INTRODUCTION
“Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time He
may exalt you.” I Peter 5:6
I feel the need to state at the beginning that the following discourse is not to be received and then carried out as a list of do's and don'ts. As if by simply applying these truths to your marriage you can achieve a successful relationship that will be pleasing to God. We do not need any more rules or laws to keep. There is already a law given by God, and it's purpose was not that by keeping it to make life better or somehow sanctify us. Rather it's purpose was to make us aware of our sinfulness before a holy God. “For by works of the law no human being will be justified in His sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.” Romans 3:20
Before applying the following truths to our marriage, we must first proclaim with Paul, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” Galatians 2:20 We must approach our roles in marriage trembling and joyful before God, throwing off self and pride, clinging only to the cross of Christ and Him crucified. Then and only then, we may take our place in the glorious picture of marriage. Portraying Christ and His beloved Church upon the stage of the world. Proclaiming the love of Christ for His people to a lost and dying culture.
Defining Marriage From the Bible
“Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, 'Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” Matthew 19:4-6
Christ here, referring back to creation, describes marriage as the union of two people becoming one person. A union sealed by God and forbidden for man to separate. It is because of this “two becoming one” that allows Paul to compare a man's love for his wife to the love for his own body, for indeed she is his own flesh. Paul goes on to compare a man's relationship to his wife to Christ's relationship to His Church. He further says, quoting Genesis 2:24, that this is a “profound mystery”
So, for whom is this a mystery? Psalm 104:24 says, “O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom have you made them all.” and Jeremiah 10:12 declares, “It is He who made the earth by His power, who established the world by His wisdom, and by His understanding stretched out the heavens.” God did not create first and figure out the details later! He created with knowledge, He established with wisdom, He planned with understanding!
Wisdom speaks in Proverbs 8:23 and says, “Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth.” and again in vs. 30, “then I was beside Him, like a master workman, and I was daily His delight, rejoicing before Him always.” God did not just create man and woman and then get the idea for marriage, nor did it suddenly come to Him after Christ established His church, all the striking similarities between the two and think, “I'll have Paul mention that in one of his letters.” No, He planned it all from the beginning. From the beginning wisdom was with Him. From the beginning He established how the world should and would work! Marriage as a picture of Christ and His Church was not an afterthought for God. It was not a mystery for Him; it was a mystery for us, until Paul, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit revealed to us what God in His infinite wisdom had hidden through the ages.
Marriage is a play, written by a Master Playwright, to be performed on the stage of the world, throughout all time, demonstrating to the watching world: this is how Christ loves His Church, this is how God loves His own. The husband, as one of the primary actors in this production, has a sacred duty to present it rightly. If we mistreat our wives, we are saying that, in this same way, Christ mistreats the Church. If we are sullen, prideful, abusive, manipulative, threatening or any other perversion of human relations, we are, in effect, speaking this of Christ. To pervert this role as husband is to blaspheme Christ. This is why the world, in their hatred of God, despise marriage and try to distort this picture. This is why we cannot look to our culture or secularism for answers to a Godly and God honoring marriage, but must look to God's word alone and His wisdom.
In the book of James we are told to only ask for wisdom, in faith, and God, who is a liberal giver, will not keep it from you (James 1:5) but in Proverbs 8 we are warned by Wisdom, “whoever finds me finds life and obtains favor from the Lord, but he who fails to find me injures himself; all who hate me love death.” vs. 35, 36. If we reject the wisdom of God and follow our culture's wisdom, we become like the rest of the world, shaking our fist at God and become lovers of death.
Now then, if this is God's wisdom on marriage, what is exactly being said here? Wives, you are to submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. The church's relationship to Christ is given as you example. Husbands, our example that we are given to follow in marriage is Christ Himself. It is put as follows,”Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her.” Ephesians 5:25
Now Paul keeps going on, as if he has forgotten about marriage and is swept away in speaking about Christ's love for the church, but he is still speaking also of marriage. “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.” vs. 26, 27 We know that he is still speaking of marriage because of the next verse, “In the same way husbands should love their wives...” vs 28.
So as we look at Christ as our example as husbands, we will look not only at how He gave Himself up for us in the past, but how He has continued to express His love for us up till even now.
Christ's giving up of Himself for the church did not begin at the cross, nor did His demonstrations of His love for us end there! Yes, it is true that Christ's greatest act of love for us was in His laying down His life on the cross, by this we know His love (1 John 3:16), but He was demonstrating that same kind of love from the beginning of time and He continues to express that love even to this present hour.
