Marriage is..Eph.5 (4/4)

Marriage Is – Ephesians 5:21-33  (4/4)

Ephesians 5:21-33(ESV)
²¹submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.
²²Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 
²³For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. 
²⁴Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.
²⁵Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 
²⁶that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 
²⁷so 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.^£ 
28In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 
²⁹For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, 
³⁰because we are members of his body. 
^31£“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 
³²This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. 
³³However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

(In this discussion the quotations (“ …” ) are taken from John MacArthur Commentary on the book of Ephesians.)

The necessary Foundation

Ephesians 5:21 (NKJV)  –  21 submitting to one another in the fear of God.This is God’s plan that we ‘subject ourselves to one another’   – 

Lust has replaced love, and selfishness rules instead of sacrifice.

This is God’s plan that we ‘subject ourselves to one another’-

Lust had replaced love, and selfishness rules instead of sacrifice.

History:  In Roman society marriage was little more than legalized prostitution, with divorce being legally easy to get.   In Rome many women did not want to have children and their bodies ruined and thus “feminism” was common.   Women went into traditional activities of men as wrestling, sword fighting and other traditionally masculine activities.  Women began to lord it over men and increasingly took the initiative in getting a diverse. 

Christian marriage and families are to be radically different from the worldfor they are to be bathed in humility, love, and mutual submission that the authority of husbands and parents, though exercised when necessary.  This authority of husbands and parents are to become almost invisible and the submission of wives and children is no more than acting in the spirit of gracious love.  Agapa – putting others first – ding it in as a sacrificial love toward the other.   The dominate relationship in a Christian marriage is to be love not authority.

 “Be subject” is relinquishing one’s rights to another.  A guide can be walking in the other’s shoes to see how we’d want to be treated or spoken too.

Submitting(hypotasso )  A Greek military term meaning“to arrange [troop divisions] in a miliary fashion under the command of a leader”. In non-military use, it was “a voluntary attitude of giving in, cooperating, assuming responsibility, and carrying a burden”    (Strong’s Dictionary)

We, as every obedient Spirit-filled Christian, are to be a submitting Christian.  We are to submit Christ and to the Church and learn to understand God’s directives for His human family.  Every believer has exactly the same salvation, the same standing before God –Note Galatians 3:28

We are all equal…  v.28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

“However, in the matter of role and function God has made distinctions.  The Lord has given rulers in government certain authority over the people they rule, to church leaders He has delegated authority over their congregations, to husbands He has given authority over their wives, to parents He has given authority over their children, and to employers He has given authority over employees.”

The Matter of Submission 

Ephesians 5:22(NKJV)  22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.

“The wife is not commanded to obey (hupakouō) her husband, as children are to obey their parents and slaves their masters (6:1, 5). A husband is not to treat his wife as a servant or as a child, but as an equal for whom God has given him care and responsibility for provision and protection, to be exercised in love. She is not his to order about, responding to his every wish and command. As Paul proceeds to explain in considerable detail (vv. 25–33), the husband’s primary responsibility as head of the household is to love, provide, protect, and serve his wife and family—not to lord it over them according to his personal whims and desires.”

As with spiritual gifts, the distinctions of headship and submission are entirely functional and were ordained by God.   Therefore a consequence occurred when Eve did not consult with Adam about the serpent’s temptation.   

God Said:  Genesis 3:16 (NKJV)  –  16 To the woman He said:   “I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception; In pain you shall bring forth children; Your desire shall be for your husband, And he shall rule over you.”

BECAUSE of SIN things changed!

HERE, the Hebrew word  (tshûqâ)   is used to mean to compel, impel, urge, or seek control over.    Meaning that due to the sin (Eve) “ that woman’s desire would henceforth be to usurp the place of man’s headship and that he would resist that desire and would rule over her. The Hebrew word here for “rule” is not the same as that used in 1:28. Rather it represented a new, despotic kind of authoritarianism that was not in God’s original plan for man’s headship.”

A despot is a tyrant or ruler with absolute powers.  Despotic  would be relating to, carried out by, or behaving like a despot. 

SIN “has brought about a distortion of woman’s proper submissiveness and of man’s proper authority.   We now have “the battle of the sexes”  as:  women’s liberation and male chauvinism….    Thus women have the sinful inclination to usurp man’s authority and men have a sinful inclination to put women under their feet. “

“Today, the blurring and even total removal of all human distinctions continues to be masterminded by Satan so as to undermine legitimate, God-ordained authority in every realm of human activity – in government, the family, the school, and even in the church.”

Manner of Submission:  –  “as to the Lord”  (Eph. 5:22b)

Motive of Submission:  Ephesians 5:23 (NKJV)

23 For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body.

Model of Submission:  Ephesians 5:23–24 (NKJV)

23b  and He is the Savior of the body. 24 Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.

Christ is the perfect provider, protector and Head of His church.
“Jesus Christ is the divine role model for husbands, who should provide for, protect, preserve, love, and lead their wives and families as Christ cares for His church. Wives are no more to be co–providers, co–protectors, or co–leaders with their husbands than the church is have such joint roles with Jesus Christ. Just as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything.”  –

“His plan is neither for the exaltation of man and suppression of woman nor the exaltation of woman and suppression of man, but for the perfection and fulfillment of both man and woman as He has ordained them to be.  Such perfection and fulfillment is made possible by the filling of the Holy Spirit.”

