Last week we launched June’s theme of husbands and fathers by giving an overview of what the Bible has to say about fathers. This week we turn the focus of our attention from a broad overview to a specific expectation of God for husbands - that husbands would “love your wives”  (Ephesians 5:25, Colossians 3:19). In this expectation there is great blessing, command, instruction, and goals for husbands to pursue wholeheartedly.

25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. (Ephesians 5:25-27 NIV)

19 Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them. (Colossians 3:19 NIV)

A Husband’s Love Towards Their Wife

John Chrysostom

(Bishop of the 4th Century in Constantinople) comments on the superiority of the bonds of love to any other form of bond: 

Thou hast seen the measure of obedience; now hear also the measure of love. Do you wish your wife to obey you, as the Church is to obey Christ? Then have a solicitude for her as Christ had for the Church (Eph 5:23, "Himself the Saviour of the body"); and "if it be necessary to give thy life for her, or to be cut in ten thousand pieces, or to endure any other suffering whatever, do not refuse it; and if you suffer thus, not even so do you do what Christ has done; for you indeed do so being already united to her, but He did so for one that treated Him with aversion and hatred. As, therefore, He brought to His feet one that so treated Him, and that even wantonly spurned Him, by much tenderness of regard, not by threats, insults, and terror: so also do you act towards your wife, and though you see her disdainful and wantonly wayward, you will be able to bring her to your feet by much thoughtfulness for her, by love, by kindness. For no bound is more sovereign in binding than such bonds, especially in the case of husband and wife. For one may constrain a servant by fear, though not even he is so to be bound to you; for he may readily run away. But the companion of your life, the mother of your children, the basis of all your joy, you ought to bind to you, not by fear and threats, but by love and attachment.

Charles Hodge

(American Theologian of the 19th century) writes regarding the husband's call to love their wife.

Husbands should love their wives. 1. The measure of this love is Christ’s love for the church for whose redemption he died, vs. 25-27. 2. The ground of love is in both cases the same—the wife is flesh of her husband’s flesh, and bone of his bone. So the church is flesh of Christ’s flesh and bone of his bone. Husband and wife are one flesh; so are Christ and the church....

As the peculiar duty of the wife is submission, the special duty of the husband is love. With regard to this the apostle teaches its measure and its ground. As to its measure, it should be analogous to the love which Christ bears to his church. Its ground is the intimate and mysterious union which subsists between a man and his wife.

Husbands love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it. Husbands should love their wives, καθώς, even as, i.e. both because and as. As their relation to their wives is analogous to that of Christ to his church, it imposes the obligation to love them as he loves the church. But Christ so loved the church as to die for it. Husbands, therefore, should be willing to die for their wives. This seems to be the natural import of the passage and is the interpretation commonly given to it. It also has its foundation in nature. Christ’s love is held up as an example and a rule. His love is indeed elsewhere declared to be infinite. We cannot love as he loved, in any other sense than that in which we can be merciful as our Father in heaven is merciful. Nevertheless, it cannot be doubted that true conjugal love will ever lead the husband to sacrifice himself for his wife.

Matthew Henry

(British pastor of the 17th and 18th centuries) writes of the duties of husbands and wives as mutually befitting and beneficial: 

The duty of husbands (on the other hand), is to love their wives (v. 25); for without this they would abuse their superiority and headship, and, wherever this prevails as it ought to do, it will infer the other duties of the relation, it being a special and peculiar affection that is required in her behalf. The love of Christ to the church is proposed as an example of this, which love of his is a sincere, a pure, an ardent, and constant affection, and that notwithstanding the imperfections and failures that she is guilty of. The greatness of his love to the church appeared in his giving himself unto the death for it. Observe, As the church's subjection to Christ is proposed as an exemplar to wives, so the love of Christ to his church is proposed as a pattern to husbands; and while such exemplars are offered to both, and so much is required of each, neither has reason to complain of the divine injunctions. The love which God requires from the husband in behalf of his wife will make amends for the subjection which he demands from her to her husband; and the prescribed subjection of the wife will be an abundant return for that love of the husband which God has made her due. 

Albert Barnes

(19th-century American theologian) writes on the extensive love that husbands are to supply to their wives: 

The duty of the wife is to obey; the right of the husband is to command. But the apostle would guard against the abuse of that right by enjoining the manifestation of such a spirit on the husband as would secure obedience on the part of the wife. He proceeds, therefore, to show that the husband, in all his intercourse with the wife, should manifest the same spirit which the Lord Jesus did towards the church; or, in other words, he holds up the conduct of the Redeemer towards the church as the model for a husband to imitate. If a husband wished a rule that would be short, simple, clear, and efficacious, about the manner in which he should regard and treat his wife, he could not find a better one than that here suggested.

Even as Christ loved the Church, this was the strongest love that has ever been evinced in this world. It follows, that a husband is in no danger of loving his wife too much, provided she be not loved more than God. We are to make the love that Christ had for the church the model.

And gave himself for it. Gave himself to die to redeem it. The meaning here is, that husbands are to imitate the Redeemer in this respect. As he gave himself to suffer on the cross to save the church, so we are to be willing to deny ourselves and to bear toil and trial, that we may promote the happiness of the wife. It is the duty of the husband to toil for her support; to provide for her wants; to deny himself of rest and ease, if necessary, in order to attend on her in sickness; to go before her in danger; to defend her if she is in peril; and to be ready to die to save her. Why should he not be? 

