Photo: Anton Mislawsky – Unsplash

As a vicar I have the privilege of officiating at weddings. One of the best moments is seeing the look on the groom’s face as the bride walks down the aisle. The music has started, she turns the corner, and he sees her for the first time, dressed beautifully for the occasion. He gazes at her with a look of delight, affection, wonder and love. And as she appreciates that look her radiance only increases. She is experiencing what we might call ‘husband love’, and she is responding to it.

We’ve explored the theme of love a number of times in this blog. In the last post we considered the first of two very important relationships of love that dominate the Bible – Father love. In this post we consider the second – husband love. We saw in the last post that Father love and husband love are of central importance in human relationships precisely because they are at the heart of the gospel and indeed at the heart of the life of the Trinity, and how God’s people relate to the Trinity.

I’m conscious that the topic of husband love will be difficult for many of us to think about: Perhaps you would love to be married, but so far you haven’t had that opportunity; perhaps you have had a bad experience of marriage; perhaps you have lost your husband or wife. But my hope is that what I share will be good news for each one of us, whatever our own circumstances. Because as we’ll see, the love shared between bride and groom as the bride walks down the aisle is something we can all experience: in a way that is purer, deeper, more secure and more long-lasting than any human marriage could ever deliver.

1, The ideal husband-wife relationship

Our starting point is the ideal husband-wife relationship. The Bible is dominated by the story of a husband-wife relationship, but not the relationship we might immediately think of.

Eternity

The story starts in eternity, with the life of the Trinity. For all eternity Father and Son have loved each other with a faithful, intimate, passionate love. As we’ve seen elsewhere in this blog that love is so pure and intense that it is a person – the Holy Spirit.

Creation

The Triune God made the world – not because he was lacking in anything but as an overflow of his love and goodness and power – as a fountain creates streams of life. God wanted people he could know and love intimately, who he could relate to and enjoy: not because he needed them, but because he is a God who overflows like a fountain. He is always looking to love beyond himself.

God made people, women and men, to find our true happiness and delight and joy in God – as we know him intimately, as we trust, obey and passionately love him; and in turn we are fully known, fully loved and fully accepted by him. He created people male and female – equal in value, complementing each other. Together the first man and woman were made to image God as they tended the garden in partnership together.

We were made to be faithful, passionate lovers. When the first man first sees the first woman his delight is obvious “This is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh…” (Genesis 2:23) You can imagine a look similar to when the bride walks down the aisle at a wedding. Everything was very good.

Curse

Tragically, just a short time later in Genesis 3 we discover that the first man and woman rejected God’s love. They rejected God’s good and loving purposes for them, choosing to go down their own path. And the consequence was a separateness: Separateness between people and God; separateness between man and woman; separateness between people and creation. We still live with the consequences now. We long for the intimacy and the purpose we were created for; but our selfishness always gets in the way. Our reasoning and our emotions and our wills and our imaginations are flawed. We worship created things rather than the creator.

Covenant

But this good, passionately loving God was not done with the people he created to know and love him. He called out a people through Abraham, and he made a covenant – a binding agreement with them. He made promises to overcome the devastating consequences of sin; and once again to be the God of the people he’d made, enjoying intimacy with them. And throughout the Old Testament the image he used to depict this was that of a husband and wife. God is described as a passionate, faithful husband:

As a young man marries a young woman, so will your Builder marry you; as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you.

Isaiah 62:5

You can imagine him looking down the aisle, seeing his bride, delighting in her. (See also the book of Song of Songs, Isaiah 54:5).

In Ezekiel 16, God describes his relationship with his people, beginning “you were like a baby thrown out by her parents. I found you and said “Live… I made you grow like a plant of the field. You grew and developed … Later I passed by, and when I looked at you and saw that you were old enough for love, I spread the corner of my garment over you and covered your naked body. I gave you my solemn oath and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Sovereign LORD, and you became mine. I bathed you with water and washed the blood from you and put ointments on you.” (verses 7-9). He goes on to describe how he clothed her, dressed her and made her beautiful. But then:

But you trusted in your beauty and used your fame to become a prostitute. You lavished your favours on anyone who passed by and your beauty became his.

