[Transcript represents full sermon's text]

       Today we finish up Ephesians chapter 5 and we're going to get into the lengthy discussion about husbands and wives from Paul. And we've got quite a bit to discuss and different aspects and different sections. We're going to work through all this, quite a bit of information, and let's go ahead and just get right into the text. Let's start with verses 22 to 24. Paul says, “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands” (ESV).

       Now, basically, when approaching this text, there are two different interpretations, two different ways that people tend to go about this text. Within Evangelical Christianity, of course, there is the literal interpretation, and that is that wives are to submit to their husbands just as the text reads, and the husband is the head of the wife. Pretty simplistic. Pretty just “Play it as it lies,” if you will. And then the second approach would be that this concept of wives submitting to their husbands is no longer applicable here in the 21st century. That this was Paul writing to a first-century audience. Since in that audience, the man was known to be the head, to be the dominant one, that Paul just played along with that, really, you could say God acquiesced to that and just wrote it for the people at that time to be that way. He didn't fight the predominant institution, if you will. He just went along with it and just said it as it is. So those would be the two perspectives. Obviously, in that second perspective, then, the wife would not be seen as having to submit to the husband, but it would be seen more as a co-equal partnership, basically, where the wife and the husband submit to each other. Those would be the two perspectives. Obviously, the literal perspective, I think even now, even in the 21st century, the first perspective that I laid out, is the predominant view in the Evangelical world.

       Now, why would we say that the wife is supposed to submit to the husband? Why would that be? Well, it seems to be a consequence, a result of the fall—the fall that occurred in Genesis chapter 3. So there, if we tap over to Genesis, let's go to Genesis chapter 3 at the beginning of our Bibles, and we'll go directly to verse 16. And this is God speaking of the consequences to Adam and Eve of what they have done in choosing to follow after Satan's way. He's now laying out what's going to happen, what the negative consequences are as a result of that. God says, it says, the text says, verse 16, “To the woman he said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you”” (ESV). And that is the consequence. That it probably is best not to read this text that this is God's desire for what he wants to happen. But it's a consequence of the fall that because everybody now is going to have this sin nature, everybody's affected by sin, that this is just the way it's going to be. God can look into the future, look through all the possibilities of what will be, and say, well, this is the way it's going to turn out.

       (And we’ll get into this in a sec), but it kind of relates to the fact that it's not going to be how it was supposed to be where man and woman were co-equal and they're relating to each other, that because the fall has occurred, men are going to rule over women. Now, we can get into the discussion, into the debate, well, what about our biological makeup? What about the fact that men tend to naturally lead in various situations, and women sometimes tend to naturally want to follow in certain situations. And that can be debated, of course, and there's going to be people on both sides of that. Well, that one perspective on that could be that that's because of the fall. That's because of the sin nature. But it may be that that's not the way it was originally supposed to be, not the way God intended it to be. And then someone will say, if our biology is messed up because of the fall, does that mean we should try to act like God originally wanted us to act before the fall, where both sexes interact more co-equally? Obviously, that's something that can be debated and all that, and really something we may not have a direct answer for exactly what we should say to that. All I can talk about is my experiential reality, and that I've noticed that sometimes that women have naturally come to help me and have at times naturally wanted to follow. That's something that I have just observed from my own personal experience.

       I also have worked with women who were in leadership roles. One of them was the boss of basically the assistant. One was the boss, but one was basically the assistant boss of the department. And she did a fantastic job in that leadership role. I've known women in leadership roles. They've done great jobs. But I've also known women who have tended to want to follow the man's leadership, especially in certain particular situations. My personal observation in life is that when it comes to crises, men tend to be the better leaders in those situations. When it comes to daily routine tasks of getting multiple things done at the same time, sometimes women are better at that. So I know none of this obviously is politically correct, right? We're walking on thin ice here, but that's just been what I've observed.

       So Paul lays out—and I'm going to tap back over to Ephesians—Paul lays out the example, and he says that the church submits to Christ. So a wife submits to her husband. Well, there are basically two things we can note about that. And the first is that it brings order to the marriage, right? Just like in a business context, you have established order. You have different ranks, if you will, even different ranks within the bosses. But the regular employees submit to the will of the boss, to the will of the company, and so on and so forth. Well, with the wife submitting to the husband, that brings order to the marriage, right? The children submit both to the wife and the husband, but it has a hierarchy of order. And I think, for all intents and purposes, it works well. I’ve never heard of a marriage where the wife submitting to the husband was bad, unless, of course, the husband was abusive or a bad guy, of course, and that for a husband who's not an upright guy, sure, it could be bad. But in a good marriage, I've never heard of the wife submitting to the husband being a bad thing that brought disorder to the marriage. Just like you would probably say that I've never heard of employees submitting to a good boss being bad. It's kind of commonsensical.

