I turn to the book of Ephesians, which I read a little earlier
to you here in chapter 5. Having exhorted both husbands
and wives concerning their duties to one another, the apostle now
tells us what this marital relationship is all about. He says in verse
32, this is a great mystery. Great mystery. But I speak concerning
Christ and the church. And so it is with this in mind
that I want to speak to you on this very subject. I speak concerning
Christ and His church. Now, the apostle gives us several
things concerning the husband and his bride, and then he draws
a direct connection between Christ and his church to these things. He tells us, first of all, wives
are to submit themselves to their own husbands as unto the Lord. Believers submit themselves. Submit themselves. They submit
themselves to the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. They
submit themselves to the Son Jesus Christ. They submit themselves
to the Holy Spirit who brings... He is called the Spirit of Christ.
He's the one who makes these things known and applies these
things to our hearts. And we submit to those things.
We submit to His means. And He tells us not only that,
but to submit to one another. He gives the spirit of submission
to a believer. You don't have to put him in
an arm lock to get him to do something. He's submissive. He's submissive. He wants to be told. He wants
to be led. And that's the difference. That's
the difference. You take a natural man with a
false profession, you can't lead him anywhere. He's like that
unbroken ash. You can't ride him. You can't
do anything with him. Just stay out of his way. He'll
kick you if you get around him. But believers are submissive. They've been broken. Right? And it wouldn't matter
if he's talking here about employees. He'd say, employees, submit yourself
to your employers. And he does in other places.
But here he's talking about wives and husbands. And when he talks
about the wife, we already know from the Scriptures that we just
read that he's talking about his church. And so you just put
church right there where it says wife. Submit yourselves to your
own husbands as unto the Lord. And then he tells us, secondly,
husbands are said to be the head of the wife even as Christ is
the head of the church. Christ is our head. He's our head. God has set Him
above us. He set Him there for our good
and given Him authority over us. Now, He had authority over
us as God, but this is redemptive authority. This is a marriage
authority. A loving authority. And He's the head. And then it
tells you thirdly that He's the Savior of the body. Husbands
love and protect and defend their wives even as Christ does His
church. And in that respect, they are
the saviors of their bodies. And husbands, fourthly, are to
love their wives even as Christ also loved the church and gave
Himself for it. We give ourselves to our brides. We give ourselves. Husbands are,
fifthly, to be sanctified and cleansers of their wives. How
in the world can you be a sanctifier of your wife? Well, husbands
are to be the priests in their homes. That's how. We are to be priests of our house. Paul said, let your women Now
listen to this, keep silence in the churches, for it is not
permitted unto them to speak. But they are commanded to be
under obedience, as also saith the law. 1 Corinthians 14.35
And if they will learn, if they will learn anything, let them
ask their husbands at home. Let them ask him at home, for
it is a shame for women to speak in the church. Now this morning
I want to concentrate on just one verse here as my text, verse
25. Husbands, love your wives even
as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for it. How
did Christ love His church? Because that is how I am to love
my wife. How did he love his church? What can we glean from
this verse to help us better serve, honor, and cherish our
Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ? Well, let me give you five things.
First of all, Christ loved his church in particular. In particular. The relationship
of the husband and wife is a very special, intimate, and sacred
union. It's these two alone. These two alone, separate from
the world. And there's no other relationship. All relationships are relationships
concerning Christ and His Church. I'm convinced the only reason
that we have a Father in this world is to teach us something
about the Father's relationship to us in redemption. Brothers
and sisters, we're all brothers and sisters in Christ. And so
we have some natural sense of what that means. All born of
the same Father. We share that commonness in the
church. We're brothers and sisters. You
remember when the folks came and told our Lord, said, your
mother and your sisters are outside. And He said, who is my mother
and who is my sister? All of these right here. All
these right here. They are too. But these are too. And so it is in this relationship
of the husband and the wife, except this relationship is far
more intimate than any of those other relationships. In this
relationship, a husband and a wife, they'll leave their father. They'll
leave that relationship. and be joined together. There's
just no other relationship like it, and this union was designed
by God Himself to clearly and accurately portray the relationship
of Christ and His church. As our brides are chosen and
sought after and wooed and taken from this wicked world, so is
His beloved church, just exactly like that. That's exactly what
happened. Isn't that what the Holy Spirit
does? Doesn't He come into your heart and begin to woo you to
Him? Isn't that how that happens?
