Biblion Bible Commentary
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Husbands, as Christ Loved
Ephesians 5:25-30
25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the assembly and gave himself up for her, · WEB
The longer and harder instruction goes to the party holding the power, and the model given is a death.
Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the assembly and gave himself up for her. Nothing about authority is said. The command is love, and the measure is a handing over — the same construction the chapter used of Christ as the model for everyone Ephesians 5:2.
That is the passage's structure, and it holds across every pair the letter addresses. The party with the power gets the sharper word: husbands told to die rather than to rule, fathers told not to provoke, masters told to stop threatening Ephesians 6:4 Ephesians 6:9.
Verses 26 and 27 describe what the self-surrender was for, and every verb has Christ as subject and the assembly as object: sanctify, cleanse, present. The purpose is her glory — not having spot or wrinkle, holy and without defect, which is the phrase from the letter's first paragraph Ephesians 1:4. What the choosing before the foundation of the world was for is what the husband is asked to imitate.
Then verse 28 shifts the argument from imitation to self-interest, and does it without embarrassment: husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies, and he who loves his own wife loves himself.
Verse 29 grounds it in something nobody disputes — no man ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it — and the two verbs are domestic rather than heroic. Feeding and keeping warm. Having set the standard at crucifixion, the letter lands it on daily care.
And verse 30 gives the reason the analogy works at all: we are members of his body. The body language of chapters 1 and 4 arrives in a marriage.
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