Colossians 3:18-19 Wives and Husbands in Christ

Introduction: The Marriage Dance

We’ve all seen dancing, well, at least ‘Dancing with the Stars’ or ‘Strictly Ballroom’ or ‘So you think you can dance’. Most of us have danced, at least at our wedding. We did the bridal waltz, although perhaps it might have been better labeled, ‘the bridle shuffle’ or ‘stumble’. But that doesn’t matter. We got up, we did it together. And that is marriage. Whether it’s a waltz, a shuffle or a stumble, we are doing it together.

I remember watching a ‘Happy Days’ episode. It featured an ‘endurance dancing’ competition. The couple that won the dancing competition was the last couple that remained dancing. That is how marriage feels, sometimes. All these couples end up dropping out of the dance because it gets too hard, or they are too tired of it. So many think that the dance of marriage is a brief jig, a one minute thirty performance like in ‘Dancing with the Stars’. And they think, that unless you do the fancy tricks, you are not really dancing. And after the briefest and most energetic jigs, they move on to something else. Been there, done that, they can say. So many, after the big flashy wedding, and cars, and dressing up, move on to something.

Marriage is a dance, but it is not a competition. Marriage involves two willing participants, just like a dance. They are oriented towards each other. Otherwise, the dance isn’t a dance for couples. It’s a solo. Now, in dancing, there is a leader, and a follower. The male dancer, even today, is meant to lead. It is still called ‘leading’. But the skillful leader is so unobtrusive, so subtle, that you would hardly know that he is leading. The couple just seem so effortless as they glide across the floor. And while the man is called to unobtrusively lead, the woman is called to shine in her following. For it is surely the female dancer that shines in all of those dancing shows. She is the beautiful one. She spins and twirls. She is tossed and caught and still looks immaculate and gorgeous.

Marriage is a dance. It takes two to tango. The man is called to unobtrusively lead. The woman is called to shiningly follow. Both are oriented toward the other. Otherwise they are not ‘dancing with the stars’. They are just dancing by themselves. And all this is God’s design.

The Two Moments To Which Christian Marriage Looks

For Christian marriage, we always must look backwards and forwards to understand it and to do marriage well. We must look back to creation, and forward to new creation. We must look back to the creation of marriage in Genesis 1 and 2. And we must look ahead to the marriage of Christ and the church, to the wedding supper of the lamb, in Revelation 21, and Ephesians 5.

Looking Back: Marriage Created

When God made humans, what we need to realize is that God made humans a ‘them’. God is an ‘Us’, plural. Let us make man in our own image. And he made humanity as a ‘them’. Genesis chapter 1 verses 26-28:

26 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, (Ποιήσωμεν ἄνθρωπον κατ᾽ εἰκόνα ἡμετέραν καὶ καθ᾽ὁμοίωσιν,) and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground." 27 So God created man (ἄνθρωπον) in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female (ἄρσεν καὶ θῆλυ) he created them. 28 God blessed (ηὐλόγησεν) them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule (Αὐξάνεσθε καὶ πληθύνεσθε καὶ πληρώσατε τὴν γῆν καὶ κατακυριεύσατε αὐτῆς καὶ ἄρχετε) over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground." (NIV/LXX)

There is diversity in the unity of the human race. God is an ‘Us’ – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Humanity is a ‘them’ – ‘male and female’.

And this is part of the way that Humans are made in the image of God The Us that is God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – made the them that is humanity – ‘male and female’. The man and the woman together are one humanity, yet there’s two of them. There is the male one and the female one. Each of them is fully human. There are two different ways of being human. Each fully bears the divine image,[1] and both of them together reflect that image. For only together are both of them fruitful. Only together can they engage in procreation and reproduction – to be fruitful and multiply, to fill the earth and subdue it. By themselves, each cannot fulfill the God given mandate to fill the earth. Together they can. Even now, with all our IVF and assisted reproductive technology, you still need this from the man and that from the woman. Humans breed, and they are remarkably good at it, too. We might even say that they were much better at it before they depended on reproductive technology. And this is not surprising, because God has said to fill the earth and subdue it. And despite human sin, humans will still do what God wants. If God wants his world filled, then despite the misanthropes and the zero population growth people, despite all manner of attempts to stop it by promoting homosexuality, or one child policies, it doesn’t matter, humanity will grow and flourish.

Marriage between a man and a woman is not just for mutual love and companionship. It is also for children and their nurture. And sex in God’s design is fitted for both purposes. Sex in marriage provides for and expresses mutual love and companionship. It also issues in children in the normal course of events.

