For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church:
No man hates his own body but feeds and cares for it with tender affection, so a husband is to love his wife as his own body because she is part of himself, his second self. As the Lord nourishes and cherishes the church as His own body, so the husband is to nourish, cherish, protect and care for his wife with the self-sacrificing spirit of Christ. This joining of husband and wife as one flesh is a great mystery of Christ and the church, for believers are members of His body, and marriage for life is the symbol of that inseparable union. Cherishing her forbids degrading her as servant or instrument of passion, burdening her health by uncontrolled childbearing, or ruling her with a harsh, domineering spirit that breaks affection and scatters the family. When husband and wife live this mutual, faithful, self-sacrificing love, the home becomes pure and elevated, a foretaste of heaven that glorifies God and prepares them for the family above.
Words and Marriage Setting
No one hates his own flesh but nourishes and tenderly cherishes it, even as the Lord nourishes and cherishes the church, so a husband is to love his wife as his own body because in loving his wife he loves himself. She is part of himself, his second self, to be loved, nourished, cherished, cared for and protected as his own flesh. This forbids hating or degrading her by making her a servant to uncontrolled passion, and it forbids treating her as a servant subject to whims or valuing her merely for usefulness or convenience in the home. Instead cherishing is heartfelt attention and desire for her happiness, with kindness, affection, and respect for her individuality. This marriage instruction is of the greatest importance yet practiced by but few, and if carried out to the letter it would change families.
Eve was taken from Adam's side as part of man, bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh, showing the close union and affectionate attachment that should exist in marriage in which husband and wife become one. The wife is therefore to stand by her husband's side as an equal to be loved and protected. She was not taken to control him as the head, nor to be trampled under his feet as an inferior.
The verse belongs to instruction in which wives submit to their husbands as the church is subject to Christ, and husbands love their wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself to sanctify and cleanse it and present it holy and without blemish. Marriage love follows the pattern of Christ as head and Saviour of the body, who gave Himself for it. The rule closes with each husband loving his wife as himself and each wife reverencing her husband. Applied to the home it requires lifelong faithfulness, with the husband as houseband and priest loving and cherishing his wife and the wife respecting and loving her husband in self-sacrifice that brings truest happiness and highest perfection of character. This is possible only by walking circumspectly and wisely, redeeming the time, understanding the will of the Lord, being filled with the Spirit with thanksgiving, and submitting to one another in the fear of God, so that husband and wife are one in Christ and glorify God in their united life, and heeding it makes home life pure and elevated, guarded by holy love.
The joining of man and wife as one flesh is a great mystery concerning Christ and the church, for believers are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones, whom the Lord nourishes and cherishes as His own flesh. The life of the church as His body depends on spiritual union with Him through personal faith, not merely outward membership, and unfaithfulness to Him is like a wife's unfaithfulness to her husband. Such unity requires believers to love one another as Christ loved them and to be one even as the Father is in Christ, governing speech and spirit, which when acted upon lifts to a higher standard and gives evidence to the world that God sent His Son and loved believers as He loved Christ. The chapter is Scripture that ministers and church members must study and practice diligently, and neglect of family duties is failure to live out the Word, while diligent study of the mutual duty of husbands and wives guards against discouragement.
Christ Nourishes His Church
The bond between Christ and His church is very close, sacred and inseparable, with Him as bridegroom and the church as bride, Him as head and the church as body, so that union with Him involves union with His church. His love is shown in giving His life for His people, purchasing them through His blood in an eternal covenant. By creation and redemption He has bought her as His own property to sanctify and cleanse her and present her holy and without blemish for the salvation of all who believe in Him as personal Saviour.
The church is married to Him and cherished by Him as His own, to become a sharer in His kingdom as joint heir, with assurance of being loved as God loves His Son. Every soul in it belongs to Him as property bought with a price and cannot be given into another's keeping. He nourishes and cherishes the church as a person nourishes and cares for his own body, for believers are members of His body. The life of the church as His body depends on spiritual union with Him through personal faith, not merely outward membership.
He cares for the church by joining each believer to it to be helped, encouraged and strengthened through men appointed to lead out and bear the responsibilities of His work and the spread of truth. To neglect or despise those appointed leaders is to reject the means ordained for His people, and to pass them by thinking light must come through no other channel but direct from God places a person where deception and overthrow are liable to follow. In spiritual wedlock with Him believers can be strong and talk hope and press through obstacles, with the Word as assurance. They are to lean wholly upon Him, turning from human counsel to heaven as the source of wisdom, grace and efficiency, coming with full assurance of faith, following where He leads, doing whatever He tells them, and trusting Him to teach them. Unfaithfulness to Him is like a wife's unfaithfulness to her husband.
