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.” 32 This is a profound mystery--but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
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.” 32 This is a profound mystery--but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. Ephesians 5:22-33 (NIV)
I have a cousin who once told me she refused to go to another “improve your marriage” type seminars because she would get too angry with her husband since He would never do what they told him to do! She obviously only had ears to listen to his part and not to her own! Most people have a tendency to look at our passage for today (and many other passages in Scripture for that matter) this exact same way, particularly if it is in regard to the relationships in the home, Amen?? If we are honest, we all can be quite guilty of thinking others really need to be hearing a particular message instead of thinking how the shoes fits on our own “step-sister’s” feet! No wonder Jesus was always saying: “He who has ears, let Him hear” (Matthew 11:15).
We are forever wanting others to “fix” themselves and then things will be perfect, right? Let them deal with their issues and our lives would be smooth sailing. We are uber concerned about what the other person is supposed to be doing in lieu of considering our own responsibilities in these relationships – and, believe me, we have them. It is our responsibilities that God wants us to focus on – not someone else’s. He wants each one of us to grow up in Him – and not to remain infants. As Paul told us earlier in Ephesians 4:14-15:
14 Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming.15 Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. Ephesians 4:14-15 (NIV)
This is particularly true in the relationship between husband and wife. Home is where the proverbial rubber meets the road, Amen? It is to be the training ground for our righteousness. As we grow up in Christ we flesh it out first where the home fires burn. These are our people – our nearest and dearest. And believe me, the hardest. It is so easy to be the sweet, kind, joyful and loving person in public - around those who do not get on our last nerve - only then to turn around and come home remove that make-up and begin to get down with our bad selves. God is not shy in showing us the areas we need to work on to truly beautify the inside of self! And He is always working on the inside! If we seek to “fake it until we make it” we will not only remain babes but eventually we will erupt! God is into changing even the leanings of our hearts. In fact, I believe that is one of His greatest miracles – bringing life out of death in these hearts of ours!
Remember, we will only be held accountable for that person sitting right there in our own chair which is both freeing and frightening, right? Paul tells us in Romans 2:1-4:
1 You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. 2 Now we know that God’s judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. 3 So when you, a mere man, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God’s judgment? 4 Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness leads you toward repentance? Romans 2:1-4 (NIV)
And again in 2 Corinthians 5:10:
10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad. 2 Corinthians 5:10 (NIV)
And I might add, we stand alone. No trophies, no worldly pomp, no name on buildings, or name in lights, no fortune 500 companies nor any other worldly prop all singing our praises. Those things are past. The only thing that will count is to be robed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ and the things done through His power for His glory. All else will be burned up Paul goes on to tell us in 1 Corinthians 3:10-15:
10 By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as an expert builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should be careful how he builds. 11 For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12 If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, 13 his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man’s work. 14 If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. 15 If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames. 1 Corinthians 3:10-15 (NIV)
But I digress! Having admonished believers to be wise by being controlled by the Holy Spirit, Paul now applied this to our specific life-relationships. As mentioned, it is relatively easy to exhibit a Spirit-filled life for one or two hours a week in church but it takes the work of the Holy Spirit to exhibit godliness not only on Sundays but also every other day of the week particularly in daily familial relationships between wives and husbands, children and parents, and those who work with us and for us. Yet ladies it is uber important in our daily lives to manifest godliness as it reflects Christ to those we love the most as well as to those in our spheres of influence, and we all have spheres of influence. Spurgeon writes:
“When home is ruled according to God’s Word angels might be asked to stay with us, and they would not find themselves out of their element.” Charles H. Spurgeon
Trouble is that many homes are not governed by the Word of God – even where the members are professing believers and the consequence of this behavior is tragic. Instead of angels being guests in our houses, it seems that demons would be more at home! Too many homes are an outpost of Hell rather than a parcel of paradise. And we want our homes to be a safe haven, Amen?
The answer is the power of the Holy Spirit of God! As we have talked about before, flesh will fail us – it is not to be counted and depended on – rather it is through the power of the Spirit that we are enabled to change becoming more and more like Jesus.
God commands for all Christians to be filled with the Spirit. The verb is in the present tense – keep on being filled – so it is an experience we should enjoy constantly, not just special occasions. And the verb is also passive meaning we do not fill ourselves but permit the Spirit to fill us. The verb fill has nothing to do with contents or quantity as if we were gas tanks to get filled to keep going. In Scripture “filled” means “controlled by”. For example when the Bible states “The Jews were filled with envy” in Acts 13:45 it means the Jews were controlled by envy and opposed the ministry of Paul and Barnabas. To be filled with the Spirit means to be constantly controlled by the Spirit in our mind, emotions and will. Sadly, we all too often take back control much to our own harm and to the harm of those nearest and dearest to us. The baptism of the Spirit means I belong to Christ’s body. The filling of the Spirit means that my body belongs to Christ. Therefore, the home can be a taste of heaven on earth if indeed each family member is controlled by the Spirit and is joyful, thankful and submissive.
