Studies In The Christian Family (2)
The Christian Husband
Introduction
We come this evening to our second of four studies in this short series on the Christian Family. In the scriptures God has given us His blueprint for a happy home-life and as part of that blueprint He sets out the primary duty that each member of the family ought to fulfil in respect of the other members of the family. We began the series last week by focusing our attention upon the wife’s duty in respect of her husband as we find that duty set forth by the apostle Paul in Ephesians 5/22-24 and we saw that the one word which summed up her duty in this respect was the word “SUBMIT” - “Wives submit to your husband…wives should submit to their husbands in everything.” I don’t intend to spend any time this evening going over what we learned in relation to this subject last week, if any of you were not able to be here last week and are interested in obtaining a tape of the sermon then you can have a word with me after the service and we can furnish you with the tape.
This evening we want to look at the other side of the marital coin so to speak and consider the duty of the husband with respect to his wife. I finished the sermon last week by saying that if the wife thinks that God is asking a lot of her in requiring that she demonstrate an attitude of submission to her husband, that demand is as nothing compared to what God demands of the husband when it comes to his duty in respect of his wife, and hopefully we will see this to be the case by the time we come to the end of our study of God’s Word this evening.
Turning then to Ephesians 5 once again, this time to v25-33 I want you to consider with me in the first place this evening
1) The Nature of The Husbands Duty:
Paul writes in v25 - “husbands love your wives.” V28 “husbands ought to love their wives…” v33 “each one of you also must love his wife.”
In thinking of the wife’s duty to her husband we saw that her keyword in God’s blueprint for family life was SUBMIT. That being the case one might have expected that when Paul came to give a keyword to the husband that summed up his duty towards his wife that that word would have been RULE; that Paul would have focused on the husband’s responsibility to exercise his God given authority, to demonstrate his divinely appointed head-ship within the marriage relationship. But Paul doesn’t say “husbands RULE OVER your wives.” He says “husbands LOVE your wives.” Now in saying that he is not for one minute denying that the husband is to rule his own household, that he is to exercise his God given authority within the home. However what Paul makes clear here in this passage is that the exercise of that rule in the home by the husband, the demonstration of his position of head-ship within the family must always be carried out in the context of LOVE.
And it is vitally important to point this out at the very beginning of our study this evening because any imbalance here will be detrimental to and may even prove to be disastrous for the marriage relationship and for family life. For example in the case where a husband exercises his authority over his wife and over his children, but fails to do so in an attitude of love, such an unbiblical imbalance produces cold, dictatorial authoritarianism. – “I am the boss in this house and you will do as I say” On the other hand an imbalance in the other direction where the husband whilst loving his wife and children, fails to undertake the responsibilities of leadership, fails to exercise his God-given authority in the home, such an imbalance can produce a weak and often hen-pecked husband who bows to his wife’s every wish even in situations where her wishes are not wholly in keeping with scriptural principles.
In the culture of Paul’s day the greatest danger was undoubtedly that of the husband over-emphasising authority at the expense of love. And so Paul lays the stress where it needed to be laid “Husbands LOVE your wives.”
This then is the husband’s keyword – LOVE
But what did Paul mean when he said that husbands were to LOVE their wives. What was in his mind when he used that word LOVE. Now this is an important question because the word ‘love’ is a word that is used today to describe a wide range of feelings and experiences, both emotional and physical. It is a word that is used to explain and to justify certain forms of conduct.
For example you will hear people talking about falling in love with someone whom they have only recently met, when in actual fact what has happened is that, for one reason or another, they have become infatuated with that person. I heard recently of a situation where a seemingly happily married man left his wife and family for another woman and the reason he gave was that he had ‘fallen in LOVE with this other woman.’ The fact of the matter was that he knew next to nothing about the person concerned. He happened to meet her, was attracted to her and became infatuated with her perhaps as a result of her physical appearance or her personality or whatever. But although he spoke of what he was experiencing as LOVE it wasn’t LOVE, at least not in the sense that Paul speaks of love in this passage. Maybe some of you young people here this evening have a boyfriend or a girlfriend and you think that you are in LOVE because when you are with them you experience those warm, squisshy, wonderful indefinable feelings that make your heart race and so on and that you associate with LOVE. Well that’s not LOVE, at least not the love that Paul has in view here. It may be the beginnings of true love, but true LOVE is something that goes much deeper than mere feelings.