In Genesis chapter 1, we pan out and look at the heavens and earth God created, from the human point of view. In Genesis chapter 2, we focus in on the garden God created, again from the human point of view. And in Genesis chapter 2 verses 18 to 25, God puts his microscope on marriage. All through Genesis chapter 1, we see God looking at his creation and seeing that it is very good. But during the last part of Day 6, which is the focus of Genesis chapter 2 verse 18 and following, God looks at something and sees that something is not good: Genesis chapter 2 verse 18:

18 The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone (Οὐ καλὸν εἶναι τὸν ἄνθρωπον μόνον). I will make a helper suitable for him. (ποιήσωμεν αὐτῷ βοηθὸν κατ᾽ αὐτόν)" (NIV/LXX)

In all the created order, nothing is adequate for a helper for the man. He needs an assistant, a co-worker, a co-pilot, and companion in the work of ruling and subduing. No angel, no animal is fitting for the role. Genesis 2 verses 20-23:

20 […] But for Adam no suitable helper was found (τῷ δὲ Αδαμ οὐχ εὑρέθη βοηθὸς ὅμοιος αὐτῷ). 21 So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the LORD God made (ᾠκοδόμησεν) a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man (ἀπὸ τοῦ Αδαμ|| הָאָדָם-מִן), and he brought her to the man (εἰς γυναῖκα καὶ ἤγαγεν αὐτὴν πρὸς τὸν Αδαμ). 23 The man said, "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called 'woman, ' for she was taken out of man. (Τοῦτο νῦν ὀστοῦν ἐκ τῶν ὀστέων μου καὶ σὰρξ ἐκ τῆς σαρκός μου· αὕτη κληθήσεται γυνή, ὅτι ἐκ τοῦ ἀνδρὸς αὐτῆς ἐλήμφθη αὕτη.)" (NIV/LXX)

Just like Mike Wisowski said to Sully about ‘Boo’. ‘Don’t name it. Once you name it you start getting attached to it.’ So also the man, Adam, names his wife. He starts getting attached to her. The man names his wife, twice actually (Genesis 2:23[2], 3:20[3]). He calls her ‘woman’, iyshah, because she was taken out of man, iysh. She was drawn from the man, formed from his rib. So she is one with him, of his flesh and being. But she is also a special creation, made from his bone taken from him. He also calls her ‘Eve’, or ‘Zoey’, because she is the mother of all living. She belongs to him, not in the sense of property, but in the sense of his family or kin.

We all want to belong, to be a welcome member of a family. Belonging here does not describe possession of a thing, a chattel, but more a relationship of kinship, or common origin, of shared flesh and blood, as it does here. You belong to me, you are mine. To belong to someone else can be a beautiful thing, if you are cherished and cared for, if you are ‘bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh’.

Paul picks up all this language in 1 Corinthians. In 1 Corinthians chapter 11 verses 8 to 9, Paul speaks of the origin of the first woman.

⁸ For man did not come from woman, but woman from man; ⁹ neither was man created for woman, but woman for man.

Here, Paul is referring to Genesis 2:22-23, and speaks of both the origin and the purpose of the woman.

First, the woman’s origin is at least partly from the man. The woman was taken from the man, not the other way around. And this is significant. The woman’s origin is from the man. The man is the source of the woman. Not the exclusive source, for she is also the result of God’s special act of creation But God first of all takes the man’s rib, and places the essence of the man within the woman, and so doing forms her. She is created, or formed, from the man, because of the problem that the man is alone, and no other creature is suitable for him as a helper and assistant. Being taken from the man makes her suitable.

Second, the woman’s purpose is ‘for’ the man. She is created ‘for the man’ or ‘because of the man’. The man is not created for the woman, but the woman for the man. This brings an order based on origin, in that the man was created first. Note, the woman is not created for the man’s purpose, in the sense that the man decides the purposes of the wife, but for God’s purposes, which is for the benefit of the man. God’s purposes indeed are for the benefit of both the man and the woman.

So consequently, there is an order of relationships. God is the head of Christ. The Father is Father, and the Son is Son. Yes, both the Father and the Son are fully God, and share the one divine essence or substance. All the fullness of the deity dwells in bodily form. Yet, the Son still always submits to the Father.

In an analogous way, Christ is the head of man. So the man must submit to Christ. And man, or husband, is the head of woman.[4] So the wife should submit to her husband.

But as I’ve indicated, the first woman, Eve, has a second name. She is not just ‘woman’ because she was taken from the man. She is also ‘Eve’, or ‘Zoey’, because she is the mother of all living. This means that every man after Adam has come through woman. Man cannot say, ‘I am Man, I don’t need you!’ to woman, because every man comes from a woman. And Adam could not say that, because God saw that it was not good that the man be alone. So the man and the woman are interdependent in procreation and in God’s purposes. 1 Corinthians chapter 11 verses 11 to 12:

¹¹ In the Lord, however, woman is not independent of man, nor is man independent of woman. ¹² For as woman came from man, so also man is born of woman. But everything comes from God. (NIV)

The man comes through the woman. That is, every human after Adam comes into this world born of a woman. So the man cannot be considered independent or ‘apart from’ the woman. The man and the woman are interdependent, mutually dependent one on the other. Sorry. You might say, ‘can’t live with them, can’t live without them’ of your man or your woman. And you are absolutely right.

