Ephesians 5:25-33

Wives face a difficult challenge.

We know that Paul tells Christian wives to submit to their husbands. As equal persons before God and equal partners to their husbands, they should support their man by getting behind his final decisions as leader of the home, if that decision doesn’t require her to sin.

What’s fascinating about this instruction is that the only other qualification Paul gives is for a wife to submit to her own husband, not some other man. That no other qualification is given puts wives in an awkward spot since her man may be less intelligent, spiritually mature, or humble than her, and he may even be a nonbeliever. These realities mean that she may need to back some inconvenient, uncomfortable, and unwise decisions.

Husbands should not take submission for granted.

Though a wife should support her husband’s choices voluntarily in respect to the Lord, a Christian husband should not take her support for granted. He too has an obligation to God for how he treats his wife. When he treats her properly, he makes her choice to support him an easier one. He also shows others how Christ cares for the church.

When I was an early teen, my father pastored a church in rural Indiana. The building featured two outhouses, a gravel parking lot, a cow pasture behind the building, and a creek across the street. The small congregation consisted of blue-collar workers, farmers, and retirees. Though they loved Dad for a while, esp. when the offering totals increased, they eventually resisted his teaching, esp. when he taught about the Christian home.

Did Paul encourage male chauvinism?

One Sunday morning stands out in my mind. A woman named Hazel, a deacon’s wife, blurted out in the middle of a Bible study that she didn’t like the teachings of the apostle Paul. “Jesus is fine,” she said, “but not Paul, ‘cause he’s down on women.” Say what?

Sadly, many other people also think that Paul taught male chauvinism, a prejudice that views men as superior to women and treats women as lower-class people. Ironically, it’s Christianity, including Paul’s teachings, that upholds the dignity and equality of women.

Chauvinism is a worldly mentality not a biblical one.

To discover the roots of chauvinism, we should look at secular history. Second-century Roman statesman, Marcus Cato, once said: “If you catch your wife in an act of infidelity, you can kill her without a trial. But if she were to catch you, she would not venture to touch you with her finger. She has no rights.”[1] These words reflect the mindset of men and cultures throughout world history, from early periods of civilization until now.

This low view of women even permeates America today. Though we claim to champion women’s rights, we insist that they must behave like men to find their worth and equality. Therefore, we belittle the ways that a woman differs from a man and suppress the need for women to make their own unique contributions to society as women. We push them into men’s roles and thereby devalue their inherent dignity and natural, God-given identity.

What’s more, despite the short-lived outcry of the #metoo movement, we continue to exploit and objectify women for selfish, sensual reasons. Even thinking, educated women participate in this charade by exposing themselves to the world in demeaning ways, whether for financial gain or as a misguided means of self-expression.

Connected closely to this widespread humiliation, of course, is the despicable practice of sex trafficking, a form of slavery that operates in the shadows. Equally connected is the widespread practice of abortion, a brutal procedure which degrades a woman’s role in procreation and places in her mind demoralizing psychological effects.

The Bible upholds the dignity of women.

In contrast to these twisted, demeaning views of women, the Bible upholds their dignity, insisting that while they have a different role in society than men, esp. in the home, their role is equally dignified, necessary, and valuable to the world in honorable ways. To demonstrate this fact, consider the following examples of how the New Testament (NT) upholds the dignity of women from the four gospels alone:

• Christ entered the world through a virgin mother. Without Mary’s crucial role, we would have no Savior (Matt 1:23).
• Women named Mary Magdalene, Joana, Susanna, and others financed the ministry of Christ and his twelve disciples. Without their material support, Christ’s teaching and discipleship ministry would not have been able to occur (Luke 8:1-3).
• When a group of men (including respected, powerful, and privileged leaders) accused a woman of adultery, Christ forgave her sin rather than call for her execution, which was a legal option. What’s more, he exposed the guilt of her accusers (John 8:1-11).
• In the NT world, a woman testimony was worthless, even if she was an eyewitness and even if there were more than two women on hand. Yet God chose three women rather than the twelve disciples or any other men to be the first star witnesses to the resurrection of Christ (Mark 16:1-7).

More instances from the gospels exist, and even more examples appear throughout Acts and the Epistles. These observations show that Bible-based, gospel-focused Christianity has always been countercultural, upholding the dignity and equality of women and encouraging far better treatment for them than our pagan, secular world provides.

Husbands love your wives.

