Should wives love their husbands as Christ?

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In Paul’s spousal analogy in Eph. 5, Christ is the husband and the Church is the wife, and Paul says that husbands should love their wives as Christ loved the Church. But should wives love their husbands as Christ loved the Church? If you say yes, doesn’t that mess up the spousal analogy?
 
Men are supposed to take Jesus Christ as their model. That does not mean the men are Christ or that their wives put them on the same level as Christ .
Mere men will never be Christ…the most any of us can hope for is to be “Christ-like” but we will never actually BE Him.
And the only person we love “as Christ” is Christ himself, otherwise we’re placing other gods before him.

I loved my husband very much, but he sure wasn’t Jesus Christ and he’d be the first one to agree with me about that.
 
Do you believe that men ought to love their wives just as Christ loved the Church?
 
Of course your response doesn’t mess up the spousal analogy, since you believe your husband should love you as Christ loves His Church. But my question to you is, should a wife love her husband as Christ loves the Church as well?
 
It just struck me that as an analogy, it would seem that only the husband is to love his wife as He loves the Church. How does the analogy apply to the wife?
 
In my opinion, husbands in particular are asked to do this because they are to die for their wives as Christ did for the Church. This does not diminish nor excuse wives from trying to love as Christ did, but brings to attention a particular aspect of that love.
 
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TheAdvocate197 said:
It just struck me that as an analogy, it would seem that only the husband is to love his wife as He loves the Church. How does the analogy apply to the wife?
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You’re stretching the analogy beyond its breaking point.

The verse that applies here, and everywhere else, is John 13:34: “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another."

And this does not only apply to one’s husband or wife, but to every single person on the whole planet, including unbelievers and one’s enemies.
 
TheAdvocate197 said:
In Paul’s spousal analogy in Eph. 5, Christ is the husband and the Church is the wife, and Paul says that husbands should love their wives as Christ loved the Church. But should wives love their husbands as Christ loved the Church? If you say yes, doesn’t that mess up the spousal analogy?
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The passage:
"Men should love their wives as Christ loves the church"

Is used by many liberals to mean:
See, woman are to be submissive to their husband in the Bible.

This is incorrect because:
How did Christ love the church? By dying for the church. Putting himself in harm’s way to save the church.
  1. Back to your question which is:
"should wives love their husbands as Christ loved the Church?"

This question to me means, should woman go to combat and fight a 200 pound muscular robber who forced entry into a home while the husband hides behind his wife? My answer to that is no.

Let’s get back to the real unspoken question here. Are men and woman the same. The answer is no. Are they equal, of course.
 
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Thank you. Therefore, wives ought not love their husbands as Christ loved the Church.
 
TheAdvocate197 said:
In Paul’s spousal analogy in Eph. 5, Christ is the husband and the Church is the wife, and Paul says that husbands should love their wives as Christ loved the Church. But should wives love their husbands as Christ loved the Church? If you say yes, doesn’t that mess up the spousal analogy?
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Eph 5 on relationship between husband and wife:

What does it mean for the husband to love the wife as Jesus love the Church? Actually Paul gives the answer in subsequence verses.

Ephesians 5

25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.

28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church — 30 for 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.” 32 This is a profound mystery — but I am talking about Christ and the church.

33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
 
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How, therefore, ought a wife love her husband on the basis of the said analogy in Eph.?
 
Wives are called to be respectful of their husbands as feelings of love come more naturally to women BUT being respectful towards husbands is not a natural tendency for many wives.
 
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