Episode Transcript
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Let's turn our attention then to Ephesians
chapter five versus twenty five through thirty three.
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As I mentioned to you over the
past a few times that we've been
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in this book on these are the
sometimes called the household codes, the sections
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section one, of the sections in
the New Testament letters that are devoted to
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God's instructions for how we are to
live in our homes, in our households.
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Let's give our attention now to Ephesians
five versus twenty five through thirty three.
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Having considered God's instructions to the wives, we now hear them to husband's,
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and then a summary of the commands
to both at the end. Fusians
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Five, hundred and twenty five.
Husband's love your wives as Christ loved the
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Church and gave himself up for her
that he might sanctify her, having cleansed
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her by the washing of water with
the word, so that he might present
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the church to himself and splendor,
without spot or wrinkle or any such thing,
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that she might be holly and without
blemish. In the same way,
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husband should love their wives as their
own bodies. He who loves his wife
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loves himself, for no one ever
hated his own flesh but nourishes and cherish,
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is it, just as Christ does
the church, because we are members
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of his body? Therefore, a
man shall leave his father and mother and
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hold fast to his wife, and
the two shall become one flesh. It's
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mystery is profound, and I am
saying that it refers to Christ and the
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church. However, let each one
of you love his wife as himself and
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let the wife see that she respects
her husband. Maybe seated well, I've
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considered it various times as we've gone
through these particular sections, of spending a
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little time giving some various reasons as
to why you ought to listen to this
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if you are not a wife,
or if you are not a husband,
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or if you're not married, or
if you're a child, or if you
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don't happen to fall into the category
that this is directly addressed to. But
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I'm not going to do that again, as I've chosen not to do that
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before. I'm instead, what I'm
going to ask you to do is for
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you to come up with those reasons
why ought you to pay attention, for
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example, to these instructions to husbands, even if you're not a husband.
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So that's your assignment. You can
submit them via email and I will read
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them and respond. All right,
with that being said and the word being
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read, let us go now to
hear God's Word and consider what these instructions
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mean. Husband's love your wives well
as with God's instructions to wives. The
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instructions given here to husband's are clear, without covering every possible situation, and,
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as we've seen, this is a
common feature of God's word, one
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that I think is often overlooked.
But remember that it was only back in
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verse ten of this chapter that we
read and try to discern what is pleasing
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to the Lord. This assumes something
right. It assumes that God tells us
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things, that there are things that
are pleasing to him and things that are
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not, and that God requires us
to try to work to strive that discerning
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at coming to understand what is pleasing
to him. So as it relates to
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our passage tonight, husband's love your
wives a clear command that doesn't necessarily explain
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every single situation in which one might
be required to do that or how one
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does that. Some people think that
God has told us nothing and that we're
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left up to our own imaginations as
to what pleases him. Of course,
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this is and so is our passage. Clearly says husband's love your wives,
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a clear command, but we also
are called to strive to learn and to
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understand. You might think of it
this way. Learning the will of God
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is kind of like learning a language. It's imperative that you learn certain specifics.
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This is a hat, this is
a boat, but it's also imperative
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to learn the grammar of the language. There's an intuitive sense in which you
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want to gain and that comes through
practice and example and modeling and studying both
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the details and and and and thinking
through various contexts and all these kinds of
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things. The goal is to learn
the language or, as I'm comparing it
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here, to the will of God, in such a way that you can
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sense something is wrong, even when
maybe you haven't been told exactly what it
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is, or that a certain application
of God's Word is right, even though
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you may not have a very particular
proof text to prove it. Now there
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may be a proof text, there
may be a way to make that argument
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biblically, and of course that's a
good thing to do, but our goal
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is to discern the will of the
Lord, to learn to sense the not
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just the details but the contours of
what he says. The right of should
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say, not just certain specific things, but the patterns wisdom. Well,
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with that reminder them. Let's set
ourselves, then, to internalize gods and
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intructions here to husband's in a way
that begins with a clear command and a
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view towards various and specific applications in
our lives, whether you are married or
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not. So I want to divide
my sermon this evening into three sections.
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First, a clear command, second
and unforgettable example and then finally, a
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deep intimacy. Let's consider each of
these in turn. A clear command,
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right, the apostles rights husband's love
your wives. And if that wasn't clear
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enough, he repeats it two more
times in the same passage. And we
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can find other commands to it as
well in scripture. But if you look,
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if you have your bibles open,
you'll notice they're in verse Twenty Eight.
