‘AS THE CHURCH IS TO CHRIST’

Posted by Angella Diehl, Webmaster on October 15, 2023 under 2023 |

Bethany Bible Church Sermon Message from October 15, 2023 from Ephesians 5:22-24

Theme: The believing wife is to be submitted to her own husband as the church is submitted to Christ.

(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).

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Over the past few weeks, we’ve been looking at Ephesians 5; and specifically at what the apostle Paul taught about the godly path to true happiness through the Holy Spirit.

Everyone who has placed their faith in the sacrifice Jesus has made for us on the cross, and who has been redeemed by His blood, has been given the Holy Spirit—the third Person of the Trinity—to indwell them and empower them for the Christian life. And as we’ve seen from this section of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, true happiness and joy come from yielding ourselves to that indwelling ministry of the Holy Spirit. In Ephesians 5:18, Paul wrote;

And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit … (Ephesians 5:18).

To be ‘filled with the Spirit’, as we’ve seen, means to be under the Holy Spirit’s influence in a prevailing and pervasive way. And after urging us to be filled with the Spirit, Paul then went on to describe the outworking of the Spirit’s influence on us in at least three ways. First, in verse 19, he described it as expressive and edifying worship; “speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord …” Then, in verse 20, he described it as an overwhelming thankfulness in all circumstances of life; “giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ …” And finally, in verse 21, he described it as a humble, reverent submissiveness in the relationships of life; “submitting to one another in the fear of God …” (v. 21). And as we’ve also seen, Paul then goes on to describe what that submissiveness looks like in terms of the various relationships in which God places us.

Now; none of this can be a product of our own efforts. It’s all a matter of yielding to the indwelling and enabling power of the Holy Spirit at work in us—producing the character qualities of Jesus Himself through us in daily living. And allowing the Holy Spirit to produce these realities in us is the pathway to true happiness and joy in daily Christian living.

Holy Spirit-empowered submission, then—in the various relationships of life—is a key part of what it means to experience happiness and joy in the Christian life. And so; today, we will begin looking at the whole matter of submission in those various relationships as Paul described them to us.

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The word that Paul used for ‘submission’ is one that means ‘to set ourselves in order under’ someone or something else. But as we come this morning to the first of those submissive relationships—this first call to ‘set ourselves in order under’—we find that it deals with a potentially difficult matter. And I feel the need for us to step carefully and sensitively.

Think, for a moment, of our relationship with governing leaders and civil authorities. The Bible commands us to be subject to governing authorities as authorities that have been sovereignly put in place over us by God Himself. He commands us in the Bible to pray for them regularly. And yet, in our own power, we often have a very hard time doing that; don’t we? Don’t we look at those authority figures—seeing the decisions they make, and the policies that they put into action, and the character and behavior that they themselves often display in their private lives—and often find it very hard to submit ourselves to them? Often, the only way we can do so is by simple obedience to God’s command, and by the enabling grace that the Holy Spirit gives us. And yet, rarely—if ever—do we encounter those leaders personally. They don’t impact our lives except in a way that is largely removed from our own personal experience.

Or think of our work relationships. The Bible commands us, as believers, to be submitted to the supervisors business managers, or employers that we work under. And haven’t there been times when you’ve felt as if you knew your job far better than those who you were working under? Or if we’re a believing student in a school, then we’re to be submitted to the authority of our instructors and teachers. And yet, haven’t we often had a hard time doing that too? I remember how, when I first started going to college, I kept thinking about Psalm 119:99; which says, “I have more understanding than all my teachers …” We often find that we can only submit to those who are in the workplace or school by the power and enabling of the Holy Spirit. But we usually don’t have to live with those to whom we submit. At the end of the day, we go home; and their immediate, personal impact on us is over when the work is through.

Or think of our family relationships. Believing children are commanded in the Bible to be submitted to their parents. It’s one of God’s basic commandments: “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you” (Exodus 20:12). But what happens when parents are unreasonable, or when the structure of home-life is in disorder. What happens when parents are unbelievers; and when they make decisions that create a home environment in which it’s a hard place to live out our faith? It’s often very hard to be submitted to our God-appointed roles in the family. We can often only do so by the gracious help of the Holy Spirit. The relationship, of course, never comes to an end; but the immediate, personal impact—over time—becomes somewhat diminished. And very often, because of those new situational dynamics, the relationship improves over the years.

But when we come to the very first thing Paul mentions in this passage, we find that we come to a relationship that is different from all of the others. It’s not a relationship that experiences any of the boundaries and limitations that characterize the others. In Ephesians 5:22-24, Paul wrote;

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything (vv. 22-24).

