Having spent five sermons on the topic of marriage from Ephesians 5:22-33, here are a number of principles that I found particularly important and compelling as we made our way through these verses:
- The commands for a wife to submit (v. 22) and a husband to love (v. 25) are a choice. They are not feeling-based, but decision-based. They are acts of volition that are the overflow of one’s relationship with Christ.
- If a wife doesn’t love her husband, it may well be a reflection of the fact that he doesn’t love her. As Christ first loved His bride, enabling that bride to love Him, so a husband initiates love in the marital home.
- A man leads his wife best by loving his wife. If he wants to be an effective leader, he will lead by love, not force and command.
- Christ is ever and always the pattern for how a husband loves and cares for his wife.
- A husband’s greatest sacrifice is reserved for his greatest love, his wife.
- A husband’s love for his wife should be distinctively Christian. There should be a quality to his love that is different from the world’s kind of love. It should be demonstrably “like Christ.”
- Similarly, a husband’s sacrifice and “cleansing” of his wife should be gospel- (word-) centered. The essence of the gospel should pervade the marriage relationship because the husband is constantly and regularly applying that gospel to the marriage.
- A husband’s purpose is not to make his wife happy. He is in her life to make her holy. His sacrificial love for her should be intentionally given to sanctify her and make her increasingly like Christ.
- A husband works to make his wife extra-ordinary. Because of the quality of his love, her character is splendid and magnificent. While she is responsible for her sin, the husband is responsible for and will give an account of her spiritual progress (just as elders in the church are responsible for the church members under their care). Does he do things which stimulate her maturity? Is she more like Christ because of his influence? or in spite of his influence?
- The holiness that the husband desires for his wife is the same holiness that Christ desires for all His people (cf. 1:4).
- A husband’s response to lead and love his wife should be as quick and natural as his desire to care for himself.
- When the husband gives himself in loving care of his wife by laying aside his desires and wants, he does not “lose,” since he and his wife are one. So in caring for her, he cares for himself. It is thus in his best interests to care for his wife.
- A husband’s own walk in purity and holiness is essential to sanctifying his wife. As Christ has done for him, he now shows her what a holy life is like and how it is possible.
- The way a husband and wife relate together is the great picture of Christ’s love for the church. A marriage is about more than just that marriage — it is a testimony to and demonstration of the indisolvable union between Christ and His bride.
- When overwhelmed with the responsibilities and roles of marriage, remember two basic principles: Husbands most honor God in marriage when they love their wives; wives most honor God when they honor (respect and have godly fear for) their husbands.
Words of Grace 