Heaven in Your Home
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 Saviour. 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.
Paul invested eight verses addressing the responsibilities of husbands, and only three verses for wives. Men receive almost three times as many instructions for how to be godly husbands as women receive for being godly wives. Perhaps this is indicative that women get the message more quickly than do men. What I find interesting is that throughout my years as a member of the Family of God, I have heard a surprising number of sermons from verses twenty-two to twenty-four, but I am hard pressed to recall a single sermon from the latter portion of this passage. Perhaps we who are shepherds of the flock have distorted the Word of God to press a point unnecessarily.
In order to understand what is being said to husbands and wives, it is important for us to focus on a verse which is not part of our text. Verse eighteen admonishes Christians to be filled with the Spirit. The Christian who is filled with the Spirit will exhibit certain characteristics indicated by the present participles: speaking; singing; giving thanks; and submitting. If you will understand the instructions given in our text, you must understand the setting. Spiritual people speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Spiritual men and women sing and make music in their hearts to the Lord. Christians who are spiritual are always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Lastly, spiritual people submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
The teaching in this day concerning holiness emphasises a personal relationship to Jesus Christ without any attempt to indicate its consequences in terms of relationships with the people we live and work with. John Stott refers to this as holiness-in-a-vacuum.[1] Such teaching magnifies experiences and minimises ethics. In contrast, the Word of God spells out Christian duty in the concrete situations of everyday life and work. Thus, Paul here provides practical teaching concerning the evidence of the fullness of the Spirit. Underscore in your mind this vital truth: you are commanded to be filled with the Spirit. A corollary to that truth is that if you are filled with the Spirit, the evidences given in verses nineteen through twenty-one will be witnessed in your life.
One great mark of our spiritual maturity is a submissive attitude. Paul uses this information to move to the specific submission expected of a wife toward her husband [Ephesians 5:22-24], of children toward their parents [Ephesians 6:1-3], and of slaves toward their masters [Ephesians 6:5-8]. While the other concepts are important, and while the teaching they present may be neglected in this day, in the interest of time I must restrict my focus in this message to the duties of husbands and wives.
Following the practical instruction concerning the impact which the fullness of the Spirit must have in our relationships, the Apostle will speak of spiritual warfare [Ephesians 6:10-18]. Thus, two responsibilities are set in juxtaposition: home and spiritual combat. Husbands and wives (to say nothing of children and parents or of slaves and masters) are visible, tangible human beings. The rulers, authorities and powers arrayed against us are invisible, intangible demonic beings. If our Christian Faith is to be of any practical value, it must be enable us to cope in both situations. It must teach us how to behave christianly at home, and it must enable us to fight against evil so that we stand and not fall. Thus, harmony in the home leads to stability in the fight. This is the reason we need to teach what is necessary in order to have heaven in your home.
Submission is Required of Wives [verses 22-24, 33b] — Because language is loaded with connotations which may obscure meaning, I am compelled to disavow some of the negative concepts associated with submission. Submission is a hated term in contemporary Canadian society. We chafe at the thought of submitting to government. The fact that too many government leaders arrogantly abuse their positions and their authority does not make it any easier to want to submit to them. We in the west are often angered by laws drafted in Ottawa without consideration of our culture. Likewise, we who live beyond the Fraser Valley marvel at Victoria’s lack of knowledge concerning our needs and our desires. Nevertheless, we Christians are responsible to honour our leaders.
Submission is not another word for inferiority. It has nothing to do with ability or worth. Husbands and wives have equal dignity as beings created in the image of God, but equality of worth is not identity of role. In fact, those enjoined to submit are called to recognise that some have received office by God’s appointment—whether rulers, magistrates, husbands, parents or employers. God delegates authority and it is a mark of spiritual maturity to recognise that those who hold such authority do so by God’s appointment. To acknowledge authority in the world is to acknowledge God’s rule.
