Christian Submission: Wives And Husbands.

CHRISTIAN SUBMISSION: WIVES AND HUSBANDS.

Ephesians 5:21-33.

The sequence of Ephesians 5:18-21 is to go on being filled with the Spirit, exhorting one another in psalms, singing with all your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always: “Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God” (EPHESIANS 5:21).

What follows in EPHESIANS 5:22-33 and Ephesians 6:1-9 are all examples of Christian submission. This is not slavery, but voluntary submission arising out of reverence for God (EPHESIANS 5:21). And it is not only wives who are to submit, but all Christians: whether they are wives or husbands; children or parents; servants or masters.

I read in the Greek text, “Wives to your own husbands submit yourselves, as to the Lord” (EPHESIANS 5:22). This is not the subjugation of all women to all men. In fact, it is not subjugation at all, but a voluntary submission within a monogamous, loving, specifically Christian, marriage relationship. And it is “as unto the Lord.”

The husband’s headship over the wife is based in the headship of Christ over the church. Christ is both the head, and the saviour of the body (EPHESIANS 5:23). The model for the wife’s submission to her husband is the church’s subjection to Christ (EPHESIANS 5:24).

The Christian wife may expect the Christian husband not to domineer and bully, but to display a self-sacrificial love modelled on that of Christ (EPHESIANS 5:25).

He has “loved” us (EPHESIANS 5:25) from all eternity with an everlasting love (cf. Jeremiah 31:3). Then He voluntarily “gave Himself up” for us, that He might “sanctify” us, having “cleansed” us by the “washing” of water by the word (EPHESIANS 5:25-26). Paul purposely here represents the Lord as stooping down to cleanse us, as Jesus did quite literally in the Upper Room when He washed the feet of His disciples.

All this leads to the eschatological reality of the heavenly Bridegroom presenting His “glorious” Bride to Himself, irradiated with the glory of God (EPHESIANS 5:27). This is the model for the Christian husband’s love of his wife. It is self-sacrificial, and always looks to benefit the other.

The argument here is that men ought to love their wives “as their own bodies.” To love our wife is to love ourself (EPHESIANS 5:28). We nourish and cherish our own bodies, and so must we nourish and cherish our wives. Even as the Lord nourishes and cherishes the church (EPHESIANS 5:29).

Now the church, the Bride, is envisaged as being the body of Christ (EPHESIANS 5:30), of which He is the head (cf. EPHESIANS 5:23). So the argument continues, “For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined to his wife, and they two shall be one flesh” (EPHESIANS 5:31; cf. Genesis 2:23-24). “This is a great mystery” – that the union of a married couple should thus resemble the union of Christ and His church (EPHESIANS 5:32)!

Still speaking to husbands, Paul reiterates, “Let each his own wife love as himself” (EPHESIANS 5:33a). This seems to echo, “Wives, to your own husbands submit yourselves” (cf. EPHESIANS 5:22).

The wife is reminded to “reverence” her husband (EPHESIANS 5:33b), but this is not craven fear, but anything from respect to adoration.

Christ is the head of this house, so first we each submit ourselves to God in Christ; then we each submit ourselves to one another out of reverence to the Lord.

Benediction: Jude 1:24-25.