“The Fall itself involved a perversion of marital roles, and God’s curse because of the Fall also affected marriage. Eve sinned not only in disobeying God’s specific command but in acting independently of her husband and failing to consult Adam about the serpent’s temptation. Adam sinned not only by disobeying God’s command but by succumbing to Eve’s leadership, thus failing to exercise his God–given authority. Because of her disobedience, God cursed the woman to pain in childbirth and to a perverted desire to rule over the man. The man was cursed to toil, to difficulty, to frustration in wresting sustenance from the land, and to conflict with his wife over her submission. Both were cursed with death as the penalty for their sin (Gen. 3:16–19; cf. Rom. 5:15–19).”

“Marriage was corrupted because both the man and the woman twisted God’s plan for their relationship. They reversed their roles, and marriage has been a struggle ever since. Women’s liberation reflects the woman’s distorted desires, and male chauvinism the man’s. The unredeemed nature of both men and women is to be self–preoccupied and self–serving—and those characteristics are no basis for harmonious relationships. God’s way to successful marriage focuses on what husbands and wives put into it, not on what they can get out of it.”

“Throughout history the most dominant distortion of relationships has been on man’s side. In most cultures of the ancient world, women were treated as little more than servants, and the practice is reflected in many parts of the world today. Marcius Cato, the famous Roman statesman of the second century b.c., wrote, “If you catch your wife in an act of infidelity, you can kill her without a trial. But if she were to catch you, she would not venture to touch you with her finger. She has no rights.” That reflects the extreme of male chauvinism that comes out of the curse of the Fall and reflects the perversion of roles and responsibilities that God intends for husbands and wives.”

The manner of Love – Sacrificial Love

Ephesians 5:25 (NKJV)

25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her,

“A husband is not commanded to love his wife because of what she is or is not. He is commanded to love her because it is God’s will for him to love her. It is certainly intended for a husband to admire and be attracted by his wife’s beauty, winsomeness, kindness, gentleness, or any other positive quality or virtue. But though such things bring great blessing and enjoyment, they are not the bond of marriage. If every appealing characteristic and every virtue of his wife disappears, a husband is still under just as great an obligation to love her. If anything, he is under greater obligation, because her need for the healing and restorative power of his self-less love is greater. That is the kind of love Christ has for His church and is therefore the kind of love every Christian husband is to have for his wife.”

A husband who loves his wife as Christ loves His church gives everything he has for this wife, including his life if necessary.  If a husband is willing to sacrifice his life, then surely he would be willing to make lesser sacrifices for her.  We do well to put our own likes, desires, opinions, preferences, and welfare aside if that is required to please each other. 

What is ‘dying to self” all about?  Note this quote from an unknown source:

When you are forgotten or neglected or purposely set at naught, and you sting and hurt with the insult or the oversight, but your heart is happy, being counted worthy to suffer for Christ—that is dying to self. When your good is evil spoken of, when your wishes are crossed, your advice disregarded, your opinions ridiculed and you refuse to let anger rise in your heart, or even defend yourself, but take it all in patient loving silence—that is dying to self. When you lovingly and patiently bear any disorder, any irregularity, or any annoyance, when you can stand face to face with waste, folly, extravagance, spiritual insensibility, and endure it as Jesus endured it—that is dying to self. When you are content with any food, any offering, any raiment, any climate, any society, any attitude, any interruption by the will of God—that is dying to self. When you never care to refer to yourself in conversation, or to record your own good works, or itch after commendation, when you can truly love to be unknown—that is dying to self. When you see your brother prosper and have his needs met and can honestly rejoice with him in spirit and feel no envy nor question God, while your own needs are far greater and in desperate circumstances—that is dying to self. When you can receive correction and reproof from one of less stature than yourself, can humbly submit inwardly as well as outwardly, finding no rebellion or resentment rising up within your heart—that is dying to self.

Purifying Love

Ephesians 5:26–27 (NKJV)

26 that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, 27 that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish.

The WORDis the agent of the ‘sanctification’ process.   Titus 3:5says:
⁵he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, 

Caring Love

Ephesians 5:28–30 (NKJV)

28 So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church. 30 For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones.

“The husband who loves his wife as Christ loves the church will no more do anything to harm her than he would to harm his own flesh. His desire is to nourish and cherish her just as he nourishes and cherishes his own body—because that is how Christ also does the church.”

“Christ provides for us as His church because we are members of His body. Not to provide for His church would be not to provide for Himself. He shares common life with His church, and we are members of His body, His flesh and bones, His present incarnation on earth. Paul said, “The one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him” (1 Cor. 6:17), and again, “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me” (Gal. 2:20).”

Unbreakable Love

Ephesians 5:31(ESV)
^31£“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 

“One of the greatest barriers to successful marriage is the failure of one or both partners to leave … father and mother. In marriage, a new family is begun and the relationships of the former families are to be severed as far as authority and responsibilities are concerned. Parents are always to be loved and cared for, but they are no longer to control the lives of their children once they are married.”

“Proskollaō (cleave) literally means to be glued or cemented together. Husbands and wives are to leave their parents and to cleave to, be cemented to, each other. They break one set of ties as they establish the other, and the second is more binding and permanent than the first.”

The motive for Loving Your Wife

Ephesians 5:32–33 (NKJV)

32 This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. 33 Nevertheless let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.