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In Verse Twenty eight he says it
again in the same way. Husband
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should love their wives, and then
again in verse thirty three. Let each
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one of you love his wife as
himself. Good teaching requires a repetition,
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especially for sinners. Let me add
this in case a Paul's writing feels a
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little pedantic. which husband, I'll
ask you, which husband who has ever
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truly loved his wife, could say
that he has ever advanced beyond needing or
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even wanting to hear this simple command
to be reminded that God's commands him to
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love his wife. What husband who
has truly loved his husband says? Well,
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I don't really need to know that
any more. I really don't want
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to hear that anymore. Of course, none. And what husband who has
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ever truly loved his wife could say
that he no longer wants to hear the
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command? The man who truly loves
something will love to hear about it.
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Right. The man who loves wood
working and spends his time with that.
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He doesn't stop thinking about wood working
because now he loves it. Right.
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He buys magazines, he goes to
the shop, he does things that think
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about it and meditate on it.
A man who has a particular mission in
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a vocation and his fields dedicated towards
that, he doesn't advance beyond it in
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a way that he doesn't care about
it. That doesn't make sense. Right.
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What does he do? He thinks
about it, he meditates on it,
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he goes back and he reviews that
again and again and again. Why
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would the same not be true for
a man who is called to love his
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wife? If this is his mission, if this is the command and his
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calling, will he will a man
who truly is doing that and who truly
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wants that, advance beyond the command
and say, well, I don't need
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to or I don't want to hear
about that anymore? Of course not.
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If you are a husband and you
are finding something in your heart that says,
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oh no, this again, then
they're is probably a problem inside,
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to put it mildly. So a
very clear command. To this very clear
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command, are the Apostle of God
here, under the inspiration of the Holy
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Spirit, connects this to an unforgettable
example to help us both remember and to
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understand God's command. He points us
to this unforgettable example of love, the
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chief example of love of all love, the redemptive work of Christ for the
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Church. And that's what he says. He says husband's Love Your wives as
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Christ loved the church. And he
tells US how Christ love the Church,
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Christ gave himself up for her and
for any tells us what goal that he
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might sanctify her. This is this
is the goal of the of our Lord
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in what he does for his church. He wants to set her apart,
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to make her holy. That's expanded
on in Verse Twenty Seven, when he
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says so that he might present the
church to himself in splendor, without spot
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or wrinkle or any such thing,
that she might be holy and without blemish.
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Now, Paul, in giving us
this comparison between Christ and the Church,
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he does not saying that these two
things are equal. Comparisons are never
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that way, but there is and
equity, we might say, in it.
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You might remember in our confession it
talks about, as we consider the
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laws of Moses, that though they
are not commanded to us directly, there
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is a general equity, there is
a basic principle in them that we can
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understand and ought to live by.
A similar thing is going on here.
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Husband's are not the Christ, that
should be plain. However, they are
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to see something in their Lord that
gives them a model to follow. Let's
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explore this a little bit more in
details, since, since Paul does,
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husband's Love Your wives as Christ love
the church and gave himself up for her
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that he might sanctify her, having
washed her by the washing of water with
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the word. So what does Christ
do for the Church? Exactly? Ball
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appoints us to Christ purification of the
church when he says that he gave himself
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up for her. You know,
I hope, that this means and refers
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to, when Christ delivered himself up, even unto death, even death on
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a cross, in order that we
might be saved. He laid down his
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life, if you remember God's Word
in First John All, I want to
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read this to you and first John
A, chapter four, verse seven.
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Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and
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whoever loves has been born of God
and knows God. Anyone who does not
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love does not know God, because
God is love. In this is the
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love of God. Or, sorry, in this the love of God was
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made manifest among us, that God
sent his only son into the world so
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that we might live through him.
In this is love, not that we
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have loved God, but that he
loved US and sent his son to be
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the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we
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all also ought to love one another. So you can see that there's a
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similar command in First John for to
all Christians that is given specifically here to
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husband's we all, as Christians,
are called to consider the love of our
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Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself
up, gave over his or or died,
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I should say, gave up his
life, so that we might be
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cleansed of our sins, so that
we might be purified made holy. When
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a couple is married today, you
know that both the bride and the groom
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ready themselves for each other. Right. It would be a travis s tea
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and everyone would talk about it for
a long time if one or the other
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of the couple showed up and just
like their street clothes and hadn't bathed and,
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you know, in the others standing
there, you know, let's say
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the wife and her or beautiful gown
and she's smelling good and she's got flowers,
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of the guys standing there, you
know, just off the street.
