The Loving Headship of Husbands, Part 1(Eph. 5:26–33)

Series: Ephesians: Building the ChurchText: Ephesians 5:26–33

By: Shaun Marksbury Date: July 9, 2023

Venue: Living Water Baptist ChurchOccasion: PM Service

Introduction

Our last session in the Book of Ephesians involved one of its more controversial portions in today’s culture — that of the role of wives in marriages. Specifically, the controversy lies in the reality of male headship in those verses. This wasn’t controversial in Paul’s day, however.

In fact, there’s an interesting omission in these verses now addressed to husbands. Nowhere do these verses use the words, “Husbands, rule your wives.” Such a command would be unnecessary in the Roman culture to which Paul writes — men would already presume their leadership roles, with or without biblical warrant. Unfortunately, they might have done so with an authoritarian stance that the Bible wouldn’t allow.

As one commentary notes,

Throughout history the most dominant distortion of relationships has been on man’s side. In most cultures of the ancient world, women were treated as little more than servants, and the practice is reflected in many parts of the world today. Marcius Cato, the famous Roman statesman of the second century b.c., wrote, “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.”

Many people today think this is the kind of brutish patriarchy that the Bible presents. However, that’s not the case. Instead, this section calls men to love, an important message for them to hear. Why? As we began considering marriage last week, we considered how sin has made it go awry. While it’s true that Eve ate the fruit first, Adam was not loving her by protecting her from the false words of the serpent. Just a few generations later, a man threatened the integrity of marriage through polygamy (Gen. 4:23). Scripture, and history beyond, records numerous marital issues flowing from the selfish behavior of men and their lack of love for their spouses.

So, the issue back then wasn’t so much weak-willed men not leading their households, but an unloving perversion of male headship. As we noted last week, though, Scripture provides a corrective in Christ. Remember that these verses follow Paul’s teaching on the indwelling Spirit, giving the practical consequences of being Spirit-filled. Those who submit to the role of the Spirit in marriages will find that their relationships work differently than those around them. As we study this passage, we walk away with one of the most beautiful images of marriage in all of Scripture, and it involves the command for husbands to love their wives.

In today’s society, the call for husbands to love their wives might be controversial. The need of a husband to love his wife permeates pop culture, which isn’t always bad. However, the definitions of love our culture provides are weak, amounting often to niceness and good feelings. Indeed, one in our culture rarely has the concept of love as a verb — it’s often viewed as a noun, an idea, that one can stumble upon or lose over time.

God is love, so only His gospel can provide us with a clear image of what love should look like. The Lord defines Christian relationship through this word (1:4; 3:17; 4:2, 15, 16; 5:2). It is through understanding our relationship to the Lord in love that we can better understand how we are to love one another. We can’t understand the love husbands should show their wives if we don’t understand the gospel.

So, in Christ, we see precisely what kind of love men should share with their wives. We can divide the lessons in this passage into two parts: Husbands must love as Christ does (vv. 25–30) and wed as Christ does (vv. 31–32), with v. 33 serving to sum everything we’ve studied concerning marriage. Unfortunately, we won’t be able to get through all this passage today, so for part one, let’s consider the first and larger point.

Husbands must love as Christ does (vv. 25–30)

Again, husbands must first trust this gospel to demonstrate proper love. When husbands have the Holy Spirit, they can have a Spirit-filled life, a God-honoring marriage, and show proper love to their wives. As such, we have here an extended illustration of Christ’s love for the church. So, we will see that husbands should seek to show the sacrificing, sanitizing, and sympathizing love of Christ.

First, husbands should seek to show the sacrificing love of Christ (v. 25)

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her,

The sacrificial love of the Lord is, in some ways, both His most understandable attribute and the most difficult to mimic. First, remember that there are different nuances to love mentioned in the Greek language. In this case, we have a committed kind of love — agape (the noun) or, more specifically, agapao (the verb). This isn’t always as holy love, for people can agapao love the darkness rather than the light (John 3:19) and the approval of men rather than God (John 12:43). However, this is also the agapao love that God showed toward the elect (cf. Eph. 2:4).

So, we already can perceive a message in this. Whatever or whoever it is in this world that men agapao love — whether it be trucks, toys, tech, etc. — in marriage, it better be their wives. Christ showed His love for His church, and we should also be devoted to our wives. If husbands are committed to their wives with this kind of love, they’ll avoid, as the parallel says, becoming “embittered against them” (Col. 3:19).

