Ephesians 5:21-33 God’s Plan for Marriage

Ephesians 5:21-33     God’s Plan for Marriage

• Main Theme.
• Ephesians 5 and 6 deal with relationships for life
• Submission
• Paul is writing about mutual submission in which we submit to one another in the fear of God.

• To submit to one another requires us to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

• When a person is filled with the Holy Spirit they are humble, gentle, and are submitting.
• What does the ‘Fear of God’ mean?
• Living our life realizing that we live under the watchful eye of God.
• We live a life in a respect for God, a reverential awe.
• We live our life to make God happy and to please him.
• We bring joy and happiness to God.
• We seek direction and guidance from God.
• The worldview of ‘Fear’ has a negative meaning.  This is not the context of how Paul uses the word ‘Fear’.   The ‘Fear of God’ is what helps us to submit to others.
• Paul is writing about a biblical submission, not a submission that the world uses.  The world’s view of submission has a negative connotation.
• The current culture has a view of permissiveness and personal freedom.   This includes the thinking that ‘Some laws apply to me and some do not’ and ‘I do not need to be told how to live my life’.
• Submission is a role for everyone.
• Submission comes from the Greek word hupotasso.
• Hupo - means under
• Tasso - means to rank, to arrange
• Hupotasso is used 47 times in the New Testament.
• How is submission practiced?
• Submission is mutual in a relationship.   (Luke 10:17, Romans 8:20, Romans 13:1, I Corinthians 16:16, I Corinthians 15:27-28)
• The greatest act of submission is to die for someone.
• By being a servant hearted doer of the Word of God.
• Marriage - Mutuality in a submission relationship (I Corinthians 7:1-16)
• By keeping the traditions and examples set by Jesus. (I Corinthians 11:1-2)
• Submission in the roles of husband and wife.   Neither person is greater than the other person.  Function instead of superiority.
• Problems can be solved by submission.
• Christ became obedient to the Father, which eventually led to his death on a cross.   (Philippians 2:5-11)
• The key to submission is humility, placing others before yourself.
• Submission keeps things running right in a relationship.
• What submission is not:
• Slavery, superiority, tyranny, or treating someone in a mean way.  Instead it is a functionality and understanding the roles set forth in I Corinthians 11 (Tiers of Submission).  The Goal of submitting is to ‘Glorify God’.
• Overview.
• Verse 2 is a transitional verse, with the remaining verses being examples of submission.
• Paul’s Instruction for Wives.
• Paul asks wives to submit to their husbands.  He uses 3 verses to these instructions.   Paul is saying it is an honor to Jesus, an act of service to the LORD.  Submission requires an inspiring respect and Godly conduct.   (I Peter 3:1-6)
• Paul’s instructions to the Husbands.
• Paul instructs the husbands to love their wives.  Paul uses 9 verses to give these instructions.  A husband submits to his wife by loving her.   Paul repeats his command to ‘love your wife’ two times, which are in verses 25 and 28.  The love Paul uses here is ‘Agape’, which is unconditional love, the same love God’ has for us.
• The Greek word for “Husband” translates to ‘till the ground, till the soil’.   The husband’s role is to cultivate his wife and to nurture her.
• Paul is asking husbands not to rule over their wives.  Paul is asking for a balance of leader and lover, a balance between authority and affection.  Paul qualifies this by saying that love is to be met in the love of Christ.
• To love sacrificially - Jesus was spat upon, ridiculed, beaten, and gave his life on a cross.
• To love with sanctification - The attitude that Jesus loves me after I came to him so Jesus can help me grow.  ‘Let me help you, let me take you’.  This type of love requires quality time and priority in our lives.
• A secure love - An extension of me, to help your wife feel secure.   Just as a man may like his own body, to look and feel good, a husband needs to make the wife feel as if she is an extension of himself.
• A stable love - (Genesis 2:24) Like a fine art, making it last a life time.  Like dating, the great hunt and I got the prize of the hunt.   Severing your relationship with your parents to join in a relationship to become one flesh with your wife.
• Marriage
• Marriage is compared to a picture - as Christ is to the Church (his bride).
• Marriage is a symbol of Love.   
• Satan’s goal is to destroy this love relationship of a marriage and also to destroy the family.
• Casual sex, homosexuality, infidelity, self-righteous judgment, pornography, plastic surgery.
• Satan’s lie - Christian marriage is a hot bed of hypocrisy and infidelity.   Hollywood’s goal is to portray militant feminism, rampant immorality, and serial divorce.
• Satan’s lie - A Christian marriage is oppressive and that God’s blueprint for a marriage is oppressive towards a woman.
• Comments by militant feminist Susan Brownmiller - ‘Marriage is an outgrowth of primitive caveman cruelty.   Woman chose one rapist as a husband to protect herself from other rapists’.
• Satan’s lie - It is oppressive to a woman that God’s design for a husband to lovingly exercise spiritual leadership and for the wife to faithfully affirm him on that leadership.
• When marriage is rejected and leads to divorce, it leads to emotionally scarred children and it also leads to a social collapse.
• A recent survey taken of convicted men in prison that looks at the percentages of those who came from a fatherless home.
• 70% of the long time inmates.
• 72% of the adolescent murderers.
• 60% of the convicted rapists.