With these four words (six in Greek), Paul swept aside the prevailing low view of wives. Roman men married for neither romance (a lower, somewhat selfish motivation) nor service (a more noble approach that marries for the benefit of his wife). He married for the purpose of bearing children, esp. boys, to whom he could inherit his estate. To most men, a wife was no more than a glorified slave. He reserved his acts of nobility and pursuit of self-gratification for other women and would often encourage his wife to do the same.

Imagine the thoughts of a Christian woman who heard the words of this letter to the church for the first time. When the pastor or whomever read the letter arrived at the words of Eph 5:22-24, she would have paused in self-reflection. Would she follow her husband’s lead out of devotion to Christ?

Then deep in thought, how might her heart have leapt with joy and her eyes raised with hopeful optimism when the pastor read, “Husbands, love your wives.” What kind of words were these? They were countercultural for sure! If her husband also followed Christ and sat nearby, would she give him a sideways glance? Would he take these words to heart?

Loving husbands is the mark of a Spirit-filled church.

First, in the bigger picture, this command to Christian husbands occurs as a result of when believers in a church submit to one another, showing the humility of Christ and putting others first. This attitude towards one another is an outcome, then, of being Spirit-filled, which is being aware of the Spirit’s presence in our lives and worship and following to the truth of his Word in our lives. So, in a Spirit-filled church, husbands will love their wives in the way that Paul describes here.

Submit to your wife as a leader not a follower.

When Paul shifts attention to the husbands in the church, he doesn’t say, “Husbands, submit to your wives.” If he had, then who would make final decisions? Christian homes face an impasse, as wives and husbands insisted on letting the other make the final choice. There would be no order.

So, Paul takes a different approach. Having acknowledged the husband’s responsibility to make final decisions, he urges them to “submit” to their wives differently by making decisions that elevate the needs of their wives over themselves. This is how those who lead show respect to those who follow. They make final decisions with followers in mind. To submit as a leader, you must let the needs of others guide your way.

This doesn’t mean a husband must always do what his wife desires. He should do what she needs him to do, and he should also do what she wants him to do sometimes, so long as what she wants is not going to hurt her and will not disrespect the Lord.

As the leader of the home, a husband has a duty before God to make good decisions.

• His first consideration must be what the Lord wants him to do. What does God’s Word say? This means that he may need to make tough choices that even his wife will not appreciate because Christ is his Lord and God’s Word God is an authority over him.
• His second consideration, then, should be what his wife wants him to do. What he wants to do should be last his last consideration, and that’s hard, right?

Hand tight, though, because I there’s something about this love that’s even more difficult.

Love your wife as an undeserving enemy.

This statement may shock you, but it reveals that the husband’s duty to love his wife is even harder than I’ve already indicated. I say this because of what love means here.

Perhaps you know that the Greek language features three key words for love. One of these words is eros, which generally refers to romantic, sensual love. The Old Testament (OT) vividly describes this love in Prov 5:15-20 and in the Song of Solomon. When the NT says, “Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled,” it also refers to this kind of love in concept and encourages it, but only within marriage (Heb 13:4).

Another word for love is philia, which generally refers to friendship love. When you speak of love this way, it implies that you admire the other person, you appreciate them, and you enjoy being around them. This is a good and noble form of love and we are reminded about this concept whenever an engaged person happily explains how excited they are to be marrying their best friend. To be sure, you should want to be friends with the person you marry, since marriage is a heightened form of friendship.

Yet neither of these forms of love are in focus when Paul says, “Husbands, love your wives.” In this case he uses the word agape, which many of us think means an “unconditional, sacrificial, Christlike love.” Though this is kind of true, it’s not all there is.

I say this because agape love existed as a concept and word before Christ died on the cross and before Paul wrote these words to husbands. It’s because we’re Christians and understand what Christ did for us through his death on the cross (as Paul describes in the verses that follow) that we add this “sacrificial, Christ-like” nuance to the word, and this we should do. Yet in doing so, we need to acknowledge a deeper, underlying nuance – that this is the kind of love that a person shows to an enemy.

Christ referred to this nuance when he said, “Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you” (Matt 5:44). With these words, Christ taught us to make calculated, deliberate choices to behave kindly to people with whom we have no meaningful obligation, whether in romance or friendship. These are repulsive, hurtful people.

I know this is an extreme example because it refers people in the world, not our wives. Yet Paul speaks to the challenges of marriage directly when he says, “Husband, love your wives,” then adds, “and do not be bitter toward them” (Col 3:19). Why would a husband be bitter toward his wife? Because wives can behave in hurtful and unattractive ways.