That’s not a relationship that is restricted to only one small area of life, or that comes to an end when the day is over. That involves a relationship that touches upon every area of life. In marrying her husband, a wife becomes one-flesh with him; and she and him are bound together in every way for the rest of their lives. In submitting to his leadership, she becomes dependent upon him in a way that is deeper and more pervasive than any other relationship. It’s true that, for some Christian wives, it’s not hard at all to submit to their husband’s leadership. In fact, for some who have a godly, wise, compassionate, self-sacrificing, Christ-like husband, it’s a delight. But for some others, submission to their husband is something that involves some uncertainties and a certain measure of struggle. And for some who are married to an ungodly and cruel man, it can honestly become a terrifying prospect.

And so, as I approach this passage this morning, I want to be very sensitive to that. As I was talking with my own wife about this passage, she said that she almost wished that the passages were reversed, and that verses 25-30 came before verses 22-24;

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, 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. So husbands ought to love their own 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 the Lord does the church. For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones (vv. 25-30).

The command to submit would be made much easier if the husband behaved faithfully as that kind of a man. Reading the instructions to both husband and wife certainly helps us to appreciate God’s design for mutual submissiveness. But in His wisdom—the Holy Spirit led the apostle Paul to put this command to the wives first; even though it’s a troublesome thing to some people that it’s even in the Bible at all.

Many preachers have been tempted to pass right by it—or read it superficially in order to get quickly to the instructions to husbands. But dear brothers and sisters in Christ; as followers of Jesus, we dare not ignore any portion of God’s word—including the hard ones like this one. No matter how this passage may have been misunderstood and misapplied by some people in the past—no matter how offended some may be by it today—it’s nevertheless a command that God has given to us in order to lead us to true happiness in the Holy Spirit. And I’m convinced that we will keep it in its proper perspective—and will be treating it rightly—if we don’t look merely at a wife’s submission to her husband as a thing in and of itself. We must see it as something that is meant to be a picture of Jesus’ relationship of loving sacrifice for His church, and His church’s relationship of loving obedience to Him.

That is, in fact, the great thing that this passage teaches us: that the believing wife is to be submitted to her own husband as the church is submitted to Christ.

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Now; there’s one very important point that we need to remember as we come to this command. And that is it was never meant to be obeyed on the basis of human power or capability. Even when it comes to a marriage in which the husband is a shining example of Christ-likeness—a husband who obeys perfectly all that it says in verses 25-30, and who would be very easy for any wife to be submitted to—it still must not be done in the power of the wife’s own human efforts and strength.

You see; this command—the command for the believing wife to be submitted to her husband—is a command that flows from the command that we find in verse 21. That’s where we’re told, “submitting to one another in the fear of God”; or, as some translations have it, “in the fear of Christ”. That word “fear” isn’t speaking of any kind of negative emotion or phobia, but rather of a reverential respect and sense of awe for the Lord Himself. And that command in verse 21 is an expansion of the even greater command given to us in verse 18; “And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit.”

And so; the first thing that we need to remember about this command to submit to one’s own husband is that …

1. THE POWER OF IT IS THE HOLY SPIRIT.

Look carefully at what we’re told in verse 22. Paul wrote, “Wives, submit to your own husbands …” And there are two important things to notice. First, it’s absolutely not a command—as it has sometimes been wrongfully characterized—for all women to submit to all men; or to suggest, in any way, that women are inferior to men. To believe that—or to treat this passage in that way—would be to violate what the Bible tells us in Galatians 3:28; that, in Christ,

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 (Galatians 3:28).

But that doesn’t mean that a Christian wife is then free to live in complete autonomy. Another thing to notice about verse 22 is that, in the original language, the word “submit” does not appear. The way it actually reads—as the apostle Paul actually wrote it in the original language—is “wives to your own husbands”. This means that what the wives are ‘to be’ to their own husbands is borrowed directly from what came before. And what came before is the command to be ‘submitting’ as an expression of having first yielded completely to the enabling power and influence of the Holy Spirit.

Yesterday, I was sitting at lunch with a group of good, strong, biblically-minded Christian brothers. All of us in the group had wives. And so, I thought it would be a good opportunity to read this morning’s passage to them and ask for their thoughts. I asked them what they thought would be important to emphasize as I prepared to preach from it. That’s a pretty risky thing—to ask a bunch of Christian men what they thought about a passage that calls for Christian wives to submit to their husbands. But I trusted their wisdom and integrity. And almost immediately, they insisted on two things: (1) that it can’t be thought about apart from the command for husbands to love their wives as Christ loves the church; and (2) that both commands are impossible to do apart from the power of the Holy Spirit.

