“Husband, Love Your Wife”: Is Marriage Truly Beyond This Statement?

Love is everything; it encompasses all other factors for success in marriage and the home.

25Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— 30for we are members of his body. 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.”^c 32This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

For couples to enjoy family dominion to the fullest and to succeed maritally, everything centers around the statement “husband love your wife as Christ loves the Church and can succeed over the Church“.

For a husband to succeed in his home and effectively manage his wife, he has to follow the apostle Paul’s command, “husband love your wife” because it’s in love will all things be possible for them to do!

As it has always been said that marriage is not just an institution brought about by the wisdom of man or any supernatural being other than God, it’s therefore highly important for you and me to note that nothing, no ceremony is worth compared to marriage, both in term of serving man a great purpose in life and destiny and helping him easily and comfortably in fulfilling the will of the Creator of the whole universe, the Creator of marriage, the living God. Since its creation, living a complete life of comfort, fruitfulness, peace, joy, and happiness has become a thing of reality for human beings, a reality that can’t be denied by any human being here on earth.

Reason Behind This Post 

But now, one baffling and boggling issue in my heart is that I have found some spiritually intelligent people who tentatively asked, “is marriage truly beyond husband love your wife“. This is said by the apostle to the Ephesians. Truly, apostle Paul commanded us in the book of Ephesians 5: 25: “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,” in other to let us know and understand the major importance of love and what it can do between husband and wife in marriage, and to know that love is the primary tool needed by a man to wisely and effectively manage her wife in marriage.

This question came up as a result of what some people calling themselves teachers of the word, knowledgeable and expert Christian marriage counselors are currently saying regarding this particular statement uttered by Apostle Paul while addressing the issue of marriage before the Ephesians. Some of these marriage counseling experts and ministers bluntly concluded in their statement, which I think it’s as a result of their sham study and research. I don’t need to speak further on this because I do not create this post to create room for argument in any form or to condemn anybody’s opinion, but I need to respond to this and speak the fact here as regards this particular matter in my own opinion, and I need to make clear the real fact about this to those who are confused, perhaps because of the way these men interpreted the statement before them.

Is Marriage Truly Beyond “Husband Love Your Wife”?

The question, “is marriage beyond husband ‘love’ your wife” is one of the logical questions that need to be answered logically and scripturally because it’s a statement of the Scripture. This is not a forensic kind of question at all. It’s an imperative statement for any man who wants to achieve his marital goal in life. It’s a kind of question that needs to be deeply understood, most especially by couples who want to successfully fulfill their marital duty in the home and enjoy full family dominion according to the plan of the living God.

Answer:

Factually and without doubt, marriage is not truly beyond “husband love your wife”, but centers around it and based on its t largely if they want to succeed and their family dominion on earth. For anybody to say marriage is beyond love, I described this as a slip of tongue. Saying this is a result of a sham understanding of marriage and family matters.

Note: the fact here is that as marriage is important in the life of every human being, so love is. And you and I must know that if there is no marriage, there will be nothing called family, and there will be nothing called family dominion or fulfillment of the covenant of blessing of multiplications (fruitfulness) that God planned for humanity in the book of Genesis. In the same vein, once it’s agreed that marriage is inevitable for those who want to fulfill destiny and divine purpose in life—like you and me—to first come together as husband and wife, in love, to become one, as said by our Lord Jesus Christ, which cannot be possible without an agreement in LOVE. Even if a man and woman can come together as husband and wife, their success is highly questionable without love. Therefore, you and I must now know that marriage can never be possible without love! Is therefore any teachings to be accepted that said the issue of marriage is beyond the husband loving your wife? Let such teachings be proved useless and senseless! Therefore, I confidently say that marriage is not beyond this statement: “husband love your wife as Christ loves the church! And it can never be!”. Why did I say this? It’s because the role that loves plays in marriage is highly incomparable to any other factor for success in marriage. The Bible says “God is love”, and this is the main reason why marriage cannot and never be beyond love because the moment love is taken out marriage will automatically remain empty, unproductive, and unsuccessful. In and upon love is everything a marriage (a family) could ever become, and without love, marriage is nothing because love in marriage represents God in marriage, which means no kind of teaching about marriage can be meaningful if it’s not centered around the word “love”.  The book of Amos chapter 3: 3 says “Can two walk together, except they are agreed?” Remember here that two persons cannot walk together except they both agreed to do so, otherwise their journey will not have a successful end. And also, the agreement can never occur where there is no love. Therefore, it’s as a result of the existence of love between two people with different characters that agreement arises to walk together as one.

