Ligon Duncan recently wrote a post on marriage and the atonement over at Together for the Gospel. I found it quite challenging as a husband and would advise all husbands to stop reading now if they would like to avoid conviction. I have copied the majority of the post below.
Martyn Lloyd-Jones taught me something about Ephesians 5:25 that I had never before grasped. How many times have I read, and preached, this verse and missed it? Then I read his pastoral words of application: “How many of us have realized that we are always to think of the married state in terms of the doctrine of the atonement? Is that our customary way of thinking of marriage?. . . Where do we find what the books have to say about marriage? Under which section? Under ethics. But it does not belong there. We must consider marriage in terms of the doctrine of the atonement.” (Life in the Spirit, 148)
…here in Ephesians 5:25b, Paul bids Christian husbands to look at the cross, to look at how Christ gave himself for his people there, to look at how he gave himself totally, to look at how he gave himself to the uttermost, to look at how he endured the shame and suffering, to look at how he died – all for his bride, all for his people, all for the church.
And then the apostle Paul applies the atonement to Christian husbands. “Men,” he says, “Christ lived, suffered and died for the eternal good of his bride – now, you go love your wives like that. Love your wives like Christ loved the church. Love your wives like Christ gave himself for the church. Love your wives in light of the atonement.”
So next time you are wishing that the preacher would talk about something practical, and he’s up there again preaching about the cross, preaching about the atonement, just remember the triple practicality of it – (1) he’s not only teaching you about the love of God, a love so deep you’ll never see to the bottom of it in all eternity, (2) he’s not only teaching you about the glorious work of redemption by penal substitution, a work without which you would not and could not have been saved from an eternity in hell, (3) he’s teaching you as a Christian husband how to love your wife – Christ lived, suffered and died for his bride; you live, and if necessary suffer and die for your wife’s good.
Husbands, are you ready to lay down your life for your wife this week? Our call is to day by day sacrificial love. This is what a normal Christian husband looks like. Praise God for His grace that strengthens us for such a calling.