Paul, however, gives his readers a vision for marriage that must have completely astonished them. The primary goal of Christian marriage is not social status and stability, as it was in ancient cultures, nor is it primarily romantic and emotional happiness, as it is in our culture today. Paul points husbands to Jesus’s sacrificial love toward us, his “bride.” But Paul does not stop there; he goes on to speak of the goal of that sacrificial love for his bride. It is “to sanctify her” (verse 26) to “present her to himself” in radiant beauty and splendor (verse 27a), to bring her to be perfectly
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