       And again, stemming from Genesis chapter 3, because we are in a fallen world, because we do have the inner sin nature in each and every one of us. Unfortunately, it's just necessary that we have that established order. We can say, well, it should be like this. It should be that husband and wife are co-equal, right? Well, maybe that's true. Maybe it should be that way. But Adam and Eve sinned. Sin hasn't been eradicated from the world yet. Satan's still around, fallen angels are still around, humans still sin, sin's still everywhere. So we can't say that, “Oh, let's live in our heavenly state or heavenly way” when we've got sin around. And that could be a good reason as to why God put this in the text. Now, the second thing I wanted to note is that that is why the husbands have the ultimate say, is to provide that order, and because sin is still in the world. I said I would talk about the heavenly part of it. In heaven, obviously, whether we're male or female in heaven, brothers and sisters in Christ, we’re going to be co-equal, and I do not believe up in heaven, and when heaven returns to the earth, if you will, I don't believe that women are going to submit to men. I think that's an earthly thing that's a result of the fall.

       Now, that's a terrific thing because when we're in heaven, and we're relating to our sisters as men, it'll be nice. It'll be nice to be on that co-equal plane with them, kind of like a brother and sister are growing up in a household even now. But there won't be any of that submission stuff because we're obviously not going to be married because we don't, as evangelicals, believe in eternal marriage. We're not like the Eastern Orthodox Christians who do believe in eternal marriage. We don't believe that. So there's not going to be this. This is an earthly thing that does not translate into the afterlife, into heaven. Now, dare it be even brought up, there are a few Christians, and I even hate to bring this up, who think that when we go to heaven that everybody becomes male, that there aren't women in heaven. A: I don't believe that, and B: I certainly hope that's not the case, because I think women obviously are part of the image of God and bring that perfect balance right to us men, and I would certainly not at all want that. I'm hoping that that's not the case. Very few these days; I think it was more in the past. Right now I know of one theologian or pastor, whatever you want to call him, who does think that. I'm not going to say his name. But hopefully that obviously is totally wrong.

       Let's move along to verse 25. And we'll just do verse 25. “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (ESV).

       In the most basic sense, husbands are to be loving towards their wives. They're wives. So husbands, wives, obviously only marry one. Men only marry one woman. We can get a little caught up in our pluralities. The husband loves his wife. And this is because, the example is, because Christ loved the church. And so this love is kindness, gentleness, all that stuff. And if we look at, as a cross-reference, Colossians chapter 3 and verse 19. Paul says, “Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them” (ESV). In this text, Paul contrasts the love with the harshness. And as a little aside, that's also a good verse to show that God's not harsh with us as believers. But that obviously is a whole other conversation, but might as well point it out. Regardless, that's supposed to be the attitude of the husband toward the wife of love. And that's why anything that's not that, anything that's abusive, that's mean, that is not acceptable. That is not what God wants, and that is not what women should be subject to.

       And if we go back to Ephesians 5, let's keep it moving. Verse 26, “that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word,” verse 27, “so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish” (ESV).

       This is Paul explaining how Christ loved the church, and therefore this is how a husband is to love his wife. Basically, to kind of summarize that, the husband leads his wife in the way of the truth. He leads her toward God and what benefits her and what's good for her. This is how he demonstrates the love for his wife. And interestingly, I found a verse that's from Titus. And I think even though it's not contextually talking about the marriage relationship, I think it works well with the marriage in light. And let's read verses 7 and 8 of Titus chapter 2. And let's think about, instead of Paul talking to Titus as a pastor, let's think about this in terms of marriage. So verse 7 as the husband, “Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, dignity, and sound speech that cannot be condemned, so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us” (ESV). And I think that if we take that concept, that idea, that vibe from those verses and apply it to the husband in the marriage, that's what Paul is explaining , that the husband is supposed to model those good works to teach in such a way that is integrous, that's dignified, that's sound, that's rightward. All this towards the husband, toward his wife, and that way, they're a light to the world. Those around can see that that marriage is functioning as God intended properly and orderly and good. And it's just, it's a witness to the gospel of Christ, right?