Every soul has an individual responsibility to Him that cannot be submerged in an earthly husband or wife, and no marriage relation can excuse separation from Him. If a husband refuses the light and hinders her, a wife must still come to the gospel feast provided at infinite cost and walk in the light shining on her pathway. If need be she must forsake husband to practice religious principles in faith and manifest loyalty to God, just as a husband must forsake his wife if needed. To turn away from Christ to please husband or relatives or children risks spiritual loss with eternal consequences.
Husband Nourishes His Wife
A husband is to love, nourish, cherish, care for and protect his wife as his own body, even as the Lord nourishes and cherishes the church, for loving his wife is loving himself. No man hates his own flesh but nourishes and tenderly cares for it, so no husband is to hate or degrade his wife by making her a servant to uncontrolled passion or by disregarding her health and happiness. Cherishing her means guarding her physical and spiritual well-being and not destroying her strength or his own, and such care rules out conduct that endangers her health or hinders her service. To do this he is to have the mind of Christ and become purified and refined and fit to be lord of his household, acting as saviour, head, houseband and priest of the home to uplift wife and children. This marriage instruction is of the greatest importance yet practiced by but few, and if carried out to the letter it would change families.
Marriage as a union for life is a symbol of the union between Christ and His church, and the spirit Christ manifests toward the church is the spirit husband and wife are to manifest toward each other. That pattern is Christ as head and Saviour of the body, who loved the church and gave Himself for it to sanctify and cleanse it and present it holy and without blemish, with wives subject as the church is subject to Christ. In that symbol the husband is to lead in a way that serves God's purpose, while the wife loves, respects and counsels with him as partner in a sacred union, not as a slave. Applied to the home, the husband as houseband and priest loves and cherishes his wife and the wife respects and loves her husband, so that husband and wife are one in Christ and glorify God in their united life.
This love requires lifelong faithfulness with self-sacrifice, remaining faithful to her so long as life lasts. Such mutual faithfulness, respect and love brings the truest happiness and the highest perfection of character and is the only way husband and wife can glorify God in their united life. Cherishing is shown in courtesy, holy tender affection, comfort, encouragement and sympathy in sorrow, with comforting words and heartfelt attention to her happiness and not merely her usefulness. It seeks her health and courage and peace in the home, with sustaining affection keeping minds peaceful, elevated and uplifted toward perfection of character and breathing a pure, sweet atmosphere in the home. The husband's large affections are to sustain his wife before children are born and to cooperate with her afterward, sharing the care and training of children and joining her in wisely, tenderly and lovingly managing and educating them, looking on the mother of his children as deserving all kindness, tenderness and sympathy and letting no censure of the mother pass his lips before the children.
It means recognizing her rights, respecting her individuality that is not to be submerged, and treating her as partner and counselor rather than servant, slave or property to command, wound and bruise. It forbids any plea for rulership or compulsion by either partner, for compulsion cannot retain love, and forbids a masterly, dictatorial spirit or lording it over each other. Cherishing therefore respects her will and desire to have her way, with kindness, self-denial and self-sacrifice, while both cultivate a grateful, submissive, patient, kind and forbearing spirit determined never to grieve or injure each other. Obeying requires genuine conversion, being fashioned after Christ and kept pure, sweet, peaceful and happy under the Holy Spirit. It is possible only by walking circumspectly and wisely, redeeming the time, understanding the will of the Lord, being filled with the Spirit with thanksgiving, and submitting to one another in the fear of God, being doers of the Word and not hearers only by living by every word from God.
What Cherishing Forbids
To nourish and cherish as one's own body forbids disregarding a wife's health and happiness by loading her with burdens and cares through numerous offspring and frequent childbearing. Such increase for the gratification of animal passion endangers her physical and spiritual well-being and destroys her strength and the husband's own, in violation of the marriage vow and the duties God gives a husband. True cherishing protects rather than exhausts, so children are not to be multiplied faster than they can be well trained. A husband who loves as Christ loves will not act to break down the one he is to serve and keep fit for service.
