Day 305: Ephesians 5:25–33

Husbands, love your wives, just as also Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her, to make her holy, cleansing her in the washing of water by the word (vv. 25–26).

In light of what we considered yesterday, Paul probably had the Ephesian Christians nodding their heads in agreement. Submission of the wife to the husband was codified Hebraic law. Nothing new here. Now Paul raised eyebrows in a hurry. He told husbands to love their wives.

For a society where women were little more than property, passed from father to husband, this command to love their wives was a radical idea. Paul knew few role models existed for the men to follow. He gave them the best role model possible: Jesus Christ.

1. Husbands should love their wives sacrificially. Just as a husband must be careful not to abuse his wife’s exhortation to submission, a wife must not abuse her husband’s exhortation to sacrifice. Some men work several jobs sacrificing time at home in a continual effort to raise the standard of living for their families.

2. Husbands should love their wives in ways that encourage purity. Christ encourages purity in His bride, the church, desiring for her to be holy and without stain. God calls upon husbands to treat their wives as pure vessels even in physical intimacy.

3. Husbands should “love their wives as their own bodies” (v. 28 hcsb). I have to snicker when I think about verses 28 and 29. I wonder if Paul might have been thinking, “If you love yourself at all, mister, then love your wife—because life will be far more pleasant under the same roof with a well-loved woman!” I also have to wonder if Paul’s reference to a man treating his wife as he does his own body, such as feeding and caring for it, implies that husbands are supposed to cook for their wives. I’m not certain about that interpretation, but I would submit to my husband’s cooking any day!

Think of marriage as a three-legged stool—a submissive wife, a loving husband, and Christ. All three must be in place for marriage to work as God intended. A wife submitting to an unloving husband is as lopsided as a loving husband sacrificing for a domineering wife. When Christ is not the head of the marriage, the stool falls indeed. Sadly, many Christian women are trying to keep their stools balanced with only one leg in place—their submission. Pray that your husband would love you out of his devotion to Christ.