       And we can also look at 2 Corinthians chapter 11. And I want to consider verse 2. And this, again, is not in the context of marriage, but I want us to gather the idea from it. Paul says, “I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ” (ESV). So obviously that can be how God feels about us at times as the church. But it's also how Paul felt about the Corinthians. And it's also how the husband can feel towards his wife. He wants to present her as a pure being to the Lord Jesus Christ, as a pure person, pure virgin in the sense of blameless and spotless, right? That is the idea. And that divine jealousy the husband wants to protect his wife, keep her safe from bad influences from the world and even from another man who might want to try to sway her away or whatever it is. That is something that the man feels that he wants to take care of his wife and protect her. So I think those two verses, again, Titus 2, 7 and 8, 2 Corinthians 11, 2, I think both of those passages can give us an idea of this husband-wife relationship, specifically from the husband's perspective.

       But now, let's go to Ephesians chapter 5 and verse 28, and we'll go ahead and read 28 to 30. “In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body” (ESV).

       Again, it's the example that we all have, that as men, we love our own bodies. We take care of them. At least we should be trying to do that, right? And we try to hopefully stay physically fit. We try to eat good things and we try to keep our body in shape, whatever it is. We take care of our bodies. We shower. We try to look presentable. And in the same way, it is, Paul just goes right to the natural and says, well, how to naturally take care of yourself. Well, so it is with dealing with your wife. And that is really loving yourself because as Paul's going to get into, the husband and wife are one. They’re one flesh. They're one entity. And he says no one ever hated his own flesh, obviously I mean we know people commit suicide, but he's talking about a person in their right mind and the natural course of the way the world works, a person who's doing right that you take care of yourself naturally. And as we take care of ourselves, so husbands should take care of their wives. Just as Christ is interconnected with the church, so a husband and wife are interconnected. We are members of the church, and Paul says that we're members of Christ's body. That's what the communion is about, right? The bread and the cup, or the love feast even. We're members one of another, members of the body. And we're going to get into this in the next section .

       But notice quickly that there's no mention in all this talk of children. I'm glad he doesn't, because I think that emphasizes the importance of the husband-wife relationship, the wife to the husband, the husband to the wife, and that that bond, that unique bond, is important. And it's not like a lot of secular families, a lot of secular couples, they'll put their children before their own marriage. Even what the children are involved in, what the children want, or the children want to go to college, university, wherever it is, whatever it is. Sometimes that's put in front of the other partner in the marriage, right? And the marriage takes a backseat to the kids. But notice in this very intense discussion today from Paul, this very thorough discussion, that the kids aren't even brought up. And that shows that God wants couples, Christian couples, to focus on each other first. The kids are secondary. The marriage relationship is to be looked at, cared for, taken care of first. That obviously is not to say that the kids aren’t what the kids want and all that doesn't matter. Of course, it matters to a degree, but people should not be sacrificing their marriage for the sake of kids' activities or whatever it is. That's important. We should not be like the world around us. Anyhow, we're approaching our final section, and I moved through this a little bit faster than I thought I was going to, but we've got three verses to finish up with still a little bit to say.

       Verse 31, “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. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband” (ESV). Quite a bit going on here.

       First, first, Paul talks about the one flesh. And even before that, I am going to say that Paul says, “A man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife.” It doesn't mean that every Christian guy or girl needs to get married. Paul spent a great deal of time, as we're probably all aware of, in 1 Corinthians chapter 7, talking about the singleness of the believer and how that's really arguably better for a Christian to be single and devote themselves to the Lord and have less worldly concern. Paul is not at all saying that if you are not married, that you're somehow like a second-class Christian or something. And I think that can be a struggle in the modern Evangelical church setup because a lot of them are geared toward the family, right? They're geared toward the family because they want to uphold the family in contrast to the society that's failing at doing that, obviously. They want to uphold that family unit and the value of that and all that. But sometimes in doing so, it seems like the single people can get lost in the mix, right? That sometimes they're put on the back burner, way on the back burner for the sake of the family, that there's very little in the church that's geared towards singles. That's something to keep in mind for churches that that shouldn't be like that. And it's not in Scripture that the singles are a second class to the married folks. That's not at all found in the New Testament.