Sure it is. Christ has one church. One church. And even so, preachers and deacons
are commanded to be husbands of one wife. And this is not
talking about people who were married before and now they're
remarried and divorced and all that. It has nothing to do with
that whatsoever. This is talking about a man who
has a harem. He's got eight or ten wives.
He can't pastor a church because he knows nothing about the meaning
of that relationship. And it's obvious by the amount
of wives that he has. Christ has one church. One church. And that's what this relationship
is all about. as it is unthinkable. Just think about this with me
for a minute. As it's unthinkable to associate a universal love
in a marriage. Ken, suppose you come home one
day and said, sweetheart, I love you just like I do all the other
women. You think I even get excited
about that? I dare say you'd be fixing your
own supper. That's right. And yet, ain't
that exactly what false religion promotes in this world? A universal
love, a universal bride? It's ridiculous. It's unthinkable
to associate a universal love in a marriage, and so it is also
to attempt to teach it concerning Christ and His Church. When God
established His beloved Israel, the Israel of God, He did so
through a man whose name was Jacob. You know what he said
about Jacob? Jacob have I loved, Esau have
I hated. If I didn't have another scripture
in the Bible to teach me that universal salvation and universal
love was an error, that would be sufficient. That would be
sufficient right there. Esau have I hated. And as surely
as your eyes and heart were moved upon that particular woman, even
so the heart of Christ is set upon his elect." And he says
that in language. Read the Song of Solomon. Read Hosea. My friend, God has chosen a people,
a bride for His Son. And he's prepared, as he tells
us in that parable, a marriage supper for his son. And I cannot,
for the life of me, understand how anybody could read and study
this book and come away with the idea of anything universal
other than the fall of man. I don't understand it. As plain
as words can be stated, he tells us that we've been chosen Chosen
of God. Not only chosen of God, we were
chosen in Christ. Not only chosen in Christ, but
chosen unto salvation. Joined in a sacred union. You
hath He quickened. When did He do that? When He
chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world. And
set us in an eternal union with His Son. which union was manifested
when the second person of the Godhead took human flesh upon
Himself and was born of a virgin, born a man into this world. An inseparable union, flesh of
His flesh and bone of His bone, one with Him. You hath He quickened
who were dead. And for that great love wherewith
He loved us. even when we were dead in trespasses
and sins, hath quickened us to gather with Him. By grace are
you saved." Plain as words can be stated,
he tells us that we were chosen, and chosen unto salvation, and
joined in sacred union to the Son of God, and have His name. We bear His name. We bear His
name. Let me tell you something. Over
here in Romans 8, verses 35-39, he tells us that nothing, nothing. And then he names all these things,
no doubt that he'd heard while he was preaching. People always
bring these things up. Sometimes I'll give you examples
here and I'll read through them and you don't even give them
a second thought. Let me guarantee you, every example I'm giving
you are things that people have told me after I got done preaching.
or one-on-one out here in the world somewhere. And so it is with all these things.
But He tells us that nothing present and nothing to come,
He can leave out anything to do. Nothing that's going on now
and nothing that's ever going to come to pass. Nothing present,
nothing to come, nothing high, nothing low. neither height nor
depth. What's he talking about? He's
saying that there's nothing from the throne of God to the depths
of hell. That's what he's talking about.