To say that a husband has authority does not mean that his authority is unlimited. Neither does acknowledgement of a husband’s authority mean that wives must give unconditional obedience. Submission is to God’s delegated authority. If husbands misuse their God-given authority (by commanding what God forbids or forbidding what God commands) wives have a higher duty to refuse to submit. The principle is that wives must submit right up to the point where obedience to human authority would involve disobedience to God, at which point, civil disobedience becomes our Christian duty.
The other side of a husband’s authority will be considered in greater detail shortly. However, I shall say that a husband must use his authority for the benefit of his wife, and not for his own ends. Divine authority is always delegated for the benefit of those under authority. All who occupy positions of authority are responsible both to God who has entrusted it to them and to the person for whose benefit they have been given authority. The biblical concept of authority spells not tyranny but responsibility.
To this point, we have learned that submission is to be rendered to divinely delegated authority. We have discovered that divinely delegated authority is for the benefit of the one under that authority. We have further seen that submission is never absolute, but rather the submission required extends only so far as authority obeys God. There is one further point which needs to be stated as we move from the general to the particular. The submission of a wife must always be voluntary. No man has a right to demand submission from his wife, but every wife has an obligation to be submissive to her husband. If she will not submit to his headship, she does not need to marry him; but if she accepts his proposal, before God she is obligated to show him respect by submitting to his headship. Though this holds true in Christian homes, it would be beneficial in all homes. Nevertheless, this instruction is mandatory for all Christians!
Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife… The husband’s headship is stated as a fact and is also made the ground for a wife’s submission. However, Paul does not here give us the origin of this fact and ground. However, headship of husbands is based upon creation as we discovered during previous expositions of 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 and 1 Timothy 2:11-15. In those passages, Paul based his case for the submission of a wife to her husband (and for submission of women to male leadership in the church) on the order, mode and purpose of the creation of Eve. Since it is mainly on these facts of creation that Paul bases his case for the husband’s headship, his argument has permanent and universal validity, and is not to be dismissed as culturally limited.[2] This is not chauvinism, but creationism.
If we will understand a wife’s submission to her husband, we must grapple with the teaching that her submission to her husband is comparable to the church in its submission to Christ—it encompasses everything. To speak of the headship of Christ over His church refers us back to Ephesians 4:15, 16. Speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work. It is from Christ as Head that the body derives health and grows into maturity. His headship expresses care instead of control. This vital point must be iterated: Christ’s headship expresses care instead of control. Consequently, a husband’s headship must demonstrate care instead of control. The evidence for this point is demonstrated in the final phrase of verse 23: of which he is the Saviour. The Head of the body is also the Saviour of the body. The characteristic of His headship is not so much lordship as it is saviourhood.
If a husband’s headship is modelled after Christ’s headship of the church, then the wife’s submission must mirror the submission of the church to Christ the Head. As the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything [verse 24]. There is nothing demeaning in this, for a wife’s submission is not an unthinking obedience to her husband’s rule, but rather her submission is a grateful acceptance of his care for her. The submission of a wife is a voluntary, free, joyful and thankful partnership, as the analogy of the church to Christ reveals. Whenever a husband’s headship mirrors the headship of Christ, then his wife’s submission to the protection and provision flowing from his love, rather than detracting from her womanhood, will positively enrich it.[3]
Sacrifice is Required of Husbands [verses 25-33a] — Often women have complained that their role as wives is difficult, if not impossible. I am the first to confess that a wife’s role is difficult, especially in her own strength. However, I contend that a man’s responsibility is harder still. To summarise the Apostle’s teaching, husbands are responsible to protect and to provide for their wives, and they are responsible to ensure that their wives’ needs are fulfilled even at the expense of their own desires! A husband must assume responsibility for his wife’s growth in all things!
I have already introduced the concept that the relationship of husband and wife is comparable to the relationship of Christ and His church. Indeed, a wife is to submit to her husband in all things, and that submission means that she accepts his provision for her and his protection of her. We see that the role of husbands must be modelled after Christ. 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 [Ephesians 5:25-28].
