Ephesians 5:25–32

Husbands are not told to rule. That is not where they are likely to fail. They are told to love. Wives are not addressed this way. With them, love is not as likely to be weak as submission is. So what is put before the husband? "Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her." Once we take this in, it lifts us above the merely natural level. God's own love is our heavenly pattern.

Natural affection is recognised here, but a far higher kind of love is brought in. It re-shapes an earthly relationship after a heavenly pattern. The past, present, and future love of Christ for the church are all brought to bear on the husband's duty to his wife.

The first thing of all is His own love, which nothing outside Himself caused. "He loved the church" — perfectly, as God loves, without limit. Here we see how complete His love is. "He gave Himself." He did not only do something for it: "He gave Himself!" ... The self-sacrifice of Christ was absolute: it was Himself, all He is, and all He was in His perfection. Everything in His nature was behind it: "He gave Himself."

He then gave Himself; and He could give no more.

Let us remember that He did not first make the church worthy to be loved, then love it and give Himself for it. He loved it as it was, then gave Himself for it, and now works to make it suitable to Himself. ... Christ loved the church in all its deep need, and gave Himself for it; then, having made it His own, He cleanses it and makes it fit for Himself. None of us is content when someone we love is not what we would wish. Christ will not be content until the church suits Him completely.

Husbands are to love their own wives by no lower standard than Christ's love for the church (v.25). He gave Himself for it. He did not just give many gifts; He gave Himself. If one is not willing to give himself for an intended wife, he ought not to marry her. Notice what this whole section stresses: love works for the greatest good of the one it loves, and it pays for that itself.

Think of a Christian husband who has spent a hard, stormy day resting his heart on Christ's love and warming himself in it. He does not come home and frown his wife into silence, submission, and obedience. He loves her into it. The only force he uses is his own example — his submission to Christ the Head, his dependence on Him, and his obedience to His Word.

Christ Jesus Himself is woven through every part of it. He Himself is the beginning, He Himself the end, He Himself all the way through. He gave Himself as the beginning; and He presents it to Himself as the end. Meanwhile He tenderly cares for the church.

But what is the object of Christ's love in the future? "That He might present it to Himself" — not to another. Not, here, to display it to the world, but "TO HIMSELF," "a glorious church." Yes, not a church in shame, but glorious, "not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing," but "holy and blameless" (Eph. 1:4; 5:27).

In paradise, when God built the woman, He presented her to Adam: this is what will happen concerning the church; Eph. 5:27. He has given His life for her. He washes her by His word. He will present her to Himself glorious, with the same glory He Himself has as risen and glorified. This will be the marriage supper of the Lamb. The church is the bride united to Jesus in glory. She is justified, purified, and glorified. A bride in a lowly body is not fit for a Bridegroom in a glorious body.

This is the complete account of what Christ does: He cleanses the Church as well as sanctifies it. All defilement has to go, and in both cases God uses the washing of water by the word. But there is a third and future fruit of His love — "that He might present it to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing." There we have the complete blessing of the Church. Cleansing will no longer be in question. All the love of Christ will have its perfect effect, and the Church will be glorious according to His own likeness.

There are two things by which beauty is marred: spots and wrinkles. The first show defilement. The second come from passion, or from worry and age. Both are the effects of sin — the first directly, the second indirectly. If there were no sin in the world, there would be no spots and no wrinkles. Everyone dislikes wrinkles, clean or not. But only a clean person avoids spots. Someone with dirty habits does not mind them.

So at the rapture we shall all be without spot for ever. Second, we shall be without wrinkle, without any marks of decay. Third, we shall be fully holy in nature. Fourth, without blemish… These four marks mean we shall be stainless, ageless, sinless and blameless in the day that is coming when He presents us collectively to Himself. Nothing less than His own standard will do…

It will have no spot, that is, no defect of any sort. No wrinkle, that is, no sign of age or decay, "nor any such thing," that is, no other defect of any imaginable kind. Could language be stronger or more sweeping? How could that fit the idea that the Lord will catch up only some of the many who make up the church when He comes? In that case He would indeed present to Himself mutilated fragments rather than a church without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing.

Yet they do give us a very different idea of the reality of things from what we often think when we come together, twenty or more of us, let us say, to break bread. All of us are very weak, all failing, all apt to make mistakes. Not one of us is anything to be proud of. We think, "What a poor lot we are!" And it is true. But when we read verses like these, we see that a work of the Lord is in progress upon us.

