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The Gospel at Home
Ephesians 5:21-33
“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.
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. In this same way, 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. For this reason a man
will leave his father and mother and be united
to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.
This is a profound mystery — but I am talking
about Christ and the Church. However, each one
of you also must love his wife as he loves
himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
In this passage, Paul takes the basic principle
of Christian submissiveness —which governs the
community life of a church — and applies it to
social relationships. Paul selects the most
conspicuous of these relationships and shows how
they are transformed within the context of the
“Spirit-led” life. In Ephesians 5:21-33 he deals
with wives and husbands; in 6:1-4, with children
and parents; and in 6:5-9, with slaves and
masters (see Colossians 3:18 - 4:1 for a close
parallel).
Such instructions about relationships within
households are not simply part of the Christian
faith; both Jewish and pagan samples exist. The
Christian gospel, however, places these
relationships on a revolutionary new footing,
since all are subject to the lordship of Christ.
(The Jewish Mishnah, for example, exempts
“women, slaves, and minors” from reciting the
“Shema” of Deuteronomy 6:4, with its recognition
of a common Lord.)
This week we shall first delve into the general
concept of submission and specifically what it
means to submit to one to another. Then we will
discuss the particulars of what Paul means when
he bids, “Wives, submit to your husbands . . .
[and] husbands, love your wives”.
Part I
Submit.
Just the mention of the word raises the hackles
of an egalitarian society. What exactly does
submission have to do with Christian living in
the 21st century?
So far in this section of Ephesians, Paul has
contrasted the lifestyle of the Gentiles/pagans
with that of believers. Those who were once in
darkness must now live as “children of the
light” (5:8), being very careful to live wisely
instead of unwisely (5:15). Instead of dealing
with the stresses of life with wine (or whatever
numbs the soul) as unbelievers do, believers are
commanded to be filled with the Spirit (5:18).
And Spirit-filled living includes submitting to
one another out of reverence for Christ (5:21).
The Greek word for
submit
means to line one’s self up under another. It is
used in a military sense, of soldiers coming
under the authority of their officers. The word
primarily connotes the idea of giving up one’s
own right or will
voluntarily. Christ demonstrated this
quality as He submitted to His parents at age 12
(Luke 2:51) and to the Father throughout His
earthly ministry (Philippians 2:5-8). Jesus
willingly and voluntarily came under the
authority of the Father
and
of earthly authorities.
As Jesus’ life and teaching showed, the key to
spiritual victory is found in submission to God
(“not My will but Yours”). James expresses this
succinctly when he says, “Submit yourselves,
then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee
from you” (James 4:7). As we willingly lay down
our wills and rights in order to say yes to God,
we are resisting our enemy, and we discover that
he has no recourse but to flee. Voluntarily
coming under God’s authority allows us to
experience His “good, pleasing and perfect will”
(Romans 12:2).
OK,
you might be thinking,
it’s one thing to submit to God, but how do we
submit to one another? That’s a great
question, since in our American version of
Christianity we’re generally OK with the
autonomy of submitting to God. It’s the working
out of submission with other
people
that is so hard (which is precisely why it
requires the filling of the Spirit!).
But consider this: On a daily, practical level,
submitting to one another is essentially
submitting to
Christ
in another brother or sister.
It is giving up our own way or rights
“out of reverence for Christ” who is in our
brother or sister. It is recognizing the gifts
of Christ in another person and voluntarily
“coming under” the direction of those gifts. It
is “being like-minded, having the same love,
being one is spirit and purpose, do[ing] nothing
out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in
humility consider[ing] others better than
your[self] . . . looking to the interest of
others” (Philippians 2:2-4).
Obviously, this takes daily filling with the
Holy Spirit, since the natural man doesn’t want
to submit to anyone. But this is why Paul
includes mutual submission as an aspect of the
Spirit-filled life. Submission is an expression
of the Spirit.
At this point in Ephesians, Paul gets particular
in how submission shows itself in the closest of
relationships — marriage.
Part II
We now come to a more detailed consideration of
the teaching of this passage with regard to the
injunction given to wives. In verse 22 Paul
says, “Wives, submit to your husbands, as to the
Lord.” The verb
to submit (“hypotasso”) occurs 23 times in
Paul’s letters and denotes the yielding of
oneself to another’s admonition or advice. It is
interesting to note that in verse 33, rather
than repeating this admonition to “submit,” Paul
says that the “wife must respect [reverence] her
husband,” thereby clarifying the meaning of his
earlier command.
