Marriage Helps # 17
Paul continues to instruct husbands in the faithful practice of marriage, identifying their role as head and their responsibility to love their wives just as Christ also loved the church.
Husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her (Ephesians 5:25).
Husbands ought to love their wives with a singular love, just as Christ also loved the church. Christ’s self-giving love was directed to a special object, the church. “He gave Himself up for her.” He did what He did with a single eye for His bride. She was the supreme love of His life. As the dear old hymn says, “From heav’n He came and sought her, to be His holy bride; with His own blood he bought her, and for her life He died” (“The Church’s One Foundation”). His was a love unlike any other, a love for one alone. Christ took no side-glances to any other. He was all about her. Are you all about her? She is to be prized and admired and loved like none other. The Puritan John Wing wrote that this singular love ought to be “the most dear, intimate, precious and entire that [a] heart can have toward a creature; none but the love of God . . . is above it, none but the love of self is [equal] to it; all the love of others is inferior to it.”
Husbands ought to love their wives with an unconditional—freely given—love, just as Christ also loved the church. Think of who you were—and are—loved by Christ. His is a love not determined by the worthiness of the bride, nor diminished by her unworthiness. Christ’s love to the church was a clear-eyed, eyes-wide-open, love. He knew the object of His affection intimately. She was no beauty, no prize. None of her many faults would have surprised Him. He loved her while she was unloving and unwilling. Her deformities and defilement did not dampen His love. Her sin was not an obstacle to the exercise of His love. Rather—and this is the astonishing part—her sin was the occasion for His love’s highest expression. In her most un-loveable condition He made the greatest manifestation of love ever!
Husbands ought to consider the staggering practical implications of Christ-like unconditional—freely given—love. Our love–unlike Christ’s–began drawn by what was appealing and attractive about our bride; and she gave a reciprocal response. This is perfectly natural. Then, in the garden of this delight, weeds began to appear, spoiling the view. Boils and warts and wrinkles appeared in her appearance and her behavior. In such a landscape our love may be given less freely with conditions attached. “I would love her more, if only she would . . . “ This is entirely unlike the love of God in Christ, which is relentless and unfailing, freely given, committed to love with no strings or conditions attached. Husbands ought to love their wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her.
