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In the latter half of his letter to the Ephesians, Paul gives Christian husbands a few lofty, intimidating, yet glorious instructions for how we are to live with our wives in our marriages. He begins with a straightforward command: “Husbands, love your wives” (Eph. 5:25). This sentence is not difficult to understand. We don’t need to scour our commentaries or study Bibles to grasp the nuances of the original language or to disentangle the complexities of its syntax. No, the command is simple: we are to love our wives.
Love your wife as Christ loves the church.
Of course, how we love our wives is vital, so Paul continues his instructions by providing us with a model to follow: Christian husbands are to love their wives as “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Eph. 5:25). In the same way that Christ laid down his life to purify his bride and provide for her every need, so husbands are to die daily to provide for their wives’ spiritual and physical needs (Eph. 5:26-29).
But not only are we called to provide for our wife’s needs; we are also to “cherish” our wife and count her as highly valuable and precious to us. The word for “cherish” in Ephesians 5:29 is the same word used for “care” in 1 Thessalonians 2:7 where Paul describes his ministry to the Thessalonians. Paul describes himself as tender with these new believers like a mommy caring for her new baby. The reason why Paul would use this analogy to describe his ministry to the Thessalonians is because mommies cherish their babies. Mommies delight in their babies and love to provide for all of their needs. Mommies want to spend time with their baby and protect their child from any possible harm.
When Paul calls husbands to cherish their wives, he means that we are to do more than crank out our duty to provide for their spiritual and physical needs. Far more than rote obedience, Paul wants us to highly value our wives, desire to be with them, and treasure their friendship. Amazingly, this is how Christ loves his bride. Christ proactively sought his bride and died for her to heal the breach she created in the relationship (Rom. 3:21-26; cf. Eph. 5:25). Scripture also tells us that Christ greatly delights in his bride (Zech. 3:17). Husbands, in the same way, should delight in their wives, study them to know how to bless them in tangible ways, and aim to restore the relationship whenever a breach occurs because of how highly he values her friendship.
Again, this is a high calling. Some husbands may sense the pang of conviction when they hear they must make their wives’ spiritual health a top priority. Others may feel a pinch of guilt when they realize they haven’t worked hard to provide for their wives. Still others of us may experience a twinge of shame when we hear that cherishing our bride is part of our calling as Christian husbands because we know we don’t cherish them as we should.
A husband’s love for his wife is empowered by the gospel.
But this passage contains some wonderful news for husbands who believe they fall far short of this high calling. The first encouraging truth is that Paul’s admonition to husbands is rooted in the gospel. When Paul tells Christian husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the church, he is implicitly reminding them to ground their love in the truth that Christ has laid down his life for his bride. Yes, Jesus Christ is the model to follow—we lay down our lives for our wives just like Christ laid down his life for his bride. But before Christ is our model, he is our Savior. Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. Paul speaks this way in Galatians:
The life that I live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Gal. 2:20)
Everything that Paul did in his Christian life was empowered and motivated by the reality that Christ had died for him. That’s the gospel, and that gospel is embedded in the passage that exhorts us to love our wives. If we don’t soak ourselves in the truths of the gospel—that Christ freely gave himself for our sins and that we are forgiven of our sins by faith in his alone—we will quickly find ourselves spiritually weak and unable to fulfill our calling as husbands with any consistency.
It doesn’t matter how, why, when, or where you got married.
The second encouraging truth is that Paul does not qualify any of his instructions to husbands. He simply exhorts all Christian husbands to love their wives. It doesn’t matter how, why, when, or where you came to be married. Your marriage may have been hasty, or it may have been arranged. You may have been head-over-heels for your bride, or you may not have loved your wife when you married her. Perhaps you knew for certain that you wanted to marry your wife, or maybe you wonder whether you should have married someone else. Or, maybe your marriage started well, but now after a few years and a few kids, affection for your bride is waning.
The glorious wisdom of this passage is this: none of those factors ultimately matter. Nope. Not a one. It doesn’t matter if your marriage was arranged or if you met in high school. It doesn’t matter if you loved your wife when you met her or if you ventured into your marriage for other reasons. It doesn’t matter if the first ten years of your marriage have been blissful or bleak. It doesn’t matter if you met your wife at work or at church or online.
Paul knew of countless possible circumstances surrounding how and why married couples came together, yet he doesn’t qualify his statement to Christian husbands in the slightest. In Paul’s day, just as today, there were arranged marriages, marriages of convenience, marriages of duty, marriages of passion, marriages that resulted from a child out of wedlock, and many other potential scenarios. Nowhere in this passage or in any of his other writings does Paul modify his instruction for husbands to love their wives. He never says, “Husbands, love your wives—if you are sure she is the one for you.” Paul doesn’t hedge his command by saying, “Husbands, love your wives if you met her at church.” The apostle doesn’t provide an exit clause by suggesting, “Husbands, love your wives if you are still feeling deep affection for her.” No, the command is clear and unqualified: husbands, love your wives.
Husbands, you can love your wives.
How is this good news? It is good news because the command implies that you are, by grace, able to fulfill it. That means that regardless of why or how you got together with your wife, you can, starting today, begin to love her as Christ loves the church and continue to grow in that love. Of course, these comments are not to suggest that we don’t need to repent of sinful past motives or work hard to overcome foolish patterns we’ve developed in our marriage. These concerns notwithstanding, the Christian husband can re-engage his wife and his marriage with the confidence that God will enable him to love her as Christ loves the church. Through the aid of the Spirit, the Word of God, and the local church, Christ can enable any Christian man to love his wife, regardless of the circumstances surrounding his marriage. In light of this, men, let us work hard to love our wives as Christ loves the church.
This article was originally published under the title “Paul Doesn’t Qualify His Instructions for Husbands, and that’s Great News” at withallwisdom.com.
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