Ephesians 5:25-27 | “Husbands, Love Your Wives”

God Created Order

The world seems dominated by chaos in almost every place we look.  But chaos and confusion wasn’t God’s original plan for his creation.  As we learned a couple weeks ago, Genesis chapter one starts with a dark and formless world (v. 2) and then explains how God sovereignly created and ordered the world.  On the sixth day, God created mankind which consisted of “male and female” (vv. 26-27).  The distinction between the sexes is a good gift from God our Creator.  God created men and women to reflect his rule and goodness and glory to the world he made, and he created us to do it together.

In Genesis chapter two we learn that Adam was made first and Eve second.  One reason why God did this is because he wanted to establish order in humanity. T This isn’t surprising given what we see in Genesis 1.  In all that God created, he sovereignly made divisions and distinctions.  For example, the sun and moon are to rule over the day and the night, a division set in stone and roles that aren’t interchangeable.   

It shouldn’t surprise us then to find order and distinctions between man and woman.  The order of the creation of man and woman has much to teach us.  The man was the one given instructions and put to work.  The woman was then given to join the man as his helper.  Adam was not made to be Eve’s helper, Eve is made to be Adam’s.  Chapter one teaches that they both received God’s blessing and that they together rule God’s creation.  They’re partners, but chapter two makes it clear that Adam is the partner who leads.  This is God’s order for his image bearers. 

This is the theological foundation for Paul’s understanding of marriage.  His teaching on marriage reflects God’s revelation of the order of creation of male and female.  This is why Paul teaches that the husband is the head of the wife and that the wife should submit to her husband. 

Authority and Submission as the Way Things Are

What’s interesting is that Scripture never really defends the idea of authority and submission.  It presents them as the way things are.  Order in relationships is just the way things are in God’s world. 

Sin, of course, has forever tainted our view of God and his authority and led us to believe that we know better than God and that his ways are outdated, old-fashioned, and even damaging to human relationships.  Sin is why none of us like authority.  No one likes being told what to do.  Independence and autonomy are celebrated by our culture.  We tend to think that any constraints on our personal freedoms are necessarily bad and should be removed.  As a nation, we’re very skeptical of authority.  We struggle to trust the government, police, judicial system, teachers, referees, and parents.

This is a tragic situation because God filled his world with authority structures and designed authority to be a blessing to his creation.  King David captured this well in his farewell speech just before he died.  He said, “The God of Israel has spoken; the Rock of Israel has said to me: When one rules justly over men, ruling in the fear of God, he dawns on them like the morning light, like the sun shining forth on a cloudless morning, like rain that makes grass to sprout from the earth” (2 Sam. 23:3-4).  He says that when authority is used rightly, it’s as refreshing and beautiful as a sunrise and creates life and makes things grow and flourish like the rain. 

Authority is not inherently bad.  It’s inherently good.  It can be used badly just like every other good thing God created.  But just because a good thing can be used badly doesn’t mean that we should get rid of the good thing.  We should instead seek to use it in the ways God intended.

The Authority of a Husband is a Specific Kind of Authority

This is nowhere more important than in the context of the husband and wife relationship.  God put an authority structure in this relationship.  “The husband is the head of the wife” (Eph. 5:23).  This is a statement of fact, not a command.  The husband is the leader of his wife.  He’s either a good one or a bad one, but leader he is. 

As we continue to study what Paul says about marriage in Ephesians 5, we’re going to see that the husband is called to be a specific kind of leader.  Paul says that a husband’s leadership should be a servant leadership.  A husband’s authority will only create life and blessing when he takes the posture of a servant and sacrifices himself for the good of his wife.

This is Paul’s point in Ephesians 5:25-27.  The main point of these verses is that a husband is called to sacrifice himself for his wife in order to promote his wife’s well-being.  We can divide the text into two sections: a husband’s gift to his wife (v. 25) and a husband’s goal for his wife (vv. 26-27).

