A Good Husband!

From Today in the Word

Ephesians 5:21-33 (New International Version)

²¹Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Wives and Husbands

²²Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. ²³For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. ²⁴Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

²⁵Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her ²⁶to make her holy, cleansing^a]">[a] her by the washing with water through the word, ²⁷and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. ²⁸In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. ²⁹After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church— ³⁰for we are members of his body. ³¹"For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh."^b]">[b] ³²This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. ³³However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

Mainly, though, this rich theological comparison is for husbands, and it assigns them at least three sacred responsibilities. First, husbands are to love their wives as Christ loved the church, that is, sacrificially and with the purpose of facilitating God's work of sanctification (vv. 25—27). Second, husbands are to care for their wives as diligently as they care for their own bodies and in the same way that Christ feeds and cares for His body, the church (vv. 28—30). This is an image of serving and shepherding. Third, husbands are to be united with their wives (vv. 31—33). Physically and spiritually, marriage is oneness, a profound mystery (cf. Gen. 2:24).