Vs. 25 “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and Himself for it.”

Christ is the bridegroom, and has taken upon himself full responsibility for the bride, His church.

Her actions are binding for she is His executive while He is away preparing a special place for her, (John 14:3). In His eternal counsel He viewed her sins to be those of His very own, and took upon Himself the punishment due His bride, He suffered in her room and stead that His bride might be presented to Him without blemish and without spot. Thus it is we hear Paul say to the church, “for I am jealous over you with Godly jealously: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ” (2 Cor. 11:2).

Christ suffered the torments of hell for His bride, and wrought cut for her a righteousness that is far greater than all her sins, yea, a righteousness that is more invincible than the gates of hell, (Matt. 16:18). Christ paid the greatest dowry ever paid for a bride. The New Testament bride is the “church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood” (Acts 20:28).
All the elect were purchased with the blood of Christ (1 Pet. 1, 19) but the redemptive blood of Christ purchased more for the bride than it did for the general family of God. The blood of Christ settled the sin debt for the family of the bride, but it made the bride to sit in heavenly places with her groom (Eph. 2:6), and made her His exclusive authority on earth. When a person speaks in the generic sense, saying, “One church is just as good as
another,” he betrays intense ignorance concerning Christ and His church.

Lest I be remiss, yea, derelict in proclaiming the church to be the bride of Christ, I inject here, the Lord’s church (es) are visible, and each church is independent and autonomous. Each church is an entity in itself, and fully capable of carrying on the Groom’s business, needing not the least assistance from any outside source. To teach the church is either, a universal visible body, or that it is a universal invisible body is to fly in the face of honest scholarship, it is to distort scripture, and to rob every metaphor which the Lord uses in reference to his church of any sensible meaning.

The metaphor “body” used frequently in scripture to refer to the Lord’s churches cannot properly apply to the so-called universal visible church or the universal invisible church, Paul told the local visible church at Corinth, “now ye are the body of Christ and members in particular” (I Cor. 12:27).
The Corinthian church was neither universal nor invisible, and it is certain all the saved at the time was not members of the church at Corinth. As with the metaphor “body” so it is with the other  metaphors which refer to the New Testament Church, “chaste virgin,” “holy temple of the Lord,” “building fitly joined together and compacted, etc, etc… Man does not want a universal visible wife, and it is sure he does not want an invisible wife, but when it comes to church they are not so particular.

God has blessed this world with true and visible churches, and He has blessed many of His elect men with membership in one of his churches. Moreover, he has blessed many of His elect men with God honoring wives, and they together serve the Lord in one of his churches. Such is the ideal married state, and they that have been so blessed are to strive with all their might to perpetuate it. One thing above all others that will serve to maintain the happy state is for the husband(s) to obey the divine admonition, “love your wives even as Christ also loved the church,” and He loved His bride to the end that he gave Himself for her.

Husbands are to love their wives, for without this kind of love, They will abuse their headship, and cause their wives to suffer unduly, even causing bitterness in some.
Where love prevails, and it is a love so peculiar that is second only to the love with which the saved are to love Christ, duties incumbent on the wife will as a rule be a joy for her.
Christ’s love for His church is the example set forth to guide husbands in manifesting love for their God given wife, he is to love his wife even to the point of sacrificing himself for her if need be Vs. 26 “that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word.”

“Christ also loved the church, and gave Himself for it, that he might sanctify, and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word.” I doubt very strongly that Paul alludes to baptism when he uses the terms “washing” and “water” in this text. If so, it would be a reference to the cleansing which baptism pictures, and not literal cleansing by the ordinance. Then too, the phrase is qualified by the suffix, which reads, “by the word.” So, the actual cleansing is done by the Holy Spirit in applying the word of truth to the church. Christ said to his church in John 15:3 “now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.”

 The word of God is many times in scripture presented by the beautiful metaphor, “water.” i.e. Ezek. 36:25 - 27, John 3:5, Titus 3:5, and John 7:38. We need to recognize the figure so as to be able to distinguish between the shadow and the substance. Some have grievously erred in taking the significant figure “water”, giving it literalness, and have there-by added to the scriptures, by making baptism essential to salvation.

Paul says to the church at Thessalonica, 2 Thes. 2:13 “we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth.”

Thus it is, the sanctification or cleansing of the church comes by the Holy Spirit making application of the word of God to the church the Holy Spirit takes the word and washes out all the spots and blemishes in the bridal gown.

“To her it was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white . . .” Rev. 19:8)

Vs. 27 “That He might present it to Himself a glorious church not, having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be  holy and without blemish.”

While the church is 2000 years old it has not lost its radiant youth, it is today in the eye of the groom what it was the first day of betrothal, a virgin ever lovely. The church is presented by Paul under the figure of a garment coming from the fullers hand, new, spotless, blemishless, and wrinkleless. All the spots and blemishes have been washed out by the Spirit’s application of the piercing word of God (Heb.4:12), and all the wrinkles pressed out by the hot irons of persecution. The love of church for her blessed head will ever be new, and His love for her can know no change. So it should be with husband and wife.

Vs. 28 “So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself.’

The church is the body of Christ; He loved it and gave Himself for it. Carrying this theme forward, Paul teaches that Christ’s love for His church is the supreme example or model showing how the husband seeking to honor God should love his wife. Furthermore,
Christ being the believer’s chief example in all things, and the groom - bride relationship in particular, should serve to give those husbands who desire to be obedient to His word incentive to love their wives even as He loves the church.

Now we know that a man and his wife do not become “one flesh” in the absolute sense, yet they become so much alive that their desires and aims are one and the same. While they will never be one in the ultimate and absolute sense, yet they can and many do become two complimentary parts of one personality. It is in this sense that the wife is the body of the husband, and she being his body, he should love her as he loves himself.

Vs. 29 “For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church,”

Honesty demands that we own the fact that we love our own selves, and there is nothing wrong with loving ones self, as long as the other loves demanded of us by our Lord does not go wanting. No man ever hated himself, though he be the poorest of the poor, and repulsively deformed, yet he loves himself, yea, not only doe he not hate himself, but he manifests his love for himself by doing all in his power to nourish himself. The loving tender care ye shows himself should be and will be by the God taught husband shared
equally with his wife. His love for his wife generate industry, so as he may provide his wife with the things she needs, he will never be so selfish as to supply his own needs to the neglect of hers.

“Even as the Lord the church.” The Lord loves His church, and provides for her every single need. If a true church lack in the least thing it is due to the church having not availed herself of the supply provided by her head, Jesus Christ. Everything the church needs for her welfare and happiness on this earth has been purchased by Christ for her, and is as close to the church as the finger tips of prayer. Many churches have not because they ask not.