The meaning of the word “love” has also been considerably distorted by the film, television and music industries where ‘love’ is increasingly thought of and portrayed in terms of the physical act of sexual intercourse, its referred to as ‘making love’ Is that true love? Of course it’s not. All that is, is lust, animal passion. It’s the same thing that an animal experiences when it is in heat. It is the satisfying of a desire that has been aroused as a result of hormonal changes within the body. Now don’t get me wrong, one of the ways in which true love expresses itself is in the union of a man and woman in sexual intercourse, but we must not do as so many have done today and make that our definition of love.
So it is important that we understand what Paul meant by the term ‘love’ when he said that husbands were to “LOVE” their wives. What did he mean?
Well as I have pointed out at different times in the past in the course of expounding the scriptures, the Greek language, in which the N.T. was written has three different words for our English word ‘love’ and each of those Greek words has a different emphasis of meaning. There is the word PHILEO – which means to have an affection for, to be tenderly disposed towards someone. Then there is the word EROS, from which we get our word “erotic” and that was the word that the Greeks used for sexual desire and passion that expressed itself in a physical way. The third word, which is the word Paul uses here is the word AGAPEO, which has been defined as having “a desire for the well-being and supreme good of someone else that leads to one actively pursuing that goal even at a cost to oneself.”
Now this is what Paul has in mind when he says ‘Husbands love your wives.’ The husband is to desire the well-being and supreme good of his wife. But having a desire for such a goal in and of itself isn’t enough, the desire alone isn’t ‘love’ it isn’t AGAPEO. That desire must be translated into action as he, regardless of the personal cost involved, actively pursues the accomplishment of that goal. This then is the nature of the husband’s duty as Paul sets it forth in v25. He is to LOVE his wife in the terms just described.
But Paul doesn’t simply state the husband’s duty and leave it at that. He goes on to flesh out his statement by giving the husband an example of what he means by and what will be involved in loving his wife. And that leads us to consider secondly this evening
2) The Pattern For The Husband’s Duty:
Look at v25 again “Husbands love your wives just as Christ loved the Church…” The little Greek phrase that is translated “just as” in the NIV here and “even as” in the KJV means ‘to be equal to’ What Paul is saying is that the husbands love for his wife is to be a love that is equal to, that is the same as the love that Jesus Christ had for the Church. I said earlier on that I believed that the demands of God’s blueprint for the family in respect of the wife’s duty to the husband were as nothing, or at least nowhere near as difficult, as that of the husbands duty in relation to his wife. Well now you know why I said that. As a husband I am to love my wife in the same way that Christ loved his Church. Now Paul of course is not saying that it is possible for a husband to love his wife to the same degree as Christ loved the Church, what man could ever reach to the heights of such love. But what he is saying is that our love for our wives is to be of the same nature, the same quality, it is to be the same kind of love that Christ demonstrated towards His Church. There are certain distinguishing features that are to be found in Christ’s love for the Church and those distinguishing features are to be found in the husband’s love for his wife.
Now what are those distinguishing features? Well in the first place Christ’s love for the Church was
(i) A Exclusive Love:
Paul says ‘Christ loved THE CHURCH and gave himself up for HER’ The Lord Jesus Christ has only one bride in this world, one for whom he has such a love. And whilst it is undoubtedly true that He has a genuine attitude of love for and benevolence towards other people in the world who are not part of his Church he nevertheless reserves his agapeo love, his deepest love, his redemptive love for his bride, the Church.
And in this sense, men, our relationship as husbands to our wives is to be patterned after Christ’s relationship to his Church. There is to be an exclusive aspect to our love for our wives. We are not to love any other woman or anyone else for that matter in the same way or to the same degree that that we love our wives. We are to be committed to her first and foremost, God himself being the only one who has any higher claim upon our love. Yes, of course we are to love our children, and to love them dearly, and of course we are to love the other members of our family circle; yes we are to love our brothers and sisters in Christ and our friends and so on but when it comes to our wife there is a love that we are to have for her and show to her that no other person is to be party to. A peculiar love reserved exclusively for her. That is why as part of his marriage vows taken before God the husband promises to ‘forsake all others and to cleave only to his wife.’ He is saying that there is a love that he has for her that he will not give to any other woman.