A Husband’s Gift to His Wife

In verse 25, we see that a husband’s gift to his wife is sacrificial love.  The most important thing a husband can give his wife is sacrificial love.  After telling wives to submit to their husbands in verses 22-24, one might expect Paul to then tell husbands to rule over their wives.  But he doesn’t do that here or anywhere else.  The command for husbands is to “love your wives.”

This command to love isn’t talking about emotions or feelings.  The love commanded here must be an act of the will.  Just as wives must choose to live submissively before their husbands, so husbands must choose to love their wives.  We don’t choose feelings.  We either have them or we don’t.  Our circumstances usually determine how we feel.  So the command to love is here referring to something other than feelings.  It’s referring to how we daily choose to live with our wives.  The call here is to love our wives no matter how we’re feeling toward them. 

Paul then gives husbands the ground and model for their love (v. 25b).  A husband should love his wife like Jesus loves his wife.  How did Jesus love his wife?  He “gave himself up for her.”  A husband’s love for his wife must be sacrificial love.  It must cost him something.  A husband may have to actually lay down his life for his wife.  And many husbands are willing to do that. 

But because the prospect of having to do that is so remote, it’s actually not that hard for husbands to be willing to literally die for their wives.  It’s much harder for husbands to make lesser, but actual, sacrifices for their wives.  When I officiate a wedding, I usually tell the groom that the sacrificial love that’s required of him is most applicable in the mundane details of life.  Husbands, God cares about how you treat your wife around the house, how you listen to her and respect her points of view, how you offer to help with dishes and diapers and laundry and a thousand other things.  If your love for your wife is real, it’ll cost you something.  More specifically, it’ll cost you thousands of “somethings” as you seek to serve your wife in the mundane areas of life.

The Husband Must Be the Provider

Another way a husband “gives himself up” for his wife is by being willing to carry the burden of financial provision for her and their family.  A husband must not expect or require his wife to carry this burden.  This goes back to God’s created order.  God made man to work the Garden and then provided him a helper.  This is also seen in the judgment that God gives Adam after the Fall.  God says that the ground will be cursed and that the man will only produce through sweat and toil.  The assumption is that the man is the one responsible to work the ground and produce and provide for his family. 

I know that the traditional view of husbands working outside the home and wives working inside the home is seen as a thing of the past and as oppressive to women.  And I know that every situation is different and that there are different seasons in life and marriage.  For much of our marriage, Suzy made more money than I did.  Her work outside the home allowed me to finish school and has greatly blessed our family. 

But my responsibility to make sure that our family was provided for wasn’t negated during that season.  That’s why the month after we were married I opened up the yellow pages and called landscaping companies until I found one that would hire me part-time while I finished school.  It wasn’t glamorous and it wasn’t a forever job.  But it was what I needed to do to make sure we were provided for. 

At the end of the age, God will talk to me, not Suzy, about whether our family was provided for.  Therefore, I must be willing to do whatever I need to do to make sure that we can pay our bills.  This is a way that husbands “give themselves up” for their wives.  They die to the impulse toward laziness and they do all they can to remove the burden of provision from their wives as a way of blessing their wives and freeing them up to do the hard work of raising kids and managing a home.  Single guys, one of the best things you can do to prepare for marriage is get and maintain a job.  It’s part of God’s design for your life, and must be something you’re willing to joyfully and humbly embrace.

Husbands Take Initiative

The comparison that Paul draws between a husband’s love and Jesus’ love also teaches us that husbands love their wives by taking initiative.  Jesus didn’t wait for us to come to him, he came to us.  The words “gave himself up” tell us that Christ took the initiative in going to the cross.  He went willingly.  He went actively, not passively.  He said, “No one takes (my life) from me, but I lay it down of my own accord” (John 10:18). 