No matter how independent a woman or man might be, no matter how much a woman wants a baby, no matter how clever humans are with IVF and assisted reproduction, to fulfill God’s mandate to fill the earth and subdue it, a woman needs to have a man, or at least his reproductive material, and no matter how much a man wants to become a father, he needs a woman, or at least her womb. And our society might like to turn all this into a contractual arrangement with no or few strings attached, turning fatherhood into sperm donation, or motherhood into womb rental, or surrogacy, but the design God has established is the man and woman in a stable and loving kinship and covenant relationship – a relationship more important than that of parent and child – for the mutual support of each other and the children that their love and bodies produce.

And so we see prior to the birth of any human, the provision and establishment of the marriage relationship, in Genesis chapter 2 verse 24 and 25:

For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.[6]

God is making provision for motherhood and fatherhood, and marriage. All this provision and preparation is made before the birth of any human being. God, in Genesis 2, is looking beyond the fall, and is speaking about marriage as we will experience it, after the special creation of Adam and Eve. The first generation, Adam and Eve, will have no parents to leave. Unfortunately, they left God, by sinning against him, and being expelled from the garden. But they have no parents to leave. Nevertheless, God will prepare them and their children by telling them that the priority is the husband-wife marriage relationship, not the parent-child relationship.

Adam and Eve will need to let their children leave them to form their own families. God did not create the children to become the helpers of the parents. He created the woman to be the helper of the man. The man is called to cherish and love the woman as a wonderful gift and helper dealing with the not-so-good situation of being alone. Rather, God enables procreation so that the children might leave their parents.

You and I raise these children only to leave us, to let them go. They are only ours for a short time, and then they go. We shoot them off into the world to rule it and work it (Psalm 127). And then God gives them the creation mandate to go off and form their own ‘one flesh’ relationships. My son is to be united to his wife, and my daughter to her husband. They are to leave me. My relationship with my children takes a back seat to the new ‘one flesh’ relationship between the man and his wife. In laws, get out of the way! A man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife. That now is the basic unit of humanity.

And Jesus says that all of this applies to our current world. This is the basic pattern of human existence. There is another way to be authentically human in light of the coming world. But not everyone can accept this other authentically human way of life. In Matthew chapter 19, Jesus responds to the tests of the Pharisees, who wanted to divorce their wives for any and every reason. And so Jesus doesn’t just go back to the Law of Moses. He goes further back. For the Law of Moses had to regulate and minimize the disasterous effects of sin – and thus regulate the hardness of heart that leads to divorce. But in the beginning, in the creation, God sets up the pattern. And Jesus responds in Matthew 19 verse 4:

⁴ "Haven't you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,' ⁵ and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh'? ⁶ So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate." (NIV)

According to Jesus, the bipolar, male and female nature of humanity, and their sexual union, is basic and essential to marriage. Their sexual union should not be separated by humans. So Jesus critiques the Pharisees, who were divorcing their wives. Divorce goes against the marital bond established by God.

We should also note that ‘homosexual marriage’ is excluded by Jesus’ words. At the beginning God made them male and female. So a sexual relationship between a man and a man and a woman and a woman is not a marriage. It cannot procreate. There is nothing to consummate. It is and cannot be marriage.

Looking forward: No longer given in Marriage, and the Marriage of the Lamb

There is another authentically human way of living. It is the celibate single life. Jesus himself is an example of this. And Jesus explains this in Matthew chapter 19 verses 10 to 12:

¹⁰ The disciples said to him, "If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry." ¹¹ Jesus replied, "Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given. ¹² For some are eunuchs because they were born that way; others were made that way by men; and others have renounced marriage because of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it." (NIV)

Yes, says Jesus, some are born unable to marry. Notice, Jesus is not saying what Lady Gaga says, that you are bi or gay because you are born that way. The people who are 'born that way' are those who cannot have sex, because they have been made eunuchs. That is not the current desire of the gay lobby, to be made eunuchs. It is the exact opposite, in fact. They want to exercise sex with the same sex. But rather Jesus says some people can’t marry because they were born that way. Some are born with the inability to have sexual relations. Some, called eunuchs, were made that way by men. They were castrated in their infancy and destined to work in palaces as servants. And others have renounced marriage because of the kingdom of God. Some can figuratively ‘make themselves eunuchs’, that is, not castrate themselves physically, but go without being married for the sake of the Kingdom of God. Jesus is one such man. As Jesus says elsewhere, marriage is for this age, but not for the next world. Luke 20:34-36:

³⁴ Jesus replied, "The people of this age marry and are given in marriage. ³⁵ But those who are considered worthy of taking part in that age and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage, ³⁶ and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God's children, since they are children of the resurrection. (NIV)

There is no marriage in the future world Jesus is bringing in. Or perhaps it is better to say, ‘We will not be given in marriage’. For there is a marriage in the new heaven and new earth, just one marriage. This is the marriage between Christ and the Church. Christ died to make his bride, the church, holy, by the washing with water through the word. And he through his Apostle Paul directs us as husbands in this present age to love our wives as Christ loved the church, and to love our wives as our own bodies. And each person in Christ gets to be part of it ‘as the bride’. Even you blokes, You as part of the coming Kingdom figure in the coming marriage as part of the church, which is the bride of Christ.