Again, the gospel undergirds this, which is good for us who realize we don’t love our wives as we’re commanded to in Scripture. Christ is committed to us, showing His love in that He gave Himself for the church. Paul said something similar back in v. 2; “Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.” This one act was not necessarily something Jesus wanted in the flesh (praying as He did for the cup to pass), but He submitted Himself to the Father’s will and for the sake of those He saves). He even sacrifices Himself for men who have failed in their loving of their wives.

So, love is expressed in sacrificial action, even when the other party is less-than-deserving of it. In that great chapter on love, we learn that love “does not seek its own” (1 Cor. 13:5); often, it gives. Just as Jacob worked for Rachael, and Christ worked for us, husbands should give of themselves for their wives. Of course, this can be expressed in many ways, including a man working outside the home to support his family.

It can also often take him outside his comfort zone. One way that husbands might not feel comfortable doing this is in caring for the spiritual well-being of their wives, not just their physical or material needs. Still, in the following verses, we find three “that” statements — “so that He might” in v. 26, “that He might” in the first part of v. 27, and “that she would” in the second half of v. 27. These show the expected results of Christ’s sacrifice for the church. So, as we continue to consider what Christ has done for us, in terms of marriage, we turn now to consider how husbands might cleanse our wives. Let’s consider these verses.

Second, husbands should seek to show the sanitizing love of Christ (vv. 26–27)

so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless.

There’s a strong parallel between here in how God describes Israel in Ezekiel 16:1–14. God says He cared for her from her youth. He then describes when Israel was ready for marriage, He cleansed and adorned her in beauty. He now applies similar metaphors for the spiritual health of the New Testament church.

Christ first sanctifies the church. This was Christ’s expressed desire in His high priestly prayer (Jn 17:17–19), and several passages highlight the fact that Christ has sanctified us (Titus 2:14; Heb. 10:10, 14, 29; 13:12). What does that mean?

This requires us to know a couple of theological terms. On the one hand, sanctification speaks of progressive growth in holiness. However, in addition to progressive sanctification, there is definitive sanctification, the singular act of setting something apart. Christ selects the church from the world, consecrating it unto Himself for His own purpose. This was at an absolute point in the past (as the verb here indicates), concurrent with His declaring the church righteous.

Sanctification is a core doctrine with which Christians should grapple. We seek to achieve greater moral purity in our lives, sanctification being a grace that the Lord shows to us. However, we must also recognize this grace as already granted to us at a definitive point in the past. Where we are along the sanctification process matters only as a fact of progression, not as a question of salvation, which He’s already accomplished.

To liken this to the image of marriage, husbands select their wives and set them apart when they marry them. They see their wives as a prize to be won, a pearl of great price. It’s a shame that pop culture attacks the image of the knight winning the hand of the maiden — yes, she’s not his slave or a trophy for a shelf, but she is a prize, nonetheless. He wants to claim her because he wants a committed relationship with her and doesn’t want to risk another man winning her heart. Neither does he want to give his affection to any other woman — he wants to set his wife apart from the rest.

If a husband already has a wife, he must ensure that, if he hasn’t been, he should begin thinking of his relationship with her in these terms. She is already set apart — he won her, a prize awarded with a vow, however long ago. She is already set apart — he must seek no other.

He should then work to ensure that moment of consecration continues. If she sometimes fails to live up to his expectations, he must remember that he always falls short of the Lord’s and give her the grace her position demands. He should do things not only to keep her heart relationally but encourage it before the Lord. In this way, he is playing a small role in the overall sanctifying work of Christ.

Christ also cleanses the church. Indeed, this is linked to Christ both definitively and progressively sanctifying His church. We are sinners, covered in our filthy rags and in need of a bath. The Lord provides this for His precious church. This also refers to a single moment, which is what the verb indicates.

The question here is to what this washing refers. Some might think this might refer primarily to our water baptism. For instance, some commentaries note that this might reference the bridal bath before the wedding (cf. Ezek. 16:9). As one commentary notes, “In ancient Greece, a bride-to-be would be taken down to a river to be bathed and ceremonially cleansed from every defilement of her past life. Whatever her life had been before, it was now symbolically purified and she would enter the marriage without any moral or social blemish—the past was washed away.” Of course, in the Christian context, we read that the Lord “saved us… by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:5). Here, we see that it is, indeed, the “water with the Word;” this is the inward, spiritual baptism.

