protect his wife in Eden–and then blamed her when things came crashing down–husbands have had a tendency to care more for themselves and their comfort than for that of their wives. 

This was definitely the case in the Roman world Paul inhabited. Often, husbands used wives only for children, housekeeping, and maintaining order around the home in order to improve the husband’s prestige. In the meantime, he would pursue his other vocational, social, and romantic interests away from the home. 

Against this cultural narrative, the terms of the call for husbands hit with the force of a sledgehammer. Look at verse 25 with me: “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” 

Let’s take this a piece at a time. Paul begins by saying, “Husbands, love your wives…” In writings from the prior few centuries, philosophers and ethicists in the surrounding cultures would sometimes agree that husbands should love their wives. For instance, one writer said: “Love your wife, for what is sweeter and better than when a wife is lovingly disposed to her husband into old age, and husband to his wife, and strife does not split them asunder.” Another wrote: “In marriage there must be above all perfect companionship and mutual love of husband and wife, both in health and in sickness and under all conditions.” 

But here’s the thing. There are four words for love in Greek. One, eros, refers to romantic love or sexual desire. Storge and phileo refer to the love of family or friends. Those words, or similar notions, were used in the instructions of those writers. 

However, the fourth word for love, agape, became the watchword for early Christians. This love is of qualitatively different. According to scholars, agape means love:

“…that is totally unselfish, that seeks not its own satisfaction, nor even affection answering affection, but that strives for the highest good of the one loved…It means not only a practical concern for the welfare of the other, but a continual readiness to subordinate one’s own pleasure and advantage for the benefit of the other. It implies patience and kindliness, humility and courtesy, trust and support. This love means that one is eager to understand what the needs and interests of the other are and will do everything in his power to supply those needs and further those interests.” 

Guess which word for love Paul uses in verse 25? Yep, agape. A love that submits its own desires–and even needs–to those of another, in keeping with Paul’s instruction regarding mutual submission back in verse 21. This is the love of laying down your life. 

To make clear what he’s getting at, Paul continues: “…as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” 

You know what that means, don’t you, fellas? Wives are called to submit. Husbands are called to die. If this doesn’t make you at least a little weak in the knees, you probably aren’t understanding what Paul is saying. This verse means that you have no right—zero—to put yourself first. You’re not. You’re the leader of your home, absolutely. But you’re the lead servant as well.  

Brothers, your goal in your marriage isn’t to serve yourself. That is, of course, the nature of all healthy relationships. But because marriage is the most intense human relationship we can have, this principle is amplified, and husbands are supposed to take the lead. You’re not always going to get what you want. 

Sometimes, you’re going to have to say no to a night out with your buddies. 

Sometimes, you’re going to have to delay a fun purchase you were wanting to make.

Sometimes, you’re going to be the one doing the dishes or changing diapers or staying up with a sick kid. 

Sometimes, it simply means practicing a greater awareness of what’s going on around you at a societal level or in the physical area to make sure you’ve got your wife’s back. Not because she’s foolish or naïve, but because you are her protector. If there’s a bullet to be taken, you’re the one to take it. 

You’re the one to make the sacrifices first for your family. If somebody doesn’t get the best-looking steak tonight at supper, guess what? You better pull out the A-1 sauce, because your steak’s going to need some help. If someone needs to go above and beyond, you’re the one for the job. And that won’t always be fun. But it will be good. In fact, it will, in some small way be a picture of just how much Jesus loves his people. 

Dr. J. Robertson McQuilkin was, for many years, the president of Columbia Bible College and Seminary. He was a renowned speaker and author.  However, that didn’t last. His bride, Muriel, suffered with Alzheimer’s for the last twenty years of her life. Dr. McQuilken gave up his presidency and pretty much everything else to care for her and love her during this difficult time. He penned a memoir of these two decades together entitled A Promise Kept. He writes:

“Once our flight was delayed in Atlanta, and we had to wait a couple of hours. Now that’s a challenge. Every few minutes, the same questions, the same answers about what we’re doing here, when are we going home? And every few minutes we’d take a fast-paced walk down the terminal in earnest search of—what? Muriel had always been a speed walker. I had to jog to keep up with her!

An attractive woman sat across from us, working diligently on her computer. Once, when we returned from an excursion, she said something, without looking up from her papers. Since no one spoke to me or at least mumbled in protest of our constant activity, “Pardon?” I asked.

“Oh,” she said, “I was just asking myself, “Will I ever find a man to love me like that?”  

If you lay down your life like that for your wife, do you really think her submitting to you will ever be an issue? Probably not. 

So, that’s the first way husbands love their wives—by laying down their lives for them. Now, let’s take some time and look at “The Call to Care”. 

The Call to Care (v. 26-32)

I recently listened to a book called Standing in the Fire by Tom Doyle. It’s a collection of stories from Christians living in parts of the Muslim world where being a follower of Jesus is extremely dangerous. 