Moreover, within the fellowship of the church,
this submission to others is reciprocal. No one
is to coerce another, for all voluntarily accept
the discipline. Hence, any delusions of
superiority are banished, and no one thinks of
himself more highly than he ought.
Paul then gives us the great motive for this
submission: “. . . as to the Lord.” We must be
clear that Paul does not mean that a wife should
submit herself in the exact same way as to the
Lord. That would be going too far. The
submission of a wife, or for that matter any
Christian, to the Lord is an absolute one. We
are all the bond-slaves of Jesus Christ; but a
wife is never told to be the slave of her
husband. It simply means that a wife should
submit to her husband because it is part of her
duty to the Lord — because it is an expression
of her submission to the Lord. It is a
repetition of the general point made in verse
21: “Submit to one another out of reverence/fear
of Christ.”
The wife does not submit, in the last analysis,
for her husband’s sake; her submission is “to
the Lord”. A wife is doing it for Christ’s sake.
It is part of her Christian behavior; it is part
of her discipleship.
Paul then goes on to offer two additional
reasons why every Christian wife should submit
herself to her husband. The first is what we may
call “the order of creation.” Paul asserts that
the wife’s submission is inherent in the
position of the woman and her corresponding
gifts: She was created to be a help-meet for the
man, that he should not be alone (Genesis 2:18).
Similarly, he writes in 1 Timothy 2:13: “For
Adam was formed first, then Eve.” A wife is her
husband’s complement; and together they live to
the glory of God and the Lord Jesus Christ.
The second reason why a Christian wife should
submit herself to her husband pertains to the
relationship of the Church to our Lord Jesus
Christ. In verse 23, the marriage relationship
is described as an earthly reflection of the
relationship between Christ and His Church. This
raises it to an unimaginably lofty level. In 1
Corinthians 11:12, Paul had already marked out a
hierarchy in which God is seen as the head of
Christ, Christ as the head of the man, and the
man as the head of woman. Here he looks at it
from another angle. If the head of the woman is
the man and the head of the Church is Christ,
then it is permissible to draw an analogy
between the wife’s relationship to her husband
and the Church’s relation to Christ. Marriage is
thus interpreted in the most sublime terms. It
is compared with the marriage of the Lamb to His
bride.
It remains true, of course, that Christ is the
Savior of His body, the Church, in a unique
manner (verse 23). The word
Savior
is never used in the NT except for Christ or
God. But having recognized and safeguarded that
vital truth, we may legitimately pursue the
analogy and assume that Paul regards the
husband, even if to an infinitely lesser degree,
as the protector of his wife.
It is important that we continue to view
Ephesians in its entirety. Remember, Paul is
talking about wise living as evidenced by a
Spirit-led life. Paul here is simply setting
forth one example of what a Spirit-led life, or
more specifically marriage, would look like.
Despite the fact that Paul talks in terms
of absolute directives, what he seeks simply
cannot be accomplished unless done within the
context of a Spirit-led marriage. A wife must in
essence view her husband as “Christ to me.”
There is more. . . . Paul, throughout Ephesians,
draws a sharp contrast between us and the world.
While individuals within the world — both male
and female, husband and wife — struggle for
power and dominance, Christians are called to
“in humility consider others better than
[ourselves]” (Philippians 2:3). And despite the
fact that God sees us all equal in Christ, when
it comes to salvation, He has raised up leaders
so as to facilitate the orderly procession of
life. In fact, the whole structure of society as
ordered by God depends on the readiness of its
members to recognize the order He has set forth.
Without it, anarchy prevails.
Consider for a moment what life would be like
within your family if everyone had equal
authority to decide the family’s direction.
Picture, if you would, being lost on a long car
trip. Dad is clearly in denial and refuses to
ask for directions, rationalizing that by
driving fast, even in the wrong direction, he
will get the family to their destination in the
shortest amount of time. Mom insists that they
stop at the next gas station for directions. The
older child demands that they turn around and
stop at the McDonalds they passed 10 miles ago,
while the younger child is squirming in his
seat, screaming at the top of his lungs that
they must stop immediately, as he has to go to
the bathroom.
Fortunately for them, God has put someone in
charge, so Dad, in his infinite wisdom, takes
the counsel of his infinitely wiser wife and
stops for directions at the gas station, which,
by the way, had a bathroom and a McDonalds.