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Right, you would say, what's
your problem? Right, they are?
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They ready themselves for each other.
Right, they prepare each else, sells
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for each other. Well, if
that's true, if we put make ourselves
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as best as we can be for
our wedding days, how do how might
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we think about our marriage to Christ
himself? Right, of course we would
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want to beat at our best.
The problem is is that we are dead
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at our dress, passes and sins
right. We are way worse than the
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than the slacker husband who walks off
the street. It doesn't bother to bathe.
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We're in our graves and rotting and
disgusting, not purified but putrified right,
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we are not in any state to
a stand at the altar and say
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I do. So what happens?
Well, Christ takes this extremely unlovely bride
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to be in all her sinful filth
and makes her as lovely as himself,
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without any spot or wrinkle, holy, blameless springs him before him. He
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presents her to himself. A sort
of a lot different, right you.
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And then in our weddings here,
least the ones I've been to, usually
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the father of the bride right will
present her, or there's something like that.
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Here, Christ goes and gets us
for himself and takes us to himself
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by purifying us, but justifying us, by cleansing us, making us,
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making us holy. This purification that
is talked about here, this washing,
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is our is our very justification before
him, where we can stand before God
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even now, knowing that all our
sins are forgiven from beginning to end.
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Now, if that's not love,
there's no such thing as love. That
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is love right. This is the
CH as I say, this is the
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best, chief, the highest example
of love, not only because the the
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self sacrifice in the act was so
great and the distance between the loveliness of
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Christ and the unloveliness of his bride
was so far, but also because Christ
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did it perfectly, with perfect love. When we love each other as humans
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were, were two sinners, working
our best to try and and and and
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and grow and grace. There's no
growing in grace when it comes to Jesus.
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Jesus doesn't need grace, he doesn't
need mercy, doesn't need forgiveness.
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He's perfect. His love is perfect
inside up, as we read in First
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John, for God is love and
this is how he loves us. This
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love is not only accomplished there on
the cross, but it is applied to
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us in our baptisms. Paul remarkably
says that he might sanctify or having cleansed
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her by the washing of water.
With the word, Paul connects our purification,
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the the wiping away of our sins
in our justification, with the washing
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of water. This is, of
course, a reference to baptism, so
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as husbands and wives might wear a
ring on their finger reminding them of the
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act of of marriage. We,
as Christians who have been bad uptized,
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have this sign that has been placed
on us by our husband, in which
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marks and signifies and seals to us
that that that great sanctification. Consider some
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other verses in the New Testament concerning
baptism. Act Two thousand, two hundred
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and sixteen. And now, why
do you wait? Rise and be baptized
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and wash away your sins, calling
on his name, or First Corinthians six
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hundred and eleven, and such and
such were some of you, but you
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were washed, you were sanctified,
you were justified in the name of the
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Lord Jesus Christ and by the spirit
of our God, Hebrews ten twenty two.
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Let us now draw near with a
true heart, in full assurance of
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faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean
from an evil conscience and our bodies washed
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with pure water. The water,
of course, is a simply an outward
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symbol, but in of an outward
symbol of an internal reality, one that
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we grasp hold of unfit by faith, when we hear those promises proclaimed in
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our baptisms and we believe them and
we say, I do belong to the
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Lord, for he has died for
me, these verses tell us. But
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to consider it are our BAPTISMS,
to consider what the Lord has done for
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us by washing us with water,
a good reminder that baptisms are not,
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first and foremost, are profession to
him, but his profession to us.
