A couple imitating Christ

A couple imitating Christ

 

 

 

 

 

“But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything.  Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her.” (Ephesians 5:24-25)

 

 

 

What is the purpose of your marriage relationship?  I see that too many Christian men and women, both while preparing for marriage and even after they are married, do not have a clear purpose for their marriage relationship.  As a result, they become focused on things like circumstances and emotions and fail to bring glory to God through their marriage.  So, if we say that the purpose of marriage is to bring glory to God, we must think about how we can establish a marriage that glorifies God.  We should not fall into the trap of hypocrisy by having blindly idealistic goals, which lead to a disconnect between words and actions.  At the same time, we should not abandon the divine calling and dreams that God has given us by holding too strictly to overly realistic goals.  The important thing is balance.  For my wife and me, our purpose as a couple is twofold: (1) to reflect the image of Jesus in each other’s lives and (2) to love each other with the love of Jesus.

 

In the article titled "Fragile Marriages and Distorted Parent-Child Relationships," the following is written: "Many parents say, 'We endure because of the children.'  However, children’s hearts become wounded by parents who live only for themselves.  When the marital relationship is not smooth and lacks intimacy, one parent unconsciously forms a bond with the child, which should have been formed with the spouse.  The parent unconsciously seeks the love and recognition from the child that they do not receive from their spouse.  In this case, the parent may attempt to fulfill emotional, social, or even sexual needs that are unmet in the marriage through the child.  Additionally, they try to compensate for feelings of resentment and anger toward their spouse by siding with the child and pushing the spouse away."  What do you think of this article?  I believe this is a very accurate reflection of many couples who have weak marriages.  Perhaps many couples say, "We endure because of the children," and when the children grow up, they think about divorce.  In fact, an article I read in 2019 stated that there were a total of 108,684 divorce cases in Korea that year.  Among them, 33.3% (36,327 cases) were "twilight" divorces after more than 20 years of marriage, followed by 21.4% from newlywed couples (0-4 years).  I believe that when a marriage is not harmonious and lacks intimacy, the wife, in particular, may unconsciously pour excessive love onto the children, seeking from them the love she is not receiving from her husband.  This happens because, unconsciously, the wife may seek love from her children.  We need to reflect on the current state of our marriage.  The reason for this is that children may be suffering emotionally because they are living with parents who are solely focused on themselves.

 

Today, I would like to reflect on two principles of marriage relationships taught in the Bible, focusing on Ephesians 5:24-25 under the title "A couple imitating Christ."  I hope that through the understanding and wisdom given by the Holy Spirit, we can apply these principles well in our marital relationships and be built up as couples who imitate Christ.

 

First, wives must submit to their husbands in everything, just as the church submits to Christ.

 

Look at Ephesians 5:24: "Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything."  The family is a spiritual battleground!  The Lord wants to establish our homes as heavenly places.  That’s why He has given us the commandment of heaven, Jesus' twofold commandment (Matthew 22:37, 39).  And the Lord has poured out His love upon us with the Holy Spirit, enabling us to obey Jesus' twofold commandment (Romans 5:5).  The Holy Spirit is filling us progressively with the fruit of the Spirit, which is love (Galatians 5:22).  Therefore, our responsibility is to obey this commandment and, guided by the Holy Spirit, love God with all our heart and soul and love one another as ourselves, with one mind and one purpose (Philippians 1:27; 2:2).  When we do so, our family will be transformed into heaven, filled with the joy (John 15:11; 1 John 1:4), love (Psalms 33:5), and peace (Romans 15:13) of heaven.  However, Satan wants to turn our family into hell. He leads us to disobey the twofold commandment of Jesus, which is a heavenly commandment (Ephesians 2:2; 5:6), and instead encourages hatred, which is the commandment of hell (Genesis 37:5; Deuteronomy 22:13; Matthew 24:10; 1 John 2:9).  Along with the spirit of falsehood, Satan plants hatred in us (Deuteronomy 21:17; 2 Samuel 13:15; Proverbs 10:12), leading us to do the works of darkness (Isaiah 29:15; Ezekiel 8:12; Ephesians 5:11), thus producing bitter fruit in our families (Romans 7:5).  Therefore, Satan is making us not want to go to a home that feels like hell, and instead, he makes us linger outside the home or even want to leave it completely.  Additionally, Satan is causing us to not want to see our family members.  He is making us hate our spouse even more.  In this growing hatred towards our spouse, Satan targets the cracks in the marital relationship (see Nehemiah 4:3, Hebrew for "breach"; 6:1) and causes us to be interested in another woman or man.  Through the lust of the eyes and the lust of the flesh (1 John 2:16), he entices us to desire another person, leading to infidelity.  Satan's purpose is to destroy our family, preventing it from becoming a heavenly home and instead turning it into a hellish home.  This is a spiritual battle!  The family is a spiritual battleground!  What should we do?  We must engage in spiritual warfare.

