Know Your Role (Part 1) – Husband and Wife

Over the last year, my wife and I have made it a priority to do a family Bible Study with the kids every Tuesday night.  Recently, we decided to do a Bible Study centered on Ephesians 5-6 that I have titled, “Know Your Role.”  The study is focusing on the different pairs of relationships that Paul describes at the end of his Epistle to the church at Ephesus:  Husband and Wife; Parent and Child; Master and Slave (which in the modern context could be titled Boss and Worker).  My purpose in spending some time on this is that I think that we in America have really gotten our understanding of basic relationships completely skewed out of God’s intended order.  We need to right our understanding of these core relationships, and we need to do it fast.  I’d like to take some time to share some of the observations that we have made throughout the course of this study.  Hope it helps. 

I really love Paul’s epistle to the church at Ephesus.  In it, Paul is addressing a mixed congregation of Jews and Greeks, encouraging them in the unity that comes from knowing that we are saved by grace through faith.  And because of this grace that we have freely received, God is building us into one body in Jesus Christ.  Now that we have received that grace, and are being led by the Holy Spirit, Paul describes how we as believers should live, describing our daily walk in Christ.  This is where Paul begins to describe how, as Christians, we should treat one another in these important roles in our life. 

Paul starts off framing our roles in these relationships in terms of how Christ lived, and how we as disciples are to emulate him. 

“Therefore, be imitators of God, as beloved children.  And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God...submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.” – Ephesians 5: 1-2, 21

He then gets into the meat of what I would like to study by focusing first on the most important roles that we play, that of husband and wife.  The husband and wife are the central unit that God ordained.  They are the means in which we procreate, by which we teach and instruct our children, by which we fulfill God’s original intended purpose for mankind.  Getting this right is essential. 

Paul begins by addressing the wife. 

“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

Now that is a tough pill to swallow.  In our culture today, the term submission is almost viewed as a dirty word.  We often value individual freedom over and above cooperation, independence over and above interdependence, the individual over and above the community. 

But should it be that way? 

In this passage, Paul puts the husband and wife relationship in the same category as the relationship between Christ and the Church.  The Church is to submit to the rule and authority of Christ.  This is done for two reasons.  One, it is God’s will that he raised his Son to his own right hand and put everything in subjection to him.  Secondly, we submit to Christ because he has proven himself to be faithful.  As Paul says, Christ is our Savior.  We trust him.  As our Savior, Christ gave his own life in exchange for the life of the Church. 

Just look at how dysfunctional a Church who refuses to submit to Christ demonstrates itself to be.  Such a church cannot proclaim the gospel, and fulfill its role in the world.  Our families are in just as much discord and chaos when we refuse to submit to the one God has placed as the head of his family (more on that in a moment). 

When I sat with my children looking over this passage, I explained to them that submission means to not to struggle against or to cease struggling against another.  We usually think of submission in terms of two people grappling until one person gives up because they are forced to do so by the other person.  But really the submission we see here is voluntary, out of love, trust, and affection.  In Philippians, Paul tells us that this is the context and example that Christ demonstrated in his own life in relation to his Father:

 “Have this in mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a slave, being born in the likeness of men.  And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.  Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”  -- Philippians 2:5-11

In this context, selfless submission is a virtue, not something to be despised, and it was something that even Jesus was not above doing. 

Guys, that sounded pretty good, didn’t it?  Not so fast, because the passage is only beginning.  One of the first things I noticed about Paul’s description of the roles between husband and wife is that his description of the husband’s responsibility toward his wife is about three times longer than the corresponding section addressing wives.  That should probably make us pause and reflect on the burden that we bear with the responsibility as head of our wives. 

Husbands, remember where we started in this study?  Way back at Ephesians 5: 1-2, 21?  I think we need to take a second to review that section to put the responsibility as spiritual head of our household into the context that Paul has set.  Once again:

“Therefore, be imitators of God, as beloved children.  And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God...submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.”

Once again, Paul is using Christ as our example, and we are engaging in MUTUAL submission to one another.  Those are big shoes to fill, and I would argue that as head over our wives, our role as submitting, while different, is even more demanding.  So, what does Paul say specifically about our role as husbands?

“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.  ‘Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’  This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.  However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.” – Ephesians 5: 25-33

 Men, that is a serious calling.  When we really consider how Jesus loved the Church, and that we are called to do the same for our wives, it is as Paul puts it “profound.”  Our example is Jesus willingly going to the Cross and dying for us. 

We need to look in the mirror and honestly ask ourselves, when was the last time we carried our cross for our wives?  Are we giving our time, our strength, our minds for her benefit, or are we laying our responsibilities at her feet?  Do we diligently and consistently discipline and instruct our kids so she doesn’t have to?  Do we notice when she is struggling with her responsibilities and help, or do we ignore her needs?  Do we provide the material things our wives need as well as the spiritual, emotional, and intellectual aspects?  Are we trustworthy and faithful, or are we faithless toward her?  Do we give her good reason to trust us so that she CAN submit WILLINGLY?  Are we filling the role of sanctifying our wives by setting them apart as the holy and revered gifts from God?  Do we love our wives as our own flesh and cherish them, or are we condescending and critical, wounding her when we should be building her up?  Do we follow Christ’s example as servant leader, by being the least in order to be the greatest?

I think each of us men, if we are honest, would admit that we haven’t quite obtained the standard that Paul is laying down for us.  As a result, many of our wives may have little reason to be submissive in the way that God has called them to be. 

So how do husbands and wives get there?  How do we live out Paul’s advice in Ephesians 5?  The simple answer is that we can’t on our own.  The only way we get there is through faith and submission to Christ, and through the working of the Holy Spirit in our lives.  We must see ourselves as the sinful children that we are in our relationship with God, and with one another.  We must be willing to confess that sin, ask for those sins to be forgiven through Jesus Christ, and willingly submit to God.  It is only then that we can live out the role God has laid out for us.  It is through this that we will see marriage as the blessing that God meant for it to be. 

What happens though, when we have been wronged and we don’t know if our counterpart will be a partner in submission to God?  How do wives submit to a sinful husband, and how do husbands give himself up for a wife that has hurt him?  Well, the first thing I would say is that Paul doesn’t lay conditions on this behavior, and neither should we.  Paul never says, husbands love your wives when she is deserving of it; wives, submit to your husbands when he has earned it.  God expects us to follow his will without regard to what the rest of the world is doing.  He expects us to forgive one another and obey his will.  Husbands, make the commitment today, without condition to love your wife and give your life for her.  Wives, make the commitment today, without condition to submit to and respect your husband.  As Paul says in 1 Corinthians, your good conduct toward your spouse may change their hearts and save their souls.

My hope is that today, we as the body of Christ will accept the vocation that God has given us as husbands and wives, and be imitators of Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.  I ask that God would heal our hearts and our families so that we can better partake of the blessing that God has given us in marriage.