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He washed us with water, but
it's not just water, as Paul himself
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here says, washing of water with
the word, a word that preaches this
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good news about the Gospel, this
good news that Jesus Christ gave himself up
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as a sacrifice for sins. Water
alone cannot save the power of baptism is
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in God, who baptizes our faith, is in him, his word,
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his son, the proclamation of which
we receive in the Gospel. You could
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put it this way. How did
you become married to Christ, you who
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were sinful, unholy, unloving,
undeserving? You could say I became married
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to Christ when he took away all
my spots and wrinkles, when he made
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me beautiful, when he made me
pure, first by washing me with the
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water and with water in the word. And one day my resurrected body to
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follow as well. Remember what Paul
says an Ephesians, chapter one, verse
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three. Blessed be the God and
father of our Lord, Jesus Christ,
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who has blessed us in Christ with
every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places,
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even as he chose us in him
before the foundation of the world, that
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we should be holy and blameless before
him. In love, he predestined us
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for adoption to himself as sons through
Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of
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his will, to the praise of
his glorious grace which with which he has
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blessed us in the beloved. In
Him, we have redemption through his blood,
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the forgiveness of our trespasses according to
the riches of His grace which he
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lavished upon us, and all wisdom
and insight, making known to us the
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mystery of his will, according to
his purpose which he set forth in Christ.
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You might think of this passage in
a way as the Lord's wedding.
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Thou's are these are the things that
he is promising to us as his bride.
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Why? Because he loves us.
In love, he did these things.
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For Love, he did these things
and now, having this redemption,
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we have access we come into our
presence of our husband, beginning now and
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being brought into fullness later. Hebrews
ten, nineteen through twenty two says.
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Therefore, brothers, since we have
confidence to enter the holy places by the
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blood of Jesus, by the new
and living way that he opened for us
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through the curtain, that is,
through the flesh, and since we have
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a great priest over the House of
God, let us draw near with a
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true heart, in full assurance of
faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from
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an evil conscience, in our bodies
washed with pure water. Second Corinthians for
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fourteen. He who raised the Lord
Jesus, will raise US also with Jesus,
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and bring with bring us with you, into his presence. This is
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how we come to this marriage with
our savior. This is the love that
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he shows us, undeserving and yet
so very great, and it's that kind
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of love that husbands are then to
love their wives. This takes me to
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my last section of my sermon.
There's this very deep intimacy, isn't there
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between us and our Savior? But
before Paul gets to that, he talks
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about another kind of intimacy, one
that we we have with our own bodies.
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In addition to giving us this example, this unforgettable example of Christ to
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follow, Paul also tells husbands to
love their wives as a person nourishes and
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cares for their own body. The
first argument here, or the first argument
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this unforgettable example I mentioned, is
one that's drawn from special revelation. The
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second one is drawn from natural revelation. A natural law argument doesn't necessarily presume
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that every single person treats his body
well, but it's generally understood to be
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true among mankind, and of course
it is. People take care of their
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bodies right, if you think,
if you think about your own body,
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right, when you stub your toe, you don't sort of decompartmentalize the toe
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and sort of movement. We might
try, but most of US Holler first
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of all when your Sinus is finally
clear up and you start cost stop coughing,
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go oh, I feel so much
better. And until then, every
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cough, every moment, you're paying
attention right to your body and how it's
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functioning. You are very connected with
your body, as a extremely understated way
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to put it. Well, this
comparison, this way that we pay attention
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to, we nourish, we cherish, our bodies. Is How paul talks
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about the way husbands are to care
for their wives. Now this comparison,
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you remember, takes us back to
the Metaphor Paul gave to wives right when
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he spoke to them. He said
the husband is the head of the wife.
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Right, this sort of body immagery, this body language. Here the
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metaphor of body returns, but this
time from the husband's perspective. Just as
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he does not neglect his own body, but nourishes and instead, so too,
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he ought to do so for his
wife. Then Paul Strengthens this point
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even more and takes us to Christ
again to consider how he nourishes and cares
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for his body, which is the
church. How does Christ Nourish and care
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for his body in every way?
There is nothing lacking in the way that
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he cares for us. There's not
a single moment when he forgets or he
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doesn't do the things that he is
committed himself to doing. There's not a
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single moment, a single instance,
where our Lord ever gets tired or frustrated
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or just doesn't feel like doing it
anymore. No, he always and perfectly
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cares for us in every way,
and this is the ground for which husband's
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are ought to think, ought to
think about the love for their wives.
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Interestingly, he grounds this divine marriage
between Christ and his church on an institution
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God established back in creation. Notice
what he says. He says for no
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one ever hated his own flesh,
but nourishes it and cherishes it then,
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just as Christ does for the church, because we are members of his body,
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therefore, or for this reason.
