Dying for your Wife

Several years ago I was standing by the wood stove reaching up for something on the mantle. The young man visiting our home asked, “So I am thinking about marrying _______ and am asking some older Christians who know us both what they think first.” This question surprised me at first. How should I answer such a personal question with lifelong implications?

I answered with a question. “Are you ready to die for her? And I don’t just mean take a bullet for her-- that is too easy. I mean are you ready to die for her every day.”

Many of you have guessed I was referring to Eph 5:25: “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her,”

I have had occasion to think about dying for one’s wife more in recent days. What does it mean for me to love my dear one like Christ loves the church? I believe it is to do what is best for her without thought of the personal cost.

Christ’s love for the church caused Him to redeem us from our slavery to sin, self, and Satan. We might have thought our need was for an easier life, maybe a reversal of the curses on the land so we could raise crops with less sweat. Maybe we thought we needed to get along better with those around us or to be free to do what we pleased. Yet Jesus knew that our basic need was redemption. In the same way, we must not seek to do what our wives want. They may not see their need, but we must seek God so that we might see it.

Christ’s love for the church caused Him to act at great personal cost to redeem us. I don’t know if we can understand the depth of the cost that Jesus paid to redeem us. I have read of the physical torture and the pain He endured yet others are tortured to death. More than the torture, the abandonment of God and suffering the punishment of my sin had to be worse. By comparison, any pain I need to undergo to love my wife is small.

I remember right before I married I bought my first nice truck. A red 1977 Datsun 5 speed with a shell. Everything worked. It was nice. After we were married I bought my wife a ’76 Monza. It was sporty but broke down before we got it home. It was junk; it even had “plug foulers” (something that kept the spark plug outside the engine block so it wouldn’t get covered with the oil that leaked into the cylinders.) I knew my wife needed a safe and reliable car to drive, so both the Monza and the truck were sold and I bought her a two year old, striped down, basic Chevette. It wasn’t much for style or comfort, but it ran for years until we outgrew it. Now that was a small thing, but it is an example of the type of thing that is needed. I liked that truck, but my wife needed something different. She may have wanted a sports car, but she needed a reliable one. That is the type of small death that is needed every day as we fulfill the Biblical command to love our wives and Christ loved the church.

Yet if we think that buying our wife the right car for them is all there is to dying for her, our vision is stunted. We must view the entire scope of her life, her home, her social needs, her besetting sins, her need for spiritual growth... It get overwhelming doesn't it? This asks the question “How do I lead this woman anyway?” but that is another subject...