Husbands should be like Jesus in taking initiative to care for their wives.  They should be attentive enough to see a need their wife has and then meet the need without being asked.  They should see that the dishes need to be done and then do them, or that their wife needs a break from the kids and give her that break.  Husbands should be the first ones to apologize.  They should make sure that the family is living on a budget and living within their means.  They should be the spiritual leader in the home.  They should be the one who says, “Let’s pray together” before meals and before bed.  They should be the ones to teach the children to love Jesus and his Word and his church (cf. 6:4).  They should be the ones to make sure the family doesn’t neglect the regular assembly of the church (Heb. 10:25).

Taking initiative also means that they’re aware of what God is doing in their wife’s life.  It means knowing and understanding what her passions and desires are and doing all you can to allow her to pursue them rather than stifling them.  Husbands need to make sure that their wife has the room she needs to flourish.  This might mean watching the kids one or two nights a week so that your wife can go back to school.  Or freeing up money in the budget for her to get away on a trip with her friends. 

“Giving yourself up” for your wife means taking initiative.  It means that you aren’t passive and that you don’t take your cues from your wife.  You are the leader.  Therefore, you should be leading.  Not dictating, leading.  This kind of servant leadership brings blessing and life to a home.  When I lead Suzy through our budget each month, even though I’m tired and would rather watch TV, our family experiences the blessing of financial peace.  When I make sure that we read and sing and pray with our boys each night before bed, we experience the blessing of seeing the seed of God’s word take root in their lives.  Here’s the point: it’s not Suzy’s job to make sure these things get done.  It’s mine. 

Husbands Love Reflects Jesus’ Love

I “give up” my preferences and my time and serve my wife in this way because Jesus has given up so much for me.  In light of what Jesus has done for me, how could I not make any sacrifice necessary for my wife?  When I remember that I don’t deserve anything from God but wrath because of my sin, that my breaking of his law means that I should die, but that instead of everlasting death God has given me everlasting life in Jesus, I want to give Suzy what she doesn’t deserve too. 

We’re not commanded to love our wives because they deserve it, but to love her even if she doesn’t deserve it.  My love for Suzy must never be based on whether I’m attracted to her or whether she’s performed well that day or whether she’s doing what I want.  My love for her is based on what Christ has done, not what she has done.  I love how John MacArthur says this in his book Divine Design, “If every appealing characteristic and virtue of a man’s wife were to disappear, the husband is still under obligation to love her…When (a husband) loves in that way, (he’ll) do what is needed without counting the cost or analyzing the need’s merit.  (His) love will continue to meet the need no matter if it is received or rejected, appreciated or rejected.”

Paul says “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8).  The “wages of sin is death,” but God offers the free gift of eternal life to everyone who turns from their sin and puts their trust in Christ (Rom. 6:23).  None of us deserve salvation or a place in God’s kingdom, but Christ sacrificed himself for us anyways.  The contrast here is incredible.  The absolutely holy and righteous God who created all things made the greatest sacrifice for the greatest sinners.  So husbands who think, “My wife doesn’t deserve my sacrificial love” haven’t understood the gospel.  God was much farther removed from sinners like you than you are from your wife, yet he loved you anyways.  Husbands who say that their wives make it hard for him to love her need to revisit the gospel and remember that your sin didn’t stop Christ from loving you and giving himself up for you.

Sacrificial love will only happen as a result of you understanding and believing the gospel.  You can’t give what you don’t have.  The gospel reshapes the way you think about marriage.  It teaches you that marriage isn’t about what you get, but about what you give.  Many of you single men want to get sex out of marriage but you don’t want to love and serve your wife in thousands of sacrificial ways.  But this is the essence of what it means to be a husband. 

A husband’s most important and fundamental gift to his wife is sacrificial love.  If you give her everything else she wants but don’t love her sacrificially, you’ve withheld from her the thing she needs the most.  You’ve withheld from her what you’re commanded to give her.  “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.”

