Expository Sermon On Marriage

Two Becoming One: Marriage Shaped By Christ

There is a passage in the New Testament that has been quoted at more weddings than perhaps any other, and yet it remains one of the most misunderstood texts in all of Scripture. Ephesians 5:21-33 is not a power chart for marriage. It is not a hierarchy manual. It is a portrait of the gospel painted in the colors of covenant love. And if we will slow down and let Paul's words do their work, we will find that this text does not diminish either spouse. It calls both of them to something far more demanding, far more beautiful, and far more transforming than anything our culture has imagined for marriage.

Open your Bible to Ephesians 5, beginning at verse 21. We are going to read carefully and let the text lead us.

The Verse That Changes Everything

Before Paul says a single word about husbands or wives, he writes this in verse 21: "submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ." That verse is the hinge on which the entire passage turns. It is not a throwaway introduction. It is the governing principle. Paul has been describing what a Spirit-filled life looks like since verse 18, and mutual submission is one of its clearest expressions. Every instruction that follows must be read in that light.

This matters enormously, because it means that marriage in the Christian vision is not a competition for authority. It is a shared call to serve. Both spouses are addressed by the same Spirit. Both are accountable to the same Lord. Both are being shaped by the same gospel. That is the foundation before a single role-specific word is spoken.

The Wife's Calling: Trust Rooted In Faith

In verses 22 through 24, Paul addresses wives: "Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord, because the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of the body. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives are to submit to their husbands in everything."

The word submit carries enormous cultural baggage today, and it is worth pausing to understand what Paul actually means. The submission Paul describes is not coerced. It is not silent. It is not the erasure of a woman's voice, gifts, or dignity. The same word is used in verse 21 for every believer. The same word describes Christ's own relationship to the Father in 1 Corinthians 15:28. Submission in the New Testament is always a posture of trust and order, never a declaration of lesser worth.

Paul's comparison is striking. The wife's trust in her husband is modeled on the church's trust in Christ. That is a high and holy calling. It is not passivity. The church is not passive. The church prays, serves, speaks, and acts. But the church does all of that within a relationship of loving dependence on its Lord. Paul is asking wives to bring that same quality of faith-rooted trust into the marriage covenant.

And let us be honest about what this does not mean. It does not mean tolerating abuse. It does not mean surrendering conscience. It does not mean that a wife's wisdom and discernment are unwelcome. A husband who uses this text to silence, control, or harm his wife has not understood a single word Paul wrote.

The Husband's Calling: Love That Costs Everything

Now Paul turns to husbands, and he does not give them the easier assignment. Verses 25 through 28 read: "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her to make her holy, cleansing her with the washing of water by the word. He did this to present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or anything like that, but holy and blameless. In the same way, husbands are to love their wives as their own bodies."

Read that again. Love your wife as Christ loved the church. Christ loved the church by going to a cross. Christ loved the church by pouring out his life. Christ loved the church not to be served but to serve. The standard Paul sets for husbands is not cultural dominance. It is cruciform sacrifice. It is the kind of love that asks, every single day, what can I give, what can I lay down, how can I serve the flourishing of this person I have covenanted to love?

Paul says the husband's love should be directed toward his wife's holiness and wholeness. Verse 26 says Christ gave himself to make the church holy. A husband who leads well is not leading toward his own comfort or convenience. He is leading toward his wife's good, her growth, her flourishing before God. That kind of leadership looks far more like a servant than a sovereign.

Verse 28 adds a remarkable dimension: "Husbands are to love their wives as their own bodies." Paul is reaching back to Genesis 2, to the creation of woman from man's side, to the declaration that they are one flesh. When a man loves his wife, Paul says, he is in a real sense loving himself, because the two have become one. Selfishness in marriage is therefore a kind of self-destruction. Generosity in marriage is a kind of wholeness.

The Mystery At The Center

Verses 31 and 32 bring us to the theological heart of the passage: "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This mystery is profound, but I am talking about Christ and the church."

Paul quotes Genesis 2:24, the oldest description of marriage in Scripture, and he says it has always pointed beyond itself. The one-flesh union of husband and wife is a living parable of the union between Christ and his people. Marriage, in God's design, is not merely a social institution or a legal contract. It is a covenant that images the covenant God has made with us through his Son.

This is why Christian marriage carries such weight and such beauty. Every faithful marriage is a testimony. Every act of sacrificial love between spouses is a small sermon about the way Christ loves his church. Every act of trust and commitment is a picture of the way the church clings to its Lord. The watching world does not always know the language of theology, but they can see a marriage that looks like something beyond themselves, and they will wonder where that comes from.

The Gospel Beneath The Text

Here is what we must not miss. Paul's vision of marriage is only possible because of the gospel. No one can love the way Christ loved by sheer willpower. No one can offer the kind of trust Paul describes by gritting their teeth. This passage is not a self-improvement program. It is a call to people who have been transformed by grace.

If you are here today and you have never placed your faith in Jesus Christ, I want you to know that the love Paul describes in this passage is the same love that sent Christ to the cross for you. He gave himself for the church. He gave himself for sinners. He gave himself for people who had nothing to offer him in return. That is the gospel. And it is available to you today, not because of anything you have done, but because of everything he has done.

For those of us who are already his, this passage is a call to let the gospel shape the most intimate corners of our lives. Our marriages are not exempt from the work of sanctification. They are one of its primary classrooms.

A Word For Every Person In This Room

Whether you are married, single, widowed, or somewhere in between, this passage speaks to you. It speaks to every believer about the nature of covenant love, about what it means to submit your own preferences for the good of another, about what it means to give yourself for someone else's flourishing. These are not skills reserved for marriage. They are marks of a life shaped by Christ.

And for those who are married, let this text be both a mirror and a compass. A mirror that shows us honestly where we have fallen short of the love Paul describes. And a compass that points us back, again and again, to the one whose love for us never fails, never gives up, and never runs out.

The two become one flesh. The mystery is profound. And the one who makes it possible is Christ himself.

Sources Consulted

Thielman, Frank. Ephesians. Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament. Baker Academic, 2010.

O'Brien, Peter T. The Letter to the Ephesians. Pillar New Testament Commentary. Eerdmans, 1999.

Hoehner, Harold W. Ephesians: An Exegetical Commentary. Baker Academic, 2002.

Stott, John R. W. The Message of Ephesians. The Bible Speaks Today. InterVarsity Press, 1979.

Schreiner, Thomas R., and Andreas J. Kostenberger, eds. Women in the Church: An Analysis and Application of 1 Timothy 2:9-15. Crossway, 2005.