Should a husband ask how he is to love his wife, I need but point to the five verbs which Paul uses to describe the love of Christ for His church. He loved her, He gave Himself up for her, He makes her holy, He cleanses her, and He will yet present her. The statement is so complete and so comprehensive that some scholars think that Paul may be quoting an ancient hymn or perhaps an early Christian confession. It begins in the past and extends to the future, demonstrating the relationship Christ has toward His church.
The first verb speaks of love. It should be apparent that the love which is demanded is sacrificial love, and not mere emotion—it is ajgavph. This is the love with which Christ loved the church. Such sacrificial love must characterise the love of husbands for their wives. Perhaps such love seems impossible in a world which is so focused on the transience of sheer emotion, but as those who have received that very love from God, we who are Christian men are to determine to express that same love for our wives.
Men, there was a day when you believed the wise man:
He who finds a wife finds what is good,
and receives favour from the Lord.
[Proverbs 18:22]
Nothing has changed. A wife is good because she makes a man complete. When God had completed His work of creation, He made a startling pronouncement. Throughout the first chapter of Genesis we witness God reviewing His creative work, and we hear Him say, It is good [Genesis 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25]. At last, God’s labours are pronounced as very good [Genesis 1:31]. Suddenly, in Genesis 2:18 we witness God saying, it is not good.
Man alone is not good. God’s response to man’s sad condition is given in the second sentence of that verse. I will make a helper suitable for him. Older translations of the Bible state, I will make a help meet for him [kjv]. Unfortunately, contemporary readers of those older translations have not understood that help meet is not one word, but it is rather two words. God’s purpose was to create a helper who completed man. The term speaks of symmetry which brings a thing to wholeness. Woman makes man whole.
Walter Trobisch defines the love a husband must have for his wife.
Let me try to tell you what it really should mean if a fellow says to a girl, “I love you.” It means: You, you, you. You alone. You shall reign in my heart. You are the one whom I have longed for, without you I am incomplete. I will give everything for you, and I will give up everything for you, myself as well as all that I possess. I will love you alone, and I will work for you alone. And I will wait for you… I will never force you, not even by words. I want to guard you, protect you and keep you from all evil. I want to share with you all my thoughts, my heart and my body—all that I possess. I want to listen to what you have to say. There is nothing I want to undertake without your blessing. I want to remain always at your side.[4]
A husband should love his wife because she is good. Her presence shows favour from the Lord. A wife makes a man complete. If all these truths were insufficient to lead a man to love his wife sacrificially, I contend that the model of Christ in His love for His holy bride must serve to motivate us as Christian men to love our wives. To make this point stronger still, the Apostle notes that Christ gave Himself up for His bride. In a similar manner, husbands are to exercise headship through sacrifice.
Let me be practical for a moment. A husband should certainly provide for his wife, giving his strength to meet her needs. I suppose that most of us men are willing to work hard to earn a good living in order to care for our wives, and so perhaps this is not such a big issue. We are even prepared to protect our wives. We give our strength to our wives to ensure that they are kept from harm. We get up in the night when she hears strange noises, because we are men and that is our role. In the early days of marriage we felt responsible to protect our lovely brides from the insensitive idiots who stared at them—we glowered at such brutes in those heady days of first love.
Giving ourselves for our wives must reach beyond mere surrender of our physical strength to provide for and to protect our wives, however. I am increasingly convinced that this means that we are responsible to hear our wives, considering their emotional needs and finding ways to meet those womanly needs. On what basis do I make this statement? First, based on the text! Christ surrendered [literally] Himself on behalf of the church. He turned Himself over to benefit His bride. This is the meaning of the verb paradivdwmi. This surrendering of his own wants was to make her holy, to cleanse her and ultimately to present her.
This requirement for husbands to give themselves up for the needs of their wives is emphasised also by Peter’s statement, which we will consider in a couple of weeks. Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers [1 Peter 3:7]. Husbands are to be considerate of their wives and to treat them as precious. The consideration places responsibility on men to hear their wives. Ouch!