Verse 15

God is like a passionate husband to his people: He longs to gather them into his embrace; to show them his love. But again and again they turn from him to other gods and created things and give their love to them. [See also the book of Hosea, Jeremiah 3:20].

But even so God promises a day in the future when his people will no longer refuse his love, a day when they will joyfully willingly receive it – knowing they are fully known, fully loved and fully accepted.

The Lord you God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you; he will quiet you with his love; he will rejoice over you with singing.

Zephaniah 3:17

Christ

After a wait of several centuries, Jesus of Nazareth appears on the scene. He calls himself “the Bridegroom” (eg Mark 2:19, John 3:29). He alone of all people lives a perfect life of holy, dependent, passionate love for God. And then he dies on a cross, and rises again from the dead. He is recognised as being Saviour and Lord – God Himself, come in the flesh.

In his letter to the Ephesians the apostle Paul interprets these events in terms of our theme:

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.

Ephesians 5:25-27

According to Paul, the Church – God’s people – is the bride of Christ, God the Son. He loves the church passionately, and he demonstrates his love beyond doubt by dying on the cross for his bride – to cleanse her and make her holy just as we saw in Ezekiel 16. All so that he might present her as a radiant church: his beloved bride, fully known, fully passionately loved, fully accepted.

And then Paul reveals that the Genesis 2 account of the marriage of the first man and woman is actually primarily about Christ and the church:

For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.

Ephesians 5:31-32

From the beginning, this is the marriage God had primarily in mind. It is the real marriage – the ideal husband wife relationship.

For the Church

There is one more thing that it’s helpful to notice about the nature of this marriage. It would be easy to think that Christ has condescended to enter into this marriage with his people but it’s on his terms, we’re the second class citizens in the relationship, we should just be grateful. But earlier in Ephesians Paul writes:

God placed all things under Christ’s feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the Church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.

Ephesians 1:22-23

Christ rules the universe for the sake of the Church – for her good and blessing. His chief concern is the wellbeing of his bride: What he does, he does for her. And she is his fullness – he chooses that she completes him in a way that we cannot fully understand. Christ and the Church together are the image of God the Father and bring glory to God the Father, just as the first man and woman were the image of God. Jesus says the same in his prayer in John 17:

I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one

John 17:22

Jesus shares his glory with the church. Together they are glorified, and bring glory to God the Father.

Consummation

At the end of the Bible, in the book of Revelation, we read:

I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.

Revelation 21:2

This is the final event in the history of the world, the consummation of world history. And it is described as a wedding – the marriage of Jesus Christ to his people. (See also Revelation 19:6-9). After years of waiting in a state of ‘engagement’ the marriage finally arrives: At last Christ’s people meet him face to face, he meets them, and they are united to enjoy one another in the ideal, perfect marriage relationship forever. It is a relationship of perfect joy and delight and faithfulness and passion. The bride of Christ will delight in him; she will love to obey him; he will reign with her and for her, for her good and blessing and shared glory; and she will know with ever increasing joy that she is fully known, fully passionately, delightedly loved, and fully accepted.

2, United to the ideal husband by faith

Where do we fit into all this? Wonderfully, the Bible tells us that through faith we are united to Christ – that is, we are part of the bride of Christ. For example, let us return to Ephesians. The apostle refers to Christians as being ‘in Christ’, united to Christ through faith (Ephesians 1:4, 1:7, 1:11, 1:13, 2:5, 2:6); he describes the Church as the body of Christ (Ephesians 4:12-16) and the bride of Christ (Ephesians 5:22-33).

By faith, every Christian is united to Christ and part of the Church, the body and bride of Christ. If we are trusting in Christ and seeking to follow him with our lives – we are included.