Let’s be real. Wives and husbands can both be difficult. Agreed? Yet, just because a wife is being difficult doesn’t give her husband a reason to stop making decisions with her best interest in mind. Just as a wife should support her husband’s final decisions, even when he’s being difficult, so a husband should make choices that place his wife’s best interest over his own even when she’s being difficult – even if she’s acting like an enemy.

Christ’s love for the church is a husband’s example.

This is where Christ comes in. We were his enemies, but he gave his life for us anyway. In fact, Christ’s undeserved love toward us has already been described for us in this letter.

We were “dead in trespasses and sins” and “sons of disobedience” (Eph 2:1-2). We “conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath” (Eph 2:3). Yet God “loved us” with his “great love” (Eph 2:4). Even though “we were dead in trespasses,” he “made us alive together in Christ” (Eph 2:5).

By loving us in this extremely generous way when we were so unlovable, Christ reversed our spiritual condition. We were selfish, focused on ourselves, and sinful, doing inappropriate, dirty things. He could have walked away, but he did not. He “cleansed us” from the stain of our sin (Eph 5:26). He also “sanctified us” (Eph 5:26). He gave himself on the cross so he could place us in a new position of closeness and usefulness for God.

How did this transformation occur? Through the “washing of water by the word.” This is our conversion when we heard the gospel and believed on Christ. Paul explained this when he said, “After you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation” (Eph 1:13).

Why did Christ love us as enemies in this sacrificial way? So we could enter eternity as his breathtaking, glorious bride, which is an analogy of that future day when we enter God’s kingdom and ultimate closeness with Christ forever, in addition to all the other blessings he lavishes on us in love. If we read Eph 1-4 again, we are reminded of how many blessings Christ has given us. We should love our wives in the same lavish way.

Love your wife like you love yourself.

Since this is true, Paul gives us a second example, but this time he stoops to a lower level. If we can’t get our minds around what it means to love our wives like Christ loved the church, then certainly we can understand the way we love ourselves instead. With this explanation, Paul gets down on a man’s level.

To help men understand how to love their wives, Paul appeals to the way that we “nourish” and “cherish” our own bodies as men. In other words, we take good care of ourselves whether we deserve it or not. I mean, what man disrespects his own body by neglecting his personal needs and ignoring his dreams and desires?

The word nourish describes how parents provide their children with the food, healthcare, education and training, experience, resources, and opportunities they need to succeed. A wife should not feel like she needs to fend for herself to survive. She should rest assured knowing that her husband has her best interest in mind and will do whatever he can to ensure that she both survives and thrives.

The word cherish expands a husband’s obligation even further, teaching us that a husband should also provide his wife with the warmth, comfort, and affection she needs to feel safe and secure, love and admire and appreciated. He we see allusions to the other kinds of love a wife also needs, the eros (romantic) or philia (friendship) love.

Now let’s consider some examples of what this kind of love is like:

• A wife wants to rent a house with a private washer and dryer and larger kitchen, but her husband wants to move into an apartment that requires a laundromat because the rent is cheaper, and the location is closer to his work. What should he do?
• A husband has been invited to an all-expenses-paid weekend golfing event with his supervisor from work, but his wife has a list of projects that need done around the house (like a dripping faucet and a bad thermostat), and it’s been a busy week, so the dishes are piled up in the sink and the laundry has piled up, too. None of these things are emergencies, yet what should he do?

As we consider scenarios like these, it’s important to remember that husbands should not reserve showing love to their wives for big occasions. In fact, it’s not big parties, expensive cruises, and fancy restaurants that a wife needs most. What she needs is the day in, day out love in the little things that reflects Christ daily faithfulness to us, things like:

• Put God first: pray together, talk about God’s Word, apologize to her when you’ve been wrong, forgive her when she apologizes to you, worship at church together on a weekly basis and serve God together in your church, recognize her spiritual gift(s) and find ways for her to develop and use them for God
• Be a good steward with family resources: don’t spend wastefully, avoid and eliminate debt, make wise purchases, and save for future goals (goals that ensure she’ll be cared for in the future and goals that are important from her point of view, like college savings, a future house, etc.)
• Speak kind words: thank and praise her frequently and genuinely (to her, to your children, to people at large), stay in touch throughout the day (text and call when you’re away), leave notes on regular days not just special days, and don’t speak to her sarcastically or treat her like a child
• Spend time together: do things she enjoys, talk about things that interest her, don’t look for every possible way to get out of the house and come home as little and late as possible, just be around, spend time with the children. She’s your most important friend. Do you treat her that way?

When you put your wife first, you help yourself too.

