Ephesians 5:22-33 The Greatest Mystery

Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. 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. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— for we are members of his body. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. One of the greatest mysteries in the Bible is the love for a man for his wife. Two people are joined together who were once strangers and spend their lives together. The cling to one another to the point of leaving their own families to make a new one - for better or for worse of their own. This love causes the woman to revere her husband and for the husband to love her like his own body. This mystery has been repeated billions of times and is the closest example we have of Christ's agape (sacrificial love) that we know. Thank God for the love between husband and wife so that we may have the love of God in our hearts. Amen.