rom bondage,
and the word 'saviour' is full of associations of self-sacrificing
love. So must it be with a Christian husband. But Christ is not
merely a head to the church. He too is a husband. This idea of God as
the husband of His people--an idea which expressed both His choice of
them, His love for them, and His jealous claim upon them--is familiar
in the Old Testament. 'Thy Maker is thy husband.' 'I am a husband
unto you, saith the Lord[1].' And it is probable, as Dr. Cheyne
suggests, 'that the so-called Song of Solomon was admitted into the
canon {213} on the ground that the bride of the poem symbolized the
chosen people[2].' But in a Christian sense the idea gains a fresh
meaning. 'We that are joined unto the Lord are of one spirit' with
Him[3]. We are the 'members of his body'; and, as drawing our life
from His manhood, we may be even said to be, like Eve from Adam, 'of
his flesh and of his bones[4].' Christ then is, in this richness of
meaning, the husband of the church.

St. Paul seems further to describe this relation of Christ to the
church under the figure of three marriage customs. The husband first
acquires the object of his affection as his bride by a dowry: then by a
bath of purification the bride is prepared for the husband: finally she
is presented to him in bridal beauty. Accordingly Christ, because He
loved the church, first 'gave himself for her'; and we may interpret
this phrase in the light of another used by St. Paul in his speech to
the Ephesian elders, where the church is spoken of as 'purchased' or
{214} 'acquired[5]' by Christ's blood. Having thus acquired the Church
for His bride, He secondly 'cleansed her in the laver[6] of water with
the word': and that, in order that He might 'sanctify her' and so
finally 'present the church to himself a glorious church, not having
spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that it should be holy and
without blemish.'

This threefold statement has great theological interest which we will
consider shortly. Here we will simply let it stand, as St. Paul uses
it, to exhibit Christ as the ideal husband, the pattern for every
husband. Love for his bride; self-sacrifice in order to win her; and
the deliberate aiming at moral perfection for her through the bridal
union--that is the law for him. The wife, according to the original
divine principle, is to be part of the man's self--one flesh with him.
He must love her truly and care for her as his ow