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I. CHRIST'S LOVE FOR HIS CHURCH. Love which has in it no element of evil is always a very beautiful, tender, and impressive thing. Whether it is the love of the babe for her doll, or the love of the older children for the babe, or the blessed love of the mother for all her children, it is still the same exquisite, joy-giving sentiment. It is a rose of the same loveliness and fragrance whether it bloom amid the splendours of royal gardens or in the cottager's door yard; it is the nightingale which sings in the night the same song for prince and peasant. Who can read without increased tenderness in his heart the story of the mother who, overtaken by a terrible storm in the Alps, sat down at last in the snow, bared her own tender bosom to the storm, and wrapped her cloak carefully around her babe? The storm raged on, and the poor mother, stripped of her heavy outer garments, died; but the babe was found alive, and greeted its deliverer with a smile. There are deeds of power which elicit more boisterous applause, but there are none which more invoke what is holiest in our nature than these exhibitions of conspicuous love. But, conspicuous and beautiful as these examples are, we feel when we read this text, and others to the same effect, that Christ's love for His Church is something transcendent — something unparalleled. We sometimes think the night is glorious, and so it is, with the moon shining in her full splendour; but when the sun rises the moon fades away into the intenser light. So does the love of Christ outshine all other love. The text makes concerning this love but this simple record, He loved the Church, "and gave Himself for it." The record is brief, but it is enough; we know from it that the love was infinite. The Alpine mother did much, and suffered much for bet babe; but there was a little possibility, and, therefore, a little hope, that some good monk would come that way and save both her and her babe alive; and even had she formally resolved on death for the infant's sake, it would have been but a finite sacrifice. The father did much for his boy when he dashed into the burning house to rescue him; but that was frenzy, the transient ecstasy of love, and it was for his own boy, not for a stranger, much less an enemy. But Christ's love for His Church was a deliberate plan, not entered upon in an hour of frenzy, but in calm counsel in the eternal sunshine of heaven, and it was executed through slow-going years of persecution, that the very men who lacerated Him with whips, and thorns, and nails, might be washed in the blood they shed, and come thereby to the "fellowship of the firstborn."

II. THE CHARACTER OF THE CHURCH WHICH CHRIST THUS LOVED. The Church is described in the text by the general word "glorious": and more particularly by the terms "cleanse and sanctify it with the washing of water by the Word"; and "not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish." The Church of our Lord Jesus Christ on earth has a glorious character.

1. She has a glorious origin — is a child of heaven. She "was not born of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." Her Father is a Spirit, and this child has, in this respect, her Father's character. Her beauty is not material, like the beauty of a flower; it is spiritual, like the beauty of the archangels. Her power is not material, like that of the mountain oak, which, though it defies the tempests of a century, wanes at last from decay; her power is of God, and is like God, not in extent, but in kind: it is spiritual power, and defies all time and change.

2. She has a glorious history. Sometimes it has been a history of persecution, and sometimes of victory; and it is difficult to tell which virtue is most conspicuous, her fidelity in persecution or her meekness in triumph.

3. Now at length the Church is glorious in power — in the power which comes of wealth; in the power which comes of learning and literature; in the power which comes of numbers, and of numbers organized; in the power which comes of many edifices and splendid architecture; in the power which comes of elegance, and wealth, and refinement in private life. God grant that this power may not decay through disuse, nor make itself a curse by being perverted I

4. The Church is glorious in her universal adaptations.

III. THE DESTINY OF THIS GLORIOUS AND MUCH LOVED CHURCH. My text says, "That He might present it to Himself." The figure used is evidently that of an oriental wedding. The bridegroom has a friend, called a paranymph, whose duty it is to find him a bride, to secure an introduction, to prepare for the nuptials, and to be in close attendance on the wedding night. St. Paul evidently has in his mind the figure of a marriage. But Christ is to be His own paranymph, "that He might present it to Himself." This is a favourite figure with Christ and His disciples. He is the Bridegroom and the Church the bride. Just when the nuptials are to be celebrated we do not know, but the entrance of this glorious Church upon her glorious destiny as the Lamb's wife is to be an event before which all other nuptials shall be as the glimmer of a candle in the light of a midsummer sun. John had a glimpse of the sublime scene in his wondrous vision on Patmos; and as the angel opened out this scene of unparalleled magnificence, this destiny of infinite sweep and indescribable glory, it was more than the spirit of the enraptured seer could endure. He perhaps saw himself in that Church; he, one day a poor fisherman on the shore of Tiberias, now an exile from his native land, he should be there; the shout of the archangel and the trump of God should salute his ear: the rider of "the white horse," the Man of the nameless name, with eyes "like a flame of fire" and "vesture dipped in blood," should come even to him; he should be at His wondrous marriage supper. It was more than he could endure. He fell adoring at the angel's feet; the visions had so intensified the glory of the angel himself that John thought it had been God. But the angel said, "See thou do it not. Worship God." This, then, is to be the glorious destiny of this glorious Church — she shall become the bride of the Lamb. The purest thing on earth shall marry the King of kings and Lord of lords. The bride shall live with her Husband, and be under His protection forever.

(J. H. Bayliss.)

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KJV: Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;

WEB: Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the assembly, and gave himself up for it;