In the power of the fallen humanness that is shared by both men and women, we cannot obey any of God’s commands in the way that He wants us to. We’re natural-born sinners; and our hearts resist the commands of God. But the Holy Spirit—who gave those commands—also gives those of us who are in Christ both the desire and the power to obey them in a way that honors our Lord and pleases our heavenly Father. So; let’s be sure to see this command as something that can only be obeyed—and that indeed was only meant to be obeyed—through a dependency upon the enabling power of the Holy Spirit.

And then, notice another important thing that this passage tells us about wives submitting to their husbands; and that’s that …

2. THE MANNER OF IT IS ‘AS TO THE LORD’.

Look again at verse 22. It tells us, “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.” It doesn’t say to submit to your husbands ‘as to your husbands’—imperfect, fallible creatures that they are. We husbands sincerely hope and pray that God will change us and make us better men for our wives to submit to. But dear sisters; always remember that your husband is not the one to whom you are ultimately to be submitted. It’s mainly to Jesus—your true and perfect Lord and Master—that you’re submitting to by submitting your imperfect husband.

The apostle Peter once wrote a lengthy passage about submission in a way that was very much like what Paul wrote. And in 1 Peter 3:1-6, he said;

Wives, likewise, be submissive to your own husbands, that even if some do not obey the word, they, without a word, may be won by the conduct of their wives, when they observe your chaste conduct accompanied by fear (1 Peter 3:1-2).

That “fear” that Peter spoke of is the idea of reverent respect and worshipful awe toward the Lord Jesus as the wife’s true Master and Lord. Peter went on to say;

Do not let your adornment be merely outward—arranging the hair, wearing gold, or putting on fine apparel—rather let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God. For in this manner, in former times, the holy women who trusted in God also adorned themselves, being submissive to their own husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord, whose daughters you are if you do good and are not afraid with any terror (vv. 3-6).

Now; this doesn’t mean that a Christian wife ought to start going around saying, “Yes, m’lord” to her husband! This has more to do with the attitude of heart than any particular form of address. But what this does mean is that when a wife submits to the Lord Jesus first—doing good with whole-hearted reverence and respect for Jesus’ authority over her—then she doesn’t need to be afraid of submitting to her husband. Even if her husband isn’t a believer, the Lord Jesus looks out for her and protects her in her obedient submission. And that’s because she’s submitting to the Lord Jesus first!

Now; this passage teaches us a third thing we need to know about a godly wife being submitted to her husband; and that is that …

3. THE CONTEXT OF IT IS DIVINE ‘HEADSHIP’.

In verse 23, Paul wrote, “For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body.”

What does it mean that Christ is the ‘head’ of His church? Well; it would mean a very similar thing to what it means that your own physical head is the ‘head’ of your physical body. The head is that part of the body that provides leadership, direction, nurture, instruction, and unity to the rest of the body. Your body—in a very real sense—derives its life from your head. And that’s what Jesus is to His church—the spiritual body of which we are all individually members. In Ephesians 4:15-16, the apostle Paul wrote about how we—speaking the truth in love to one another—are to

grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ—from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love (Ephesians 4:15-16).

That’s why Paul points out to us that Christ is “the Savior of the body”. He not only provides its redemption, but also its ongoing nurture and care. And in a marriage relationship, that’s the role that the husband is to play. He is one body with her; and he is to serve as the head of that body. It doesn’t mean that he’s a perfect head, of course. He might in fact be a very messed-up head. But try going, for any length of time, without your own physical, messed-up head, and see how well you do!

You see; the call for the wife to be submitted to her husband’s authority isn’t an arbitrary thing. It comes from our Creator’s original design for humanity. Despite all that we hear to the contrary today, God our Father made humanity ‘male and female’. First, He made Adam. And then, because He said that it was not good for the man to be alone, He made Eve as a helper comparable to him. This is a part of God’s inviolable design. And there is an order to it. In 1 Corinthians 11:3, the apostle Paul wrote;

But I want you to know that the head of every man is Christ, the head of woman is man, and the head of Christ is God (1 Corinthians 11:3).