One of the people chronicled in the book was a young lady named Sunni (not to be confused with the Sunni sect of Islam). She had been married four or five times—I lost count—and divorced as many times. One husband divorced her because she couldn’t bear children. Another, because she was vaguely “displeasing” to him. Another very wealthy husband turned out to be a sex trafficker and tried to force her into prostitution. 

Her life sounds a lot like the lives of many—probably most—of the wives living in the Roman Empire at the time of Paul’s writing. Husbands treated wives as disposable and only valuable insofar as they completed their assigned tasks. And at any moment, a husband could move on to someone more to his liking. 

Paul, however, is having none of it. Look at verses 28-29a: “In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it…” 

Okay, before we get into what Paul is saying to husbands here, look again at how he builds out his argument. He says, “In the same way…” The same way as what? 

Look back first at verses 25-26, so that you can see the flow of Paul’s thought: “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word…”

So, Jesus gave himself up—went to the cross—for the church “that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word.” “Sanctify” is a key word here. It means “to set something or someone apart.” In the New Testament, that term is sometimes used to refer to a process—the Holy Spirit making us more like Jesus, i.e., “setting us apart” to be like Jesus. However, “sanctify” is sometimes also used to refer to a one-time event; God setting us apart for himself through the Spirit’s power when we come to faith in Jesus. That’s how it’s being used here.

And how did he sanctify his people? “…having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word.” Some scholars think this is a reference to baptism, though it’s more likely that Paul is using that phrase “washing with water” metaphorically, as he does elsewhere. It’s an image of cleansing, which both Jewish and Greek believers would be familiar with from both ordinary life and from religious practices in both cultures. The key phrase here is “…with the word.” What word? In context, the gospel. So, through people hearing and believing the gospel, they have been cleansed of their sins and been set apart and declared righteous because of what Jesus did for them. It’s a description of sinners being saved, rescued. 

And this is all going somewhere–it isn’t just a pleasant theological truth; it has a goal. Verse 27: “…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.” The whole point of what Jesus does here is to facilitate the relationship between him and his people.  

We’re all familiar with the concept of a bride going to great lengths to look her best on her wedding day, right? Here, though, the groom is the one preparing his bride in order to present her to himself.  She can’t make herself beautiful for him—it’s something only he can do. 

Here, Paul is borrowing from an image found in Ezekiel 16:1-14. There, God describes how he found Israel, desperate and weak and headed toward death. He took her in and loved her and beautified her and made her his own. Paul is saying that God-in-the-flesh, Jesus, has done the same thing now with his church. But there’s a key difference: in Ezekiel, the bride (Israel) was faithless and used her beauty to run from her Lord. The church, however, by the Spirit’s power, continues to stay true to Jesus. He makes his bride holy and without blemish—a beauty that will only fully be revealed on the last day. He spares no expense to provide the tender care and affection she needs. This is the hope for God’s people—individually and corporately. Not that we’re good or strong or perfectly faithful. Our hope is that we’re the object of our Savior’s perfect care. 

And it’s this picture that’s to inform how husbands are to care for their wives. Let’s start again with verse 28 and go through 30: “In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it…” 

As Paul is about to explain, husband and wife constitute “one flesh.” (More on that in a minute.) So, Paul reasons, for a husband to love his wife is, in a real sense, to love himself. 

Guys, my guess is that you’re at least somewhat partial to your body. Yes, there are men that commit self-harm, and none of us do as good a job caring for ourselves as we could. But Paul is speaking of normal experience here. And our normal experience is that we take care of ourselves; we jealously guard our own welfare. We eat healthy food, we drink plenty of water, we exercise, we bathe (I hope), we groom ourselves. We nourish and cherish ourselves. And Paul says that we’re to care for our wives with the same commitment that we do ourselves. Not with crossed arms. Not with complaint. But willingly, joyfully, gently. 

Husbands, I’ve never heard a wife say, “My husband loves me too well. I sure wish he wouldn’t nourish or cherish me with such care.” Nope. Every husband has work to do in this area. 

But what does this entail practically? What does it mean to care for your wife? This list is by no means exhaustive because caring for your wife can take a thousand different forms. But this will at least provide a framework for us: 

First, it means that you don’t reduce your relationship to a transaction. Sunni, who I discussed a moment ago, had all her physical needs met, especially with the sex trafficker. I’ve counseled more than one wife who drove a nice car, lived in a beautiful home, and had a husband with a six-figure income. But they were miserable, because their husbands didn’t really care anything about them as people. The physical care these men provided wasn’t really an outpouring of love; it was just a transaction. By all means, husbands, provide your wives. But don’t let that be a substitute for actually loving them. 

