JULY 27, 2014
HUSBANDS AND WIVES / CHRIST AND THE CHURCH
INTRODUCTION:
1. As we have begun to consider the duties of submission with respect to various relationships in the church, the first particular exhortation is directed to husbands and wives. The Apostle first gave a general exhortation in Verse 21, and then proceeded with a word to wives, who are to submit to their own husbands, even as the church is subject to Christ. The corresponding duty of the husband is to love his wife, even as Christ loved the church.
2. Before moving on to address duties of submission respecting other relationships, the Apostle will speak more fully of the glorious union between Christ and the church, of which the marriage union is an apt emblem.
3. In order to fully present the picture, he goes back to the origin of the marriage union (Gen. 2:18-24) where we find the prototype to be so striking that it is difficult to determine of which union he is speaking. (Verse 32)
I. CHRIST IS THE PERFECT MODEL AS THE BRIDEGROOM OF THE CHURCH. (VERSES 25-28) We are struck as we read this passage, first, with the model of perfection to whom the faithful husband looks, and second, the glorious future which Christ intends for His church.
A. NOTICE FIRST, THE CHOSEN CHURCH IS THE OBJECT OF CHRIST’S PARTICULAR LOVE. (VERSE 25)
1. The likeness is to the love of a husband for his wife.
2. But, more than a likeness, it is the very thing itself. (John 3:29a; Rev. 21:2, 9)
3. The church which Christ loved and gave Himself for is made up of the entire company of the elect. These include as many as the Father gave to the Son before all worlds, whose names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life. Each one of these is particularly known to Him, and chosen in Him.
4. We must remember what the church was when Christ loved it and gave Himself for it.
a) By nature no different than the rest of the race.
b) In practice, there was no difference over all.
5. Yet Christ’s love for His church is as the love of a husband: special, enduring, constant, hearty. For her he forsakes all others.
B. NOTICE SECONDLY, THE WORK THAT CHRIST’S LOVE MOVES HIM TO ACCOMPLISH. (VS. 26)
1. What the church is not by nature, He has resolved to make her by grace.
2. The bride of Christ must be pure and holy. For this reason He gave HIMSELF. He gave not His royalty, nor the joys of heaven merely, but Himself.
3. This purification and cleaning is twofold in nature.
a) He gave Himself for us that we might have His righteousness imputed to us. This is positional.
b) He gives Himself to us (indwells us) that we might experience practical purification and cleaning.
4. The outward instrument used to accomplish this sanctification and purification is the Word of God. “…with the washing of water by the word.” (John 17:17; Tit. 3:5)
C. NOTICE THIRDLY, THE GLORIOUS PROSPECT FOR CHRIST’S CHOSEN AND SANCTIFIED BRIDE. (VERSE 27)
1. She is to be a glorious church.
a) We have no glorious church on earth.
b) The church glorious will be such that the radiance of every Christian will be unclouded by sin; every life will be clear of all corruption.
c) She shall be so perfectly glorious as to be “without spot or wrinkle,” or anything that might be construed as such. “…or any such thing.”
2. She is to be presented to the Bridegroom at His coming.
a) Notice, the Lord will present His Bride to Himself. (Verse 27a)
b) She is now making herself ready. Today we are espoused, then we shall be married.
II. THE INSTITUTION OF MARRIAGE WAS FROM THE BEGINNING INTENDED TO BE AN EMBLEM OF CHRIST AND THE CHURCH. (VERSES 28-33; GEN. 2:21-24) As the Apostle proceeds to complete the analogy, (husband and wife / Christ and the church) he clearly takes us back to the original picture. The type is so perfect and complete that while speaking of the one, the Apostle is at the same time describing the other. (Verse 32) Let us keep in mind the point in all of this. He is exhorting wives in their duty to submit to their husbands, and husbands in their duty to love their wives. The great standard for the wife is the church in her submission to Christ. The great standard for the husband in Christ is His love for His bride, the church. Yet, the prototype for the relationship between Christ and the church is found in the marriage between Adam and Eve.
