"Husbands love your wives as Christ loves the church" is the primary command for husbands in Ephesians 5:25. Read or listen to this material from Your Marriage God's Way, or watch the message from the Your Marriage God's Way Conference to learn what a husband's love looks like.

https://youtu.be/9C5IgzTNu1c

Husbands Love Your Wives as Christ Loves the Church is the second message at Your Marriage God's Way Conferences.

Table of ContentsWhat Does a Husband's Love Look Like?Husbands Love Your Wives as Christ Loves the Church by Sanctifying and CleansingHusbands Love Your Wives as Christ Loves the Church by Setting the Standard for HolinessA Husband Gets the Wife He Prepares for HimselfA Husband's Reaping and Sowing in MarriageHusbands Love Your Wives as Christ Loves the Church by Caring for HerNourishing and CherishingThe Sacrifice Needed to Love a WifeChrist's Sacrificial Love for His Bride

What Does a Husband's Love Look Like?

Here is a question that deserves serious thought: What does it look like for a husband to love his wife? Love is not feelings and emotions—rather, it is actions. So another way to ask that question is this: What do good husbands do? If we were to pose that question to different people, we might get answers like these:

Buy their wife expensive jewelry

Take her to fancy restaurants

Whisk her away on exotic vacations

Provide an impressive home for her to live in

In the world’s way of thinking, a husband’s love for his wife is demonstrated through material goods. This is why a husband can be a failure in the world’s eyes while being a great husband in God’s eyes or a great husband in the world’s eyes while failing in God’s eyes. The good news—at least for husbands—is that we don’t have to buy our wives anything expensive or glamorous to be pleasing to God. The bad news is that spending money on our wives is much easier than doing what God requires of us as husbands.

There is a very high standard for husbands. The primary passage about husbands loving their wives begins, “Husbands, love [agape] your wives, just as Christ also loved [agape] the church and gave Himself for her” (Ephesians 5:25). Agape is used twice to describe two different relationships:

A husband’s relationship with his bride

Christ’s relationship with His bride, the church

The two words “just as” reveal that the way Christ loves the church and gave Himself for her is the way a husband is commanded to love his wife and give himself for her. A man should model his relationship with his bride after Christ’s relationship with His bride. With Christ as the standard for husbands, every man must recognize that he always has more room to grow. No husband can ever sit back, relax, and feel like he has arrived.

Ephesians 5:25 reveals for us the characteristics of agape:

The words “gave Himself for her” reveal the sacrificial nature of Christ’s agape. In John 3:16, if God the Father’s agape for the world is shown in being willing to sacrifice His Son, then in Ephesians 5:25, the Son’s agape for His bride, the church, is shown in being willing to be sacrificed. Christ gave everything He had, including His own life. That is the standard for husbands—they are commanded to show an unreserved, selfless, sacrificial love for their wives.

The absence of the word if reveals the unconditional nature of Christ’s agape. The verse does not say, “Husbands, love your wives if…” Just as Christ loves the church unconditionally, a husband is to love his wife unconditionally. Christ loves the church even when it does not submit, does not love Him in return, or disrespects Him. Simply put, Christ loves the church even when she’s unlovable. A husband should love his wife even when she’s unlovable and does not submit, does not love him in return, or disrespects him. When a husband is upset with his bride, he must remind himself of Christ's love for His bride—a steadfast love regardless of what the bride has or has...