What’s Love?

Secularly and simply, love is a feeling of strong or constant affection for a person—Merriam Webster Dictionary

But here in this context, in the concept of marriage, I define love as a necessary, indispensably required divine bond that exists between two different persons, two opposite sex (usually a man and a woman with different characters) for them to become maritally connected or welded together by way of blending their characters and differences of any kind through or by this same word, love, to produce a harmonious good marital effect between them to become one forever, and hence make them one family as husband and wife for life.

Love encompasses all other vital factors for building a strong, successful marriage relationship between two married partners, which cannot and must not be treated or handled lightly by every wise partner who wants to fulfill destiny, and who wants to enjoy family dominion to the fullest; also, it’s an anchor upon which all other factors for attaining marital success are hung, and a rope or bond to which all useful and indispensable factors to build a strong, solid marriage structure and its foundation, are firmly tied.

Who Is Love?

The Scripture says in the book of 1 John 4: 8 that Anyone who does not love does not know God because God is love. Here, the verse quoted here shows that:

God is love. And this gives us a clear understanding and view that marriage is never beyond the statement that Mr. Paul made, in his plea of love to the Ephesians and as a command that the husband should love his wife as Christ has done to the church, and thereby able to give himself wholly to the Church. In the same way, the husband should love his wife to be able to give himself up and wholly to her in a manner as Christ has done to the Church. Now, having seen the reality that the word love in marriage is not just for no reason or serving no function or purpose, but it represents the living God and his presence in marriage. So tell me, how and in what way can the issue of marriage be beyond “husband love your wife?”   Whatever message or point someone might have to express his opinion about this, I think that it will not take out love from the issue.

Biblical Characteristics Of Love

But the Scripture digs it deeper than this in its definition as seen in the book of 1 Corinthians chapter 13: 4-13:  4Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, 5 does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered,6does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; 7bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. 9For we know in part and we prophesy in part; 10but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. 11When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, and reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. 12For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. 13But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.

From the above-quoted Bible verses, I discovered fifteen vital characteristics of true real love and I am going to list them one after the other here:

1. Patience
2. Kindness
3. It’s not jealous
4. Does not brag
5. Is not arrogant
6. Does not act unbecomingly
7. It does not seek its own
8. It’s not provoked
9. It does not take to account or record a wrong suffered
10. It does not rejoice in unrighteousness
11. It rejoices in and with truth
12. It bears all things
13. It believes all things
14. It hopes for all things
15. It endures all things
16. It never fails
17. It’s not done away
18. Love is the greatest!

Now, I hope you’ve seen very clearly the capacity and functions of love in the marriage and home, then what can someone say is greater than love? If you don’t forget I said earlier that love encompasses all other factors that help achieve success in marriage and the home, but can we now say there is anything beyond love? No, there is nothing ever greater than marriage, and whatever marriage and the home will ever be or become, rather, is fully contained and wrapped in pure love between husband and wife.

Conclusion

Love and marriage, both are interwoven and interdependent, and they can never be separated. Most especially, love can never be underestimated or undervalued in the issue of marriage and wife management in the home. To enjoy family dominion to the fullest and to succeed maritally, everything centers around “husband love your wife as Christ loves the Church and can succeed over the Church”.