21 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. 22 Wives, submit
to your husbands as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the
wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior.
24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their
husbands in everything. 25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved
the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by
the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as
a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and
blameless. 28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as
their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 After
all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as
Christ does the church— 30 for we are members of his body. 31 “For this
reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and
the two will become one flesh.”
- Ephesians 5:21-31, The New International Version, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan
Publishing House) 1984.
Dear Friends in Christ,
Over the past several weeks our Epistle lessons have been portions of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. Following a pattern found in all his letters, Paul begins this book by teaching doctrine and then moves into practical applications on how we as Christians carry out God’s Word in our daily lives.
In our text for today the Apostle Paul – as always, writing under the inspiration of God the Holy Spirit – continues to give us practical insight and counsel on Christian living. This time he speaks specifically about a subject that in one way or another touches all of our lives. And, we might add, it is a subject which in our day and age we need more than ever to have the authoritative Word of God Himself address. The subject is marriage. Regardless of one’s personal marital status, it is important for every Christian to know what God has to say on this topic so that all – married or single – can proclaim Scriptural truth...
As a general statement I believe it is safe to say that the institution of marriage is not held in very high regard by many in our world today. The general concept of marriage as a life long commitment is steadily and sadly being replaced (or so it seems) by the conditional attitude of "we’ll give it a try, and if doesn’t work out, we can always get a divorce." We seem to hear about a lot of people – perhaps Hollywood stars the most since they are so much in the public eye – who have been married many times over...
On the other hand, many other couples (inside and outside Hollywood) simply disregard marriage as an institution or belittle it as a piece of paper and simply live together. Once upon a time there was a certain social stigma attached to such an arrangement, but not anymore. In a nation whose Christian underpinnings are in a state of free-fall, living together has reached a state of social acceptability.
Then there is the whole subject of infidelity within marriage. I recently read a poll gleaned from over 3000 anonymous interviews. It indicated that 1 in 5 marriage partners have been, or if the right opportunity presented itself, would be unfaithful to their spouse. If for no other reason than the high numbers, this too, is often excused or minimized. An unfaithful spouse can always claim temporary insanity or a mid-life crisis or pawn themselves off as victims of a loveless and boring marriage; just don’t call it adultery...
It would be nice if at this time I would solemnly shake my head at the wickedness of our society, draw a hard distinction between "us and them," and say something like, "As sad as this is, none of this affects those who are within the Church. Christians continue to hold marriage in high regard, view it as a divine institution and are not infected by the ways and opinions of the world." But that simply wouldn’t be true.
The temptation to buy into the ways of the world has and always will be one of the great struggles each individual Christian faces. And to say that worldly thinking about marriage and divorce hasn’t made inroads into the church is, again, simply not true.
So far this has been a rather depressing introduction. But here’s the good news. There is an antidote to the declining state of marital health around us. The answer is God’s Word.
Because when God and the practice of His Word become the center of married life something astounding happens. Weak marriages become strong and strong marriages become stronger. But as Christians we must listen. Let’s do that now as we consider
GOD’S WORD ON MARRIAGE
1. The model – Christ and His Church
2. The practice – husbands and wives
Our text begins with this general principle for all Christians, married or single, man, woman or child: "Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ." The Bible stresses the same concept we stressed at our worship last Sunday – Christian family and unity. This translates into a genuine affection for each other, a willingness to cooperate with one another and a desire to, if at all possible, meet each other’s needs. This is the way Christ has treated us, and, out of reverence for Him, this is the way we are to treat each other. Having said that, Paul now turns to a particular application of this principle.
"Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, His body, of which He is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything." The very first matter to take up here is further explanation of the word translated "submit." It is important we do this because of all the negative baggage associated with how we normally use this word today.
When we hear the word "submit" the thought that comes to mind is one person unwillingly "giving in" to another person because he or she is stronger. Let me give an illustration: As a boy I remember watching those staged productions of All-Star wrestling on TV and hearing the announcer talk about how so-and-so lost because the other guy put him in a "submission" hold. Submission was not a positive experience. The world thinks of submission in terms of being forced to do something you don’t want to do, or losing a battle and then grudgingly giving in to another’s jurisdiction...
But that’s not what the Bible means – despite what Bible critics and even some misinformed Christians will claim. The Bible was not written, as I once heard someone say on a syndicated talk show, to keep women under men’s thumbs. And the submission that God talks about here has absolutely nothing to do with inferior or superior status as if a man is somehow "better than" a woman simply because God created him a man, or that a woman is somehow "less than" a man simply because God created her a woman.
What it does have to do with is recognizing that God has established certain orders, including a particular order in marriage. The real sense behind the word "submit" is to then willingly honor God’s order and willingly placing oneself under another person with the understanding that these relationships have been constructed by God for the personal benefit and well-being of everybody involved.