And some people then prepare for the reality of the future world by forgoing earthly marriage now. They do so freely. They can get married. They do not sin if they marry. They should not be deprived of their role in the church if they do marry. They shouldn’t be made to vow the single estate before they marry. But they are free to figuratively ‘make themselves eunuchs’ for the future world, where there is no marriage.

As an aside, how different Christian heaven is to muslim heaven? Muslim heaven is filled with the seventy virgin wives.[7] But Jesus’ heaven has no marriage, except his one with us. How different to the Mormon heaven. The best bit of Mormon heaven is where Mormons who enter an ‘eternal marriage’ on earth keep having children in the new one.[8] But as Augustine says, no one is born there, for no one dies there. And in this, Augustine is far more biblical.

Marriage As We Experience It: Fallen Marriage

There was another episode in Happy Days when I was growing up, and that was the ‘Demolition Derby’ Double Episode. I loved the demolition derby. This is likewise a competition with racing cars. And the objective is to smash up all the other cars so that your car is the only one that still runs. I used to play smash up derbies with my toy cars.

And it so often seems that our marriages aren’t a dancing contest, but a smash up derby. We crash and bash each other, and think that the winner is the one who battered but still has their motor running.

The fall has not done away with human marriage. As we saw, God was preparing for marriage as we actually experience it while our first father and mother were still in their innocence. However, Genesis 3:16 indicates that one of the grave consequences of sin against God is marital disharmony. Genesis 3:16

To the woman he said, "I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you. (NIV)

Your impulse will be toward your husband and he will rule over you. The woman will have an urge or desire for the husband. The word for ‘desire’ is used only here and in Genesis 4:7 and Song of Songs 7:11. Genesis 4:7 is the best commentary on Genesis 3:16. In Genesis 4:7, sin attempts to dominate and control Cain.[9] Therefore, the desire of the woman for her husband is to turn it into a relationship of domination. She will seek to take over and dominate the husband. And for his part, the husband will rule over his wife. He will not rule ‘with’ her over the created order, as God intended. They don’t rule together, standing shoulder to shoulder, his arm around her shoulder. He will rule over her. They were made co-equal co-rulers over God’s world. But after their sin against God, now their relationship becomes one of fierce dispute. Each party tries to rule the other.

Do you of this? Do you know of, either by observation or personal experience, the domestic disharmony and enduring conflict between a husband and a wife. Fallen marriage becomes the arena of competition for control. Domestic violence stems from this. So too does Proverbs 21:9:

Better to live on a corner of the roof than share a house with a quarrelsome wife. (NIV)

The remedy is not the rule of the man over the woman, as the chauvenists seem to think. That is not the pre-fall situation that God set up in creation. That is not the new creation situation. The remedy is neither the rule of the woman over the man, as the feminists seem to think. The remedy is that the man and the woman rule the world together, to get back to the pre-fall situation.

All of Eve’s children will be born into a world of sin, as Genesis 3 will tell us. Only one of them will be born holy from the womb, through the Holy Spirit, as Luke tells us. But for the great mass of humanity born of woman, and apart from the Lord Jesus Christ as the sole exception, we are, with David, sinful from birth, sinful from the time which our mothers conceived us. Every thought of the inclination of the human heart is only evil all the time, even from childhood (Genesis 6:5, 8:21). And so we see the truth of Paul’s saying in 1 Corinthians 7:28, that ‘those who marry will face many troubles in this life.’ (NIV)

Christian Marriage As Redeemed Marriage

In this difficult world of sin, we need to heed God’s warnings. Hebrews 13:4:

Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral. (NIV)

We need to honour marriage by leaving sex for the marriage bed and nowhere else. Sex outside of the marriage bed provokes God’s wrath.

Friends, we need to redeem marriage. We need to, despite our sin, seek to approximate and fulfill the creation mandate. And that firstly involves recognizing we live in a sinful world and are sinful ourselves. And since there is so much sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband. The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. That is, his body is hers, and her body is his. The wife's body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband's body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife. Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.

The bible is remarkably practical. It directs married couples to have sex frequently.

And it also directs us to not separate or divorce one another. So in 1 Corinthians 7:10-11, Paul says from the Lord, that a wife must not separate from her husband. ¹¹ But if she does, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. And a husband must not divorce his wife.

