Ephesians 5:25-33 Part I

Ephesians 5:25-33 says: “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself up for her, 26 that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing water with the word, 27 that He might present the Church to Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. 28 Even so husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no man ever hates his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, as Christ does the Church, 30 because we are members of His body. 31 “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one.” 32 This is a great mystery, and I mean in reference to Christ and the Church; 33 however, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.”

I want to spend the next couple of articles looking at this particular passage, but with the focus being on a couple verses at a time until I’ve reached the full length of the text cited above. For this particular article, I’d like to focus on verses 25-27.

This is not an attempt to dive into Biblical scholarship, nor will I make the claim that I am well versed in Biblical theology. Rather, this is an attempt to look at these holy lines written by St. Paul and make the connection of their practicality to our lives and our marriages. (Plus, this is great for those of us who are not married but perhaps dating, or believe to be called to the married life as their vocation).

The focus: verses 25-27: “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself up for her, 26 that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing water with the word, 27 that He might present the Church to Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.” Let’s look at it verse by verse.

Verse 25 seems like a rather simple command from the great evangelist; “Look guys, all you need to do is love your wives like Christ loved the Church (who He also died for).” Shouldn’t be too hard, right? But, what is love? The great St. Thomas Aquinas says that love is “willing the good of the other as other.” So, that means that love is not an emotion or even a sentimental feeling; it’s the intentional act of willing the goodness/otherness of the other as themselves.

Let’s put that definition of love into the context of verse 25 now. If we look at the Thomistic definition of love, and we fit it into verse 25, we can see how it alters our minds in order to interpret the second part of that verse (“…as Christ loved the Church…”) with a different kind of clarity. We know (and do not doubt) that Christ so loved His Church (which is us, by the way) and willed our goodness as who we are as individuals that He went all the way to His own death via the crucifixion to show it. If that is love, in willing the good of the other as other, can we say that we love our wives the same way that the Lord did His church? Again, if we separate the hyper sentimentalized version of ‘love’ from the meaning suggested by Aquinas, than our very being must be centrally focused on willing the goodness of our wives.

Do our actions and words towards our wives speak of our “willing” the goodness of our wives as themselves for their sake? Not for what we want them to be or how we think they ought to act, but, for the sheer goodness of their own character and growth toward the Lord. Let us reflect on that.

For verse 26, “that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing water with the word,” I want to draw more attention to the first part of the verse, as I think it is critically important. Christ’s crucifixion, death, and resurrection sanctified his Church, us, His bride. By His actions, the Church is holy and glows with His radiance. So, too, it ought to be with us and our wives.

Our actions toward our wives (and with them) should directly relate to our desire to uphold their dignity as beings created in the image and likeness of God. First and foremost we must recognize that they are children of God and have dignity. What our behavior ought to reflect is our desire to uplift our bride for the light of Christ that she bears. A light on a hill cannot be hidden, so let us hold up our better halves so that they might give off a holy radiance.

Finally we come to verse 27: “that He might present the Church to Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.” I will piggy back off of my recent comment about verse 26 in that we ought to present our wives with dignity and pride. The household and family is the domestic Church, and if we are to be perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect, than that means we, too, like Christ, must present our Church (in this regard our wives) in splendor, with such pride of their perfection in that they belong to God.

When we see the words “without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, without blemish, etc.., we think well no one is that perfect and without sin, right? Yes, this is true, as we all fall short of the glory of God. But we must love as if our wives have attained that perfection. Christ tells us that the second most important commandment is to love our neighbors, and when we love, we will the good of the other as other; we do not focus on the shortcomings, flaws, sinful nature, or any of these; we focus on their inherit goodness and we will it. Love your wives and be proud of their innate goodness and uplift them for their dignity, because chances are, it is harder to love you, the lesser half, than it is for us to love them.

Pax Christi,

Cameron