1In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 2The earth was formless and empty. Darkness was on the surface of the deep and God’s Spirit was hovering over the surface of the waters.
3God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4God saw the light, and saw that it was good. God divided the light from the darkness. 5God called the light “day”, and the darkness he called “night”. There was evening and there was morning, the first day.
6God said, “Let there be an expanse in the middle of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.” 7God made the expanse, and divided the waters which were under the expanse from the waters which were above the expanse; and it was so. 8God called the expanse “sky”. There was evening and there was morning, a second day.
9God said, “Let the waters under the sky be gathered together to one place, and let the dry land appear;” and it was so. 10God called the dry land “earth”, and the gathering together of the waters he called “seas”. God saw that it was good. 11God said, “Let the earth yield grass, herbs yielding seeds, and fruit trees bearing fruit after their kind, with their seeds in it, on the earth;” and it was so. 12The earth yielded grass, herbs yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit, with their seeds in it, after their kind; and God saw that it was good. 13There was evening and there was morning, a third day.
14God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs to mark seasons, days, and years; 15and let them be for lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth;” and it was so. 16God made the two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He also made the stars. 17God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light to the earth, 18and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. God saw that it was good. 19There was evening and there was morning, a fourth day.
20God said, “Let the waters abound with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of the sky.” 21God created the large sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed, after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind. God saw that it was good. 22God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” 23There was evening and there was morning, a fifth day.
24God said, “Let the earth produce living creatures after their kind, livestock, creeping things, and animals of the earth after their kind;” and it was so. 25God made the animals of the earth after their kind, and the livestock after their kind, and everything that creeps on the ground after its kind. God saw that it was good.
26God said, “Let’s make man in our image, after our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27God created man in his own image. In God’s image he created him; male and female he created them. 28God blessed them. God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” 29God said, “Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed, which is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree, which bears fruit yielding seed. It will be your food. 30To every animal of the earth, and to every bird of the sky, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food;” and it was so.
31God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. There was evening and there was morning, a sixth day.
When the word love is used, a variety of ideas might be in the mind of people in contemporary society. It may be loving sports, pets, friends, children, spouses and God. Love may be only an emotional response, or it can be an act of sacrifice for another person. The kind of love asked of the husband by the apostle Paul is not one of emotion or romantic attraction. The term agape (ἀγάπη) is a decision of the will by which a person seeks the highest good for another person (a la Charles Finney), according to the will of God. This is the kind of love that Paul exhorts the husband to have for his wife, and does so by comparing this human love to that of Christ's love for the church.
The apostle's teaching is based first on the nature and responsibility of male and female in Genesis 1-3, to be one, to procreate, and to dominate the earth as vice-regents with God. Adam and Eve were created to be partners in fulfilling the purposes of God in the earth. They were both created in the image of God, albeit Eve through Adam, and they were told to "be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth" (Gen 1:28).
Based on the biblical teaching of Genesis and the parallel example of how Christ relates to the church, he provides several duties of the husband to be like Jesus. The love of which Paul speaks is not emotional or romantic love, but a love directed toward the good of another person besides oneself. We have something unusual in the biblical text that is different from what one expects. Since immediately before this instruction he had commanded wives to be subject to their husbands as they are obedient to the Lord, one would have expected an exhortation on how a husband is to rule his wife, but this is absent. Rather he teaches how a husband is to love his wife, seeking her highest good. Though the man and woman may have initially had a romantic attraction, upon marriage the love becomes an act of the will to love another more than oneself. Moreover, this command is based on the prototype of how Christ loves the church.
There are several ways that apostle illustrates how the husband is to love his wife. The first is that he is to love by sacrificing for his wife, even as was done by Jesus for the church: "Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her" (Eph 5:25). Thus, in the marriage, the husband is to give of himself, not get for himself.
Second, the husband loves like Christ by sanctifying his wife (Eph 5:26) by cleansing her with the Word of God. This is similar to what we see Jesus saying about the church (at that time the disciples) in John 17:17: "Sanctify them in your truth. Your word is truth." As famed New Testament scholar, B.F. Westcott said, "Christ loved the Church not because it was perfectly lovable, but in order to make it such."
The third manner in which a husband may love his wife is to nourish and cherish her, as Christ does the church. This requires the husband to become aware of her needs. The apostle Peter speaks to this when he exhorts husbands to dwell with their wives according to knowledge (1 Pet 3:7). He must love her like he loves himself. He must discover her interests and find ways in which to fulfill her desires and dreams. He will cherish (Eph 5:29) her by being sensitive to her concerns and needs.
Fourth, the husband is to commit to her. He does this by leaving his father and mother to become one flesh with his wife. By this is not meant to abandon one's relationship with father and mother, brother and sister, or son and daughter. It is that the husband, unlike the other relationships, has a much more intimate relationship with his wife than with any other relative or friend. He becomes "one flesh" with her, one that demands commitment to the relationship.
Fifth, with this intimate relationship of a husband and wife comes the need to love her by sexually fulfilling her. This is a difficult subject to discuss, since it is the most intimate and personal aspect of two persons, the sharing of bodies and emotions that blends the lives of the couple. Even the Hebrew terms "male" and "female" speak of the sexual nature and uniqueness of the man and woman as intended by God. They are different anatomically and yet they are one together. The one flesh of Genesis speaks of this reality. The apostle emphasizes the importance of this relationship in 1 Corinthians 7:2-5, something unlikely in the ancient world. He presents the husband and wife equally having a duty to the other sexually that can only be broken by the duty of commitment to spiritual responsibilities, but then only for a short time.
Sixth, and last, the apostle emphasizes again the need of a husband to love his wife, with the added duty of the wife (consistent with the teaching regarding wives to subject themselves to their husbands in 5:22-24) to respect her husband. Each partner has been given responsibility for themselves, and not on the other, in order to strengthen the marriage as a reflection of Christ and His church toward each other.