And then he quotes Genesis to a
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man shall leave his father and mother
and hold fast to one flesh. If
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this quotation seems relevant but perhaps a
little disjointed, a pain close attention to
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what he's saying here. He's saying
that there is this deep intimacy that we
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all know that exists between a man
and a woman who are married, and
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intimacy that God established from the very
beginning of the world. But he's also
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saying that this into me is intimacy. This creation ordinance was built at the
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beginning to reflect Christ and his church. This was revealed at first or sorry,
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this fact, this organizing principle behind
marriage, was not always known,
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but it was eventually revealed, and
that's why Paul talks about this as a
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mystery, which is profound throughout the
New Testament and in his letters he talks
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about a mystery, is something that
was once hidden and then is revealed.
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He is revealing it here, but
that doesn't mean we all of a sudden
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understand it. All right, it's
still very profound. This mystery is profound,
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but it helps us to understand these
things. He's helps us to connect
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this thing that we know just from
creation itself to what Christ him, Christ
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has done with the church. Why
does he do this? I think one
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reason is that because he wants every
Christian husband to never forget that loving their
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wives as their own body is not
a choice. It's not a choice you
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get to make and this occasion or
that occasion. It is demanded at the
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core of your being as a person
created in God's image, and it is
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demanded yet once again as a person
who is a Christian, who is being
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remade into the image of Christ.
Now this is quite countercultural, both in
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our times and in the ancient world, and the ancient world the love of
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ones wife was not something that was
harolded very much. There are examples that
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we read in various authors that will
talk all kinds of things about marriage and
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the husband's responsibility and love would just
never comes up. In fact, in
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some instances it seems that husbands sometimes
never even really talked to their wives very
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much. They just didn't know them
very well. They they weren't really there,
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they weren't present. It's not all
that different today. Today perhaps we
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talk a lot more more about love
and in the relationship and in the institution
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of marriage, but a lot of
times it's about when we feel like it,
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when we want to, when she
deserves it. But this isn't the
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case. When we see the kind
of love that Christ gives to his church,
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we see you that husbands are called
to a very, very high calling
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and it's a calling that they can't
a shirk off. It's a calling that
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they can't see is optional or when
they feel like it. It's a part
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of creation itself, which points to
something in new creation. With all this,
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Paul brings this section about husbands and
wives to a close in verse thirty
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three, when he says, however, let each one of you love his
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wife as himself or love his own
wife as himself, and let each wife
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see that she respects her husband's what
we see in this and the way that
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Paul gives duty instructions to wives and
instructions to husbands as they relate to one
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another, is that their relationship in
a Christian household is to mirror what Christ
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is doing with the church. Husbands
love their wives as Christ loved his body.
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Wives submit to their husbands as the
Church submits to Christ their head.
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We do this not merely, as
the ancients would say, to get along
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with each other, because it's really
nice to not have constant conflict in your
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house, although that is true.
It does have those benefits, but we
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do this as a demonstration of the
new creation that has been inaugurated in Christ,
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a new creation that we belong to
now. This, of course,
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is not true only of our relationships
as husbands and wives, but parents and
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children and in every aspect of life. As Christians, we live as citizens
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of the Kingdom of Heaven, even
though we are yet still pilgrims here in
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this world. We engage in the
institutions, the God ordained institutions of this
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world, be they family or commerce
or whatever else, but we do so
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in a way that reflects our citizenship
in heaven, that has an eye to
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who Christ is and what he's done. For us. The love that we
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give to others is a love that
is filled with grace, a love that
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is filled with compassion and mercy,
both husbands and wives. As a Steve
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Baugh, whom I've learned much from
this passage and many other places in his
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commentary, he writes, both husbands
and wives mirror the most fundamental purpose in
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creational existence, to glorify God and
to dwell in his presence and the full
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enjoyment of this self sacrificial love in
Christ forever husband's. If you think you're
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going to accomplish this by all of
a sudden becoming by becoming Jesus, you've
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really misheard me. We do this
by putting our faith in Jesus so that
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we might be united to him and
his love might be at work in US
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and shown through us. Husband's do
you want to show forth the love of
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Christ to your wife? Well then
draw close to him. Draw close to
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him and you'll draw closer to her. Let's pray and ask for the Lord
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to help us
