Our entertainment-saturated society helps feed all sorts of illusions
about reality. The fantasy of the perfect romantic and sexual
relationship, the perfect lifestyle, and the perfect body all prove
unattainable because the reality never lives up to the expectation.
The worst fallout comes in the marriage relationship. When two
people can't live up to each other's expectations, they'll look for
their fantasized satisfaction in the next relationship, the next
experience, the next excitement. But that path leads only to
self-destruction and emptiness.
Marriage is the capstone of the family, the building block of human
civilization. A society that does not honor and protect marriage
undermines its very existence. Why? Because one of God's designs for
marriage is to show the next generation how a husband and wife
demonstrate reciprocal, sacrificial love toward each other.
But when husbands and wives forsake that love, their marriage fails
to be what God intended. When marriage fails, the whole family falls
apart; when the family fails, the whole society suffers. And stories of
societal suffering fill the headlines every day.
Now, more than ever before, is the time for Christians to declare and
put on display what the Bible declares: God's standard for marriage
and the family is the
only standard that can produce meaning, happiness, and fulfillment.
Divine Directives for WivesOne of the most explicit passages of Scripture that outlines God's standard for marriage is
Ephesians 5:22-33.
Wives often bear the brunt of that section, but the majority of the
passage deals with the husband's attitude toward and responsibilities
for his wife. Nonetheless, here's the wife's responsibility before the
Lord:
Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For
the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the
church, He Himself being the Savior of the body. But as the church is
subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in
everything (vv. 22-24).
Submission in no way implies a difference in essence or worth; it
does refer, however, to a willing submission of oneself. Wives,
submission is to be your voluntary response to God's will — it's a
willingness to give up your rights to other believers in general and
ordained authority in particular, in this case your own husband.
Husbands aren't to treat their wives like slaves, barking commands at
them; they are to treat their wives as equals, assuming their God-given
responsibility of caring, protecting, and providing for them.
Likewise wives fulfill their God-given responsibility when they submit willingly to their
own
husbands. That reflects not only the depth of intimacy and vitality in
their relationship, but also the sense of ownership a wife has for her
husband.
Keep in mind that the wife's submission requires intelligent
participation: "Mere listless, thoughtless subjection is not desirable
if ever possible. The quick wit, the clear moral discernment, the fine
instincts of a wife make of her a counselor whose influence is
invaluable and almost unbounded" (Charles R. Erdman,
The Epistles of Paul to the Colossians and to Philemon [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1966], 103).
Elisabeth Elliot, writing on "The Essence of Femininity," offers a fitting summary of God's ideal for wives:
Unlike Eve, whose response to God was calculating and
self-serving, the virgin Mary's answer holds no hesitation about risks
or losses or the interruption of her own plans. It is an utter and
unconditional self-giving: "I am the Lord's servant…. May it be to me
as you have said" (Luke 1:38). This is what I understand to be the essence of femininity. It means surrender.
Think of a bride. She surrenders her independence, her name, her
destiny, her will, herself to the bridegroom in marriage.... The gentle
and quiet spirit of which Peter speaks, calling it "of great worth in
God's sight" (1 Peter 3:4), is the true femininity, which found its epitome in Mary (John Piper, Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood [Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, 1991], 398, 532, emphasis added).
Divine Directives for HusbandsAfter giving the divine guidelines for the wife's submission, Paul devotes the next nine verses of
Ephesians 5
to explain the husband's duty to submit to his wife through his love
for her: "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the
church" (v. 25). The Lord's pattern of love for His church is the
husband's pattern of love for his wife, and it is manifest in four ways.
Sacrificial Love Christ loved the church
by giving "Himself up for her." The husband who loves his wife as
Christ loves His church will give up everything he has for his wife,
including his life if necessary.
Most of you husbands would give verbal assent to that — literally
dying for your wife is such a remote possibility for most of you. But I
would speculate that it is much more difficult to make lesser, but
actual sacrifices for her.
Husbands, when you put aside your own likes, desires, opinions,
preferences, and welfare to please your wife and meet her needs, then
you are truly dying to self to live for your wife. And that is what
Christ's love demands.
Purifying Love Christ loved the church sacrificially with this goal in mind:
That He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the
washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the
church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing;
but that she should be holy and blameless (vv. 26-27).
Love wants only the best for the one it loves, and it cannot bear for
a loved one to be corrupted or misled by anything evil or harmful. If
you really love your wife, you'll do everything in your power to
maintain her holiness, virtue, and purity every day you live.
That obviously means doing nothing to defile her. Don't expose her
to or let her indulge in anything that would bring impurity into her
life. Don't tempt her to sin by, say, inducing an argument out of her
on a subject you know is sensitive to her. Love always seeks to purify.
Caring Love Another aspect of divine love is this:
Husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own
bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; for no one ever hated
his own flesh but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does
the church (vv. 28-29).
The word translated "cherishes" literally means "to warm with body
heat" — it is used to describe a bird sitting on her nest (e.g.,
Deut. 22:6). Husbands, you are to provide a secure, warm, safe haven for your wife.
When your wife needs strength, give her strength. When she needs
encouragement, give it to her. Whatever she needs, you are obligated to
supply as best you can. God chose you to provide for and protect her,
to nourish and cherish her, and to do so "as Christ also does the
church."
Unbreakable Love For a husband to love
his wife as Christ loves His church he must love her with an unbreakable
love. In this direct quotation from
Genesis 2:24,
Paul emphasizes the permanence as well as the unity of marriage: "For
this cause a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to
his wife; and the two shall become one flesh" (v. 31). And God's
standard for marriage
still hasn't changed.
Husbands, your union with your wife is permanent. When you got
married, you had to leave, cleave, and become one with your wife — never
go back on that. Let your wife rest in the security of knowing that
you belong to her, for life.
Just as the body of Christ is indivisible, God's ideal for marriage
is that it be indivisible. As Christ is one with His church, you
husbands are one with your wives.
Paul goes on to say, "This mystery is great; but I am speaking with
reference to Christ and the church" (v. 32). Why is submission as well
as sacrificial, purifying, and caring love so strongly emphasized in
Scripture? Because the sacredness of the church is wed to the
sacredness of marriage.
Christian, your marriage is a testimony to the relationship between
Christ and His bride, the church. Your marriage will either tell the
truth about that relationship, or it will tell a lie.
What is your marriage saying to the watching world? If you'll walk
in the power of the Spirit, yield to His Word, and be mutually
submissive, you can know that God will bless you abundantly and glorify
His Son through your marriage.