It forbids hating, degrading, or reducing a wife to a servant and instrument for lust and uncontrolled passion. Love that nourishes as the Lord nourishes is pure and not mere desire to satisfy appetite; it seeks her good, holiness, well-being, and dignity, preserving and increasing it rather than debasing her. True marital love is ennobling, governed by conscience and reverence for God, self-giving and sanctified, not unrestrained indulgence. This instruction is of the greatest importance yet practiced by few, and carried out to the letter it would change families.
It forbids a masterly, dictatorial, tyrannical, fierce, exacting, arbitrary, and domineering spirit that seeks to compel, rule, order, accuse, speak cruelly, expose faults, or make a wife feel inferior. It forbids wicked passions and a narrow, contemptible, Nabal-like spirit that provokes wife and children to wrath and opens the home to evil. Neither partner is to plead for rulership or lording it over the other, for compulsion cannot retain love, and the husband's charge is cherishing care while individuality is not to be submerged. Cherishing instead requires courtesy, kindness, self-denial and self-sacrifice, holy tender affection, comfort, encouragement, sympathy in sorrow, patience, forbearance, respect for will and desire, and determination never to grieve or injure one another.
Harsh words and a harsh spirit break the rule of nourishing as the Lord nourishes, and a husband who orders and accuses in that temper shows Satan's attributes instead of Christ's. A wife is not property to command as if created by her husband and owned soul and body to wound and bruise, for she belongs to Christ as bought with a price under a vow of love patterned on His giving of Himself. Instead of binding wife and children together in affection and unity as house-band after Christ's binding of the church, such harshness breaks every tie of affection and scatters the members in bitterness and hatred toward one another. The whole family then becomes a blot and the children suffer, especially when the wife shares the harsh, tyrannical character.
Blessing in Home and Church
Heeding the instruction to nourish and cherish as the Lord does the church makes home life pure and elevated, guarded by holy love. A faithful marriage lived in that care represents the life of heaven. The Christian home shaped by this love helps form Christian character and stands as a foretaste and symbol of the family above.
Mutual faithfulness, respect and self-sacrificing love in which husband and wife are one in Christ brings the truest happiness and the highest perfection of character. Lifelong faithfulness so long as life lasts, with the husband serving as houseband and priest of the home and the wife respecting and loving her husband in return, is the only way husband and wife can glorify God in their united life. This oneness is possible only by walking circumspectly and wisely, redeeming the time, understanding the will of the Lord, being filled with the Spirit with thanksgiving, and submitting to one another in the fear of God.
God has ordained perfect love and perfect harmony in marriage, with united interests, where obedience to His law keeps strife and alienation from dividing husband and wife. Bride and bridegroom pledge themselves in the presence of the heavenly universe to love one another as ordained, letting no unkindness chill the home. Neither partner pleads for rulership or compulsion, trying to compel or domineer over the other, because compulsion cannot retain love, and cherishing instead means patience, kindness, forbearance, and determination never to grieve or injure each other, with the husband respecting his wife's will and desire and the wife showing respect for her husband.
Divine love does not erase human love but includes it, purifying, refining, ennobling and elevating it. Human love bears its precious fruit only when united with the divine nature and trained to grow heavenward, kept pure and noble by loving service to God. Jesus wants happy marriages and happy firesides, where true friendship and the love binding husband and wife is a foretaste of heaven and the family relation is sanctifying.
The husband as priest of the household binds wife and children to his heart with large affections, sustaining his wife before children are born and cooperating with her afterward in wisely, tenderly and lovingly managing and educating them. He looks upon the mother of his children as deserving of all kindness, tenderness and sympathy, ever ready to share the care and training of the children and letting no word of censure of the mother pass his lips in the hearing of the children. Husband and wife mutually share responsibility, hold the same hope in Jesus Christ, and live together in sacred union as brother and sister under one Master, with the husband watching and praying, keeping his soul in communion with God and doing his full duty to wife and children when trials arise.
The unity of Christ and the church is the pattern for the unity a husband is to build as house-band binding wife and children together in affection and unity as Christ binds the church. That same pattern requires believers to love one another as Christ has loved them and to be one even as the Father is in Christ and Christ in the Father, governing speech and spirit by these words. Such unity made perfect in character gives evidence to the world that God sent His Son and loved believers as He loved Christ, and when acted upon it lifts believers to a higher standard and has a convincing influence upon the world.
When both love God supremely and are sanctified body, soul and spirit, this mutual love in the Lord makes husband and wife a blessing to each other and makes home life a preparation for entrance to the family above. When a husband treats his wife in this nourishing and cherishing way, his wife herself will become an entirely different woman.