Let me ask you married men here this evening, even as I ask myself the same question, have you an exclusive love for your wife. A love that goes beyond the love that you have for any other human being in this world. You ought to have because you are to love your wife as Christ loved the Church and there was an exclusive aspect to his love for his Bride.
But then secondly Christ’s love for his church was also
(ii) A Realistic Love:
And what I mean by that is that The Lord Jesus loved the Church despite her imperfections and her failings. Paul here talks about the Lord giving himself up for the Church in order to cleanse her, and to sanctify her and to eventually present her to himself as a radiant Church without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. The fact of the mater is of course that the Church is not yet without stain or wrinkle. She is not yet fully sanctified. She is not yet blameless. She has in fact many blemishes, many stains. But the Lord Jesus loves her in spite of her imperfections, in spite of her failings, in spite of her deficiencies.
And as husbands we are to love our wives with a realistic love, a love, which whilst it recognises and is aware of faults and imperfections and failings in our wives, is nevertheless not in any way diminished on account of those faults. M.L.Jones writes “Christ loved the Church in spite of her unworthiness. He lovd her in spite of her deficiencies…he saw her in her rags and in her vileness, but he loved her…he loved the Church not because she was glorious and beautiful, no but that he might make her such…take not…a husband comes up against deficiencies, difficulties, things he feels he can criticise in his wife, but he is sstill to love her as Christ loved the Church.” In the parallel passage in Col 3:19 Paul writes “husbands love your wives and do not be harsh with them (do not be bitter against them). And I think what Paul has in mind here is a situation where a husband gets so annoyed with his wife on account of some mistake she has made or on account of some flaw in her character that has clearly manifested itself, that he fails to behave towards her in an attitude of love. Its all to easy men isn’t it to get rattled inside and to get annoyed with your wife when she demonstrates some particular quirk of her character or personality that you don’t like, a quick temper, a sarcastic turn of phrase, an certain degree of unsociableness, or when she behaves in some sinful way towards you or whatever. Well men the fact of the matter is our wives are not perfect. They have their blemishes. They have their failings. But Oh let us not love them any less because of their imperfections. We ourselves have many imperfections and yet the Lord does not love us any less because of them. He does not cast us off because we are not perfect. Even with all our imperfections he still loves us dearly. His love is a realistic love and in this, our love for our wives is to be patterned after his love for his Church.
But then thirdly Christ’s love for his Church was
(iii) A Sacrificial Love:
Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the Church and gave HIMSELF up FOR HER
The love that Christ had for his Church was selfless in its attitude and sacrificial in its outworking. The Lord Jesus did not think of himself when he considered the well-being of his dearly beloved bride. The pursuit of her best interests, her eternal well-being was going to cost him dearly. He would have to make great sacrifices for her, indeed the ultimate sacrifice would be paid. He loved her so much that he was willing to die for her. Someone has written “the very life of love is to spend itself for the sake of another.” That is what Jesus did for his Church. He gave himself for her. Greater love has no man than this.
Men, this is how we are to love our wives, with a sacrificial love. A love that is selfless in its outlook and sacrificial in its outworking. We have to be willing to give up things for our wives, be willing to forego things with a view to promoting their well-being; their emotional well-being , their social well-being, their physical well-being, their spiritual well-being, their psychological well-being. It may mean having to say no to something that you had originally planned because your wife for one reason or another needs you to be at home that particular night. Maybe you are heading out to play football or maybe you had planned to visit a friend and your wife is feeling out of sorts or worried about something and wants you to stay at home to be with her and to talk with her and to comfort her. Are you going to say ‘ah but sweetheart I have already arranged to play 5 a side with the lads, I promised so and so I would call in and see them tonight.” Well not if we are to love our wives as Christ loved the Church. Men we have to get this principle of self-sacrifice worked into our head and into our heart and into our life when it comes to loving our wife as Christ loved the Church. Let me ask you husbands here this evening - Do you love your wife to the extent that you are prepared to give things up for her sake? If you don’t then you are not loving your wife according to God’s blueprint for a happy family.