• Truth - The covenant of marriage is a powerful preventative of rape.
• Verse 5:21-24   Liberating not Oppressive.
• Jesus himself states the equality and liberation of woman.  Jesus treated woman with respect and he also elevated their status.   (Matthew 9 and 26, Mark 14, Luke 7, John 4 and 8, Galatians 3:28)
• Verse 21 equalizes both man and woman before God.
• When Paul wrote this letter, there were 3 distinct cultures during this time: Roman, Greek, and Jewish.   All 3 taught that women were regulated to 2nd class and to be subservient.
• Typical Jewish prayer - ‘Thankful that I am a Jew and not a Greek, I am free and not a slave, I am a man and not a woman’.
• Greek Culture - Keep out of sight in total obedience to the husband, ‘See as little as possible, hear as little as possible, and ask as little as possible’.
• Roman Culture - A woman had no rights and was considered the equivalent of a child.
• Paul’s message was radical to the Jews, that men and woman should submit to one another in reverence to Jesus Christ.   
• Men and women each have a unique role, each submits to each other, neither one is superior to the other.
• Verse 5:25-33.
• Mutual Submission.
• We need to be constantly filled by the Holy Spirit and read God’s word to live God’s blueprint for a marriage.   We must submit to the Holy Spirit to be able to submit in marriage as our human flesh struggles with the Holy Spirit when it comes to mutual forgiveness, mutual submission, and mutual sacrifice.
• Paul is not asking wives to ‘knuckle down’ and become ‘doormats’ to their husbands.   Christian marriage is a partnership with each partner having a different role.   The wife’s role is submission where the husband’s role is leadership, which is linked together.  Each is based upon the picture and relationship between Jesus Christ and the Church.   Just as Christ is the head of the Church, the Church submits to Christ.  Christ exercised his leadership by serving, sacrificing, and putting his Church ahead of his own interests by dying for his Church.   What wife would not be willing to submit to a husband who was Christ-like?
• Christian marriage is a mutual love, it is not a power struggle.  Failure occurs when the husband refuses to lead like the love of Christ or the wife does not submit as unto the LORD, or both.  God’s plan for marriage elevates and enables the roles of both men and woman.  (Depicting the unique love relationship between Christ and his bride, the Church).
• The Power of Love.
• Submitting by love (the husband’s role) is more challenging than submitting by following (the wife’s role).  Notice how Paul uses more words and verses for the men compared to the women.  It is possible you can submit without loving but it is impossible to love without submitting.
• Loving someone involves placing your beloved needs and welfare above your own.  It also involves placing others desires and comforts before your own.
• Paul repeats these principles 3 times.
• What did Christ do for his bride?   He left the glory of heaven.  He came to a world where many hated him.   He allowed the world to crucify him.   Finally Jesus saved and redeemed his bride, the church, by his death.
• Love does not stand idly by when the beloved suffers harm.
• Love is not passive when the beloved is in danger.
• Love never entices or coerces the beloved to do anything wrong or sinful.   Paul is suggesting ‘submit in every good thing’ just as Jesus would command us to not sin.
• Lies, stealing, cheating, etc.
• Every person has a duty to obey God.
• Paul asks husbands to sanctify their wives as Christ sanctifies the Church/Bride.
• God’s Blueprint for a Joyous Marriage.
• Christian marriage is based upon mutual submission.
• The essence of Jesus’s work on earth was submission.   Submission does not take away our worth or equality.   Submission does enable beautiful things to happen in our lives.
• A wife's submission is a submission of love, not oppression by a boss.  
• A husband’s headship is a matter of serving and not lording.  It is to be a servant and not a tyrant, keeping in mind Jesus’s love for his church.
• A husband’s love is demonstrated in action.  Love is not a feeling but is demonstrated by actions.  Giving, sanctifying, and to cleanse and wash her, and to make her holy before God.  To also nourish and cherish her as well.
• A wife’s submission is nothing but a natural and rational response to a husband’s extravagant, selfless, and self-sacrificing love.   It is not in fear.  A wife responds by lifting him up, encouraging and respecting him, and not to beat him down.
• We the church are Christ’s bride.   We need to look at Christ’s relationship to his church.  Once we understand that relationship we can find Joy in our marriage when we put it into action.   We need to lose ourselves and to submit to Christ.
• Submission is at the essence of a Christian life.  It is the ultimate for contentment and joy.   Trusting without fear, serving without reservation, and loving with the selfless love of Christ himself.
• Conclusion.
• If Jesus could submit to God the Father to die on a cross, how can we not submit our lives to Jesus and others?
• What areas in my life am I dragging gears in submission?
• Can you go to a fellow brother and say ‘I love you’?      (Agape Love)
• The criminal populations tend to come from fatherless/broken homes.  How much could crime be slashed if families stabilized and were built upon biblical foundation of marriage?
• We as Christians should take a stand and not be ashamed of the Gospel.   We should not be intimidated by the deceptions of Satan and compromise to the ways of the culture.
• Do we turn to other books because we do not like God’s design for marriage which is given to us in Ephesians 5?