As Christ makes the church holy, so husbands are to keep their wives spiritual development in view. Christ is making His church holy—He is sanctifying her. He is setting her apart wholly for Himself. This is a process in which Christ is preparing His bride to be unstained, unblemished, holy and blameless. Just so, husbands are to endeavour to win their wives devotion to Christ alone.
As I worked on this message, I spoke of my studies with Lynda. She took umbrage at the comparison which I just presented, saying that she felt that I was making men superior to women, that I was somehow saying that men had to pull women up to their level. That is not the point at all. Husbands are responsible to always hold their wives as beautiful in their minds, but they are also responsible to understand that the beauty of their wives is in great measure the result of a holy life. Husbands, your wife’s spiritual attitude in no small measure is dependent upon your encouragement to her growth. Just as Christ cleanses the church, so husbands are held responsible for the spiritual growth and maturing of their wives, and of their children [cf. Ephesians 6:4]. This is not to excuse a woman for failure to grow, but it is to state that the spiritual temperature of a home is determined by the spiritual understanding of a husband.
At last, Christ will present His church as a radiant bride without blemish. This is the implication of Christ’s headship. The church’s Head is the church’s bridegroom. He does not crush the church. Rather He sacrificed Himself to serve her, in order that she might become everything He longs for her to be, namely herself in the fullness of her glory. In the same way, the end product of this consideration of Christ and His church should teach each husband that he is responsible never to abuse his headship to crush or stifle his wife, or to frustrate her from being herself. His love for her will lead him to an exactly opposite path. He will spend himself on her behalf, in order that she may develop her full potential under God, and so become more completely herself.[5]
I am not excusing women who fail to mature spiritually, but I am charging husbands to realise that they have a responsibility to enable their wives to be changed into the likeness of Christ. C. S. Lewis wrote that because we are eternal beings, created with eternal souls, in the ages to come each of us is going to be either some dazzlingly beautiful creature, one that would overwhelm us with awe if we were to see such a creature now, or else an everlasting horror, from which we would all recoil—depending upon our having entered into (or not having entered into) salvation through Jesus Christ.[6] Here is a realistic eschatology. I encourage each husband to see his wife as on the way to becoming that dazzling creature, which she will surely be in heaven in her resurrected body. I further encourage each husband to realise and accept responsibility for his part in her transformation through encouraging her and through sacrificing himself for her.
Strength must Result from Obedience — God created marriage in order that, among other things, a Christian man and a Christian woman might find the deepest of all possible fulfilments in each other. I have no doubt that God intends Christians married to one another to enjoy the greatest of joys and to be happy. Though no woman is totally responsible for her husband’s happiness, and no husband is absolutely responsible for his wife’s happiness, God intends Christian couples to be happy. I know there are Christians who will acknowledge this, and yet they are discouraged by their personal failure. Some of them have concluded that there is now no hope for their marriage. For the Christian, there is always hope. Relationships, however distorted they may seem at the moment, can be transformed by the presence of Christ the Lord. Especially is this true for Christian men and Christian women who are united in the Faith.
Paul begins with the couplet of love and submission. He ends with another couplet of love and respect. The love he has in mind for a husband sacrifices and serves with a view to enabling his wife to become what God intends her to be. In a similar manner, the submission and respect expected of a wife expresses her response to his love and her desire that he too will become what God intends him to be in his leadership. Each is considering the other. Each is working to ensure that the other advances. Husbands long for their wives to excel in the Faith, and wives want their husbands to be godly.
Husbands, we need to learn that Paul is not stressing our authority over our wives, but he is stressing our love for them. The authority of a husband is defined in terms of loving responsibility. In our minds, an authoritative husband is domineering, the one who makes all the decisions, who issues commands and expects obedience. Such “authority” must of necessity inhibit a wife and prevent her from growing into a mature or fulfilled person. This, however, is not the headship which the Apostle describes.