Having considered these examples, take a look at what Paul throws into his teaching when he says, “He who loves his wife loves himself” (Eph 5:28). What he’s saying here, husbands, is that you may be tempted to withhold things from your wife to protect yourself. In fact, sometimes it feels like you’re getting the “short end of the stick” and falling behind in life when you put your wife ahead of yourself. But don’t be fooled. When you act in your own self-interest, you end up hurting yourself instead. If you know what’s good for you, Paul says, you’ll put your wife first. Putting your wife first has a way of coming back like a boomerang and blessing you more than if you pampered yourself instead.

Now here is the bigger point. A husband should give his wife all this affection and attention regardless of whether she deserves it, follows his lead, or returns the favor. To make this point clear, Paul now enters the back door of the house rather than the front door, as before, and he returns to the original illustration. You should give the same attention and affection to your wife as you do to yourself because that’s how the Lord loves the church.

Christ’s love reflects a husband’s love, but a husband’s love reflects Christ’s love.

This is an amazing paradox, isn’t it? To understand how a husband should love his wife, we’re supposed to follow the example of how Christ devoted himself to people like us who became the church. Yet, how can we understand this kind of love? We’re supposed to see and experience it by the way a Christian husband devotes himself to caring for his wife, especially when she doesn’t deserve it. In other words, the way Christian husbands love their wives is supposed to be the premier, real-life example of the gospel message.

This fact is so important that Paul quotes some Scripture from the beginning of human history (Gen 2:24). “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh” (Eph 5:31). By doing this, he reveals that when God created marriage in the beginning, he intended to illustrate the gospel through this special relationship.

Your marriage should illustrate the gospel.

When a man and woman join together in marriage, two individuals enter a special union. A head doesn’t exist or function independently (as singles do before marriage), but it exists and functions in close partnership with the rest of its body. So a husband and wife enter into a closely shared identity. This relationship, then, illustrates like nothing else can do the way that Christ has closely shared his identity with we who are believers.

As the church, Christ is our head and we follow him. He provides us will all that we need – spiritually, eternally, and in every other way. We can no longer imagine our existence and future without him, and he will never function without us in mind. We don’t deserve his attention, care, and devotion, but as our head, our leader, and provider, he has committed himself to meeting our every need no matter what. The way that a Christian husband loves his wife is supposed to be the best way to show what this is like.

Love your wife and respect your husband.

When we soak in what Paul says to the church about marriage, we can feel a little overwhelmed. We can also feel as though the whole thing is a little unfair (or sometimes, much more than unfair). We can also excuse our failure to be a Christlike spouse by saying, “Well it’s complicated. All this theological talk about Christ and the church is a little confusing, and besides, my husband doesn’t love me like this all the time (if much at all) or my wife doesn’t get behind my decisions like this all the time (if much at all).”

Anticipating such excuses, feelings, and thoughts, Paul wraps up his teaching for marriages in the church with a simple summary: “nevertheless [or something like, no matter how difficult this may seem, it all boils down to this], let each one of you must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband” (Eph 5:33).

To husbands, Paul says to give your wives the kind of devoted attention and care that you give to yourself. Do whatever you can to ensure that she survives and thrives in every way, and when you make choices for your home, do so with her best interest in mind. Do this day in and day out, whether she deserves it or not. Period.

To wives, Paul says to give your husbands respect. It’s interesting to note that he uses respect here rather than submit as in Eph 5:22-24). What he has said about submission (getting behind your husband’s decisions and following his lead) still stands, but he adds here an attitude that means to take your husband seriously and show that you take him seriously through your words and actions, whether he deserves your respect or not.

As a pastor, I pray two ways in response to Paul’s teaching on marriage in Eph 5:22-33.

• First, I pray that I will be the kind of husband that Paul describes. I have a long way to do and have much room for improvement. I’m thankful, though, for a wife who follows my leadership and supports my decisions despite my failures.
• Second, I pray that each spouse represented in our church will embrace the Christ-centered simplicity of this teaching in their marriage. Husbands love your wives and meet her needs whether she deserves it or not. Wives respect and submit to your husband’s choices whether he deserves it or not.

Let’s not make excuses, but rather let’s live out our calling in marriage not for our own benefit, but for the glory of God through Christ, and based upon the blessings that Ephesians tell us God has prepared for us the eternal kingdom of God, though undeserved, we know that no matter how difficult this calling may be, it will be worth it all when we see Christ.

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[1] John MacArthur Jr., Ephesians, MacArthur New Testament Commentary (Chicago: Moody, 1986), 294.