Second, it means you know your wife and what she needs. That sounds like a no-brainer, doesn’t it? But this is a continual process, and one some guys aren’t very good at. In fact, a lot of guys know more about their favorite sports teams or hobbies than they do about the day-in, day-out of what their wife experiences, thinks, and feels. We should be constantly learning about our wives. I once heard a speaker say that men should be continually working on a PhD in their wives—a lifetime of study. We have to think, pray, plan, and outright ask our wives about what they want, what they need, what they dream about, what they fear. Their responses can be as mundane as “I really do want hardwood instead of carpet in the bedrooms” to as far-reaching as “I am afraid I won’t be the grandmother I should be.” Either way, you need to know these things.

And doing that is going to cost money for dates and trips. It’s going to take time and focus to listen well. It’s going to take commitment and wisdom to respond to what you hear in a godly fashion. I don’t always do those things well, and I’m guessing you don’t, either. 

Third, it means that you’re making your wife better. Because of the leadership you model and the safety you provide and the atmosphere you help create, your wife is growing in maturity, in grace, in love for Jesus and others. She is becoming better because of her relationship with you, not in spite of it. Now, listen carefully. This one can be tricky, because we’re all mixed bags. You’re both a good influence and a bad influence on people at times if you get to know them very well at all. So, I’m not talking about perfection here. I’m talking about a general trend of your wife becoming a better woman for being married to you—and not just because she’s getting a lot of practice at patience! Furthermore, maybe you know you’ve blown it—your wife has not gotten better because of you. Okay. Own that. Today is the day to repent and know that God loves working through repentant guys who are prone to messing things up! If you need to apologize to your wife about some things, do that today. And get one or two godly men that you trust to help you become the man God has called you to be in this area. 

This is just a bit of what it means for husbands to care for their wives. Husbands, how will you apply these things in your relationship with your wife? 

Now, as Paul wraps up this text, he takes us again from the height of theological profundity down to the street level of how husbands and wives relate. Let’s look at that now, briefly.  

The Call to Live as One

Look with me again at verse 29, particularly the last phrase: “For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church…” 

Did you catch that? “…just as Christ does the church…” No matter where Paul takes his conversation with husbands about their duties to their wives, he never gets far from discussing Jesus and his people. He knows this is the key for how husbands should love their wives. 

So, it’s important that we understand what he says next in verse 30: “because we are members of his body.”

As he’s said early in this letter and keeps coming back to in his other writings, Paul keeps driving home this metaphor of the church being united to Christ. “We are members of his body.” If you’re a Christian who knows much of the New Testament, or if you’ve been around church much, it’s easy to grow numb to this reality. The church isn’t simply a group of Jesus’ followers, and he’s not some guru sitting up on a mountain, cross-legged and remote, like we might envision an Eastern guru. No, he identifies himself with us. This is why, when Jesus confronts Paul on the road to Damascus because he had been persecuting believers, he says, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” Not “my people.” “Me.” We aren’t him, and he isn’t us, but we’re connected in a way that defies verbal description. 

To help illustrate this, Paul calls forward the closest analogy there is to this kind of unity. Verses 31-32: “‘Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.”

So, here’s what’s going on. Jesus’ connection with–his relational oneness with–his church provides us with the foundational picture of how husbands are to view and love their wives. And in turn, the unity a husband and wife are to experience is to be a mirror—limited and imperfect as it is—of the way Jesus loves his people. 

Like I said, this is high, high theology. It is a profound mystery, as Paul calls it. But high theology doesn’t keep us from the business of living. In fact, it informs it. In verse 33, Paul brings us back down to street level, wrapping up this section: “However, let each one of you love his wife as himself and let the wife see that she respects her husband.” 

It’s interesting how Paul nuances what he says in the Greek. The command is actually a bit softer toward the wife than the husband. Paul is reminding wives of their call in a gentle, respectful manner, but he is kind of getting up in the face of the husbands. In a loving, brotherly fashion, he is pointing a finger in their chests saying, “Every one of you…listen to what I’m saying: LOVE YOUR WIFE.” In a culture that practically worshiped the status of men and gave them carte blanche to do whatever they wanted, Paul had to be especially direct. 

Husbands, we are to love our wives as we love ourselves. We are to live as one. This means that we think about their welfare continually. We are bound to them at the level of affection, at the level of action, at the level of commitment. Ever since the fall in Eden, we men have tended to do our own thing, go our own way, and to blame the one God has given us as our companion, our helper. And now, God is calling us to go in the other direction—not to walk away from our wives, but to walk with them, as one. 

Beloved, this is precisely what Jesus has always done for us. Though he had every right to walk away from us, he never did. Instead, he has loved us by laying down his life for us, taking our sins upon himself. He has loved us by caring for us—nourishing and cherishing us—even when we’re fickle and sinful (which is true even on our best days). He has loved us by living as one with us, filling us with His Spirit and identifying himself with us, committing himself to us in a way that the best marriage is only a faint picture of. 

May God use the love Christian husbands show their wives as a picture of the way Jesus loves his people. 

Amen.