So, what God is asking each Christian wife to do is willingly place herself under the leadership of her husband in the same way she places herself under her Lord, because in His wisdom God has ordained that "the husband is the head of the wife." In just a minute we’ll consider what this "headship" means on the part of the husband, but the point to be made here is that the Christian wife understands and willingly honors the arrangement God has made.
Moreover, the Christian wife is to honor this order "in everything." This is a general statement, of course, and does not apply if ever the husband asks her to do something contrary to God’s Word. The bottom line regardless of any arrangement that God places us in is, in words spoken by Peter in the Book of Acts, "We must obey God rather than men." The assumption Paul makes in our text is that he is talking to Christian husbands and wives, both of whom as believers continually seek to do the Lord’s will.
Apart from honoring their husbands out of reverence for Christ, wives will willingly place themselves under their husband’s leadership because of what that leadership means and how it is carried out. Just a moment ago we read these words: "For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior." Paul now expands on this thought as he shifts to the responsibilities that husbands have toward their wives... "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless."
The Christian husband’s leadership – in other words, his role as the "head of the wife" – is to imitate the leadership, or headship, that Christ exhibits toward us, His church (to complete the imagery we’ll note that in other portions of Scripture the church is referred to as "the bride of Christ"). How is that leadership defined? Not by an attitude of "I’m the boss so you do what I say," but by love. Christ’s leadership is defined by love.
As Christ is vitally interested in the welfare of His bride, so the husband is vitally interested in the welfare of his wife. As Christ is the protector of His bride, so the husband protects his wife. As Christ willingly gave up all, even His life, for the salvation of His bride so that she may appear blameless on the Day of Judgment, so headship means the husband will practice that same kind of complete, beginning-to-end, selfless and self-sacrificing kind of love toward his wife...
Which He now restates in the closing segment of our text: "In this same way (fully, completely, unconditionally, self-sacrificially) husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it just as Christ does the church – for we are members of his body."
Then, keying in on the idea of the same body, he wraps up the discussion by taking us back to the beginning. Paul quotes from the Book of Genesis the words that accompanied the first marriage: "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." And we are reminded that in marriage two individuals become one new entity in which each mutually loves and cares for each other in the same way they love and care for themselves...
So, to sum it all up, God’s Word on marriage is this: The Christian marriage is to be patterned after the relationship between Christ and His bride, the Church. Christ loved His bride to the extent that He was willing and did in fact give up His life for her welfare. Seeing and understanding the greatness of this love, His bride (the Church) willingly obeys her Christ. She sees submission not as a challenge to her sense of worth or some sort of slight to her as an individual, but as the natural response to loving leadership, as well as a way of honoring Jesus Christ.
That is the model for marriage God gives us in His Word. When it is heeded and applied, the result is marital harmony, happiness, and strength.
But what happens when this model is not followed? What happens, for example, when the wife insists on being dominant and the one who "wears the pants in the family" thus making it extremely difficult for the husband to exercise his headship?... Or what happens when the husband out of laziness or convenience or the desire to avoid responsibility as the head of the house essentially forces his wife into the leadership position in the home?... Or what happens when husband and wife act not as one body, but as two separate individuals each making their own choices and decisions without consulting each other?... Or what happens when husbands and wives give in to their sinful, selfish natures and fixate on their individual rights and demand that their needs be met rather than focusing on their responsibilities to each other?... In short, what happens when God’s Word on marriage given to us here is disregarded, dismissed, or the roles He has set forth are reversed?
What happens? What happens is that you still have a marriage. But it’s not the kind it could be. And it’s not the kind it should be. And it’s not the way God intended it to be...
That comes through putting these words into practice. So... husbands (and future husbands), love your wives with the same kind of self-sacrificing love Christ showed you and exert loving leadership in your homes. Wives (and future wives), show love to your husbands as well as to the Lord by willingly and supportively allowing them to fulfill the role God has given them.
That is God’s blueprint for marriage. And doesn’t it stand to reason that our Heavenly Father, who created marriage in the first place, knows best how to make it run smoothly?
We began this morning by bemoaning our society’s lack of respect for the institution of marriage. We also confessed that it would be arrogant to think that Christians’ thinking about marriage is not effected by the influences of the world, in addition to the influence of our own sinful natures. Nevertheless, there is reason to be encouraged. There is a reliable voice of authority on this subject. It is the voice of God. And when that voice is heeded, what is weak becomes strong, and what is strong becomes stronger.
May God grant us the resolve to follow His Word on marriage, as well as every other area of our lives. Doing so will always be to His glory – and our happiness. Amen.