Christ and the Church

Paul writes an extremely unpopular perspective on marriage in Ephesians 5. He starts with "submit to one another" (Eph 5:21) and then launches into this horrendous (at least to modern ears) command, "Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord" (Eph 5:22). "Me? Submit to him?? He doesn't even know enough to come in out of the rain!" So unbelievers and believers alike rebel at such a notion. "Submit to one another" isn't too bad, but in no sense should wives submit to their husbands. It is too abusive, too controlling, and, frankly, too abused. How many husbands in the name of Christ have used that text to abuse their wives? "Nope! We're not gonna do it!" And even Christians opt out on a direct and unequivocal command from Scripture. It doesn't get better at the end. Paul tells husbands to love their wives "as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her" (Eph 5:25) and most women don't balk at that, but at the end, when Paul sums up his instructions, he says, "Let each one of you love his wife as himself," which we're fine with, "and let the wife see that she respects her husband" (Eph 5:33). Maybe. Right up until you find that the text actually says "fears her husband," and then it's right out. Wives, Paul says, are required to submit to their husbands "as to the Lord" and to fear their husbands. This just will not do.

It's interesting to note a critical piece in the midst of this text that serves to explain and tie it all together. Paul says,

"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. (Eph 5:31-32)

Paul had just said that husbands must love their wives "as their own bodies" (Eph 5:28). Now he says, "The two shall become one flesh," a quote from Genesis (Gen 2:24). So husbands and wives are "one flesh." It would only make sense, then, that husbands should love their wives as their own bodies because they are. A husband that loves his wife as he loves his own body is loving himself. But what about this "Christ and the church" thing?

Paul tells wives to submit to their husbands "as to the Lord" and tells husbands to love their wives "as Christ loved the church." He connects marriage with "Christ and the church." In this analogy the husband represents Christ and the wife represents the church. Now, we know that the church is the body of Christ (1 Cor 12:27). So Paul is drawing a comparison here. As the church submits to Christ, wives submit to their husbands (Eph 5:24) and, as the church is the body of Christ, Christ loved the church as He loved His own body, so husbands ... do that. It puts a different twist on the whole thing. If a wife sees her husband as Christ's representative, then she should submit to him as she submits to Christ and fear him as she fears the Lord. Which is what Paul said at the beginning. We are to submit to one another "out of fear for Christ" (Eph 5:21). Not panic. Not terror. A fear of forsaking Christ or her husband. A fear of harming Christ's reputation or her husband's.

The world would have us believe that there is no difference between male or female when it is patently obvious that there is. The world would have us believe that submitting to another is wrong when the Scriptures are quite clear that it isn't. A wife that submits to the Lord and, therefore, submits to His representative isn't a doormat or a fool. A husband that lays down his life -- especially as he continues to live it^* -- for his wife is no fool. He is loving her as Christ loved the church. If we keep that connection -- "Christ and the church" connected to "husband and wife" -- we will likely find that we operate more as we are designed rather than in the rebellion the world urges upon us.

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^* It's one thing to give your life literally. It's the last thing you do. It's another thing to "give your life" -- death to self -- while continuing with living every day.