MARRIAGE (3)

Marriage has a BIG reason and purpose that gives all the component parts of it meaning, fulfilment and joy. Sex is fun and it is good; raising a family is amazing; companionship in marriage is satisfying; and establishing a home is fulfilling - but all these good things are not in themselves the big purpose of marriage. There is an over-arching purpose in marriage that enriches every other part of it.

Ephesians 5.22-33.

In the second half of Ephesians, Paul is explaining how the amazing big plan of God for humanity and especially the Church, works out in daily life. He zooms way in close from the cosmic picture (that is the viewpoint that encompasses the whole universe, including time and space) and he brings us into the bedroom of newly-weds.

Paul explains that the relationship between a Christian bride and her husband has a parallel with the relationship between the Church (all God’s chosen and saved people) and Christ. The very big picture that he has been explaining in the early part of Ephesians is all about the previously worked out plan of God to gather people (the Church) and joint hem permanently (eternally) to Jesus Christ, so that he is their highest treasure - and in fact provides every resource and delight that they will need for eternity (Eph 1: 3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. 2.4 God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

The husband and wife relationship illustrates the Church and Christ relationship. The husband is called the head of the wife and wives are taught to submit to their husbands – just as the Church submits to Christ, because he loves them, nurtures them and protects them.

This is where trouble and misunderstanding comes in. Some husbands, unwilling to act like Christ and ignorant of his self-sacrificing love, think that headship in the marriage relationship means that they must be served and obeyed as the big kahuna like a boss running a business. That is not the way Christ cared for the Church. Remember how he washed his disciples’ feet. In doing that he submitted to the disciples - but that did not mean that he wasn’t their Master (in fact he says: If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example. Truly, truly a servant is not greater than his master.) Jesus showed that being the leader or head did not mean that he treated his disciples as slaves. Jesus was available to everyone with needs, even when he was tired out. He protected his disciples from their enemies. He prayed long and hard for them. He provided for them (sometimes miraculously). He got alongside the sick-bed and healed them. He corrected them gently, always aiming to restore them and build them stronger. He taught them patiently. He told them the truth. He carried their sins to the cross. He laid down his life for them so he could gain new birth and the Holy Spirit for them. He gave them gifts. He worked with them so they could be successful in their life-calling.

This is what it means for a husband to be the head of the wife. It is about being a leader who nurtures, protects, provides and above all loves his wife. Verses 25-30 portray a husband whose aim is to treat his wife as selflessly as Christ treated the Church. Wives are to submit to this love, even as Christians entrust themselves to the work and love of Christ.

A husband has a God-given responsibility to show leadership in marriage. He must share with his wife what God has taught him. He must have a vision of how they can serve God together and be able to talk about and lead towards that vision. Of course, it is a two way street and husbands need help and advice from their wives continuously. Each believer must have their own relationship with Christ and be taught by him - but God has made the husband responsible for making sure that their household is true to God’s teaching and true to the work he gives them to do in life.

It is true that everyone is responsible to God for their individual actions and a wife can’t be blamed for a husband’s short temper; however, in a marriage and a family, the husband must understand that the buck stops with him when it comes to ensuring that God’s Word is being brought into home and that his wife and then their children are living under its life-giving blessing.

The wife submits to her husband. Submission doesn’t mean that she agrees with everything her husband says. He will often be wrong and need her wisdom to help him get a godly perspective on some issue that arises. It doesn’t mean that she is dumber than her husband – she may be his intellectual superior. Submission to her husband does not mean that she does not think for herself. Submission does not mean that a wife should not seek to change and improve her husband. She will pray for him, counsel him and help him to be a better man. Submission certainly doesn’t mean doing what a husband says when it contradicts what Christ teaches. Submission has no fear in it – it is the same submission we have towards Christ as his people: We are confident that we are in the beautiful freedom of being where God wants us. The submission of a Christian wife to her husband is a willingness for him to take the lead and an eagerness to help him articulate the vision for the family and support him in leading the household towards it.

Marriage is a model of Christ and the Church. It is more than just two people in love. A Christian marriage is to be a display of Christ’s relationship with the Church. This is a brilliant purpose that lifts marriage onto a plane high, high above the sad husk of marriage seen in society. Each Christian couple that come together in marriage are setting out on a happy and worthy path. Not only are they setting out to enjoy the companionship and love that has developed between them and to express that in the sexual relations that begin and continue throughout life, but they have some very important work to do together. They have mutual support of each other to develop. They have a home to establish – a place to which others can come for friendship and encouragement and where they can talk together about important things, things of God. They have a family to prepare for and raise together. They have to become one of the households of the church – a centre for Christian work. They have spiritual gifts to develop and used in a complementary way for the building up of the church. They have a mission to fulfil together for God’s kingdom. They have children to launch out into God’s service.

But shining through and out of all these important tasks and relationships is this sharp display of Christ’s grace to the church. They are a living example of the good news. Everyone who interacts with them and observes them as they pass through joys, terrors, successes and stumblings tastes and sees the gospel in action – especially their children. Paul says that this mystery is profound (v 32). In other words it is not a superficial matter but something that gives depth and value to a marriage. Christian marriage is meant to be a living drama of how Christ and the church relate to each other. The beauty of Christ’s grace is shown off in marriage as each partner works for the good of the other, showing forgiveness and patience. His grace is also displayed in the distinct roles that the husband and wife have in marriage.

Both husband and wife act in mutual submission to each other (5.21) – each needs what Christ has given the other to give. This is the way all Christians are in relation to each other – putting our own wants and needs second and doing all we can to serve and bless others. But that does not neutralise the distinct roles that a husband and wife are given.

When sin entered the world, it ruined the harmony of marriage - not because it brought headship and submission into existence – because they were already in place. However, sin distorted godly leadership which included providing, protecting and loving into cruel oppression, lazy carelessness or visionless defeat. Sin distorted woman’s intelligent, supportive, constructive submission into grim obedience in some women or bossy defiance in others. Sin didn’t create headship and submission; sin damaged them and made them restrictive and destructive. New birth, when expressed in the lives of a married couple, recreates what sin broke down and that is what each young person contemplating marriage should aspire to and what each married couple should ask Christ to develop in their own marriage.

This is why Christian marriage has such an influential and valuable message to demonstrate. Proper marriage becomes a showcase to demonstrate the restoration that Jesus Christ secured when he laid down his life for his people. Where else could Christ’s forgiveness, patience, leadership, submission and serving love be more powerfully demonstrated than in marriage – the relationship where so much of society’s damage springs from? Where else will the willingness and capacity come from to live a proper marriage, except through new birth and the filling of God’s Holy Spirit?