No man hates his own body but feeds and cares for it with tender affection, so a husband is to love his wife as his own body because she is part of himself, his second self. As the Lord nourishes and cherishes the church as His own body, so the husband is to nourish, cherish, protect and care for his wife with the self-sacrificing spirit of Christ. This joining of husband and wife as one flesh is a great mystery of Christ and the church, for believers are members of His body, and marriage for life is the symbol of that inseparable union. Cherishing her forbids degrading her as servant or instrument of passion, burdening her health by uncontrolled childbearing, or ruling her with a harsh, domineering spirit that breaks affection and scatters the family. When husband and wife live this mutual, faithful, self-sacrificing love, the home becomes pure and elevated, a foretaste of heaven that glorifies God and prepares them for the family above.
Words and Marriage Setting
No one hates his own flesh but nourishes and tenderly cherishes it, even as the Lord nourishes and cherishes the church, so a husband is to love his wife as his own body because in loving his wife he loves himself. She is part of himself, his second self, to be loved, nourished, cherished, cared for and protected as his own flesh. This forbids hating or degrading her by making her a servant to uncontrolled passion, and it forbids treating her as a servant subject to whims or valuing her merely for usefulness or convenience in the home. Instead cherishing is heartfelt attention and desire for her happiness, with kindness, affection, and respect for her individuality. This marriage instruction is of the greatest importance yet practiced by but few, and if carried out to the letter it would change families.
Eve was taken from Adam's side as part of man, bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh, showing the close union and affectionate attachment that should exist in marriage in which husband and wife become one. The wife is therefore to stand by her husband's side as an equal to be loved and protected. She was not taken to control him as the head, nor to be trampled under his feet as an inferior.
The verse belongs to instruction in which wives submit to their husbands as the church is subject to Christ, and husbands love their wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself to sanctify and cleanse it and present it holy and without blemish. Marriage love follows the pattern of Christ as head and Saviour of the body, who gave Himself for it. The rule closes with each husband loving his wife as himself and each wife reverencing her husband. Applied to the home it requires lifelong faithfulness, with the husband as houseband and priest loving and cherishing his wife and the wife respecting and loving her husband in self-sacrifice that brings truest happiness and highest perfection of character. This is possible only by walking circumspectly and wisely, redeeming the time, understanding the will of the Lord, being filled with the Spirit with thanksgiving, and submitting to one another in the fear of God, so that husband and wife are one in Christ and glorify God in their united life, and heeding it makes home life pure and elevated, guarded by holy love.
The joining of man and wife as one flesh is a great mystery concerning Christ and the church, for believers are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones, whom the Lord nourishes and cherishes as His own flesh. The life of the church as His body depends on spiritual union with Him through personal faith, not merely outward membership, and unfaithfulness to Him is like a wife's unfaithfulness to her husband. Such unity requires believers to love one another as Christ loved them and to be one even as the Father is in Christ, governing speech and spirit, which when acted upon lifts to a higher standard and gives evidence to the world that God sent His Son and loved believers as He loved Christ. The chapter is Scripture that ministers and church members must study and practice diligently, and neglect of family duties is failure to live out the Word, while diligent study of the mutual duty of husbands and wives guards against discouragement.
Christ Nourishes His Church
The bond between Christ and His church is very close, sacred and inseparable, with Him as bridegroom and the church as bride, Him as head and the church as body, so that union with Him involves union with His church. His love is shown in giving His life for His people, purchasing them through His blood in an eternal covenant. By creation and redemption He has bought her as His own property to sanctify and cleanse her and present her holy and without blemish for the salvation of all who believe in Him as personal Saviour.
The church is married to Him and cherished by Him as His own, to become a sharer in His kingdom as joint heir, with assurance of being loved as God loves His Son. Every soul in it belongs to Him as property bought with a price and cannot be given into another's keeping. He nourishes and cherishes the church as a person nourishes and cares for his own body, for believers are members of His body. The life of the church as His body depends on spiritual union with Him through personal faith, not merely outward membership.
He cares for the church by joining each believer to it to be helped, encouraged and strengthened through men appointed to lead out and bear the responsibilities of His work and the spread of truth. To neglect or despise those appointed leaders is to reject the means ordained for His people, and to pass them by thinking light must come through no other channel but direct from God places a person where deception and overthrow are liable to follow. In spiritual wedlock with Him believers can be strong and talk hope and press through obstacles, with the Word as assurance. They are to lean wholly upon Him, turning from human counsel to heaven as the source of wisdom, grace and efficiency, coming with full assurance of faith, following where He leads, doing whatever He tells them, and trusting Him to teach them. Unfaithfulness to Him is like a wife's unfaithfulness to her husband.
