What Does Ephesians 5:25 Mean in the King James?
Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The verse makes love visible in the act of handing oneself over for another.
THE MEANING
This verse places a husband’s love beside Christ’s love for the assembly and makes that love visible in Christ’s self-giving. Love here takes shape as handing oneself over for another.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the idea that love is only inward affection or words: the verse gives it an outward form in Christ’s self-giving.
THE ROOT
παρέδωκεν
paredōken
GROWS FROM
παραδίδωμι
paradidōmi
To hand over or deliver up; here, to give oneself over for another.
The verb carries the sense of handing over, so Christ’s gift is a self placed into another’s hands for their sake. English “gave” holds that surrender less visibly; the Greek verb brings it forward.
ALSO GROWS
paradidōmi: To hand over or deliver up.
παραδίδωμι
This is the verb’s dictionary form, showing the action behind the verse’s “gave.”
paradosis: A handing down; a tradition or transmission.
παράδοσις
The same word family links handing oneself over with something handed on or transmitted.
ἠγάπησεν
ēgapēsen
GROWS FROM
ἀγαπάω
agapaō
To love or hold dear.
“loved” in this verse is ēgapēsen. The verb belongs to the same family as the noun for love and the word for beloved. Here its meaning becomes concrete in the next action: Christ loves the assembly and hands himself over for it.
ALSO GROWS
agapē: Love.
ἀγάπη
The noun shares the verb’s word family, naming the love that the verse shows through self-giving.
agapētos: Beloved; dearly loved.
ἀγαπητός
This related word describes one who is the object of the love named in the verse.
THE PATTERN
Love becomes visible as life poured out or laid down for others.
Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour.THE THREAD
I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.“Gave himself” uses the same Greek verb, παραδίδωμι, as this verse. Galatians makes the same self-giving personal: Christ gives himself not only for the assembly, but “for me.”
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