Christ our Example
So now let us look at how Christ has given up His life for us and how He now expresses His love for us and follow Him as we, by the grace of God, love our wives in the same manner.
1. Christ loved us when we were far from lovely!
“For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person – though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die – but God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by His blood, much more shall we be saved by Him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by His life.” Romans 5:6-10
While we were still enemies of God, hating God, by nature dead to God, walking in hideous sinfulness, Christ loved us! God the Father sent His only Son to die for us! How then are we to deal with our wives, even when they only demonstrate contempt and hatred for us? We are to love them as Christ loved us! Our love for them, our actions toward them are not to be determined by their stance and attitude towards us. Yes, we must work to guide and counsel them, through prayer and the word, but we are still to love them with the love of Christ.
2. Christ made peace with us!
“But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 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. And He came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through Him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.” Ephesians 2:13-19
What do you do with enmity when it comes between you and your wife? What do you do in the face of hostility? Do you attempt to assuage it? Do you use soft answers to turn away wrath? (Proverbs 15:1) Or do you escalate it? During a time of conflict, we may be tempted, through our own sinful pride, to hold on to our assumed rightfulness, but when we were at enmity with God, even though He was right, even though He was actively against us because of our rebellion in unrighteousness, He broke down the wall between us and made peace with us. We are not God, obviously, and we cannot change the heart of our wives, but it is still our duty to love our wives and seek peace. We must put away our pride and love them as Christ has loved us and actively seek to initiate peace with them.
3. Christ is faithful to His Church!
“Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.” Hebrews 13:4
Christ does not look at other churches. He does not desire that His Church was more like His neighbor's church. We are to love our wives and only our wives like Christ loves His Church! Wandering eyes and unfairly comparing our wives gives a distorted image of Christ as He loves the Church. To accurately depict Christ in this we must desire and love on our own wives.
4. Christ works to sanctify the Church and cleanses her through the word.
“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.” Ephesians 5:25b-26
We, as Christ following husbands, have the great duty of washing our wives with the pure water of the Word of God. We are to edify our wives and encourage our wives with God's word. Why are we to do this? Ephesians 5:27 would seem to indicate that God in His infinite wisdom uses us in this act to work in the sanctification of our wives. Through our loving edification of our wives through the Word, we are aiding the Holy Spirit in sanctifying our wives. Just as Christ, through the Holy Spirit is washing us and sanctifying us so that He might present us to Himself glorious, without spot or blemish, we are taking an active role in that sanctification process with our wives. What an honor! What a sobering responsibility! Not only are we, to some degree, responsible for the spiritual growth of our wives, but also to neglect this responsibility is to pervert the image of Christ to the world and to blaspheme His name. We must also take care in this duty to use the Word lovingly with our wives. We must not be guilty of beating them with the rod of the Word. Instead, we are instructed to lovingly wash them and sanctify them. Jesus, when He dealt with those that He said were not His sheep, dealt harshly with them and used the Word to cut them, but when He dealt with His sheep, His Church He handled them lovingly, even those in great sin. Likewise, we must not hit our wives over the head with the Word of God. We must not use it to shame them or debase them, but gently encourage them and build them up in the Lord. This is indeed one of the greatest challenges of the husband, but if we fail in this, we have missed out on one of the greatest honors with which God has entrusted us.
5. Christ cares for the needs of His Church.
“And my God will supply every need of yours according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:19
Not only are we to care for our wives emotional and spiritual needs, but we are to provide for their physical needs to the best of our ability. 1 Timothy 5:8 says, “if any provide not for his own and specially for those of his own house, he has denied the faith, and is worse that an infidel.” As much as it is possible, we are to provide for the physical needs of our family. Circumstances may prevent us from adequately caring for our family, but as much as we can do, we must do. To do nothing while our family suffers is a sin that the Bible compares to apostasy.
6. Christ intercedes in prayer for His Church.
“6 I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. 7 Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. 8 For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. 9 I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. 10 All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. 11 And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. 12 While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. 13 But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. 14 I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 15 I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. 19 And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.” John 17
Here Christ prays for His Church and only His Church. (vs 19) He prays for our protection (vs 15) and for our sanctification. (vs 17) This is a great duty, that if we neglect, we neglect to our wives ruin and our own shame. We must be diligent to pray with our wives and we must, above all, pray for our wives. Notice Christ says that He prays not for the world (vs 9) but for them which the Father had given Him. We should pray for others, but we must have a special burden to pray for our wives. This obligation is ours and ours alone.