The divine order of headship is derivative in nature. It starts with Christ. He is—as it says in Ephesians 1:22—the ‘head over all things to the church”. He is the head of every man. And man—in as much as he is a husband—is the Christ-appointed head of his own wife. In submitting to her husband as her divinely-appointed head, the wife is moving her submission ‘up the line’ to her husband’s head—Christ. And in this respect, the husband is responsible to provide for the nurture and care of his own wife—just as Jesus is ‘the Savior’ of His body, the church. As Paul put it in verses 28-29, the husband is to love his own wife as his own body—just as he would love himself—nourishing and cherishing her as the Lord does the church”.

Do you see why I stressed—at the very beginning—that we can only best understand this command to submit rightly if we keep the picture of Jesus and His church always before us? And that leads us next to consider another thing this passage tells us about a believing wife’s submission to her husband; and that is that …

4. THE EXAMPLE OF IT IS THE CHURCH.

In verse 24, the apostle Paul wrote, “Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.”

We often think that the relationship of Jesus to His church is a wonderful picture of marriage between a husband and a wife. But really, it’s the other way around. The temporal relationship of a husband and a wife is meant to be a picture of the even greater and far more eternal reality of the relationship between Jesus and His church. We see this at the end of chapter 5; where the apostle Paul wrote;

“For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. 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 (vv. 31-33).

God our Father invented marriage as a picture on earth of the eternal reality of Jesus and His church in heaven. And so, how a wife is to be submitted to her husband is meant to be a picture of how the church is to be submitted to the Lord Jesus. It’s a picture of something eternal, and glorious, and deeply pleasing to the Lord.

And this leads us to notice one more thing about the command for the wives to be submitted to their own husbands; and that is that …

5. THE EXTENT OF IT IS ‘IN EVERYTHING’.

As Paul put it at the end of verse 24, “so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.”

Now; we have to understand that carefully. That can never mean that a wife is obligated to submit to her husband ‘in everything’ if that thing that he asks her to do is in clear violation of the word of God. She cannot obey if ‘obedience’ would involve sin. The principle that she must always faithfully follow is the one that we find in Acts 5:29. When the Jewish leaders commanded the apostles to disobey a command from the Lord Jesus, they responded respectfully—but resolutely—by saying, “We ought to obey God rather than men.”

And I would also say that submitting to her husband ‘in everything’ doesn’t mean that she is never to have an opinion or offer any input in the decisions of life. In fact, a husband who is married to a wise wife—but who doesn’t listen to his wife’s wisdom as a gift to him from God—is a very foolish husband! He may be the head—but he’d be an empty head if he didn’t listen to her.

But as one brother explained to me at our lunch meeting the other day; when a decision needs to be made in the family, he seeks his wife’s wisdom and talks things out carefully with her. He gets her opinions, listens to her concerns, and draws upon her insights. But he personally bears the responsibility for the final decision … and having been wisely heard, she graciously submits ‘in everything’.

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Now; this is a hard command. But I hope I’ve dealt with it sensitively and rightly. We must keep the picture of the Lord’s relationship with the church always before us. And as Paul’s words have shown us, the command for Christian wives to submit to their husbands must be kept in the power of the Holy Spirit, as to the Lord, in the context of divine headship, following the example of the church toward the Lord Jesus, and in all areas of life together.

And let me close with just a few additional thoughts. First, dear sisters in Christ; please don’t ever try to negotiate the terms of this command with the Lord. Don’t say, “Lord, I’ll submit to my husband as soon as my husband starts becoming worthy of being submitted to. When he starts obeying verses 25-30, then I’ll start obeying verses 22-24.” Don’t do that; because your submission isn’t ultimately to your husband. It’s to the Lord. Submit to your husband as much as you can with the Holy Spirit’s help in obedience to the Lord; and trust that same Holy Spirit to transform your husband. You have the greatest potential of seeing the Lord transform your husband—and of hearing your prayers for him—if you are faithfully obedient to the Lord’s command.

And let me say this to my older sisters in the Lord who are no longer married because your husband has gone to heaven. You may have wondered what all of this now has to do with you. I would say it has a great deal to do with you. There is no one better suited than you to teach these things to younger women who are married. In fact, that’s what the word of God encourages you to do. The apostle Paul wrote to Pastor Titus in Titus 2:3-4; and he urged that the older women be …

teachers of good things—that they admonish the young women to love their husbands (Titus 2:3-4).

The church needs you to perform this duty, dear older sisters. Please do so.

And finally, let me say this to my brothers in Christ who have godly, believing wives. If our Lord calls our wives to be submitted to Him in being submitted to us, then we’d better start studying Ephesians 5:25-30—and learn how to love them as Jesus loves His church!

Perhaps that’s why the Holy Spirit put the command to the wife first!

AE