Nothing! That pretty much covers everything, doesn't it? Nothing
present, nothing yet to come, nothing high, nothing low, shall separate us from the love
of God, which is in Christ Jesus the Lord, and which love was
in fact manifested, Romans 5, 8, while we were yet sinners,
by the death of Christ. To say that Christ loved all
mankind while millions are being separated from His love is to
make God a liar, isn't it? God said you can't be separated
from Him. They say you can. A fellow told me one time, I
read that whole thing to him, Romans 8, 35 through the end
of the chapter. And when I got done, he said,
yeah, but you can separate yourself. Not according to Scripture. We're
not of them that draw back. Isn't that what the Scripture
said? And to say that Christ loved all mankind while this
takes place makes God a liar. It makes the blood of Christ
of no avail, not even to mention what it says about His love.
And while love may be a passion in you, just a passing infatuation,
I assure you it's not so in God. God's love is effectual. He could
no more compromise His love than He could compromise His justice. Love is particular. Secondly,
love is sanctifying. Now, sanctification is a threefold
work. First of all, it means to be
set apart. To be set apart. When a husband,
for lack of a better word, chooses his wife, she is set apart by him in particular. Set apart by him. For him. For him. And then he woos her. But in marriage, a woman is set
apart for her husband. She is the helpmate. She alone
will care for him, bear his children, honor his name, and pledging
himself to her and her to him. This union is sacred and cannot
be broken. And then secondly, sanctification
also means to be considered holy and then treated as such, to
be considered that way. Ephesians 1, 4 tells us that
we are chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world,
that we should be holy without blame before Him in love. And
while we are sinners, and it is obviously so, If we look upon one another,
I can see your faults clear and I can see mine. But you can see mine as clearly
as I see yours. And so we look upon one another,
but we're not considered as we see one another. We're considered
in Him. And considered in Him, we're
holy. And we're without blame. And
we're before Him in love. And we're to be considered and
treated as blameless sons and daughters in Christ. Virgins,
He calls us in the Scriptures. I knew a girl back in school
that if half the rumors were true about her, she was anything
but honorable. But you know, she graduated and
married this great big old fella. And his daddy owned about everything
there was in that town. And she married him, and after
she was married, nobody treated her like they used to. Isn't
that something? She had his reputation. They
might have thought it in their heart, but they didn't say it
with their mouth because of him. Because of him. They treated
her as the wife of a very important man. And brethren, you and I
have no past to glory in. Chapter 2, verses 1 through 3,
tells us about our past. Titus, chapter 3, verse 3, tells
us about our past. Romans 6, verse 17, and Ephesians
5, 8, tell us what we were. But in Christ, we wear His name. We are considered and should
be treated as His bride, and with respect to that eternal,
sacred union, and to that union of the Spirit of Christ that
we have received by faith. We wear His name. And then thirdly,
sanctification means to be actually made holy. And there's a purification
that takes place in this world in the hearts and minds of believers.
Everyone, John said, that hath this hope in him purifies himself
even as he is pure. I'm not talking about the eradication
of the flesh or some kind of reform going on and you are going
to reform the flesh or some kind of progressive sanctification. That which is flesh is flesh,
it will always be flesh. But we do grow in grace and knowledge
of Christ. And our minds are purified from
the laws and falsehoods of this world. Is that not so? Our minds
and hearts are purified from those past experiences and professions
of those who We're raised in religion. Our concepts of God
and Christ are washed in the water of His Word. And in short,
we're made meat to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints
in light. He that hath this hope in him
purifies himself. Sure he does. The love of Christ
is a sanctifying love. And then thirdly, Christ's love
for His church is an enlightening love. His bride is cleansed with
the washing of the water by the word. Marriage is enlightening
to a new bride. It's enlightening. Her eyes are
open to the pleasures of the marriage union. They too, the
scripture said, shall be one flesh. Her eyes are open to a
lifelong commitment. Marriage is not a one-night stand.
You know, Henry said one time, two happiest days of his life
was the day he joined the Navy and the day he got out. He said,
when I went off, he said, I was going to be a hero. I was going
to be a hero. This was back during the war
and he was going to be a hero. He said, I got in there and found
out what it was all about. He said, I want to go home. Too
happy. Lots of folks get married and
find that out too. They find that same thing out.