It is only through the Spirit’s power that we can walk in harmony as husbands and wives, parents and children and employers and employees. The unity of God’s people must be translated into our daily living – as it is a foretaste of heaven and it is a living testimony of God’s faithfulness to unbelievers.
In each of these relationships the first partner is commanded to be submissive or obedient:
In 5:22 Paul writes:
22 Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. Ephesians 5:22 (NIV)
And again in 6:1 and 5:
1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Ephesians 6:1 (NIV)
5 Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. Ephesians 6:5 (NIV)
But the second partner is also to show submissiveness by his care and concern for the first partner. Both partners are to act toward one another as a service rendered as unto the Lord. In serving others we serve Him. See Jesus’ face in their faces – it makes serving much easier, Amen?
Marriage is the most valuable institution on earth. Marriage was God’s idea which makes it a good idea. It is also the first and foundational institution meaning that all other institutions are in one way or another built upon it. It is the first human institution because, as the Bible shows, it was the first relationship between human beings that God created. As an answer to man’s aloneness, God created the first woman and brought her to the man thus performing the first marriage ceremony. Jesus tells us in Matthew 19:4-6:
4 “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’ ? 6 So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.” Matthew 19:4-6 (NIV)
If the family declines in a country, all other institutions will inevitably decline. As the family goes so the country goes. It is no wonder our country is in the shape that it is in. The earliest education, earliest health care, and earliest center of human government all began with the family. Further, whoever contributes to the decline of marriage (as many today are doing), sins against God. Many want to “bend” the Bible because they do not want to offend the hurting person yet actually they bring more harm to that person through their poor advice. We need people who will hold their hurting brothers and sisters up to do what is right – though hard - knowing that God honors and blesses obedience above all other things and that He is able, even in the most despairing of circumstances, to bring love out of hate and life out of death, and give victory. Of course I am not referring to circumstances of abuse whereby one needs to protect themselves. Yet, more often than not, this is not the case.
Our real failure in marriage is that we do not follow God’s directives for marriage. This is what Paul is concerned with in Ephesians, as he gives instructions firsts to the wife and then to the husband. To the wife he says:
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. Ephesians 5:22-24 (NIV)
Paul gives two reasons for this command: the Lordship of Christ (Ephesians 5:22) and the headship of the man in Christ (Ephesians 5:23). When the Christian wife submits herself to Christ and lets Him be the Lord of her life, she will have no difficulty submitting to her husband. Her submission to her husband is_ _her service rendered “to the Lord”. Paul tells us in Colossians 3:18:
18 Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Colossians 3:18 (NIV)
This command was not limited to Paul’s day, as is obvious from two reasons he gave elsewhere: (1) the order of Creation (man was created first, then woman (2) the order within the Godhead (Christ submits to the Father). Submission or subordination does not mean inferiority; it simply means that the husband, not the wife, is head of the home. If he may be thought of as the “president,” she is the “vice-president.”
Of course there are moral limits to this submission; it is only as is fitting in the Lord. Just as obedience to government is commanded but only insofar as government takes its place under God, even so a wife’s submission to her husband is only “in the Lord.” That is, she is not obligated to follow her husband’s leadership if it conflicts with specific scriptural commands.
This also does not mean she becomes his slave, for the husband is also to submit to Christ. And if both are living under the Lordship of Christ, there can be only harmony. Headship is not dictatorship. Each for the other, both for the Lord. The submission God requires has more to do with order, not superiority – the wording meaning to place under in proper order. Our God is a God of order and someone is to have the final say in a household and He has given this to man as the head.
The reason for this submission is that the husband is the head of the wife, and this is compared to Christ’s headship over the church. As Christ is the Savior of the church, His body, so a husband should be the protector of his wife, who is “one flesh” with him. As the church is in submission to Christ, so also a wife should be to her husband. It would be foolish to think of the church being head over Christ. Again, submission does not mean inferiority. It means that she recognizes that her husband is the head of the home and responds to him accordingly without usurping his authority to herself.
Most marital conflicts stem from failure of the husband and/or wife to submit to Christ, spend time in His Word, and seek to do His will each day through His power. This is why Christians should marry Christians and not become “unequally yoked together” with an unbeliever as Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 6:14-18:
14 Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? 15 What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? 16 What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.” 2 Corinthians 6:14-16 (NIV)
If the Christian is submitted to Christ, he will not try to establish a home that disobeys the Word of God. Such a home invites civil war from the beginning.
Paul had much more to say to the Christian husbands than to the wives. He sets for them a very high standard: Love your wives “even as Christ also loved the church”. Paul was lifting married love to the highest level possible, for he saw in the Christian home an illustration of the relationship between Christ and the church. Of this, Spurgeon writes:
“The elect church is the favorite of heaven, the treasure of Christ, the crown of His head, the bracelet of His arm, the breastplate of His heart, the very center and core of His love.”