The Church as the wife's example
“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
Early theologians spoke often of the church as the “visible church” and the “invisible church”. The visible church being composed of all people everywhere that claimed to believe and confessed Christ. Those that we see with our physical eyes as the Church of Christ. The invisible church refers to the Church as the Father sees it. Those that truly believe and are being sanctified by the Word of God through the work of the Holy Spirit. Jesus referred to these two groups as the wheat and the weeds. Augustine said of the church, “many sheep are without and many wolves are within.” Paul says, “The Lord knows them that are His.” 2 Timothy 2:19 The invisible church is the church as God sees it. This Church, the invisible church, is the church that wives are to emulate. The Church that is faithful to her Husband, Christ, and although not yet perfect, is seeking and desiring Christ.
1. The Church submits to Christ and obeys Him.
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” John 14:15
“For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome.” 1 John 5:3
“And by this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. Whoever says, “I know Him” but does not keep His commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps His word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in Him: whoever says he abides in Him ought to walk in the same way in which He walked.” 1 John 2:3-6
“Likewise, wives, be subject to you own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, when they see your respectful and pure conduct. Do not let your adorning be external – the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear – but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious. For this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves, by submitting to their own husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord. And you are her children, if you do good and do not fear anything that is frightening.” 1 Peter 3:1-6
Notice that according to Peter, wives are not to be submissive to their husbands based on their husband's worthiness, for he says that submissiveness to even unbelieving husbands might be a means of their conversion. By watching your lifestyle and by your submitting to them in your role as wife, they might see this and be won to faith. Submitting does not mean to be a slave, obeying without question every command of your husband as unto a ruthless dictator. Obviously, we are to “obey God rather that man.” Acts 5:29 We are not to obey in sinfulness. Submissiveness means to not be quarrelsome, not disagreeable, not starting fights, but to be agreeable, peaceable and patient. Titus 2:5 says to be “self controlled, pure, working at home, kind and submissive.” “That the Word of God may not be reviled” or blasphemed. Your conduct and attitude at home in the marriage says something about the Word of God to your husband, believing of unbelieving, and to the world who is watching. If you claim to be a lover of God, a follower of Christ and yet the world sees you railing against and nagging on your husband, they will not only think little of your testimony, but it will be an occasion for them to blaspheme God and His Word as well. Just as the husband portrays the love of Christ for His Church to the world, so also the wife is displaying to an unbelieving culture how God's people respond to such a loving and holy God.
2. The Church loves Christ.
“You shall therefore love the Lord your God and keep His charge, His statutes, His rules, and His commandments always.” Deuteronomy 11:1
Many would say that there is no command for the wife to love her husband, but if the wife is to portray the Church in the picture of marriage, then we must look at how the Church responds to Christ as a guideline for how the wife is to respond to her husband. “We love Him, because He first loved us.” 1 John 4:19 This does not mean that we will always feel loving towards our husband or wife, but we must always act loving. Just as God loved us, not based on our loveliness, we sometimes must love, in action, our spouse even when they are at their most unlovely moments. We must always strive to demonstrate the love of Christ to our spouse despite their deservedness. Also Titus 2:4 instructs the more mature wives to teach the younger to love their husbands. How are they to teach them unless they have learned to do this themselves? In all of this wives are to follow the example of the ideal church, Christ's Church. The people of God, as God Himself sees them, clothed in the righteousness of Christ.
Conclusion
For both husbands and wives, this sort of marriage requires us to die to ourselves and to throw ourselves daily on the mercy of God and plead for the righteousness of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit. Again, this is not to be taken as a list of new commandments or principles to keep to produce a happy marriage. These are all truths from the sacred scriptures to be taken in context with the Word of God. The same Word of God that reminds us that we are weak and sinful and prone to failure. That tells us to “walk in the Spirit and you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh” Galatians 5:16 This is not a righteousness based on works that we are trying to achieve, this is about the glory of God. This is about glorifying the name of Christ. All of the conflicts, all of the problems that come to us in marriage or any other relationship are not the result of God looking away and Satan slipping one in on us, but it has been ordained by God Himself to achieve glory to Himself and our good through sanctifying us and making us more like Christ.
Before we can submit to one another in marriage or any other relationship, we must first “submit yourselves therefore to God” James 4:7 and “Humble ourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift us up.” James 4:10