This, again, is an important spiritual reality for us to remember. When we sin, since we are concerned with purity and holiness, we might falsely perceive a stain that can’t be washed away from us. We may even be tempted to think of it in terms of a label that now defines us. However, we as Christians have already been cleansed, and we can be sure though our “sins are as scarlet, they will be as white as snow” (Isa. 1:18). It’s a sad reality when a Christian chooses to embrace some sin for whatever reason, for he can become “blind or short-sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins (cf. Titus 3:5; 2 Pet. 1:9).

Similarly, we need to extend such grace to our wives, remembering our vows. That moment of marriage indicates a clean start, and husbands should continue it. Should some moment arise in the life of the marriage that requires the husband to forgive the wife, he must remember that forgiveness means that he promises not to become “historical” in the heat of the next conflict. He also certainly must never introduce anything into the marriage himself that would taint his wife, like pornography or anything else that might defile the marriage bed — again, his affection is for her alone and for her well-being. He should seek to keep the relationship pure just as Christ cleansed the church.

Christ also clothes the church. The Lord made coverings for the first wife and her husband in the Garden of Eden (yes, even though they sinned, 3:21). He also clothes believers, even though we’ve sinned. We see just how He adorns the church in the rest of this verse, but let’s not move too quickly past the fact that Christ is doing this.

He first does this so that He can present us to Himself. That sounds strange to present oneself with a gift, but there’s an emphatic pronoun in the text testifying to just that. One commentary notes, “Whereas human brides prepare themselves for their husbands, Christ prepares His own bride for Himself.” This is a blessed reality — we don’t make ourselves ready for God.

Several verses speak of the presentation of believers. For instance, 2 Corinthians 4:14 calls the reader to the knowledge that “He who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and will present us with you.” Another example comes from the parallel book in Colossians 1:22; “yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach.” We can look forward with joy to the day of our presentation.

Indeed, and this is to be a future presentation — Christ wants to present Himself one day with a pure bride. Of course, this doesn’t deny that we have a present relationship with the Lord now; we’re currently His body, and we experience that progressive sanctification as a result of our ongoing relationship with Him. Even so, Christ must one day glorify us to remove impurities (sinless perfection is not possible in this life).

How will He clothe the church at glorification? You see where we get that theological term, for we read here that the church will appear “glorious.” That term used of royal dressing in Luke 7:25, but no clothing on earth can describe what we will wear on that day.

As any true glory we have must come from above, we will be presented while arrayed in God’s glory. In other words, we’ll be arrayed by the “the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow” (James 1:17). There will be no spot or wrinkle or any such thing. The Father “dwells in unapproachable light” (1 Tim. 6:16), but we will be clothed in that white light.

Indeed, it seems the appearance goes beyond clothing. In 2 Corinthians 11:2, Paul notes that Corinthian believers (with all their faults) can be presented as “a pure virgin.” Wrinkles can speak of age and wear, as well, whereas the bride will be presented youthful on that day. With the resurrection body promised in 1 Corinthians 15, we will be youthful and unspoiled for the Lord.

Of course, remember that this also speaks metaphorically of our moral state. The contrast of “spot or wrinkle or any such thing” is “holy and blameless.” This state is only achievable in Christ. Indeed, in this context, this is Christ gaining the salvation the church needs. Earlier, Paul said that God chose us in Christ “before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him” (Eph 1:4).

So, we see something here far more important than simple appearance, as stunning as that day will be. This is about us see the object of our faith, that the gospel of Christ has brought us before the Lord. He knows what the church needs and lavishes her with it.

We as husbands have already had our wedding days, but we hopefully have many more days of marriage before us. No one would see the clothing of the bride as the ultimate point of the wedding. But, too often, we view the wedding day as the end of a journey, when the wooing has accomplished its desired end. Instead, we must seek to understand our spouses, continuing to go to school on them and seeing what they need. We should even get to the point where we can anticipate some of their needs, providing for them even when they themselves don’t know what they need.

That brings us to the next point, but we will save that for next week.

Conclusion

At the beginning of this sermon, we noted that men didn’t need to be told in a Roman culture to lead their wives. They needed to hear this command to love, for this would have been nearly foreign to their thinking. Perhaps if writing to our feminized culture, Paul would make the implicit command explicit, for headship is precisely what many marriages need.

However, headship does not come with fear and intimidation. Husbands may not lord their position over their wives. Instead, they must seek to love their wives as Christ loved the church. The gospel is the example we’re to follow. The good news of the gospel is, of course, extended to men who are failing or who have failed in their roles!