Title: MARRIAGE AND THE CHURCH

Focus: Christians must take their clues for marriage from Christ’s relationship with the church.

Function: To move the people to pattern their marriage relationships after Christ’s relationship with the church.

Text: Ephesians 5:21-33

When I grew up my parents sent us to school to prepare us for a career or profession. They thought that schooling would give us the tools needed to get “ahead in life.” Obviously, they had a point. I learned English, French, German and Dutch. Mathematical skills and business skills were part of the training. I ended up with a supermarket management diploma, which allows me to run a “Walmart” or “Cups” in Holland.

Textbooks, manuals, and handbooks taught us principles governing behavior and relationships with customers and clients. All of these were deemed necessary to get ahead in life. But my parents never discussed with me the principles for marriage. When I grew up, I never saw a manual or handbook for Christians to prepare for marriage. There was nothing for us—not even a marriage manual for “Idiots”—like we have today such as: Computer Handbooks for Idiots or Cooking Manuals for Idiots. When it came to marriage and marriage relationships we were left in the dark.

Actually, that is not quite accurate. My parents simply assumed that we would learn from their example. Our parents became our model. Things have changed today, but I think it’s still quite common for kids to grow up in Christian homes with no particular concept or worked-out pattern for a biblical or Christian marriage.

In fact, the models we observe today in our homes and culture are confusing to say the least and sometimes very disturbing: Some marriage relationships show love and care; others divisiveness and abuse; some marriages are scarred by brokenness. More than 50% of marriages end up in divorce. What once was off limits or inexcusable or unacceptable is now becoming a dominant norm: so-called “same-sex marriages,” for example, are becoming a mainstream practice. And so it goes.

From where do Christians get their clues for marriage? From Hollywood? From culture? From our neighbors, friends, parents, perhaps? We do well to take our clues from Scripture. The Apostle Paul reminds us today that Christians must take their clues for marriage from Christ’s relationship with the church.

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As we explore the Scripture passage, I want to make a number of observations. First, let’s consider the context and the overriding theme in the passage. Paul has explained the nature of the church as the “body” of Christ. Paul refers to the mystery of the body by teaching us that God reconciled all of humanity—Jews and Gentiles, male and female, free and slave—through the saving and unifying work of Jesus Christ.

As members of Christ ‘s body, the church, Paul then calls us to live—not as pagans do, but as new creatures in Christ. We are to live a life that reflects the love and life of Christ within us. How can we do that? Listen: “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” The call to mutual submission among members of Christ’s church is the umbrella that sets the stage for Paul’s teaching in Ephesians 5:21-33. All Christians must practice mutual submission—in the church as well as at home and in the work place. That’s the context and overriding theme surrounding the text.

Second, having stated the overriding theme, Paul then takes the spotlight and says: let me tell you what mutual submission looks like in marriage, in parents, and in your relationship with slaves or employees. Thus in vs. 22-24 Paul zeroes in on wives; then in vs. 25-33, he zeroes in on husbands; then in chapter 6:1-4 Paul talks about submission in the context of parenting; and in vs. 5-9 he highlights the relationship between slaves and their masters.

Mutual submission in the households of his days—that’s the focus of Paul. In Paul’s days, most households consisted of a husband and wife, and children and servants or slaves. And Paul has a word about mutual submission for all these parties that make up a household in his days. Today we learn about husbands and wives.

And that leads me to my third observation. Listen: “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.” In the ears of people today, there are two common but obviously wrong conclusions to draw from this passage: there is the reaction of some women today who respond in horror to the call “to submit to your husbands” because “submission” in their book is an offensive term.

Then there is the reaction of some men who think that submission by wives and the headship by husbands is a pass or license to “bossing around” or to “keeping the wife in her place.” Nothing can be further from the truth. Remember that Christian men and women—who are members of Christ’s body, the church—must practice mutual submission. And they must also do so in their households and marital relationships. Mutual submission is the umbrella under which Paul says: “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.” And “husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church….”

A proper understanding of this passage includes the observation that Christ’s relationship with the church determines the nature of marriage and the relationship between a Christian husband and Christian wife. The wife takes her clues from Christ and the church; the husband must do likewise. And their entire relationship unfolds under the umbrella of mutual submission out of reverence for Christ.