The Spirit of God here assumes a necessary way of nature, and assumes it with approval. That regard for one's self which each of us is ready enough to give has God's own approval. And then, on this very principle of nature, the apostle goes on to set out the Lord's nourishing care of the Church... So if I can understand my love for myself, I may understand Christ's love to me. My Lord owns the duty I owe myself as a duty He owes to me. He can only nourish and cherish me, as I would nourish and cherish myself.

He is now taking up the common instinct that men naturally avoid pain and take care of themselves. He is speaking only of the fact. He says: look upon your wife as a part of yourself. Anything that would wrong her is that much wrong done to your own body.

And what are nourishing and cherishing? Nourishing is food, and cherishing is warmth of affection. You have the truth ministered by the gifts the Lord gives — that is the nourishment, and saints need nourishment... not just the ministry of all that He is to our souls to form us like Himself; He also leaves out no detail of tender care for His own.

Not only has Christ a heavenly aim, but His love performs the work which, so to speak, is natural to it. He cares tenderly for the church here below; He nourishes it, He cherishes it. The church's needs, weaknesses, difficulties and anxieties are only openings for Christ to show His love... If the end is heaven, He does not leave the church abandoned here. She learns His love where her heart needs it.

It is a great comfort to know this is true of the Church as it is now, when we think of the ruin all around. Does Christ ever cease to nourish what belongs to Him? Impossible. In spite of all the ruin, He has the same care for His people.

Scripture never speaks of Him as Lord in relation to the Church. That clause in Ephesians 5:29, when read rightly, stands: "even as the Christ the Church." To the Church, whether seen as His body or His bride, He is head, not Lord. Lord of course He is; God made Him such... Headship and Lordship both belong to Him, but they are not interchangeable terms. As Lord, He stands apart from all others; as head, He is in close association with what He is joined to.

Christ's care of the church does not flow from prerogative only, but His care and tenderness are exercised over it... The love we have to learn is not supremacy in love, but caring, as it were, for Himself.

Christ's love in cleansing the Church is set here before the Christian husband. That is not so that he should set to work and do the same with his wife. It is so that he may, in a general way, learn from our loving Head in glory to show his love to his wife in tender concern for everything that touches her welfare... There are not a few who show great willingness (I do not say skill) for washing their wives' feet, but let them starve at the same time. If you do not know how to nourish and cherish your wife, as your own body, you are not fit to wash her feet.

What heights and depths this comparison holds! It shows that the debt of love is never paid, but always owed. And yet that love delights to own the debt, and to keep paying it, lavishing care and tenderness on her who has become one with him in God's view.

No one, he says, ever hated his own flesh; he nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church. This is the precious side of Christ's love for the present time, which the apostle presents here. His love does the work which, so to speak, is natural to it. He cares tenderly for the church here below. Her wants, weaknesses, difficulties and anxieties are only opportunities for Christ to exercise His love.

Sanctifying and cleansing look on to the presentation in glory. Nourishing and cherishing belong to our journey on earth. His love not only looks on to the glory. It also watches over us on the way there, as we pass through this dark world from which He is absent. He knows the circumstances we are in and the trials we have to meet. He knows our weaknesses and infirmities. In them all He cares for us and meets our needs.

God Himself approves the regard for oneself that each of us is ready enough to give. The apostle says Christ acts towards us on this instinctive verdict of nature: a man is to love his own body. So if I can understand my love for myself, I may understand Christ's love to me. My Lord acknowledges the duty I owe myself as owed by Him to me.

We are, as it were, a part of Himself. We have our existence and our being from Him, as Eve had hers from Adam. He can say, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting."

We must not take this literally here. But could language set out the mystical union of Christ and His Church more clearly or more forcibly? These words come from Adam's cry of wonder when he woke from his deep sleep. That sleep pictures the death of Christ for His redeemed, so that He might have a Bride for His affections. When Adam looked at his bride he said, "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh." That was literally true of Adam and Eve. It is used as a symbol of Christ and His Church.

The verse is sometimes applied to Christ's becoming man; but it is the reverse of that. It does not mean Christ taking our flesh and bone, but our being made members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones. It is our relationship to Christ risen from the dead, not Christ's relationship to us as a man on earth. We are really a part of Himself, united to Him as He now is in the presence of God.