Then fourthly Christ’s Love for his Church was
(iv) A Purifying Love:
What I mean by that is that the goal Christ had in view in setting his love upon the Church was that she would be Holy. That he would sanctify her. That she would become what he she was meant to be, a radiant bride without spot or wrinkle. Although he loves his bride as she is with all her imperfections, he does not want those imperfections to remain, and so in love he works with her and brings her on towards perfection.
And surely brethren the principle that we as husbands can draw from this aspect of Christ’s love for his Church and apply to our love for our wives is that we ought to so love our wives and so behave ourselves towards and so deal with them as to be a means under God to encourage them in the ways of holiness. We defined love earlier as the ‘desire for and pursuit after the well-being and supreme good of someone else’ Well as a Christian what is the supreme good that you can seek for your wife? It is of course that she will be more and more conformed to the image of Jesus Christ and if you truly love your wife then you will do al that you can to pursue that objective. You will strive to show her Christ in your own life. You will ensure that you encourage her to take time to herself to be alone with Christ. Time to read the scriptures and to pray. You will ensure that she is able to make us of the means of grace, to attend the services of worship regularly in order to feed up the Word. And enjoy fellowship with God’s people. That she will be able to come along to the prayer meeting or any other meetings that will contribute to her spiritual growth. If that means you sitting in with the children in order to let her out then you will happily do so. I wonder men have you ever asked yourself – Am I helping or am I hindering my wife’s spiritual progress. If you really love your wife you will do all that you can to help her in this important area of her life.
There is another aspect to the love of Christ for his church that I will only have time to mention in passing and that is that Christ’s love for his church was a
(v) Persevering / Enduring Love:
The love of Christ for his bride is not a love that is here one day and gone the next. It is not something that is transient and fleeting. It is a love that was set upon his Church in eternity past and which will endure for ever. It is a love which will not be broken.
In v33 Paul writes “each one of you also must love his wife…” the form of the verb here is such that it indicates a command to keep on at something. Husbands you must keep on loving your wives. This is not a temporary, transient relationship that you have entered into. It is one which you are to work at and maintain and develop throughout your whole life and you are not to stop loving her when you run into difficulties and problems but are to persevere in loving her. Or to put it in the words of the marriage ceremony - “for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, for better or for worse, for as long as you both shall live.”
We have considered the Nature of the husbands duty – LOVE your wives; we have looked at the Pattern for the husbands duty – as Christ loved the Church, with an exclusive love, a realistic love, a sacrificial love, a purifying love and a persevering love; There is a third thing that I want to leave with you as we bring our study of this passage to a close and that is
3 The Rational For The Husbands Duty
We find that in vs 28-33 where Paul argues that a husband ought to love his wife because she is in fact part of him. “husbands ought to loves their wives as (as being) their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all no-one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it…” And basically what Paul is saying here is that when a man and woman are married and when that marriage is consumated in the act of physical union the two individuals become one flesh in God’s sight, they are so united together that they are no longer two completely independent beings but rather are one . You sometimes used to hear people (usually husbands) referring to their spouse as their better half. Well that is a thoroughly Biblical concept, the half part of it anyway, because a husband and a wife are one flesh and neither should think of themselves as independent beings. Rather they are a half of a whole the other half being their spouse. Now Paul argues, this being the case, a man should love his wife (and of course the reverse is also true although Paul here is dealing with the husband) a husband should love his wife because she is in fact a part of him. He is not to think of his wife as someone out there as it were separate from and independent of him but rather someone who is actually a part of himself. And just as a man nourishes and cares for and looks after his own body, feeding it, clothing it, grooming it caring for it and so on so too a husband is to cherish and nourish his wife; that is he is to love her and care for her because she is a part of him.
Men let me ask you. Is that the way you think of your wife? That she is a part of you. If you haven’t been used to thinking of her in such terms you had better start doing so because that is how she is described here in this passage and God wants you to think of her in such terms because the way in which you think about her will largely determine how you treat her. Husbands there are far reaching practical implications in respect of how you treat your wife in the totality of everyday life situations, that arise from the experience of physical union with her.
Last week we saw that a wife is to be submissive to her husband. I would suggest men that if we loved our wives in the way that we ought to love them our wives would find it much easier to fulfil their biblical duty before us. May God forgive us for our failings and empower us to love our wives as we should.
