“Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is Himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.” Ephesians 5:22-24
Oh yes, I’ve heard this before. “Wives, obey your husbands in all things. God put them in authority over you, just like Jesus is in authority over the church.” Basically, your husband has the role of your earthly Jesus. When you get to heaven, you can focus on obeying God’s law, but for now just make sure you are obeying and meeting up to your husband’s laws. Because Paul was obviously using the analogy of the head/body relationship in reference to Christ’s authority over His church. It’s your husband’s job to sanctify you, after all. Right? Doesn’t Ephesians go on to say that husbands are the ones who are responsible for making their wives holy?
“Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her, that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that He might present the church to Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body.” Ephesians 5:25-30
Right. See: wives are supposed to obey their husbands as if they were Jesus, and husbands are supposed to sanctify their wives, because that’s loving them like Jesus loves the church.
I wonder why this approach hasn’t been fruitful in my marriage. Isn’t submitting to and following God’s Word supposed to bear holy fruit and joy in the Christian’s life?
First of all, lets get some things straight. Let’s back up and think about what preceded these passages.
“(Christ is seated victorious) far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he (God) put all things under his feet and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.” Ephesians 1:21-23
Christ is above all authority, power, dominion, and any other power of man, for all times. All powers that would attempt to squash His people, steal their souls, and usurp His kingship, are under His eternal rule. God gave Christ to the church as head, and He was and is victorious and authoritative over all things past and present that might and do attempt to change that. The church has been united to Christ, as if she were His own body, by the completion of His victory over sin and death for her. By this uniting, a uniting Paul describes using the analogy of the body to its head, we the church are incorporated into His victory over sin and death, and are reassured that nothing can separate us from the triumphant love of Christ. No thing can prevail against Christ’s victory- it is complete, and He is seated in complete authority and kingship above these earthly threats.
“For He himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.” Ephesians 2:14-16
Christ unites both Jew and Gentile. Continuing with the head/body analogy, let’s think of the above passage this way: imagine we are drawing a picture of a body. First we draw the head and label it “Jesus.” From the head comes the spine, from which branches a complex skeletal structure that forms arms, trunk, legs, and so forth. We label the trunk “Jews,” the arms “Gentiles,” one leg “You” and the other leg “Me.” The “walls of hostility” that would’ve previously made it impossible for Jewish Christians and Gentiles to become one in the love of Christ during Jesus’ time, and the walls of hostility that may try to keep contemporary Christians from becoming one in the love of Christ, have been broken down by Christ’s atoning work, victory over death, and by His utter abolishing of religious ceremonial law. This is the covenant made new- the same promise made to Abraham (see Genesis 17) but now opened to all people- built anew upon Christ’s fulfillment of the foreshadowing, historical, ceremonial religious laws and practices, which all directed Israel to the coming Messiah. The apostle Paul seems to be starting out his letter to the Ephesians with a vivid reminder (via the use of a child-level head/body analogy) that it is imperative for all Christians to acknowledge Christ as the source of our unity and stability. Without His visible work, we will busily construct countless systems of ceremonial laws that favor our biblical interpretations, but none of which ultimately point to Christ’s holiness and sacrifice, or to His future triumphant return. None of our contrivances will foreshadow our future unity in Christ and fullness in love and fellowship with His people in heaven, or enable us to have any resemblance of holy unity until then. Most, if not all of these laws we fabricate, will form walls of hostility.
Another aspect of this analogy that I think is important to point out is that Paul does not use “head” to refer to Christ’s authoritative power over the church. He says that Christ’s whole body is seated above all things, referencing all powers of man and all spiritual powers that may try to overthrow His rule (sorry if this point is becoming slightly redundant. Hang with me). The text says that Christ was given “as head over all things to the church.” While yes, Jesus Christ is certainly our King and authority, the analogy of head here is not describing His authority over the church, but his unifying, securing, powerful, humble love. We have stability and unity in our Head (Christ), because He has authority and dominion over all earthly powers that may try to prevail against or over His people.
The book of Ephesians is all about unity in Christ, and how this is accomplished through humble submission in love within the contexts of relationships- seeing and acknowledging one-another’s value through the lenses of what Christ has accomplished for all of His people.
How is Christ the head of the church? By his saving of her. His providential care and cleansing of her. By His unifying of her. By His resurrecting of her. In all areas of our lives, we are to submit to this work. This is how the Gospel works: completely. No body part (Jew, gentile, clean, unclean, husband, wife, master, servant, parent, child…) will be left unhealed. No part of His body will be left disjointed and unused, maimed and neglected, ridiculed and unvalued. Christ’s headship over this diverse body of people enables love and unity to cross seemingly impossible walls of hostility and resentment, abusive power and dehumanizing servility. His headship does not demand holiness via the power of authoritative “biblical” masculinity or the ungodly servility of checklist “biblical” wifedom. Rather, Christ’s headship provides, nourishes, and sustains holiness via His accomplished work on the cross, victory over death, and eternal authority and dominion over all spiritual forces of evil that harass His body, the church.
Christ dominates over the evil powers of man and Satan, and uses His authority to keep them under His feet. His church’s feet. Husbands, use your divinely appointed authority as it was intended: tell Satan to leave your wife alone. Speak against the lies he whispers in her heart. Where it is at all in your power, protect her from oppression: spiritual, relational, and physical. Remind her that Christ has cleansed her- every corner of her heart, mind, and body, and that the power of the sin and brokenness that plagues her is being crushed under her feet as she rests and walks in His holiness. Nourish her holiness with words of encouragement, cleanse her of shame with words of grace, cherish her person by delighting in her. You aren’t Jesus, and you aren’t supposed to be. Be like Jesus to your wife.
Christ does not dominate His people. He frees her to live fully in His Grace, to love fully in His world, and to submit fully to His cleansing work. In everything. Wives, embrace your husbands’ headship. Become one with him, not just sexually, but spiritually. Unite with Him in walking all over Satan. In every area of life. In everything. Christians, stop building walls of hostility between each other every time you encounter spiritual forces of evil in this world, or powerful people with conflicting messages, or your own sin. Look up, remember the Gospel, listen to Jesus, and love one another humbly. And if you have children, bring them together with you under the cleansing message of the Gospel too.
“Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church…”
“Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.”
Phew. I’m going to go sleep now. Thanks for reading my first novel.
*emphasis in the scriptural references was added
Comments