A Husband’s Goal for His Wife

Verses 26-27 tell us what the goal of this sacrificial love is.  Paul uses three purpose clauses to tell us what the goal of Jesus’ sacrificial love for his church is.  Verse 26, “that he might sanctify her.”  Verse 27, “so that he might present the church to himself in splendor” and “that she might be holy and without blemish.”

First, Jesus died for the church in order to “sanctify her.”  “Sanctify” means to set something apart for service to God.  Jesus died in order to set the church apart, to bring her into an exclusive and permanent relationship with himself.  A relationship analogous to marriage. 

Paul goes on to say that Jesus accomplished this sanctifying work by “cleansing her by the washing of water with the word.”  Jesus set the church apart to himself by cleansing her of her sins, by “washing” her spiritually and making her clean in his sight.  This washing was accomplished by “the word,” namely, “the word of the gospel.”  The church is made pure by a spiritual cleansing and this is done through the purifying word of the gospel.

Second, Jesus died for the church in order to “present the church to himself in splendor” (v. 27a).  This refers to the end of the age when the church is presented to Christ in glory.  Notice that it’s Christ who presents the church to himself, not a friend or bridesmaid or the bride herself.  Christ takes the initiative at every stage of his bride’s redemption.    

At that time, the church will be “without spot or wrinkle or any such thing” (v. 27b).  All signs of wear and tear, aging, and scars and wounds picked up during the long journey on the narrow road will be removed and the beauty of Jesus’ bride will be glorious and matchless.  I’ll never forget the moment Suzy walked out and started down the aisle.  The beauty and glory of that moment are forever etched in my mind.  But that moment pales in comparison to when Jesus’s bride will walk out of this age and into the age to come.  She’ll command the attention of the host of angels and the bridegroom will joyfully embrace her and give her all that he has. 

As the Jesus Storybook Bible says, God will make all the sad things come untrue on that day for those who’re in Christ.  All pain and tears and sin and loneliness and sadness and dementia and cancer and confusion and chaos and doubt and fear and anxiety will come to an end.  Death will be swallowed up by victory and Jesus’ bride will live in the house of the Lord forever.

All this is possible because, thirdly, Jesus died to make his church “holy and without blemish” (v. 27c).  This was God’s plan for his elect people from the beginning (1:4).  The Father chose, the Son died for, and the Spirit called the church and clothed the church in the holy garments of Jesus’ righteousness.  This means that, no matter what you’ve done, if you’ll put your trust in Jesus, you’ll be declared holy before a holy God. 

God’s goal in sending his Son to die for the church was to make her holy.  Husbands, your goal is for your wives is similar.  You can’t do for her what only Christ has done for her.  But you can have the same goal for your bride that Jesus has for his.  Your goal should be the overall well-being of your wife.  You should be totally committed to her welfare, especially her spiritual welfare. 

Husbands, when was the last time you prayed out loud with your wife?  When was the last time you reminded her how much you love her and how much Jesus loves her?  Are you quick to protect her from anything that would defile or corrupt or harm her?  Loving your wife means you’ll do everything in your power to maintain her purity, virtue, and holiness every day that you live.  Jesus died to make his church holy.  Husbands, likewise, should sacrifice themselves for their wives in order to promote their holiness.    

An Invitation

Whether you’re married or single, God is inviting you now to join Christ at the marriage supper of the Lamb.  You may not receive another invitation.  You may’ve rejected the invitation for years.  But now you finally realize that you don’t have a seat at God’s table.  You realize that you’ve been trusting in yourself rather than Jesus’ death.  You realize that the stain of your sin hasn’t been washed away.  You realize that your righteousness is like filthy rags compared to God’s righteousness. 

It’s time for you to leave the world, leave your sin, and come to Christ.  If you’ll simply admit that you’ve sinned, confess your sin to the Lord, and call out to him for forgiveness, you will be saved.  You’ll receive the sacrificial and satisfying love of the great bridegroom Jesus Christ.