So it is clearly the raised and ascended man who is made head of the body, and set over all things. There was no such man until the ascension. So where people set up the church before Pentecost in their imagination, union loses all its reality and the church loses all true existence. "He who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with Him." We are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones. All of this assumes the man Christ, and Christ ascended, when union is spoken of — and that is union by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Adam falls into a deep sleep. God takes a rib out of his side and builds a woman from it. Then God Himself marries our first parents. Is not this a beautiful picture of Christ and the church? He falls into the deep sleep of death, and through His death He forms His Bride. Thousands of years later the believers at Ephesus read in Paul's letter how a husband should behave towards his wife. Yet that was not the main thought. Paul used their earthly relationship as a picture of Christ and His church... But if we throw doubt on Genesis, we throw doubt on Ephesians too.

Marriage begins a new estate. Father and mother are to be loved and honoured still, but relied on no longer as protectors. The man departs from his state of dependence as a son to become himself the head of a new house.

Before a man marries, his chief relationship is that of a son. His responsibility is towards his parents. But when he marries he leaves his father and mother and holds fast to his wife. From then on she becomes his chief care, for he and she are no longer two but one flesh.

God established marriage as the first of human relationships. He makes it clear for all later generations that a man should leave his father and mother and cling to his wife. It is just as clear that the woman should leave her parents to become fully devoted to her husband. The word "cling" is beautiful here. It involves the reality of love, of devotedness and of faithfulness.

I hardly need to say that this verse rules out everything opposed to complete confidence in such a relationship. The husband, if he acts in the spirit of it, has no secret from the one who is part of himself.

The man who loves his wife loves himself, and he is to leave other relationships to be joined to his wife. The Apostle quotes from Genesis. But he states clearly that this is a great mystery about Christ and the church. Christ, as Man, left all relations with Israel according to the flesh to secure His church.

This is sometimes applied to Christ's becoming man, but it is the opposite of that. It does not mean Christ taking our flesh and bone; it means our being made members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones. It is our relationship to Christ risen from the dead, not Christ's relationship to us as a man on earth... It is our union with Him, not His incarnation.

The mystery is no longer "hidden in God"; it is disclosed. You must always keep this in mind when you read about the mystery — it is now revealed and nothing is left in the dark. God sets the secret out in His own light, and He expects the simplest Christian to receive it. Could any words do more to destroy the common idea that a mystery means something we cannot understand, and that a godly person dare not look into?

Here we have a special part only: the union of the Church with Christ, as of His body, His bones and His flesh. This union sets the Church in its own special and wonderful place, when all was headed up in Christ in heaven and earth. It is a special mystery to itself.

The emphasis of the Apostle's language is very remarkable. All the mysteries of God are the subject of His stewardship. Even so, the only other place where he speaks of a great mystery is where he describes the coming of the Living One in flesh, and its effects, under the title of the "mystery of godliness." Only one wonder is greater: the Son of God taking our flesh. Next to it stands this mystery, which declares the Church to be the acceptable spouse of Christ.

The relationship of husband and wife is not simply a convenient illustration. Ephesians 5 makes it clear that God modelled marriage on what He had in His mind: the relationship of Christ and the church. That relationship of Christ and His church was in the Divine mind in eternity, and in time God set up the relationship of husband and wife.

The particular way God made Eve out of Adam gives marriage a special holiness. The husband is to cherish his wife as part of his own being. It also supplies a beautiful picture of Christ's relationship with the Church. As Adam was not complete without Eve, so Christ, though Head over all, is not complete without the Church... As Adam fell into a deep sleep, so Christ went into death. As Eve was formed out of Adam, so the Church is given life with Christ, and has His own life.

The word "sacrament" comes from the Latin sacramentum, the oath of loyalty taken by Roman soldiers. So it is a church term, not a Scriptural one. The Latin translation uses it for the Greek word mysterion, mystery. It does so in Eph. 5:32, where the Apostle speaks of marriage. From this, the Roman Catholic church makes marriage a sacrament. The absurdity of this is clear. If the Greek word mysterion always meant a sacrament, the usual church sense of the word would be gone. Think of "the mystery of the gospel," "the mystery of godliness," "the mystery of iniquity." And if it does not always mean that, then on what authority in Eph. 5:32?

The full union is still only a hope. Yet the Christian husband or wife believes that such a relationship exists, and that belief is to govern their feelings about the merely natural tie. Loving from principle, in the power of faith, is something different from obeying a natural instinct... Here we are taught that among Christians, Christ is to be the one rule that governs every relationship a member of His body may be called to fill.