-So why does the husband lay it all down and give himself up for his wife? Why did Christ do this for His bride? To make her holy. Sanctification, set apart for and more like Jesus - that is the end. That is the desired outcome. It is not merely to make her happy, altho for many a husband the saying is true: "happy wife, happy life". But the higher (Biblical) goal is not short-term happiness, neither hers nor my own. It is that my wife should become more like the One Who has said, ‘be holy, for I am holy’ (1Peter 1.16), increasingly holy, set apart in her life and her heart to God. Wholly other. This is why Christ gave up His life and sent His Spirit and now intercedes for His bride at the right hand of almighty God. To make her holy. This then must be my laser focus, my commitment renewed daily, to do whatever and all that I can to help my wife progress in her faith, towards increasingly greater Christ-likeness, to be more like Him, radiating more and more of what He is like to the world, His grace and truth and goodness and gentleness and mercy and love. Yes, I will want to make her happy, but more than that I must give myself, my all to help make her holy.
-The primary means for accomplishing that? The Word. My wife needs to take a bath. No, she doesn’t stink - this is not a physical condition, rather it the buildup of spiritual and moral filth from the world and the flesh. She (along with me and all the rest of God's children) needs a regular (daily?) deep down spiritual clean. Cleansing comes by washing. And the cleansing agent in this case is the Word of God. There are certainly precedents for this. Jesus Himself gave us one example when He humbled Himself and washed the disciples' feet, explaining that washed feet were all that was needed, but adding that His disciples should wash one another's feet (John 13.10-14). And yes, the mere fact of coming to Christ in our hearts is more than sufficient to secure our eternal sanctification (1Corinthians 6.11, Titus 3.5, Hebrews 10.22), His shed blood being that which forever cleanses us from our sin (Revelation 7.14). But there is also a journey towards this ultimate spiritual reality on which we all embark and continue for as long as we tarry on planet earth. In the heavenlies, all those who have trusted in Christ's shed blood for spiritual cleansing and forgiveness are washed completely clean, yes, but our current reality is that we still live in a flthy fallen world in a dying body of flesh which is still prone to choose self and sin over Christ and what He wants. This then is where we must bathe ourselves regularly with God's Word, myself first and foremost of course, as well as each of us who would follow Christ and become more like Him, including my wife. My charge as a husband however includes helping her take regular Bible baths (bubble baths and the occasional sponge baths are of course optional), to have a steady diet of life-changing transformational truth from the Word of God. If she is not getting in the Word, that is on me (at least in part - one can lead a proverbial horse to water but cannot make him or her drink)(and the point of using that metaphor here is in no way to suggest any equine similarity on the part of any woman). But husbands, you and I must by God's grace do our best and give it our all to lead her there, faithfully, consistently - not as a finger-pointing condescending know-it-all, but humbly, showing her honor as a fellow heir of God's grace (1Peter 3.7). (and here we have all the more reason for the wife to be submitting to and respecting her husband, receiving the Word from him with a humble and teachable heart...)
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