If they are shipwrecked, and there is a single plank on which safety can be secured, should he not be willing to place her on that, and see her safe at all hazards to himself? But there may be more implied in this than that a man is to toil, and even to lay down his life for the welfare of his wife. Christ laid down his life to save the church, and a husband should feel that it should be one great object of his life to promote the salvation of his wife. He is bound so to live as not to interfere with her salvation, but so as to promote it in every way possible. He is to furnish her with all the facilities that she may need, to enable her to attend the worship of God; and to throw no obstacles in her way. He is to set her the example; to counsel her if she needs counsel, and to make the path of salvation as easy for her as possible. If a husband has the spirit and self-denial of the Saviour, he will regard no sacrifice too great if he may promote the salvation of his family.

John Wesley

(18th-century British clergyman and founder of Methodism) briefly comments on the shape and boundaries of husbands' love towards their wives:

Here is the true model of conjugal affection. With this kind of affection, with this degree of it, and to this end, should husbands love their wives.

John Calvin

(16th-century French theologian) writes seeing a special protection against tyranny in the command for husbands to love their wives: 

He requires love on the part of husbands, and that they be not bitter, because there is a danger lest they should abuse their authority in the way of tyranny.

Charles Spurgeon

(19th-century British preacher) preaching on Ephesians 5 spoke of the excuses that often are offered against the authoritative command for husbands to love their wives.

It is possible that some husbands might say, "How can I love such a wife as I have?" It might be a supposable case that some Christian was unequally yoked together with an unbeliever and found himself forever bound with a fetter to one possessed of a morose disposition, or a obstinate temper, or a bitter spirit.

He might therefore say, "Surely I am excused from loving in such a case as this! It cannot be expected that I should love that which is in itself so unlovely." But mark, Beloved, the wisdom of the Apostle. He silences that excuse, which may possibly have occurred to his mind while writing the passage, by taking the example of the Savior, who loved, not because there was loveliness in His Church, but in order to make her lovely.

You perceive "He loved His Church and gave Himself for her, that He might present her to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing." He did not admire her because there was no spot in her. He did not choose her because she had no wrinkles. He fixed His affections where there were multitudinous spots and wrinkles— where everything was deformity. He still set His heart and would not withdraw till He had loved the spots away and loved every wrinkle out of her who was the object of His choice. And now He seems to say to every Christian man, however unhappily he may have fared:

"If perhaps, in the lot of Providence, you have been yoked to one who deserves but little of your affection, yet if you cannot love because of esteem, love because of pity. If you cannot love because of present merit, then love because of future hope, for possibly, even there, in that bad soil, some sweet flower may grow. Be not weary of holy tillage and of heavenly plowing and sowing, because at the last there may spring up some fair harvest that shall make your soul glad." He loved His Church and gave Himself for her that He might present her to Himself a glorious Church.

I’ll close today by giving brief comments of my own on this phrase used in both Ephesians 5:25 and Colossians 3:19. 

Ephesians 5:25 and Colossians 3:19

“Husbands love your wives” - for those of us who are married, it is good for our wives, and also good for us to love our wives. The example of what our love towards our wives ought to look like and the expression of our love for our wives is found in the example and expression of the Lord Jesus Christ. As husbands, we must grow in our understanding and appreciation of the love of God to us and for us in Jesus Christ. If we do not grow in knowing Christ we will not grow in our own love for our wives. Christ is our example for loving our wives. The way how Jesus loved the church is the way we are to love our wives. Our desires are secondary to the sanctifying needs of our wives. Our husbanding of our wives is to be a blessing to them materially and spiritually. 

Many times throughout my years of serving in ministry husbands have had both just and unjust complaints about their wives. Yet, none of those complaints remove this expectation and example - husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy. As soon as a man becomes a husband, having taken a wife, she is to be the target of his affection and her flourishing is to be the very aim of the husband's every protection, provision, and in a word - love.

 

In all my experiences of knowing husbands who love their wives well, those men who have grown in their love for their wives, and put away tyranny in marriage, are those men who have foremost dedicated themselves to the study of life in faith in Jesus Christ. The more these men have known and grown in experiencing, receiving, and beholding the love of Christ, the more these men are strengthened, emboldened, and enabled to love their wives. 

I was listening to one husband who came to me for counsel and said in exasperation “My marriage is killing me”. I said back to him “Crosses do that”. We both took a moment to laugh and weep. We then talked together about how marriage is not a place where we put our crosses down. Marriage is another manner through which we as men are to grow in Christlikeness by picking up our cross, denying ourselves, dying to ourselves, and loving our wives as Christ loved the church. Something in his soul clicked. His marriage continued to be a place of hardship, and sometimes great frustration for him personally. Yet, as a husband he was able to love his wife with a deeper patience, providing for her and protecting her as his expectations changed. He went from a certain tyranny in himself and over his wife expecting his marriage to be a place free from any struggle, hardship, or challenge, to a man of humble bravery willing to take on every difficulty in order to live as a Christlike example for the benefit of his wife. 

When speaking with young men who desire marriage, and when speaking with older husbands who have been married for many years, the pathway towards a God-honoring marriage is the same - to know and grow in the love of Jesus so that we too as husbands may love our wives as Christ loved the church.