It's not a one-night stand, it's a living, vital union of love
and commitment to one another. And then her eyes are open to
honor. That husband who truly loves
his wife and gives himself for her will be honored by her. Yes,
he will. Yes, he will. The believers are washed by the
water of His Word, cleansed from their old ideas and principles,
and cleansed from the philosophy of this world. Believers learn
of Christ. You know what He said? Here is
what our Lord said. He said, Take my yoke upon you. Isn't that what we do in a marriage?
We are yoked together. It tells us not to be unequally
yoked together too, don't it? But Christ said, Take my yoke
upon you. And learn of Me. Learn of Me. My burden is light. It's light. I am meek and lowly in heart,
and you shall find rest for your souls. He tells us if we continue,
He said, if you continue in My Word, then are you My disciples. His love is enlightening. And
then fourthly, Christ's love for His church is sacrificial.
It's sacrificial. Herein is love, not that we love
God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation
for our sins. Our text clearly states that
Christ loved the church and gave Himself for it. Gave Himself. The mind cannot conceive this. I've tried. I've sat in my study
for hours on end and tried to conceive the glorious God, the
triune God, all alone, in His glory, needing nothing, all sufficient,
all glory, just glory that we just see a little tidbit of. And the second person of that
Godhead condescended to become a man. That alone I can't conceive. The glorious God being born of
a woman, made under the law. And then as a man, it said, he
humbled himself. That would have been humbled
enough, wouldn't it? Just to be a man, become a man. But as a man, he humbled himself
and become obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
Who did he do that for? His bride. His bride. He gave himself for her. subjected himself to all kinds
of humility and shame because of her. And if you want to see
what some of that shame is, read the book of Hosea, and you'll
find out. That's his bride. That's his
bride. He gave himself. How did he give
himself? Well, he gave himself to our
flesh. He took not on him the nature of angels, but took on
him the seed of Abraham. The Word was made flesh. One mediator between God and
me and the man, Christ Jesus. He became one with His elect
as He gave Himself to be a partaker of our flesh. This was a permanent
thing. Do you know that? There's a man in glory. One of
the best messages I ever heard in my life. Old Herman Moore
preached at 13th Street Baptist Church. years ago, there's a
man in glory. And if there's one, there might
be two. There's a man in glory. And as a man, he contendedly
sympathized with his bride. And then secondly, he gave himself
to the will of God for his bride. Gave himself to the will of God.
I came not to do my own will, but the will of Him that sent
me. What was the Father's will concerning Him? That of all which
He gave Him, He should lose nothing. He tells us in Romans 10, He
said, in the volume of the book that is written of Me, I come
to do Thy will, O God. He gave Himself to the will of
God. Now let me tell you something
here. God's will is not a whim or a wish or even just a strong
desire. God's will will be done. He doeth according to His will
in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth,
and none can stay His hand or question what He does. Our God,
David said, is in the heavens. He hath done whatsoever He hath
pleased. Now, when we will a thing, sometimes
we do it, and other times we don't. But God worketh all things
after the counsel of His own will. I used to hear a preacher quote
a little piece of a verse over in 2 Peter 3.9. It is not God's
will that any should perish. Have you all heard that before?
God is not willing for man to perish. Well, He wouldn't perish
if He wasn't. How would He perish? God has
His will. He does His will. His will was
done in the fall of man. His will was done in that man
called Judas. His will was carried out when
Pilate and those Jews and the Gentiles all got together. They
did what God's hand and God's counsel determined before to
be done. God's will is always done. Always done. But they'd
say, it's not God's will now that any should perish. And I
said, that's not what that verse says. I said, turn over there. Well, he didn't even know where
it was. So I told him where it was, and he turned over there,
and I said, now, here's what that verse says. God is long-suffering
to usward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should
come unto repentance. And Peter said that after he
stated that the only reason that this earth is being preserved
from the fires of God's wrath is the salvation of His elect.