 

In today’s passage, Ephesians 5:24, the Bible says, "Wives should submit in everything to their husbands."  The Greek word for "submit" used here is a compound term that means to be under, or in a lower position (hypotasso).  The Bible also teaches that the husband is the head of the wife.  Look at Ephesians 5:23: "For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior."  This verse does not imply that the husband is superior to the wife.  If someone misunderstands this verse and thinks it means they are of a higher rank than their wife, and treats her as a servant, that would be wrong.  This would be an abuse of the divine authority God has given to the man as the head of the household.  A husband like this would clearly be an authoritarian.  God did not give men divine authority to become authoritarian figures in their homes.  God appointed husbands as the heads of their households and granted them divine authority because with that authority comes great responsibility.  How serious is the responsibility God has entrusted to us husbands!  That responsibility means that a husband must love his wife and family members (v. 25), protecting and providing for them.  However, this protection and provision should be done with sacrifice, where the husband is willing to give of himself for the well-being of his wife and family.  A wife should submit to and be under the protection of a husband who faithfully fulfills this responsibility.  She should respect her husband, who is diligently fulfilling his duties (v. 33b) "... the wife must respect her husband."  One way she shows this respect is by expressing gratitude to her husband for his sacrificial care and provision for her and the family.  She should not complain or criticize him for having a low income.  Instead, she should express appreciation for his efforts to support and care for her and their family.  In this way, she will trust her husband.  When this happens, the husband, as the head of the family, will be even more devoted to protecting and providing for his wife and children.

 

I came across an article titled “Wives Who Cannot Understand Their Husbands, Husbands Who Hurt With Words,” and I read it.  The article says that when husbands feel unrecognized by their wives, they become frustrated.  It continues by stating that when a husband fails to receive the strength to go out into the world and fight, he becomes disheartened and loses all his energy.  It also mentions: “Wives often do not realize how much influence they have on their husbands and overlook it” (Internet).  Wives need to understand how much influence they have on their husbands.  The best way to exert a positive influence on their husband is by obeying God’s Word.  That Word is found in Ephesians 5:33, which instructs a wise wife to “respect her husband.”  Therefore, a wise wife helps her husband become someone who is respected by others.

 

The bride, the Church, must honor the Bridegroom, Jesus Christ.  Therefore, we must lead others to honor Jesus.  To do this, we must obey the Lord's Word.  As we obey, we should live in this world as the bride of Christ, the Church.  When we do so, the Bridegroom, our Lord, will be honored by the people of this world as well.

 

Second and last, husbands must love their wives just as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself up for her.

 

Look at Ephesians 5:25: "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her."  It is difficult for a husband who is not respected or is being ignored by his wife, but it is equally painful for a wife who is not loved by her husband.  Especially for God's precious and valuable daughters, who were created to be loved by God, how painful is it when they not only do not receive love from their husbands but are even hated and spend their lives in hurt, pain, and tears?  On January 11, 2018, I reflected on the story of Leah, a woman who did not receive love from her husband Jacob, under the title "A Woman Who Was Not Loved by Her Husband," based on Genesis 29:31.  The reason Leah was not loved by her husband Jacob was because Jacob loved Leah’s beautiful and attractive younger sister, Rachel, more than Leah, who had weak eyesight (vv. 17, 18).  In reflecting on this, I concluded that Leah, who did not receive love from her husband Jacob during her lifetime, was buried beside her husband Jacob in the Cave of Machpelah in front of Mamre in Canaan, which was the burial place of Abraham and his wife Sarah (49:30-31).  Rachel, who had been loved by Jacob during her lifetime, died giving birth to Benjamin near Ephrath, on their journey to Canaan, and was buried there (35:16-20).  What is even more important is that God, seeing that Leah was not loved by her husband, opened her womb (29:31) and gave her six sons (Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun) and a daughter, Dinah.  Through these six sons, six of the twelve tribes of Israel were formed, and especially through Leah's descendant, the tribe of Judah, the Messiah, Jesus Christ, was born.  What an amazing and generous gift from God!  The same God who worked in the past is now able to give His precious daughters who are not loved by their husbands abundant gifts and fulfill their desires.  I pray that God will bless them with His abundant gifts and answer their prayers.

