Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave Himself for it. Ephesians 5:25
A friend was telling me about the disgraceful manner in which his father-in-law mistreated his wife. He demanded her strict obedience, including tending to his every whim. This man’s domination over his wife was so rigid that their daughters used to rush home from school every day to help their ailing mother complete all the tasks that their father had set for her that day. My friend told of being at their house one Sunday morning and hearing his father-in-law berate his wife for not having yet polished his boots. And he claimed to be a Christian! This sinful, cruel brute deserved a flogging. He selfishly took from the Scriptures the requirement for wives to submit to their husbands while ignoring today’s text with its requirement that husbands are to treat their wives in a manner that every woman would be delighted to submit to. Not only was that man distorting the Word of God for his own cruel ends but he was also distorting the lovely picture that the Word of God presents of the wonderful relationship between Christ and His church.
Many of us married folks will look at this chapter of Ephesians and see how we should treat our spouse with an eye to what we will get out of it. The husband will reason that if he is helpful and gentle and kind and sweet to his wife, she in turn will be the same to him. And the wife will reason that her gentle submission to her husband’s authority will produce a like response from him. This may be true. In fact, something is seriously wrong if it is not true. But that should not be the motivation for our obedience to this chapter of Ephesians. The motivation should not be what we can get from it, the motivation should be what our spouse can get from it. That was the motivation for the sacrificial love of the Lord Jesus for us.
If we were to judge the Lord Jesus like ourselves, we would reckon that His purpose in coming to earth to die for our sins was so He could have a Heaven full of redeemed sinners-turned-saints to worship Him. Now, it is true that Heaven will be filled with redeemed sinners-turned-saints who will spend eternity worshipping our Saviour. Just as it is true that we daily raise our hearts in worship and thanksgiving, and weekly gather to thank and worship Him in Assembly capacity as we remember His death. But even greater than His desire to see us in Heaven is His desire to rescue us from hell. As followers of Adam’s rebellion, we were hopeless and helpless to prevent our own damnation. But Christ loved us. His selfless love was expressed because He longed that our souls might be delivered from the judgment we deserved. His selfless love continues to be expressed because He desires that our spirits will be delivered each day from the sinfulness of this evil world. And His selfless love will one day be expressed in His return to deliver our bodies forever from the very presence of sin.
It was all for us that the Lord Jesus gave Himself for us. So it ought to be all for our spouse that we love and submit to each other. -Jim MacIntosh
Here is the link to the video of this message: https://youtu.be/4XfGVeXT7zs