It is of the utmost importance to remember that marriage is a sacred and divine institution, and was from the beginning intended to be that which depicts the union between Christ and the church. When we understand this we then realize why the enemy is waging an all-out attack against the marriage union. He would cheapen it in many cases, and utterly destroy it in others. He is now trying to make a mockery of marriage by perverting it.
Charles Hodge wrote: “The highest social duty of a wife is to reverence and obey her husband, and the highest social duty of a husband is to love his wife. These duties cannot be neglected without entailing guilt and misery upon their household. The greatest social crime, next to murder, which a person can commit, is to seduce the affections of a wife from her husband, or a husband from his wife, and one of the greatest evils which civil authorities can inflict on society is the dissolution of the marriage covenant (so far as it is a civil contract) on other than scriptural grounds.”
A. THE GREAT ARGUMENT FOR HUSBANDS LOVING THEIR WIVES IS THE WONDERFUL UNION WHICH GOD HAS FORMED IN MAKING THE TWAIN ONE FLESH. (VERSES 28-31) In his right state, it was no difficult thing for Adam to love Eve, who was his own flesh and bone. Surely the woman, who was out of man, found it to be most natural to submit to him whom she owed her being (first to God, and then to Adam). Since the fall, marriage and the respective duties of husbands and wives still remain God’s wise and kind means to preserve society from corruption.
1. The first man loved the first woman as he loved himself, for she was bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. (Gen. 2:23) From this fact Paul argues, “So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies.” (Verse 28)
a) “So,” i.e. in like manner. (Verses 25-27)
b) “As,” i.e. as being, or because they are their own bodies.
c) “One flesh,” (Verse 31) i.e. one body; one man.
2. He makes the point that as a man is to his wife he is to himself. (Verse 29; see Matt. 25:40) For a man to hate his wife ought to be considered just as absurd as if he hated himself.
3. It is, however, to the great Standard that we must look to behold this great and glorious mystery which is beyond human comprehension. “For we are members of his body, of his flesh and of his bones.” (Verse 30) How is it that the church is one with Christ, so as to be thus described?
a) There is, first, a similarity of nature. These words are the very words which Adam spoke when he beheld his newly created helpmeet. The great Husband of the church must mean the same thing only in a more spiritual sense.
(1) The first wonder is that Christ took our nature. (Phil. 2:6; Heb. 2:11, 14-16; Gal. 4:4)
(2) The second wonder is that He has made our nature as His. (I Pet. 1:23; II Pet. 1:4)
b) There is, secondly, the signifying of an intimate relationship. Adam did not say, “She is flesh and bone the same as I,” but rather “She is bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh.” He would never have considered that she could belong to anyone but him. So ought it to be with every marriage.
c) In Adam’s words we see the claiming of a cherished possession. “This is now bone of MY bone and flesh of MY flesh.”
4. Because the relation between husband and wife is more intimate than any other (even parent/child), a man shall consider all other relations subordinate to it. (Verse 31)
5. In Adam’s words we are reminded how the church is taken and formed from Christ Who died for her. (Vse. 32)
a) Adam likely did not know all that occurred while he slept. (Gen. 2:21-23)
b) Christ, on the other hand, knew quite well the origin of His spouse, and the price He paid for her creation.
(1) He still bears the scar in His side.
(2) We are the fruit of His death. (John 12:24)
(3) The new “Eve,” the new “Mother of all living” was taken from His riven side while He slept.
(4) Thus Christ, the Second Adam, does not abide alone, God has seen to that. (Gen. 2:18)
B. FROM THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CHRIST AND HIS CHURCH THE APOSTLE MAKES HIS MOST COMPELLING ARGUMENT FOR THE AFORE-STATED DUTIES OF HUSBANDS AND WIVES. (VERSE 33)
1. Originally, the marriage union that was formed between man and woman in the garden was given as an apt emblem of the union between Christ and the church. We have seen how this is so.
2. Now, the union between Christ and the church, His love for her and her subjection to Him, is presented as the grand example for husbands and wives in their respective duties to each other. How sacred, then, must these duties be!!
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