Headship does describe a degree of leadership and initiative, but more specifically, it speaks of sacrifice, of the giving of oneself on behalf of his bride. If headship means power in any sense, it means power to care and not power to crush. If there is any power in being the head of the wife, it is the power to serve instead of the power to dominate; it is power to facilitate self-fulfilment for one’s wife instead of power to frustrate or destroy such self-fulfilment. This is the sacrifice which is in view.
D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones has peculiar insight into this truth.
How many of us have realised that we are always to think of the married state in terms of the doctrine of the atonement? Is that our customary way of thinking of marriage? …Where do we find what the books have to say about marriage? Under which section? Under ethics. But it does not belong there. We must consider marriage in terms of the doctrine of the atonement.[7]
As for a wife’s duty in the marriage relationship, it surprises me how unpopular this passage is among contemporary women. When it is read at a wedding, it often provokes a feminine outcry. I can only wonder how carefully it has been read and in particular whether it has been read in its context. The requirement for submission is a particular example of a general Christian duty. A wife’s submission is preceded by the requirement that we are each to be submissive toward one another. Furthermore, the wife’s submission is offered to a lover, not to an ogre. The Apostle’s command is not, “Wives submit, husbands boss.” The command of the Apostle is rather, “Wives submit, husbands love.” Three times the Apostle commands husbands to love [vv. 25, 28, 33]. The husband is to love like Christ. The husband’s love, like Christ’s love, sacrifices in order to serve. A wife’s submission is but another aspect of love. How, then, can women reject this teaching, unless words no longer have any meaning whatsoever?
Maybe we need to learn all over how to be godly in our homes. I know that I am learning so much as I struggle to build by wife through loving her sacrificially. Ed Wheat makes a prescription for a superb marriage. I share it with you in the hopes that it will encourage you and equip each of you to make your marriage strong. Wheat presents what he calls the BEST of all possible marriages.
B lessing
E difying
S haring
T ouching
Blessing means to speak well of your partner, to show kindness toward your partner, to convey thanks and appreciation for your partner, and to pray to God on your partner’s behalf.
Edifying means to build up. Husbands are to build their wives up by praising them. Wives are to build their husbands up by a loving response.
Sharing means doing things together—listening, loving, learning, investigating, reporting.
Touching refers to non-sexual touching. It is so important in Wheat’s prescription that he lists twenty-five specific suggestions for touching.
These rules are actually only ways to doing what the Bible teaches concerning our love for one another in marriage. They are practical ways of doing what the Bible says, and because they are ways of doing what the Bible says, they work! Joy can return to our marriage. Each of us can grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Men can discover in a new way the glory of God’s grace demonstrated through giving them the wives they have received. Woman can again be proud of the man they married. All this can result as together, we seek God’s goodness and grace in our homes.
The giving of oneself to another, whether in submission or whether in sacrifice, is a recognition of the worth of the other. If I give myself up, it can only be because I value the one to whom I surrender myself so highly that I want to sacrifice myself in order that he or she may be better still. This is God’s call of the marriage relationship. Husbands are to love their wives and wives are to submit to their husbands, each seeking to enable the other to become more fully himself and herself, within the harmonious complementarity of the sexes.
Heaven in our homes. The words may seem an embarrassment in this day, but the embarrassment is the result of our sinful views. Embarrassment is a confession of failure. However, embarrassment is also a challenge to listen to the Word of God and to put His instruction into practise.
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[1] John R. W. Stott, The Bible Speaks Today: The Message of Ephesians (Inter-Varsity Press, Downers Grove, IL 1979) pg. 214
[2] Stott, pg. 221
[3] Stott, pg. 226
[4] Walter Trobisch, I Loved a Girl (Harper & Row: NY 1965), pp. 3, 4
[5] Stott, pg. 229
[6] C. S. Lewis, quoted in James Montgomery Boice, Ephesians: An Expositional Commentary (Zondervan: Grand Rapids, MI 1988) pg. 176
[7] D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Life in the Spirit in Marriage, Home and Work: An Exposition of Ephesians 5:18 to 6:9 (Banner of Truth: Carlisle, PA 1974) pg. 148