Every soul has an individual responsibility to Him that cannot be submerged in an earthly husband or wife, and no marriage relation can excuse separation from Him. If a husband refuses the light and hinders her, a wife must still come to the gospel feast provided at infinite cost and walk in the light shining on her pathway. If need be she must forsake husband to practice religious principles in faith and manifest loyalty to God, just as a husband must forsake his wife if needed. To turn away from Christ to please husband or relatives or children risks spiritual loss with eternal consequences.
Husband Nourishes His Wife
A husband is to love, nourish, cherish, care for and protect his wife as his own body, even as the Lord nourishes and cherishes the church, for loving his wife is loving himself. No man hates his own flesh but nourishes and tenderly cares for it, so no husband is to hate or degrade his wife by making her a servant to uncontrolled passion or by disregarding her health and happiness. Cherishing her means guarding her physical and spiritual well-being and not destroying her strength or his own, and such care rules out conduct that endangers her health or hinders her service. To do this he is to have the mind of Christ and become purified and refined and fit to be lord of his household, acting as saviour, head, houseband and priest of the home to uplift wife and children. This marriage instruction is of the greatest importance yet practiced by but few, and if carried out to the letter it would change families.
Marriage as a union for life is a symbol of the union between Christ and His church, and the spirit Christ manifests toward the church is the spirit husband and wife are to manifest toward each other. That pattern is Christ as head and Saviour of the body, who loved the church and gave Himself for it to sanctify and cleanse it and present it holy and without blemish, with wives subject as the church is subject to Christ. In that symbol the husband is to lead in a way that serves God's purpose, while the wife loves, respects and counsels with him as partner in a sacred union, not as a slave. Applied to the home, the husband as houseband and priest loves and cherishes his wife and the wife respects and loves her husband, so that husband and wife are one in Christ and glorify God in their united life.
This love requires lifelong faithfulness with self-sacrifice, remaining faithful to her so long as life lasts. Such mutual faithfulness, respect and love brings the truest happiness and the highest perfection of character and is the only way husband and wife can glorify God in their united life. Cherishing is shown in courtesy, holy tender affection, comfort, encouragement and sympathy in sorrow, with comforting words and heartfelt attention to her happiness and not merely her usefulness. It seeks her health and courage and peace in the home, with sustaining affection keeping minds peaceful, elevated and uplifted toward perfection of character and breathing a pure, sweet atmosphere in the home. The husband's large affections are to sustain his wife before children are born and to cooperate with her afterward, sharing the care and training of children and joining her in wisely, tenderly and lovingly managing and educating them, looking on the mother of his children as deserving all kindness, tenderness and sympathy and letting no censure of the mother pass his lips before the children.
It means recognizing her rights, respecting her individuality that is not to be submerged, and treating her as partner and counselor rather than servant, slave or property to command, wound and bruise. It forbids any plea for rulership or compulsion by either partner, for compulsion cannot retain love, and forbids a masterly, dictatorial spirit or lording it over each other. Cherishing therefore respects her will and desire to have her way, with kindness, self-denial and self-sacrifice, while both cultivate a grateful, submissive, patient, kind and forbearing spirit determined never to grieve or injure each other. Obeying requires genuine conversion, being fashioned after Christ and kept pure, sweet, peaceful and happy under the Holy Spirit. It is possible only by walking circumspectly and wisely, redeeming the time, understanding the will of the Lord, being filled with the Spirit with thanksgiving, and submitting to one another in the fear of God, being doers of the Word and not hearers only by living by every word from God.
What Cherishing Forbids
To nourish and cherish as one's own body forbids disregarding a wife's health and happiness by loading her with burdens and cares through numerous offspring and frequent childbearing. Such increase for the gratification of animal passion endangers her physical and spiritual well-being and destroys her strength and the husband's own, in violation of the marriage vow and the duties God gives a husband. True cherishing protects rather than exhausts, so children are not to be multiplied faster than they can be well trained. A husband who loves as Christ loves will not act to break down the one he is to serve and keep fit for service.
