Husbands Love Your Wives: What Does Ephesians 5:25 Mean?

Ephesians 5:25, “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it.” (King James Version)

Also see the meaning of He Who Began a Good Work to learn more

Husbands Love Your Wives: Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary

5:22-33 The duty of wives is, submission to their husbands in the Lord, which includes honouring and obeying them, from a principle of love to them. The duty of husbands is to love their wives.

The love of Christ to the church is an example, which is sincere, pure, and constant, notwithstanding her failures.

Christ gave himself for the church, that he might sanctify it in this world, and glorify it in the next, that he might bestow on all his members a principle of holiness, and deliver them from the guilt, the pollution, and the dominion of sin, by those influences of the Holy Spirit, of which baptismal water was the outward sign.

The church and believers will not be without spot or wrinkle till they come to glory. But those only who are sanctified now, shall be glorified hereafter. The words of Adam, mentioned by the apostle, are spoken literally of marriage; but they have also a hidden sense in them, relating to the union between Christ and his church.

It was a kind of type, as having resemblance. There will be failures and defects on both sides, in the present state of human nature, yet this does not alter the relation. All the duties of marriage are included in unity and love.

And while we adore and rejoice in the condescending love of Christ, let husbands and wives learn hence their duties to each other. Thus the worst evils would be prevented, and many painful effects would be avoided.

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Ephesians 5:25 | Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

“Thou hast seen the measure of obedience; now hear also the measure of love. Do you wish your wife to obey you, as the Church is to obey Christ? Then have a solicitude for her as Christ had for the Church (Eph 5:23, “Himself the Saviour of the body”);

and “if it be necessary to give thy life for her, or to be cut in ten thousand pieces, or to endure any other suffering whatever, do not refuse it; and if you suffer thus, not even so do you do what Christ has done; for you indeed do so being already united to her, but He did so for one that treated Him with aversion and hatred.

As, therefore, He brought to His feet one that so treated Him, and that even wantonly spurned Him, by much tenderness of regard, not by threats, insults, and terror: so also do you act towards your wife, and though you see her disdainful and wantonly wayward, you will be able to bring her to your feet by much thoughtfulness for her, by love, by kindness.

For no bound is more sovereign in binding than such bonds, especially in the case of husband and wife. For one may constrain a servant by fear, though not even he is so to be bound to you; for he may readily run away.

But the companion of your life, the mother of your children, the basis of all your joy, you ought to bind to you, not by fear and threats, but by love and attachment” [Chrysostom].

gave himself—Greek, “gave Himself up.”

for it—Translate, “for her.” The relation of the Church to Christ is the ground of Christianity’s having raised woman to her due place in the social scale, from which she was, and is, excluded in heathen lands.

Also see the meaning of Greater Love Has No Man to learn more