In Malachi 2:16, Yahweh declares to the priests of Israel:

"I hate divorce," says the LORD God of Israel, "and I hate a man's covering himself with violence as well as with his garment".[10] (NIV)

God hates it when a man violently cast off the wife of his youth.[11] And God hates a man acting violently towards his wife. God hates domestic violence, and God hates divorce. Jesus picks up this teaching in various places to protect the marriage bond. Thus, Luke 16:18:

Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery, and the man who marries a divorced woman commits adultery. (NIV)

Doing Your Bit For Marriage: Colossians 3:18-19

So when we come to Colossians chapter 2 verses 18 to 19, Paul has skipped everything that I have said so far. What I’ve said so far about marriage is the design specifications. Paul hasn’t laid down all these design specifications. He has jumped straight into the operational procedures Not that the design specifications are unimportant. They are important. But what Paul is doing is giving the operational minimum. Colossians 3 verses 18 and 19 are like orders on the battlefield, rather than the basic training in the barracks, or the theoretical unpacking in the lecture theatre. He is reminding married couples of what their roles are in combat, rather than explaining why it is necessary. And verses 18 and 19 is the nuts and bolts of making marriage work in our broken world.

You are fallen and sinful. I am fallen and sinful. But Paul in these two verses gives us instructions so that we can redeem marriage. So within the marriage bond, how can we each ‘do our bit’ to honour and respect marriage? This will enable us to get up off the floor, take our partners by the hand, and continue in the dance that we have started.

Remember the problem! The core problem of sin is self-centredness or selfishness. It is a failure to consider the other. And the core assumption of marriage is that for marriage to work we must be self-forgetful, and remember the other. We must be other-person centred. That is the key to making the marriage work. It is the key to being a good dancer, to know your steps so well, that you are wholly concentrating on the other. And the way that the husband is to be other person centred is slightly different to the way that the wife is to be other person centred. There is a difference between the way the husband and the wife express their other-person centredness, in that there is an order in the marriage relationship, and in that men and women are different, and the individuals in the marriage are different.

Wives: Fitting Submitting (verse 18)

Wives are called to fitting submitting. Verse 18:

Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.[12]

It is fitting submitting. It is submission that is fitting ‘in the Lord’. The submission must be fitting or proper for a Christian woman. So it is not submission that is sinful or demeaning. She is not called to submit in anything that derogates from her dignity. She bears the same image as him, the very image of God. She, like him, is Lord of creation, called to rule the earth and subdue it. So this does not mean subhuman submission.

Submitting is also slightly different to obeying. The verb Paul uses of the wife’s response to the husband (ὑποτάσσω) is different to the one Paul uses of children (Τὰ τέκνα ὑπακούετε) and slaves (Οἱ δοῦλοι ὑπακούετε). Children and slaves are called to obey their parents and masters respectively. But wives are called to submit to their husbands.

Submitting seems to have less to do with obeying commands, and more to do with fitting in with the way that the other one is leading. Submitting in this context seems to be to go with the other, to follow the husbands lead, to make him the best husband he can be in his leadership of you. Again, the dance metaphor is fitting. A female dancer can of course help her male partner be a better dancer. ‘Put your hand here. ‘No, not there, here! ‘This is a waltz, not a tango! ‘No, I need your foot to go there. All of that is appropriate.

But once the dance is decided on, and all of those steps are determined, then there is a leader, and there is a follower. Otherwise, it is not a couples’ dance. It is something else.

Many Christians in Western society are now arguing that the bible teaches ‘mutual submission’. They are called ‘egalitarians’. They argue their egalitarian position from Ephesians 5:21. That is, they say that the husband is to submit to the wife as well as the wife to the husband, because Paul says ‘submit to one another out of reverence to Christ. But they forget that, Paul says, ‘submit to one another out of reverence to Christ, wives to husband’, in Ephesians 5:21. It is not a mutual submission in the sense that is irrespective of the roles each of the person is playing. If it were so, it would mean that masters would also need to submit to slaves, parents would need to submit to children, as well as husbands submitting to wives. And this Paul does not call for – in fact, he calls for the opposite.

And what Paul says in Colossians shows that the egalitarian position is unlikely and therefore mistaken. Because Paul doesn’t feel the need to assert any ‘mutual submission’ here. There is no ‘submit to one another’. Paul simply directs the wives to submit, but says nothing of ‘one another’. Why doesn’t he say ‘submit to one another’ as he does in Ephesians 5:21? Because Paul is saying, submit to one another, in so far as you occupy these roles. If you are a wife, submit to your husband. But if you are a master as well as a wife, you are not called to submit to your slaves. You are called to do what is good and fair for your slaves. And husband you are not called to submit to your wife. You are called to obey your master, if you have one. And you are called to be forgetful of yourself and self-sacrificially serve your wife. You are called to ‘love your wive’. But the shape of the husband’s service is not submission.

Do you know why submission is not demeaning? Because Jesus submitted. Jesus submitted to people who, from one point of view, he was infinitely superior to. In Luke 2:51, Jesus went down to Nazareth and submitted to his parents.