Something to Consider:
1) How does your life/marriage reflect God?
a) Wives, how do you show your husband
that
you respect and honor him as the
head of the home . . .
or do you attempt to seize the authority God has
bestowed
upon him?
b) Husbands, how do you show your wife
that in humility you
consider her better
than yourself as your wise counselor . .
.
or do you “lord it” over her as if she were your
inferior?
c) Singles, how do you show others that
you consider them
better than yourself,
submitting to them as to the Lord?
2) How in does your marriage/life witness the
Spirit-led life to an unbelieving world?
Part III
In this section, Paul turns to the reciprocal
duties of the husband. In Greco-Roman society it
was recognized that a wife had obligations to
her husband, but not vice versa. In this, as in
other respects, Christianity introduced a
revolutionary approach to marriage, equalizing
the rights of a wife and husband and
establishing the institution on a much firmer
foundation. One word summed up the new role of
the wife:
submit. One word did the same for the
husband:
love
(agapete).
Husbands, love your wives just as Christ has
loved the Church! What a daunting command! How
can we husbands ever love our wives as Christ
has us, the body? This idea needs a little
exploration to find a practical application in
our lives.
God the Father calls that which is not, as
though it is. He did that when He chose us
before the foundation of the world, when He
saved us, when He redeemed us and when He
sanctified us. God the Father sees us through
the blood of Jesus, so He sees us as totally
redeemed and sanctified.
Yes, you might say,
but how does that apply to me loving my wife as
Christ has loved the Church? Have you ever met
my wife? I don’t see her that way. My point
exactly!
Let me tell you a story that made it crystal
clear what it takes to see people as God does.
It is the story of the Seven-Cow Bride. In a
small, rural town in Africa, a young man decided
to get married. It was the custom in that area
that when a young man decided sought a woman in
marriage, he would pay the bride’s parents a
dowry in cows. If a woman was of average
appearance and ability, the dowry might be two
or three cows. If less than average, fewer cows.
And if a particular young lady was extremely
beautiful and talented, a young man might pay as
high as four cows. In rare situations, he’d
offer as many as five.
How many cows a man was willing to pay for his
wife became a bragging point for the women. As
the story goes, George found a young lady who
struck his fancy but who was rather plain and
ordinary. George approached her father and
offered to pay him seven cows for her hand in
marriage. Seven cows! No one could ever remember
anyone paying that much for a wife. The whole
town mocked George for being so foolish. Well,
the wedding day was set, and everyone in the
town was there. The bride’s father put on quite
a party, but the conversations all day revolved
around how foolish everyone thought George was
for having paid seven cows for such an ordinary
and plain wife.
Several years later, a traveling missionary came
to town and began hearing all the stories about
George and his seven-cow wife — how this young
man had paid so much for such an ordinary woman
and how the whole town had mocked them to the
point they had moved away. The traveling
missionary decided he must see for himself how
this story had played out. When he knocked on
the door of George’s house that first evening,
he was impressed with the appearance of the
entryway. George’s face lit up when the
missionary introduced himself at the door and
quickly invited the visitor into his home. He
introduced the missionary to his four young
children. All handsome young boys,
and very well behaved, thought the
missionary. He was also impressed with the
cleanliness and order in the home. After
entering the living room, George’s carried in a
drink from the kitchen, where she was preparing
dinner. The missionary was taken aback at her
beauty, poise and grace. He thought to himself
that George must have gotten another wife, as
this woman was anything but plain and ordinary.
George invited the missionary to stay for
dinner. After a lovely meal, the two men retired
to some chairs on the front porch. The
missionary complimented George on his beautiful
wife, great family and immaculate house. “But
what happened to the woman you had paid seven
cows for?” George replied that this was the same
woman.
The missionary marveled and said that he had
heard the stories from the other village about
the plain, ordinary wife George had married.
“What changed?” he asked. George replied that he had always wanted a seven-cow
wife, that she knew he considered her a
seven-cow wife, and that she had risen to the
bride price. She believed in her worth.
If we husbands will love (pay the price for) our
wives as George did and as Christ has done, we
will see the Holy Spirit call out of our wives
what God has stated to be true. If we want a
Proverbs 31 woman (or a seven-cow wife!), we
must act and therefore treat them as though they
are such already. Think about it!
Something to consider:
1)
Where would your marriage be in one year
if you treated your wife as Christ does?
2)
Think of three things you can do right
now to make your wife feel loved.
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