3, Reflecting the ideal husband-wife relationship

What does this mean for each of us in practice – or to put it another way, how can we reflect this ideal relationship in our own lives?

Joyfully receive Christ’s love

We all long for an intimate relationship. Of course even if we’re not married or if we’re in an unhappy marriage it’s possible to have other intimate human relationships, within friendships. But if we’re following Christ, we have the most wonderful and intimate relationship of all – with Christ our husband; and we can learn to enjoy and savour that relationship.

How might we cultivate that relationship? By spending time in prayer to him, and contemplating him and his love. For example, Isaiah writes:

As a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you

Isaiah 62:5

With that in mind, I find it helpful to think of the look of joy and delight and wonder that the bridegroom gives to the bride as she walks down the aisle. That is how Jesus looks at you and me.

George Whitefield, the great C18th preacher, preached a sermon entitled ‘Christ the best husband.’ It was addressed to young women, encouraging them to find their joy and delight in Christ first of all. Those of us who are male might find it harder to get our heads around this truth; but it’s vital that we do. As members of the Church we are part of Christ’s bride – and he loves us dearly, and we become more like him as we know this better.

This is what Christ says to us, according to the preacher Thomas Goodwin:

The truth is, I cannot live without you, I shall never be quiet till I have you where I am, that so we may never part again; that is the reason of it. Heaven shall not hold me, nor my Father’s company, if I have not you with me, my heart is set upon you; and if I have any glory, you shall have part of it.

Thomas Goodwin, Heart of Christ

Joyfully submit to Christ

Paul assumes that the Church submits to Christ (Ephesians 5:24) and the Church needs to ensure it does submit to Christ. This includes each of us as individuals, joyfully choosing to submit to Christ. Notice that (contrary to popular understanding) submission isn’t a forced thing – it’s a choice. A person voluntarily, freely chooses to submit. This is a choice that we make because we know that Jesus loves us and wants what is best for us. We know he wants to bless us, to work for our good and to share his glory with us. Therefore when we are called to submit to him and obey him, we do so joyfully.

Husbands and wives

We cannot consider the topic of husband love without considering how it applies specifically to those who in this short life are husbands and wives. As we have already seen in Ephesians 5, the reality is Christ and the Church. The earthly husband and wife are a pattern, or a small model of the greater reality. Christian husbands and wives are invited to show the world what Christ’s relationship to his Church looks like. And it’s a beautiful relationship, in which both husband and wife should flourish.

Sadly in our current cultural moment many husbands and wives are not flourishing. The majority of couples living together are not married; divorce rates are as high as they’ve ever been; there are many unhappy marriages. The culture is desperately looking for a better way; and what if Christian marriage is that better way?

Tragically many (particularly in my generation) aren’t looking to Christianity for answers, and one of the reasons is the tragedy of husbands dominating and being selfish rather than loving their wives; even husbands abusing their wives and families physically or verbally. This is never acceptable, and if you are in such a relationship or know of someone else who might be I encourage you to seek help.

As a result of such abuses, many women understandably find it hard to trust men; and many men have overreacted and become wholly passive. But that’s not the solution either.

In Ephesians 5:25-28 Paul urges husbands, “knowing Christ’s love for you and the pattern he has established that you are modelling – love your wives. Love them self-sacrificially, putting their needs before your own. Seek their good, their blessing, their honour, and their flourishing. Remember that she is your body – in the words of Ephesians 1:23 she is your fulness. You are to do everything that you do for her – as Christ does for the Church.”

And in Ephesians 5:22-24, 33 Paul urges wives, “knowing Christ’s love for you, and knowing that you are modelling the Church in her relationship to Christ – allow and encourage your husbands to lead in the relationship, and respect them. Trust the loving God to lead your husband to lead you in a loving way, putting your needs first.”

Of course, no two marriages are the same. Each couple has to work out the details for themselves. But the principles are clear. Because we know the ideal marriage – the marriage on which every other marriage is to be based: Christ and the Church.