But not only did Jesus submit during his days on earth. Jesus will also submit to his Father into eternity. In 1 Corinthians 15:28, God the Son, the second person of the Trinity himself, will voluntarily submit himself to the one who put everything under him, that is, God the Father, the first person of the Trinity, so that God may be all in all. And there is nothing unfitting or improper about this. Even in the Godhead, there is an order. It is not as if you copy and paste the person of the Father, and you get the person of the Son, only with a change of name. There is a permanent personal distinction between the Father and the Son. The Father initiates and commands and directs, and the Son responds and submits and obeys. The Father is eternal, the Son is eternal. The Son has no beginning or end, He is alpha and omega, the first and last, as much as God the Father. There was never a time when the Son was not.

Yet, the Father is unbegotten, whereas the Son is begotten, or eternally generated, and this quality distinguishes the Son from the Father. The Father is said to be the font of all deity, yet the Son is eternally generated of the Father. The Father is God and light and true God. But the Son is God from God, light from light, and true God from true God. And this quality of begottenness, of being ‘Son’, leads to a functional submission of the Son to the Father. The Son submits to the Father, in everything. And yet both the Father and the Son are fully God, of one being, one essence, one nature, eternally coexistent, neither before or neither after in terms of time or space, and fully and wholly equally in terms of essence and nature.

Note, the submission that the wife is to offer is not forced or grudging. It is a voluntary submission; The husband does not make her submit. The wife offers it in response to the husbands love for her.

Of course, all this goes against the wisdom of modern egalitarian Australian society. Who wants to submit to someone else? I need to be the boss and protect my interests and look after number one. No one else is going to look after me, are they?

Well, that is the point of marriage. Someone is supposed to look after your interests. Someone is promising to look after your interests, to love and cherish you. His job is to love, cherish and care for you as his own flesh and blood, his own body. It’s not meant to be your job to look after your own interests. He promised to do it, and it is his job.

But he is not doing it, you might say. Well, he needs to repent. And you can help him to tell him the steps he needs to make so that you can follow his lead. It takes ‘two to tango’, after all. But that’s the point of marriage. You can’t make him love you. He can’t make you submit to him. But if the marriage is to work, he must love you as Christ loved the church, and you must submit to him, as the church does to Christ. Otherwise the marriage won’t work. That’s just the nature of the ‘marriage machine’. I didn’t make it up, God did. And he set the conditions necessary for the marriage to work.

So what is God’s plan for marriage? That the wife self-consciously and completely throws herself into her husbands hands. And in submissively giving herself to her husband, she shows her love and respect for him.

Just as the harbour bridge was built from both sides to meet in the middle, and each side supports the other, so Christian marriage will only work if both the husband and the wife build from their sides.

And can I say, this is the first half of what makes a good Christian marriage: that a woman so loves, trusts and respects her man that she unconditionally throws herself into his care, protection, and love, and submits to him.

Husbands: Love Without Bitterness (verse 19)

But it is only the first half. And that is probably not the most important half. Because it is arguable that the most important element in the dance is the ‘unobtrusive lead’. If the sequined female dancer is to shine, the tuxedoed male lead has to be so competent, know his steps and job so well, and know his partner with such depth of understanding, that she can give herself fully to the spins and twirls and tricks and throws. She needs to trust him to throw and catch her. And he needs to be so skillful and clever and strong and trustworthy that she has unshaken confidence in him.

Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them. (NIV)

The command to the husband is to ‘love his wife’. At one level, it is much easier to know what this looks like. For we have stacks of bible that tells us what love is.

This is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and gave his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins (1 John 4:12 NIV).

In other words, us husbands are called to love when our wives don't love us. My loving my wife is not conditional on her love for me. I must love her without condition. I must love her even if and when she does not love me. The same thing is said in Romans 5:8-9:

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this. While we were still sinners Christ died for us. (NIV)

Again, the love the husband is to show is like God in that it doesn’t depend on the wife’s worthiness or desert. She doesn’t earn our love. She doesn’t need to. The love which we are called to exercise is irrespective of whether she has been a good wife, has submitted to us, has done what she should have.

And when we consider the love God showed us while we were sinners, enemies and powerless, we must observe that it is ‘self-sacrificial’ love. It is love that dies for the wife. The husband is to give up his own interests, and lay down his life for his wife.

Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. (NIV)

He is her slave or servant leader. For that is what Christ is.

Even the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many (Mark 10:45 NIV).

That is the broad outline of the husbands duty if marriage is to be redeemed. He is to love her. That love is unconditional. It is not in accordance with her merits or desert. And that love is self-sacrificial.

