The Husband's Job

Throughout the New Testament, God repeats that Marriage is supposed to be an illustration of His relationship with His Church. Over, and over, the Church is referred to as the Bride of Christ. God meant for each Christian Marriage to show His love, so that He can use our marriages to bring the lost into His Kingdom.

In the Old Testament, Moses (often considered one of the most Godly persons in the bible,) is told that he will not be allowed to enter the Promised Land. This is after forty long years of leading the Israelites through the desert. Why? Why, after working for so long, was Moses prohibited from entering into the Promised Land? Why, when he was considered an extremely Godly man, was Moses denied entrance?

The story is given in the book of Numbers (chapter 20.) After the people started complaining about the lack of water, God told Moses to "speak" to a rock, and that it would then pour out water for the Children of Israel, and their animals. In response, Moses took his staff and hit the rock; he did not speak to it, as God had ordered. God had already ordered Moses, earlier, to hit a different rock to bring forth water; this is described in the book of Exodus, chapter 17, verses 1 through 7. God did not want the rock to be hit, this time, but rather spoken to. This was an illustration of the coming Messiah; a pre-type of the coming Christ (Jesus is described as providing the "Living Water" in chapter four of the Gospel of John. The hitting of the rock symbolizes the sacrifice that Jesus made for our sins, He only needed a single sacrifice. Thus a rock was supposed to be hit once. After that, we just need to ask [speak] for Jesus to come in to our lives, not hit [sacrifice] Him a second time.) In hitting the rock, Moses broke God's illustration, so that He could not use it as He had intended. This appears to be a pretty insignificant crime, but God considered it to be so terrible, that He told Moses that he would never enter the Promised Land.

⁷ Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ⁸ "Take the rod; you and your brother Aaron gather the congregation together. Speak to the rock before their eyes, and it will yield its water; thus you shall bring water for them out of the rock, and give drink to the congregation and their animals." ⁹ So Moses took the rod from before the Lord as He commanded him.

¹⁰ And Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the rock; and he said to them, "Hear now, you rebels! Must we bring water for you out of this rock?" ¹¹ Then Moses lifted his hand and struck the rock twice with his rod; and water came out abundantly, and the congregation and their animals drank.

¹² Then the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, "Because you did not believe Me, to hallow Me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them."

As I already mentioned, our marriages are intended to be illustrations of God's relationship with His People, the Church. Each time a Christian couple divorce, or a Christian man treats his wife incorrectly, we break God's illustration. This is the same crime that caused Moses to lose the right to the Promised Land.

While our entrance into our "Promised Land," is assured by Jesus' sacrifice, and nothing that we can do can defeat His death and resurrection (Ephesians, 2:8-9,) just think of all the blessings that we miss by messing up God's illustration. Every time that an unbeliever looks at a Christian couple's marriage, and is not shown God's love (and does not feel pulled into God's Kingdom) there is loss - both for the person who does not see God's love, and the desire to come to God through faith in Christ; as well as for the couple, themselves.

What are the responsibilities of a husband? I will not try to tell you that I have learned all that I need to here. Nor will I try to tell you that I do a great job (or even a good job) at this stuff. Just ask my missus, she sees a LOT of mistakes that I have made (and still do make). However, in the past thirty-two years of marriage, and many years of reading God's Word, I have learned a few things. I would like to share some of those lessons with you, in the hopes that we (us Christian couples) can evangelize to unbelievers, and help to build the faith of believers, through our marriages.

This article does not try to tell wives what their responsibilities are. Not that the women do not have any part in the illustration, but rather that, as a husband, my study has been centered around what I need to do to properly love my wife. I will leave the other side of this study to a Godly wife to complete.

Our scripture text for this article will be from the letter that Paul wrote to the Believers in the city of Ephesus. In the fifth chapter, Paul tells us (men) how to love their wives.

Let's take a look at the entire passage, so that we can take things in-context, rather than out-of-context:

²⁵ Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, ²⁶ that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, ²⁷ that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. ²⁸ So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself. ²⁹ For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church. ³⁰ For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. ³¹ "For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh." ³² This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. ³³ Nevertheless let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.
Ephesians 5:25-33 – New King James Version (NKJV)

In this passage, Paul tells us (men) to "love their wives as Christ loved the church." It seems that a lot of Christian men know this part of the passage and are able to quote it from memory. However, Paul does not stop at just "love your wife." He continues with "as Christ loved the church" ouch! And, beyond that, we need to love our wives as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her. Wait a minute! Christ gave himself up for the Church by dying on the cross!!! Let's leave that for a minute and continue on with what Paul tells us.

Next in the passage, in verse 26, Paul tells us why Jesus "gave Himself for her." So that He might sanctify her with the washing of water by the Word. And why did Jesus sanctify the Church like that? "²⁷ that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish." So, our job, as husbands, is to present our wives to God holy and without blemish.

Is it even possible for us to make our wives holy and without blemish? How can anyone be holy and without blemish? The only way that anyone (us..., our wives..., anyone) can be without blemish before God, is to be clothed in the righteousness of Christ. Paul describes this in the letter he wrote to the Philippians (chapter 3, verse 9): "and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; " In other words, when we have accepted Jesus' sacrifice in payment for our sins, Christ covers us with a cloak (or robe) which is holy and without blemish. When God, the Father, looks at a Christian, he sees Jesus' righteousness, not the person's filth and sin.

So, we see here, that our jobs as husbands is to love our wives enough to, first of all, give her every opportunity to come to accept the sacrifice that Jesus made to pay for her sins. This will make her belong to Jesus, and then He can worry about making her spotless for you. Secondly, once she has accepted Christ as her personal Saviour, we need to do everything to allow her to grow in her faith. This will include things like encouraging your wife to read the Scriptures every day (cleanse her with the washing of water by the Word,) leading her in prayer time every day, bringing her (NOT sending her) to church and prayer meetings and getting her into a woman's bible study group. Probably, the most important thing that you can do for your wife, is to bring her before God, in prayer every day.

But, the number one thing that you can do to love your wife, is to pray for yourself. No man can fulfill that command to properly love his wife; at least not by himself. You need to pray for God to give you the ability to love your wife, as Christ loves the Church. Trying to do this on your own will only give you an object lesson in futility. We are meant to trust in (or lean on) God to give us the abilities to do what he wants us to do.

Now, how about some practical things that you can do to show your wife that your do love her, and take your responsibilities seriously? Well, there are tonnes (yes, the metric kind, which are bigger than our regular English tons) of things that you can do to show your love: Every night, in our prayer time, I thank God for my wife (and make sure that she hears this.) I also tell her, often, that I am the most blessed guy in the world, to have her as my wife. My wife also likes coffee - I can't stand the stuff; but each day, I brew a cup of her morning java and bring it up to her. Every now-and-then, I will just suddenly pull the car off the road, while we are driving, so that I can jump out and pick some wild flowers for her (make sure that they are wild flowers; stealing is not a good way to show your love.) My wife also likes to have the bed made up (I guess that I am kind of a slob here, that is not too important to me,) so I try to make the bed after she gets up.

These are just little things, and will not, by themselves, make big changes in your marriage. However I remember hearing about an old sailor teaching the younger sailors about keeping everything ship-shape. He said "if you take care of the little things, the big things tend to take care of themselves." There is a lot of wisdom in that: if you adopt an attitude of showing your love for your wife in small ways, then you will find yourself showing your love in bigger ways, as well. Look for opportunities to serve your wife - all with the goal of presenting her to God, holy and without blemish.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version ®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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This page was last updated by Art G. Granzeier III on Wed 31 Jul 2019