Submit to One Another Part 2: Husbands
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church.
Ephesians 5:25–29 NIV Read More
Remember at the start of this section, Paul commends us to love one another out of reverence for Christ. There was a practical section for Women to submit to their husbands, and this section is how Men can submit to their wives.
Unlike the women, the men have a model and an example already set for them in human form. While a wife can act like the Church in relation to her husband, a man has Jesus’ own example in the way he should treat his wife. It begins with the theoretical example of Christ laying down His life for the church, but ends in the very practical way that a man takes care of himself.
There are several ways this could go wrong but everyone thinks is right. The man could be a pasty martyr that is always laying down his life for his wife so that she can be the bulldozer and rule the world. That would be fine in regards to him laying down his life, but not progress in maker her holy.
A man could always be telling his wife what to do to make her holy, but really be chiding her towards fitting into his own personal legalism. Legalism is always self-serving, no matter how pious it looks on the outside. If a man has an ideal that he is always pushing his wife to reach, she will never experience the grace and peace that the struggling church feels with Her Lord. Jesus said He would not snuff out a smoldering wick or break off a bent reed.
A man deals with nothing else so dearly as his own body. Some with P90X to make it the shape they want, some with Donut Bank double cream-filled long johns to please the body with deliciousness. Either way, you don’t have to convince many men (or people in general, but I’m talking to men) to love their own bodies. If we took that attitude with our wives, we would already be ahead of the world in holy living. Not from a hedonistic perspective, but from the standpoint of presenting ourselves to Christ, holy and blameless. To remove all bitterness, anxiety, and doubt from our wives, we must first build a relationship up with them that gives them the freedom to live free of those things.
That is ultimately the final charge. Just as Christ sees us as holy and blameless because of His own sacrifice, so we too, as husbands, can see the purity and holiness that Christ is working in our wives. We can till the soil and shine sunlight into our homes so that Christ can do His work. We can remove weeds and guard against predators so that our wives, along with us, can grow into the glory of God in Christ.
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