But the bible gives us more than a broad outline of what love looks like. It also gives us specifics. It gives us nitty gritty detail of what love is. That is why I say it is much easier for us to work out what the husband is called to do, than what the wife is called to do. So Paul outlines the detail of love in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7:

Love is patient, love is kind, it does not envy, does not boast, is not proud, is not rude, is not self seeking. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices in the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. (NIV)

There is the fine tuning, the fine print, of the command to love. Knowing what a precious gift his bride has given him, the husband is called to lay down his life for his wife. The bible doesn’t say, ‘Husbands, make your wives submit to you’. It doesn’t say, ‘Husbands, enforce your rights over your wife’. It doesn’t say that because Jesus never did that. Jesus gave up his rights, not enforced them. No, we husbands are told instead to love.

The only love that is worthy of the name is the one that lays it’s life down for it’s wife. Not that says, ‘hurry up wife, get my dinner. I need sex now, and clean up this house. But that takes on the very nature of a servant and gives up it’s life for the good of the one he loves and has married.

What does headship and submission look like? What does this good functioning marriage look like?

Well, it will be different in every situation. Maybe the husband will do the washing and the cooking, because he loves his wife just as Christ loved the church. Maybe she will go to work and earn the income, and do the finances, because she respects her husband and submits to him. It will be different in each situation. But every Christian marriage will bear this likeness: That the wife will seek to copy the church in submitting to her Lord Christ. And that the husband will seek to copy his Lord, Christ, in self-sacrificially loving his wife, and providing servant leadership as head to his own body.

God has set up marriage. It is a marriage of equals, and they both share God’s image. But they are different, and each have different roles. And it is the difference that bonds them together.

But there is also a negative command. Husbands are told to not to do something. Do not be harsh with them. Literally, ‘do not be embittered’ towards your wife. It is a command to move away from Adam’s attitude to his wife in Genesis ‘the woman you put here with me’, back to Adam’s original statement ‘this is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh’. It is a call to own our wives. She is taken from me, she is mine, I will own her and love her. Not, 'God, why did you put her here with me!'

There are plenty of opportunities for us men to get bitter in marriage. There is the disappointment of living in a fallen world in a fallen marriage. In the New Testament itself, Paul, says that ‘those who marry will face many troubles in this life’. We already know that the par situation is marital disharmony. ‘Your desire will be for your husband and he will rule over you’. And as entropy continues it’s work, the entropy of sin, our marriages get worse. There are grave disappointments and difficulties in marriage. Our marriages will tend to conflict and disagreement without the input of energy and effort. The grass is greener where we water it. So let us men seek to get back to Genesis 2, and own our wives, not withdraw from them in bitterness and hurt, or worse, react against them with anger and hate.

Conclusion

Our marriages are not a competition, but we are in it for the long haul. Our marriages are not a minute thirty opportunity to show off. They are an opportunity for endurance dancing. The quality of the dancing is not in the fancy tricks, but in the stickability. And you and your spouse staying on the dance floor encourages me and my spouse likewise to keep dancing. The more couples that stay on the dance floor and keep dancing, the better is the dance. It’s no fun going to a dance when you are the only couple dancing!

But in this dance, there is an order. The husband is called to unobtrusively lead. And this will allow his wife to shine as she follows. They are oriented toward the others, he in ensuring that his marriage partner can throw herself into his arms, she in following him is confident and self-assured lead. And that is how both the husband and the wife will flourish. So keep on dancing.

Let’s pray.

[1] It is true that in 1 Corinthians 11:7, Paul says ἀνὴρ μὲν γὰρ οὐκ ὀφείλει κατακαλύπτεσθαι τὴν κεφαλὴν εἰκὼν καὶ δόξα θεοῦ ὑπάρχων· ἡ γυνὴ δὲ δόξα ἀνδρός ἐστιν || ‘for one the one hand a man/husband is not obliged to cover his head, being the image and glory of God, but on the other hand the woman/wife is the glory of man’. However, Paul does not say that the woman is in the image of man, but only that she is in the glory of man. See https://sites.google.com/site/mattolliffe/sermon-scripts-index/1-corinthians-sermons-and-translation/men-and-women-relating-properly-in-church-1-corinthians-112-15.

[2] αὕτη κληθήσεται γυνή, ὅτι ἐκ τοῦ ἀνδρὸς αὐτῆς ἐλήμφθη αὕτη ||

She is called woman (אִשָּׁה) because she is taken from man (מֵאִישׁ).

[3] καὶ ἐκάλεσεν Αδαμ τὸ ὄνομα τῆς γυναικὸς αὐτοῦ Ζωή, ὅτι αὕτη μήτηρ πάντων τῶν ζώντων. || The man (הָאָדָם) named his wife ‘Eve’ (חַוָּה אִשְׁתּוֹ) because she became the mother of all the living.

[4] 1 Corinthians 11:3 παντὸς ἀνδρὸς ἡ κεφαλὴ ὁ Χριστός ἐστιν, κεφαλὴ δὲ γυναικὸς ὁ ἀνήρ, κεφαλὴ δὲ τοῦ Χριστοῦ ὁ θεός.

