Christ's Union with The Church

Paul has been exhorting husbands about loving their wives. This is their duty to the Lord, at the least their obligation and service to him. The are to love (not merely desire their wives intimately or physically, nor are they merely to be fond of them, they are to give to them or to love them. Give themselves up for them on a regular basis. You might say how much or when when do I know I’ve given enough to my wife? Have you given like Christ have you risen to his level yet? Then you haven’t loved her enough!

Recently in our verse by verse Paul has been expounding the reason or basis for this kind of love for wives. He showed us that it is a particularly Christian type of love, a love that is born out of worship to God and an appreciation of Christ. You can’t love like this if you don’t appreciate Christ. I want you to notice what Paul does here, instead of giving us a list of 5 things every husband should do, or instead of giving us an indepth analysis of the female gender or instead of a comprehensive list of love languages that every female speaks Paul preaches Christ. He really meant it when he said I know nothing except Christ! Even when he is talking about marriage he makes a direct line to Jesus. Paul is showing us that what a Christian husband needs in order to love his wife is a clear view of Jesus! The rest will work itself out. Learn about Christ men! Study him, know him, seek to live in the light of him, and you’ll be able to love your wife’s better!

Paul isn’t done talking about Jesus because he elaborates even more on him today. He shows us something of the nature of our relationship to him. He calls it a mystery. A mystery is not something unknowable, but something that is unknowable without help. Something God has revealed and helps men to know through his Spirit. We are his body!

The Permanent Union of Husband and Wife

vs. 28 Paul is arguing that it’s reasonable for Husbands to love their wives. It’s reasonable because she is vitally connected to him and mystically connected to him. This is because of God’s design for marriage.

God’s design

Marriage is not a mere contract between two persons. It’s more than two individuals making an agreement and signing the dotted line. From our perspective that may be all we see, but to God it is much more than that. We see his design and purpose in verse. 31 which quotes . Summarized it’s leaving, cleaving, and oneness!

Leaving: separate from parents and form a independent household. A husband is to forsake dependence on his parents and to venture out from them to make a new household.

Cleaving: literally be glued together. Hold fast to his wife. To be committed, devoted to her. This is solidified in marital act, the physical union.

One Flesh: They become one, they are connected and become a part of each other. They are still two, but they are also now one.

Vitally Connected

This connection is so real that Paul says loving your wife is loving yourself. You don’t love your wife as your neighbor but more than that. He could have said love her as your neighbor. Rather he says consider her love her as your own body. This was God’s purpose in the beginning when he created Eve. He took her from Adam’s side. He could have done it any other way but he was demonstrating the unity the bond that a man and woman were to have. This is a vital connection. There is a real sense in which they become one. That’s why divorce wreaks such havoc on a person. It damages that person in a significant way, because it’s like loosing a part of yourself.

Mystically Connected

Though they are two persons under God they are united as one. In God’s eyes there is a permanent bond between the two. The are unified they are one flesh. You can’t see it, but God counts them as unified. “What God has joined together, let not man rent asunder!”

Paul’s Point

You can’t treat your wife as dispensable, you can’t view her as a hindrance, or seek to harm or separate yourself from her. You will not only damage yourself, you will damage and break what God has unified. It’s as reasonable to expect you to love your wife as it is to expect you to love yourself. No matter what your wife’s flaws or sins or imperfections her, she is vitally joined to you, she is a part of you. Your wife may be as a Gomer who is even unfaithful to you, but God’s command is the same, love her! See her as part of you. This is why he created the woman this way. This is a lifelong commitment and permanent earthly union!

Application

Malachi 2:15–16 ESV

15 Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth. 16 “For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her, says the Lord, the God of Israel, covers his garment with violence, says the Lord of hosts. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and do not be faithless.”

God hates divorce and remarriage. He permits it under very few situations. Those are continued unrepentant adultery, and abandonment of an unbelieving spouse. Under most situations however God forbids it and hates it. We as a Church have committed to God and each other that this comittment is a part of our covenant together. We have agreed with God not to tolerate open rebellion on this point because God’s word is clear!

Malachi 2:16 ESV

16 “For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her, says the Lord, the God of Israel, covers his garment with violence, says the Lord of hosts. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and do not be faithless.”

Malachi 2:16 NASB95

16 “For I hate divorce,” says the Lord, the God of Israel, “and him who covers his garment with wrong,” says the Lord of hosts. “So take heed to your spirit, that you do not deal treacherously.”

Micah

Christ’s Relationship to the Church

vs. 30 We are members of his body!

Ephesians 5:30 KJV 1900

30 For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.

It’s the same idea behind the creation of the woman, just as she was a part of the man. So the Church is a part of Christ. Paul says this was a foreshadow a picture of Christ.

We are From Him

Jesus: Left the father, underwent an operation on calvary, went into the deep sleep of death, and from that the Church was taken out of him. It’s from the Lord’s bleeding and wounded side that the Church is born. So we are from him, we have our existence as Christians from him. His flesh and his bones!

We are For Him

Just as Eve was made for Adam, so the Church was redeemed for Christ, she is the father’s gift to Christ. His bride!

We are With Him

We share all his privileges and benefits. We become part of his life (when Christ who is our life…), ,we have his name (Christians), we have dignity (saints), we share his privileges to rule and reign, we are part of his work (co-laborers) with him, we share his suffering, and his hopeful prospect for the future.

We are his bride, Jesus is our husband!

This is a vital connection!

Galatians 2:20 ESV

20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Why will God’s people never perish, they are vitally connected to him!

2 Corinthians 5:17 ESV

17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

Colossians 2:12 ESV

12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.

2 Timothy 3:12 ESV

12 Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,

Romans 16:12 ESV

12 Greet those workers in the Lord, Tryphaena and Tryphosa. Greet the beloved Persis, who has worked hard in the Lord.

Rom 16:

How is it that we will have a resurrection? Because Christ was raised!

This is a mystical connection!

We are one with Christ who can understand it!

Conclusion:

This is the basis for our love as husbands. The is our motive for loving our Brides, because of Christ!