It forbids hating, degrading, or reducing a wife to a servant and instrument for lust and uncontrolled passion. Love that nourishes as the Lord nourishes is pure and not mere desire to satisfy appetite; it seeks her good, holiness, well-being, and dignity, preserving and increasing it rather than debasing her. True marital love is ennobling, governed by conscience and reverence for God, self-giving and sanctified, not unrestrained indulgence. This instruction is of the greatest importance yet practiced by few, and carried out to the letter it would change families.
It forbids a masterly, dictatorial, tyrannical, fierce, exacting, arbitrary, and domineering spirit that seeks to compel, rule, order, accuse, speak cruelly, expose faults, or make a wife feel inferior. It forbids wicked passions and a narrow, contemptible, Nabal-like spirit that provokes wife and children to wrath and opens the home to evil. Neither partner is to plead for rulership or lording it over the other, for compulsion cannot retain love, and the husband's charge is cherishing care while individuality is not to be submerged. Cherishing instead requires courtesy, kindness, self-denial and self-sacrifice, holy tender affection, comfort, encouragement, sympathy in sorrow, patience, forbearance, respect for will and desire, and determination never to grieve or injure one another.
Harsh words and a harsh spirit break the rule of nourishing as the Lord nourishes, and a husband who orders and accuses in that temper shows Satan's attributes instead of Christ's. A wife is not property to command as if created by her husband and owned soul and body to wound and bruise, for she belongs to Christ as bought with a price under a vow of love patterned on His giving of Himself. Instead of binding wife and children together in affection and unity as house-band after Christ's binding of the church, such harshness breaks every tie of affection and scatters the members in bitterness and hatred toward one another. The whole family then becomes a blot and the children suffer, especially when the wife shares the harsh, tyrannical character.
Blessing in Home and Church
Heeding the instruction to nourish and cherish as the Lord does the church makes home life pure and elevated, guarded by holy love. A faithful marriage lived in that care represents the life of heaven. The Christian home shaped by this love helps form Christian character and stands as a foretaste and symbol of the family above.
Mutual faithfulness, respect and self-sacrificing love in which husband and wife are one in Christ brings the truest happiness and the highest perfection of character. Lifelong faithfulness so long as life lasts, with the husband serving as houseband and priest of the home and the wife respecting and loving her husband in return, is the only way husband and wife can glorify God in their united life. This oneness is possible only by walking circumspectly and wisely, redeeming the time, understanding the will of the Lord, being filled with the Spirit with thanksgiving, and submitting to one another in the fear of God.
God has ordained perfect love and perfect harmony in marriage, with united interests, where obedience to His law keeps strife and alienation from dividing husband and wife. Bride and bridegroom pledge themselves in the presence of the heavenly universe to love one another as ordained, letting no unkindness chill the home. Neither partner pleads for rulership or compulsion, trying to compel or domineer over the other, because compulsion cannot retain love, and cherishing instead means patience, kindness, forbearance, and determination never to grieve or injure each other, with the husband respecting his wife's will and desire and the wife showing respect for her husband.
Divine love does not erase human love but includes it, purifying, refining, ennobling and elevating it. Human love bears its precious fruit only when united with the divine nature and trained to grow heavenward, kept pure and noble by loving service to God. Jesus wants happy marriages and happy firesides, where true friendship and the love binding husband and wife is a foretaste of heaven and the family relation is sanctifying.
The husband as priest of the household binds wife and children to his heart with large affections, sustaining his wife before children are born and cooperating with her afterward in wisely, tenderly and lovingly managing and educating them. He looks upon the mother of his children as deserving of all kindness, tenderness and sympathy, ever ready to share the care and training of the children and letting no word of censure of the mother pass his lips in the hearing of the children. Husband and wife mutually share responsibility, hold the same hope in Jesus Christ, and live together in sacred union as brother and sister under one Master, with the husband watching and praying, keeping his soul in communion with God and doing his full duty to wife and children when trials arise.
The unity of Christ and the church is the pattern for the unity a husband is to build as house-band binding wife and children together in affection and unity as Christ binds the church. That same pattern requires believers to love one another as Christ has loved them and to be one even as the Father is in Christ and Christ in the Father, governing speech and spirit by these words. Such unity made perfect in character gives evidence to the world that God sent His Son and loved believers as He loved Christ, and when acted upon it lifts believers to a higher standard and has a convincing influence upon the world.
When both love God supremely and are sanctified body, soul and spirit, this mutual love in the Lord makes husband and wife a blessing to each other and makes home life a preparation for entrance to the family above. When a husband treats his wife in this nourishing and cherishing way, his wife herself will become an entirely different woman.