That's right. That's the only reason it's being
preserved. God's will. Christ gave Himself
to the will of God. In Hebrews 10, He tells us that. Christ gave Himself to our flesh,
and He gave Himself to the will of God, and thirdly, He gave
Himself representatively. He became a servant to the law,
lived out His days accordingly. to provide us with the righteousness
acceptable to God. Because of our union with Him,
His righteousness has become our righteousness. Turn with
me to Jeremiah 23 and let me show you something over here.
Jeremiah chapter 23. Christ loved His church representatively. And husbands, we're somewhat
in the same boat with our wife. We're talking about how Christ
loved His church and how we're to love our wives. And being appointed the head
of our house, we're responsible for these things. We're responsible
for our wives. So in fact, we are a representative. We love them representatively
in that station which God has ordained. Both husband and wife are reminded
in our text that they represent their Lord in their dealings
with one another. Wives, submit yourselves unto
your husbands, now listen to this, as unto the Lord. Unto
the Lord. So when that disobedient husband,
when that husband who don't love you like Christ loved the church,
and you submit yourself to him, you do it as unto the Lord. Do
it unto the Lord. Now let me show you that representative
righteousness of God in Christ. Jeremiah 23, verse 6. In those
days, Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely. And
this is his name whereby he shall be called the Lord our righteousness. Now flip over to chapter 33 there
in Jeremiah. That's chapter 23. Go to chapter
33. And then look down here at verse
16. In those days shall Judah be saved, and Jerusalem shall
dwell safely. And this is the name wherewith
she shall be called, the Lord our Righteousness. Huh? We bear His name. We wear His
righteousness. We're clothed with that wedding
garment of His righteousness. And so He tells us, husbands,
love your wives. Love her in particular and love
her with a sanctifying love, setting her apart in your heart
and treating her as your own. And He loved her enlighteningly,
opening her eyes to the glory of His grace and the honor of
His person. And he loved her sacrificially.
He gave himself for her. And then lastly, he loved her
as he loved himself. He loved her as being one with
him. When he considered her, he considered
her as himself. Watch this, verse 28. So ought
men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his
wife loveth himself. Now, let me tell you something. I could lose an arm or a leg
and still live, but I'm not willing to cut one off out of anger,
are you? I get angry, I'll do something else. I ain't going
to cut my arm off. I could live without ten fingers
and ten toes, but I'm not willing to give up either out of an act
of lust or passion. This body is the only body I
have. And where some part of it hurts,
I hurt all over. When some part is affected, I
know about it. And sometimes I baby myself,
and sometimes I pamper myself, and sometimes I commune with
myself. And that's how we love our wives.
Just like that. Not willing to cut her off. Not
willing. We love our wives with an inseparable,
personal, selfless love. And this love, verse 32, is a
great mystery. It's been going on since Adam
and Eve. It was the very first relationship
established with man. This marital relationship. And
they're still writing about it. They're still discussing it.
Still trying to figure it out. But Paul said, I speak concerning
Christ and His church. Now, I'm going to tell you something.
If the Christ of free will works religion, the religion of universal
love and universal union was your husband, you'd divorce him
tomorrow. You'd divorce him tomorrow. Love
him and leave him. Isn't that what they do? Love you. Cast you into hell. Love you, and deny you in the
end. Love you, but not provide for
you. Love you, but ignore you. Love
you, if you always come up to their
expectations. You'd divorce them tomorrow morning.
You couldn't live with them, could you? And you couldn't live
with a God who treated you that way either. No wonder love's
so misunderstood in our day. It's being sold to this world
as a cheap, meaningless passion that comes and goes like the
wind. Husbands are big on talking about
women in submission, ain't we? Well, I tell you, you want to
talk about a great responsibility, love your wife as Christ loved
the church. If you ever see that for what
it is, you'll never talk about women's submission again. You'd
be ashamed to. You'd be ashamed to. You see
yourself so far short of that love that you'll quit looking
at their submission and start looking at yourself. Husbands,
love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself for
it. Gave himself for it. Oh, it's a mystery. But it's
a mystery revealed in Christ. And believers see it. See it.
And they don't just apply it to their wives. They apply it
to their employers. And they apply it to one another.
They apply it to all things. God help us to do that this morning.