[6] 24ἕνεκεν τούτου καταλείψει ἄνθρωπος τὸν πατέρα αὐτοῦ καὶ τὴν μητέρα αὐτοῦ καὶ προσκολληθήσεται πρὸς τὴν γυναῖκα αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἔσονται οἱ δύο εἰς σάρκα μίαν. 25καὶ ἦσαν οἱ δύο γυμνοί, ὅ τε Αδαμ καὶ ἡ γυνὴ αὐτοῦ, καὶ οὐκ ᾐσχύνοντο.

[7] The Islamic paradise is described in sensual detail in the Koran and the Traditions (Haddith): "They shall recline on jewelled couches face to face, and there shall wait on them immortal youths with bowls and ewers and a cup of purest wine (that will neither pain their heads nor take away their reason); with fruits of their own choice and flesh of fowls that they relish. And theirs shall be the dark-eyed houris, chaste as hidden pearls: a guerdon for their deeds... We created the houris and made them virgins, loving companions for those on the right hand..." (Koran, Penguin translation by NJ Dawood, sura 56 verses 12-39). Most translations, even by Muslims such as A Yusuf Ali, and the British Muslim Marmaduke Pickthall, translate the Arabic (plural) word Abkarun as virgins, as do well-known lexicons such the one by John Penrice. Many embarrassed Muslims claim there has been a mistranslation, that "virgins" should be replaced by "angels". In sura 55 verses 72-74, Dawood translates the Arabic word " hur " as "virgins", and the context makes clear that virgin is the appropriate translation:

"Dark-eyed virgins sheltered in their tents (which of your Lord's blessings would you deny?) whom neither man nor jinnee will have touched before."

The word hur occurs four times in the Koran and is usually translated as a "maiden with dark eyes".Two points need to be noted. First, there is no mention anywhere in the Koran of the actual number of virgins available in paradise, and second, the dark-eyed damsels are available for all Muslims, not just martyrs. It is in the Islamic Traditions that we find the 72 virgins in heaven specified: in a Hadith (Islamic Tradition) collected by Al-Tirmidhi (died 892 CE [common era*]) in the Book of Sunan (volume IV, chapters on The Features of Paradise as described by the Messenger of Allah [Prophet Muhammad], chapter 21, About the Smallest Reward for the People of Paradise, (Hadith 2687). The same hadith is also quoted by Ibn Kathir (died 1373 CE ) in his Koranic commentary (Tafsir) of Surah Al-Rahman (55), verse 72:

"The Prophet Muhammad was heard saying: 'The smallest reward for the people of paradise is an abode where there are 80,000 servants and 72 wives, over which stands a dome decorated with pearls, aquamarine, and ruby, as wide as the distance from Al-Jabiyyah [a Damascus suburb] to Sana'a [Yemen]'."

Modern apologists of Islam try to downplay the evident materialism and sexual implications of such descriptions, but, as the Encyclopaedia of Islam says, even orthodox Muslim theologians such as al Ghazali (died 1111 CE) and Al-Ash'ari (died 935 CE) have "admitted sensual pleasures into paradise". The sensual pleasures are graphically elaborated by Al-Suyuti (died 1505 ), Koranic commentator and polymath. He wrote:

"Each time we sleep with a houri we find her virgin. Besides, the penis of the Elected never softens. The erection is eternal; the sensation that you feel each time you make love is utterly delicious and out of this world and were you to experience it in this world you would faint. Each chosen one [ie Muslim] will marry seventy [sic] houris, besides the women he married on earth, and all will have appetising vaginas.

(http://www.theguardian.com/books/2002/jan/12/books.guardianreview. Compare also http://www.answering-islam.org/authors/thompson/paradise.html.

[8] ‘Joseph Smith explained, "Except a man and his wife enter into an everlasting covenant and be married for eternity…by the power and authority of the Holy Priesthood, they will cease to increase when they die; that is, they will not have any children after the resurrection" (TPJS, pp. 300-301).’: http://eom.byu.edu/index.php/Degrees_of_Glory

[9] ‘But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it’ (NIV); ‘And if you do not do good, at the doorway sin [is] crouching, And unto you is its impulse, And you must rule over it’. (MKPO)

[10] The MT of Malachi 2:16 is difficult. The initial sentence ‘for he hates divorce’, is followed by an utterance formula, ‘says Yahweh God of Israel’. The next sentence is conjoined with a waw conjunctive, ‘and he covers [with] violence/crime upon his clothes/robe/garment’. Stuart takes the structure as protasis/apodosis with the LXX.

[11] The LXX reads v16: ‘But if you should hate [your wife and] you put her away, says the Lord God of Israel, then ungodliness shall cover your thoughts’ (after Brenton) But in that case, it is still true that God does not approve of the divorce, and God hates the violent casting off of the wife.

[12] ¹⁸Αἱ γυναῖκες, ὑποτάσσεσθε τοῖς ἀνδράσιν ὡς ἀνῆκεν ἐν κυρίῳ.