Now what wife wouldn’t want such a constant love as that? It is also an enduring love for nothing separates us from the love of Christ. Paul writes in Romans 8:3-39:
38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:38-39 (NIV)
God established marriage for many reasons. For one thing, it meets man’s emotional needs. “It is not good that the man should be alone” Genesis 2:18 tells us. Marriage also has a social purpose in the bearing of children to continue the human race. Genesis 1:28 states:
28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” Genesis 1:28 (NIV)
Paul indicated also a spiritual purpose in marriage, as the husband and wife experience with each other the submission and the love of Christ which this section in Ephesians refers to. Jesus sets forth such a golden example of submission and love for us to follow and gives us the ability to do likewise through the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit. Few masters could venture to say “If you would practice my teaching, imitate my life;” but as the life of Jesus is the exact transcript of perfect virtue, He can point to Himself as the paragon of holiness, as well as the teacher of it. The Christian should take nothing short of Christ for his model. Paul tells us in Philippians 2:1-11:
1 If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. 4 Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death-- even death on a cross! 9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Philippians 2:1-11 (NIV)
And as 1 John 2:5-6 tells us:
5 But if anyone obeys his word, God's love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: 6 Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did. 1 John 2:5-6 (NIV)
Under no circumstance should we be content until we reflect the grace which was in Him. The true Christian is to be such a husband as Christ was to His church. If the husband makes Christ’s love for the church the pattern for loving his wife, then he will love her sacrificially. Christ gave Himself for the church, so the husband, in love, gives himself for his wife. Jacob so loved Rachel that he sacrificially worked fourteen years to win her. True Christian love is not self-seeking (1 Corinthians 13:5) – it is not selfish. If a husband is submitted to Christ and filled with the Spirit, his sacrificial love will willingly pay a price that she might be able to serve Christ in the home and glorify Him. The love of a husband is special. The Lord Jesus cherishes for the church a peculiar affection, which is set upon her above the rest of mankind: I pray for them. I am not praying for the world.” As Christ loves His church with a constant love, so too a husband should love his wife. Christ does not vary in His affection and neither is the husband to.
The husband’s love will also be a sanctifying love (Ephesians 5:26-27). The word sanctify means “to set apart”. In the marriage ceremony, the husband is set apart to belong to the wife, and the wife is set apart to belong to the husband. Any interference with this God-given arrangement is sin. Today, Christ is cleansing His church through the ministry of His Word. John 15:3 states:
3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.mJohn 15:3 (NIV)
And John 17:17 tells us as well:
17 Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. John 17:17 (NIV)
The love of the husband for his wife ought to be cleansing her (and him) so that both are becoming more and more like Christ.
The marriage experience is one of constant growth when Christ is the Lord of the home. We are one with Christ. The church is His body and His bride, and our Christian homes are to be divinely ordained illustrations of Christ’s relationship to His church. This certainly makes our marriages a serious matter. Remember too, love always enlarges and enriches, while selfishness does just the opposite. Adam had to give part of himself in order to get a bride, but Christ gave all of Himself to purchase His bride at the cross. God opened Adam’s side, but sinful men pierced Christ’s side. So united are a husband and wife that they are “one flesh.” Their union is even closer than that of parents and children. The believer’s union with Christ is even closer and, unlike human marriage, will last for all eternity.
Paul closed with a final admonition that the husband love his wife and that the wife respect her husband both of which require the power of the Holy Spirit to accomplish. The root of most marital problems is sin, and the root of all sin is selfishness. Submission to Christ and to one another is the only way to overcome selfishness, for when we submit, the Holy Spirit can fill and enable us to love one another rightly in a sacrificial, sanctifying, satisfying way – the way Christ loves the Church. And God’s way is always the very best way and the only way we can do His will is through His power.
The Christian faith, Jonathan Edwards observed, is “very much in affections, such as fear, hope, love, hatred, desire, joy, sorrow, gratitude, compassion and zeal.” “We are not capable of dispassionate reasoning. Our minds are tethered to the health of our desires…When our desires are impure and debased, so also is our reasoning” writes Craig Troxel.
Never make the mistake of dragging your understanding of the love of God in Christ down to the level of your own weak love. Rather let God draw your love up by the love and power of Christ to His standard. Then Christ shall have His way, and you will be able to testify to the world of His great love.
Ann Voskamp writes:
“The together life is messy and it is hard and it is broken and we are all that — and there is no perfect and there is no easy, and when I think that, it can be hard to breathe. But — when I think this? When I rest in the essence of marriage being only and simply this — there’s the unhurried rhythm of hope: Marriage is a long reach in the right direction. Turning in the right direction — can start to turn things right around. Because for us what matters, is not that we chose someone perfect — but that we chose and we are chosen._ _Because the truth that’s changed us is this: The act of being truly chosen, is what makes us act more the way we always truly hoped. Chosen simply for being— makes us become more how we want to be. When the world is a storm, you are my safe. When the world is a desert, you are my drink. And when I don’t know where in the world I belong, you open your arms and whisper: Here.” Ann Voskamp
These are Beth’s personal notes, due to this fact sources are not often stated.