 

Today's passage, Ephesians 5:25, says, "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her."  So, how should we husbands love our wives? How can we love them just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her?

 

(1)   Based on Proverbs 18:22, we husbands should regard our wives as a blessing that God has given to us.

 

Look at Proverbs 18:22: "He who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favor from the Lord."  The Bible is not speaking of just any wife here.  The "wife" mentioned in this verse refers to "an excellent wife" (12:4), "a prudent wife" (19:14), or "a wife of noble character" (31:10).  Proverbs 18:22 tells us that the person who finds such a wife—one who is virtuous, wise, and noble—is blessed and has received favor from God.  A husband with such a wife is truly blessed, for such a wife becomes a great treasure to him.  But why do many husbands not regard their wives as the blessing that God has given them?  What is the reason for this?  One reason is that the woman may not be a wise, virtuous, or noble wife, but instead a "contentious wife" (12:4).  Who is a "contentious wife"?  It refers to a wife who is prone to argue and quarrel (Park).  The Bible describes such a wife in this way: "It is better to live in a corner of the roof than in a house shared with a quarrelsome wife" (21:9), and "Better to live in a desert land than with a quarrelsome and fretful woman" (25:24).  Perhaps some men may want to make excuses like this: "God didn't give me a wise wife, but rather a contentious and hot-tempered one.  How can I consider such a wife a blessing?"  It might sound like a reasonable excuse, doesn't it?  If I hear such words, I would want to tell that brother, "God did not give you a quarrelsome and angry wife; you chose that kind of woman.  Therefore, you must take responsibility and raise her to be a wise and virtuous wife."  In too many cases, we men reject the virtuous, wise, and noble woman that God provides, and instead choose the one we find attractive, who later becomes quarrelsome and angry, and marry her.  If we have made such a choice, we must take responsibility and commit to nurturing our wives into the wise women they should be.  Unfortunately, many of us husbands are acting irresponsibly toward the wives we chose. We do not hesitate to speak words of curse to our wives, and through our actions, we make them feel as though they are a burden.  In short, many wives are living their lives without receiving love from their husbands.  How miserable is the life of such a woman?  We must regard our wives as the blessings that God has given us.  Our wives are a gift from God. We should delight in them and always feel content in their embrace.

 

(2)   We husbands must honor our wives.

 

Look at 1 Peter 3:7, the first part: "Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers ...."  Research in modern social sciences has revealed that there are three basic things a wife needs most in marriage.  The first is to be treated with honor (the other two are being understood and being respected).  We husbands must honor our wives.  The Lord honors our wives—who are we, that we would dishonor the daughters of God whom the Lord Himself holds in esteem?  This brings to mind 1 John 4:20: "Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar.  For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen."  If we husbands claim to honor the Lord but do not honor our wives, whom we can see, this is hypocrisy.

 

(3)   We husbands must delight in our wives.

 

Look at Proverbs 5:18: "May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth."  How should we husbands delight in our wives?  We husbands must always find contentment in our wives' embrace.  Look at Proverbs 5:19: "She is a loving doe, a graceful deer; may her breasts satisfy you always, may you ever be intoxicated with her love."  To always find contentment in our wives’ embrace means that we should be captivated by her love.  Specifically, we husbands should be captivated by her virtues, rather than just her beauty.  This is the meaning of the metaphor "loving doe" and "graceful deer" (Park).  When we do this, we will enjoy only the love of our "well" and "fountain" (v. 15), our wives, and we will never leave her to go to the house of a prostitute.  In other words, when we find satisfying refreshment both sexually and affectionately from our wives, we will never long for the embrace or love of another woman (v. 20).  Proverbs 5:16-17 says: "Why should your springs overflow in the streets, your streams of water in the public squares?  Let them be yours alone, never to be shared with strangers."  However, how many husbands are allowing their springs to overflow outside their homes and sharing them with others?  How many men are abandoning their wives and going after other women?  Many husbands are not finding contentment in their wives’ embrace and are not delighting in her, which causes them not to cherish her love (v. 19), and instead, they long for the embrace of a prostitute and are drawn to other women (v. 20).  When we men abandon our wives and seek affection elsewhere, we will inevitably taste the consequences of our sinful choices (vv. 7-14).  These consequences include "loss of honor" (v. 9), "loss of time" (v. 9), "loss of wealth" (v. 10), "loss of health" (v. 11), and "pain of conscience" (vv. 12-14).  Therefore, we must understand the consequences of adultery and not long for another woman. Instead, we should always find contentment in our wives' embrace and delight in them.

