Christ-Centered Love: Husbands and Wives United

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Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing but that she might be holy and without blemish. [00:01:38]

In the same way husbands love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself, for no one ever hated his own flesh but nourishes and cherishes it just as Christ does the church because we are members of his body. Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. [00:02:04]

Notice husbands love your wives in the same way husbands should love their wives. So the two key commands here husbands love your wives followed by an as here, followed by an as here. Something is going to be said about the way the husbands should love their wives do it as the way husbands love their wives do it as. [00:03:03]

I think what follows in all of that is to explain how Christ loved the church so that then the husbands could model their love on that, and what follows here is how a person loves his own body and how you could model your love on that. [00:04:10]

Here's a very puzzling thing. What does in the same way mean? In the same way as what you just saw in how Christ loved the church, you now husbands should love your wives as your own body. That's really important and tantalizing. I'm going to suggest in other words that we don't just have here an unpacking of what it means to love your own body. [00:04:39]

He who loves his wife loves himself, for no one ever hated his own flesh but nourishes and cherishes it just as Christ does the church if you stop there, it would sound a lot like this right? Christ nourishes and cherishes the church, Christ himself gave himself for the church. [00:05:50]

When he loved the church he loved himself, that's what this in the same way is getting at. This is drawing out the implication back in verse 23, Christ is the head of the church his body, so when he is the head of the church he's the head of his body when he loves the church he's loving his own body. [00:06:38]

It really is his body it's us we are distinct and yet we are united with him so the ground here of Christ's loving the church, no one ever hated his own flesh but nourishes and cherishes it just as Christ nourishes and cherishes the church because the church is him, it's his body. [00:07:11]

Already in the Old Testament before the fall marriage was described as a holding fast in such a way between husband and wife that they become one flesh, so that when you love your wife you love your own body because she's one flesh with you, and when Christ loved the church he was loving the members the arms and legs of his body. [00:07:47]

This is a description of Christ's love in the same way that this was when he was loving the church here and giving himself up for the church and sanctifying the church and cleansing the church and presenting the church to himself in splendor all of that was being done for his own members his own body. [00:08:44]

The difference seems to be something like this, here the emphasis fell on what is the aim of love here in this unit when the loved one is viewed as distinct from himself, so Christ is seen here loving the church, it doesn't emphasize loving himself, loving the church and what it characterizes loving the church when the church is viewed as distinct from Christ. [00:09:09]

If you cherish a wife you cherish yourself if you nourish a wife you nourish yourself if you love your wife you love yourself if you sanctify and cleanse and present the wife to yourself in splendor you get the joy she gets the beauty we have much to see about the wonder of Christian marriage as we move forward. [00:10:39]

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