Here are some insights from the text: (cf. John Stott) What Paul emphasizes in this text is not the husband’s authority over his wife, but his love for her. The husbands’ authority is defined in terms of loving responsibility. To the world’s mind the word “authority” suggests power, dominion and even oppression. Pastor/theologian John Stott observes: “We picture the ‘authoritative’ husband as a domineering figure who makes all the decisions himself, issues commands and expects obedience, inhibits and suppresses his wife, and so prevents her from growing into a mature or fulfilled person. But this is not at all the kind of ‘headship’ which the apostle is describing, whose model is Jesus Christ. Certainly, ‘headship implies a degree of leadership and initiative, as when Christ came to woo and to win his bride. But more specifically it implies sacrifice, self-giving for the sake of the beloved, as when Christ gave himself for his bride.”

In short, a careful reading of the text will show that the “standard of the husband’s love is to be the cross of Christ.” And the standard of the wife’s submission and love for her husband is the standard of receiving and welcoming the love that her husband gives her. If the husband models his love for his wife after the love of Christ for his church, the wife will gladly welcome or submit to that love, because it is a self-sacrificial love—the kind of love that Christ shows his church.

Here is another insight from the text: Christ’s relationship with the church is the model for Christians to follow. And the relationship between a husband and wife is closely tied to Christ and the church. In fact, Paul calls it a “mystery,” which is a revealed truth given to us by the Holy Spirit through Paul.

For example, in chapter 3 Paul speaks about the mystery made known to him by revelation: He says: “This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus.” Here Paul speaks about the unity of the church in relationship to Christ. The church, made up of Gentiles and Jews, males and females, slaves and free—is one body, united to Christ.

Now taking this thought into a Christian marriage, Paul then exhorts Christian husbands to love their wives as their own bodies. Listen: “He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church—for we are members of his body. ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.”

In short, the entire marital relationship—from personal commitment and love all the way to sexual union and intimacy—is patterned after Christ’s self-sacrificial love and commitment to the members of his body, the church. The Church’s oneness in Christ and the Christian couple’s oneness in marriage—they both are a “mystery,” and they both must be embraced and practiced in real life.

Submission and love in Christian marriage is like a dance: both husband and wife give and take; the one leads, the other is led; together they step forward and backward, they cling; they sever—only to come back time and time again into the arms of intimacy and unity. For they are one—in flesh and soul. Just as they are one—in Christ and his body. It’s mystery. Yes, but a revealed mystery. For Christians to know and live by.

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A Christian marriage is also hard work. For Christians must take their clues for marriage from Christ’s relationship with the church. Listen again: “Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything… Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radian church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.”

If you are confused today about the state of marriage and especially Christian marriage, contemplate, reflect upon Christ’s relationship to his bride, the church. If you struggle in your marriage—and we all do at one time or another—we do well to take our clues from Christ and examine our own conduct in our relationships as husbands and wife.

Note the key verbs in this passage; they show us the extent of Christ’s relationship and union with you and me, the church: Paul says that Christ loved the church (vs.25). That love, we discover in chapter 1, goes back to infinity, before time. For it was in love that God in Christ predestined us “to be adopted as his sons….”

More than that: Christ “gave himself up” for the church. This is a reference to Christ’s saving work that led him all the way to the cross and in the tomb. Christ’s love is so extensive and determined that Paul can say that Christ loved self-sacrificially “to make you and me holy, cleansing the church by the washing with water through the word.” That’s a reference to regeneration, to rebirth, to repentance that is expressed in our baptism and in the gift of the Holy Spirit who comes to all who turn to Christ in faith. This is how Christ sees us and treats us today: cleansed, washed, forgiven, being made holy.

And the best is yet to come: Christ will bring to fruition his relationship with us when he comes again. Then Christ, the Bridegroom will live with us, his Bride on the restored creation. Then he will “present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.”

Pondering the scope and depth of Christ’s love should not discourage us as we examine our own relationships in marriage. It’s true: not one of us here can love as Christ loves the church. But that’s not the point. Christians are to take their clues for marriage from Christ’s relationship with the church. Our model is Christ in his relationship to the church. When we build our marriages on that model, God’s blessings will abound indeed. Now and always. Amen.