Ephesians 5:22-23 - Homilies By R. Finlayson

Relative duties.

I. DUTY OF WIVES . "Wives, be in subjection unto your own husbands."

1. Ground of subjection .

2. Manner and extent of subjection .

II. DUTY OF HUSBANDS . Husbands, love your wives. As the husband excels in the governing qualities, so she excels in the lovable qualities.

"For softness she, and sweet attractive grace."

If it can be said that he has more power , it can be said that (by her pure and modest feeling, her deep tenderness and devotion) she has more influence .

1. Manner . Christian analogy . "Even as Christ also loved the Church." We are to think of the love of Christ here only under the special aspect in which the apostle presents it, viz. his conjugal love , or love of espousals.

(a) Immediate purpose (process of sanctification). "That he might sanctify it, having cleansed it by the washing of baptism. The water with the Word. The language is taken from the ordinance of fact is pointed to that the Church needs cleansing . Baptism goes upon the supposition that we are all by nature defiled with sin. It says this, "We are all as an unclean thing." The Church was in this state of impurity when the Son chose her for his bride. To this the words apply—He loved her foul that he might make her fair. Washed certainly she must be, to be fit for associating with the highest purity. The blessed fact is also pointed to that there is what has cleansing power . "By the washing of water," it is said here. It is the water used in baptism that we are to think of, and that water in what it signifies, viz. the purifying influences of the Spirit. As water washes defilement from vessels, from the person, so the Spirit washes moral defilement from our hearts. This washing of water must be accompanied with the Word . For the Spirit cannot purify alone, but only through what the Word reveals, especially that blood of Christ which is said to cleanse from all sin.

(b) Remote purpose (result of sanctification). "That he might present the Church to himself a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish." By this we are to understand that Christ is to have in the Church a bride of incomparable beauty. When the cleansing process has been completed, the Church will be glorious ("all-glorious" is the language of the forty-fifth psalm, and the effect of the description here), more glorious than any material substance can be, more glorious than the sun in the heavens. There will not be spot or trace left of her former defilement. There will not be wrinkle or sign appearing of coming age (such as come. s to an ordinary bride). To make it more emphatic, it is added that there will not be any such thing, nothing whatever to mar her beauty. But still the description proceeds ; she will be holy. Her beauty (as it will not be imperfect or fading) will not be outward, but will be the beauty of holiness. And she will be without blemish, so transcendently beautified that to add to her beauty would be (in things that are less)

"To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,

To throw a perfume on the violet."

At present the Son's bride has many a spot, many a wrinkle (her cleansing must still go on, her beauty needs bringing out), but the time is coming (in the Divine purpose which cannot fail, in the conception of Christ which must be realized) when she will be a fit bride for him. And then it is that, as is said here, he is to present her to himself. tie is to leave it to no other (say, angelic attendants) to present her, but he is to take it into his own hand (notwithstanding the double character in which it requires him to act). And this done, then, as is said in the Prophet Zephaniah, he will rejoice over her with joy, He will rest in his love; he will joy over her with singing. This , then , is the ideal which is put before husbands . It is what we could not have dared to have put before us of ourselves. It would have seemed profanity to have conjoined things so far apart. But thus it has been dictated for us by the Spirit of inspiration: "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the Church." The husband is to possess, to cherish, and to manifest devoted love toward his wife. And if his is the position of authority, yet is he (an all-requiring love being also his) to forget himself in services rendered to her. And specially is he taught from the high model that he is not to pamper his wife, but he is to regard her as given him for a higher end, and to seek that she may possess all spiritual beauty.

2. Ground . "Even so ought husbands also to love their own wives as their own bodies." The ground of the duty is that the wife is one flesh with the husband. There are two points (not immediately connected, but brought up afterward) which go to prove this. The first is that woman derived her being from man. Eve was taken out of Adam, and the language was used regarding her by Adam: "This is now bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh." The second point is that, in the marriage union, man and woman are said to become one flesh. "For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the twain shall become one flesh." The wife, then, being one flesh with the husband, there comes into operation (in support of the duty of the husband) the principle of self-preservation. "He that loveth his own wife loveth himself: for no man ever hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it." The Christian analogy . "Even as Christ also the Church." Christ bestows a fostering care on the Church; and this is not only lovely, but it is thoroughly natural . For:

III. RECAPITULATION (order of duties inverted). Duty of husband . "Nevertheless [ i . e . not to press the mystical bearings of the subject] do ye also severally love each one his own wife even as himself." It is again an ideal of very difficult attainment. What a fostering care is conjoined with his authority! And this to be Christ-like (in that fostering care which he is now bestowing upon his Church, and which he will one day bring to a mature result)? Duty of wife . "And let the wife see that she fear her husband." He may personally be deficient (in comparison with her) in those qualities which fit him for being head, but nevertheless she is to show deference to him in respect of the position which he holds. In the precept here it is supposed that he has Christian worth (which is what the representative of Christ should have, what is the adornment of his position). And even when a Christian wife cannot look to Christian worth in her husband, yet must she preserve reverence toward him, while at the same time seeking to win him over to Christ. Two lessons may be learned here .

1. Marriage is a Christian ordinance . It is not, indeed, to be raised (as it is by the Roman Catholics) to the rank of a Christian sacrament; but neither is it to be reduced to a mere civil arrangement. It is here associated with the sublimest Christian thought. This, and the presence of Christ at the marriage in Cana of Galilee, give it a thoroughly Christian character and throw a Christian halo around it of the brightest nature.

2. It is not to be lightly entered into , but in a Christian manner . Man and woman must belong to the Lord before they belong to each other, and are to enter into the married state that they may help each other to be more entirely the Lord's. A Christian is not at liberty to marry one who is not a Christian (even in the hope of making him or her a Christian). A Christian even among Christians is to seek from the Lord.

"And now, before the word we speak

That knits the bond man must not break,

We fain would know thy mind.

Lord, be the sweet conviction given

To both that thou thyself in heaven

The hallowed bond hast twined."

It is in that spirit that it ought to be contemplated. Without this there can be no security for happiness or for Christ being honored in connection with the union formed,—R.F.