 

(4)   We husbands must love and cherish our wives as our own bodies.

 

Look at Ephesians 5:28 and the first half of verse 33: "In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies.  He who loves his wife loves himself.  However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself."  Just as we husbands take care of the needs of our own bodies, our love for our wives should meet their needs and promote their growth and development.  We husbands must love our wives with two purposes in mind.  The first purpose is to make her holy (v. 26a), and the second is to present her to the Lord as a radiant wife (v. 27).  The way to achieve these purposes is mentioned in Ephesians 5:26, "to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word," and in 1 Peter 1:22, "Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth."  We husbands must teach our wives with the truth of God's word, leading them to obey it so that they can live lives set apart from the world—lives that reflect God's holiness.  Therefore, we husbands must nurture our wives to be "radiant wives" before the Lord, wives in whom the glory of the Lord shines.

 

(5)   We husbands must be able to sacrifice for our wives.

 

Look at Ephesians 5:25: "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her."  We husbands must practice sacrificial love, with the goal being solely for our wives, and not with the expectation of receiving any reward from them.  Our motivation should be to care for our wives.  We husbands should know how to sacrifice even in small things.  For example, listening carefully to our wives, spending time with them, occasionally taking out the trash, or pretending to do the dishes in the kitchen—these small acts of attention demonstrate our love and bring us closer.

 

(6)   We husbands must take an active responsibility in parenting.

 

Look at Ephesians 6:4: "Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord."  As the heads of our households, we husbands are not only responsible for raising our wives with God’s Word, but also for raising our children in the Lord’s discipline and instruction.  Parenting should not be something we passively leave to our wives.  We must take an active and engaged role in the responsibility of raising our children.

 

              So why must we husbands love our wives in this way?  The reason is that we, as a couple, are one flesh.  Look at Ephesians 5:31: "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh."  Since we have become one flesh with our wives by leaving our parents, we must love our wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her.

 

I would like to conclude with a reflection on the Word.  Our couple’s purpose is twofold.  First, to show the image of Jesus in each other's lives, and second, to love each other with the love of Jesus.  We have made this our prayer topic and have come this far, and we will continue this way until the day the Lord calls us.  To fulfill the second purpose of loving each other with the love of Jesus, the first thing we have learned is to recognize and acknowledge that we, as sinners, cannot love each other with our own love.  Many times, after a fight, what I feel is that I cannot love my wife by my own strength or love, and I must admit this. I have confessed this to my wife as well.  I remember the painful and tearful moments when I could not help but confess to God and my wife the human corruption and incapacity that make it impossible for me to love her as I would like.  Even now, it is the same. I never want to forget that I cannot love my wife by my own strength.  That is why I must pursue the fruit of the Spirit, the divine love that is nobler, more powerful, and more complete than human love.  I believe in the words of Romans 5:5, that when we believed in Jesus, God's love was already poured into our hearts.  In this faith, I recognize the weakness, insufficiency, and imperfection of my human love, and I pray and seek that it will gradually be filled and completed by the love of the Lord, which will forever replace it.  I believe in the words of 1 Peter 1:22: "Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart."  I want to love my wife deeply from my heart by first obeying the Lord's truth, which purifies my soul. This truth makes me realize the weakness, incapacity, and inadequacy of my human love and humbles me, allowing me to admit this before God and my wife.  Moreover, it becomes the driving force that leads me to pursue God's divine love.  Through listening to God's Word and living in obedience, and through the inner transformation of the Holy Spirit, I now experience the compelling work of the Lord in me, who, instead of me loving my wife, loves her through me.  As I live in this way, our relationship will increasingly be centered on the love of the Lord.  Our first purpose as a couple is to show each other the image of Jesus in our lives, which sometimes brings me to tears as I pray with earnest desire.  One day, I confessed to my wife: "The greatest gift I want to give you is my image, resembling Jesus, before my death."  In reality, I have nothing to give my wife.  Even if I had something to give, I believe there is no greater gift than my image, resembling Jesus.  For my wife, who knows the preciousness of this gift, there is no gift more valuable than that.

             

 

 

 

 I pray that the Lord would establish us as a couple who follows Christ,

 

 

 

 

James Kim

(May 22, 2022, praying that all Christian couples may become husbands who love their wives with the Lord's love, as Christ loves the Church, and wives who submit to and respect their husbands, as the Church does to Christ).