       But I do want to go to 1 Corinthians chapter 6, because I want to talk about this idea of the one flesh and the importance of that. If we look over in 1 Corinthians chapter 6, and this is a lengthy text that talks about this. I'm only going to read verses 15 to 20. Let's go ahead and read that and see what Paul says. He says,

“Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, “The two will become one flesh.” But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.” (ESV)

We can see the importance there of obviously not being sexually immoral, whether that's for the married person or the single person. But there is this sense, this somehow when two people have that intimate relationship, whether married or not, they become one flesh. Obviously that's true in the sense of Paul is warning in the sense that people can get diseases and whatnot from that kind of behavior. But is there more to it than that? What's going on in God's eyes? What is even going on in the spiritual realm, we might say? I don't know if we can directly answer that, but we know it's bad. We know that you do not want to be united in that way with someone you're not married to. It's bad.

       And the whole thing that Paul's talking about in Ephesians chapter 5 to bring this roundabout back is he's saying, again, to read verse 32, Paul says, “This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church” (ESV). So just as the husband and wife become one, so it is with the church and Christ. Christ and the church. And probably coming to our minds is John chapter 17, and I do want to tap over there. And let's read verses 22 and 23 in John 17. Jesus says, “The glory that you have given me I have given to them,” (He’s speaking to the Father in prayer) “that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me” (ESV). The thing of it is, is this mystery that Paul's talking about, that he's just so ever so lightly touching upon in Ephesians chapter 5, is that just as the husband and wife are one, just as God and the son are one, so the church is one with Christ. Christ is one with the church. Now, maybe we can understand that to some degree and that we're indwelled by the Holy Spirit, right? And we partake of the communion, right? Because that helps us to remember what Christ accomplished for us and it's done in a public way.

       And that is, there seems to be, in a way we really cannot explain, there's a oneness with Christ between us and Christ, Christ and the church. There's a oneness that's going on. And we really can't explain that because obviously Christ is God, and we don't know really what that means. But it's intimate, it's important, it's close to God, it's one with God. This is kind of serious, deep stuff we're talking about . And that's why the marriage is important. That bond between the husband and wife is sacred, just as the bond between the believer and Christ is sacred. And just as you do not want a separation between the husband and wife, like in the form of divorce. So it is you don't want any type of separation coming between the believer and Christ, right? Again, we don't really know. I don't know that we can articulate in this life what that exactly means. We've experienced it, I think, at least briefly at times, that oneness with Christ, especially perhaps while doing communion, all right, maybe you're in deep meditation or whatever it is. But this is important, serious stuff we're talking about . And Paul even calls it profound. It's a mystery and it's profound.

       Regardless, the final verse that we've already read, to read it again, Paul says that the wife is to see that she respects her husband. Now I've heard believers in the past say, “Well, it doesn't ever say the wife is supposed to love her husband. It just says the wife is supposed to respect him.” Well, come on. I mean, I think the love thing is implied. I think contextually in this verse of the husband being over the wife and authority and that the husband is to lead the wife, the respect thing is in regards to that. The wife is supposed to respect her husband and that she respects his role in the marriage, right? What can we say about that? Well, besides that basic orderly conduct that we've talked about, that it just works for it to be that way, especially in light of our fallen world, it's also that the wife, if two people got married already in the first place, obviously the newness of that relationship is going to wear off, right?

       So husband and wife, they get married, guy and girl get married, they're husband and wife. After two, three, maybe four years, that's going to wear off, right? I could bring up secular research right now that shows you that after about three, two, three-year mark, that wears off. That becomes routine. The honeymoon period is over, as they say, and it's not new anymore. It's routine. We could also even say perhaps it's taken for granted. It's the new normal. Again, as another aside, that's why marriage is not the answer to life. For anybody who's single out there wanting to get married but can't find the right person, well, hate to break it, but getting married is not going to fulfill your life. It's not going to fulfill my life.

       And anyway, what I'm trying to say is that as that relationship becomes more routine, more normal, the wife may have to try harder, if you will, to focus on the positive aspects of her husband. It could be very easy, let's say, to start to focus on those negative aspects, the things he doesn't do right, the things he could do better, his bad habits, whatever it is. She could start to focus on that and lose respect for her husband. But what I wrote down is that she needs to keep liking him since she married him. And I think that's true. I mean, I think that if the wife, if the girl liked the guy before, she needs to hold on to what it is she liked about him that she married him in the first place for. Sure, now three years, four years later, it's routine. It's normal. Well, she's going to have to make a concerted effort as a wife to focus on what she liked about him and what she still likes about him. And to bring that to the forefront and not be nit-picky about the things she doesn’t like. And obviously the husband's going to have to do that as well.

       But the wife needs to respect this role that's been laid out by the Apostle Paul, and needs to respect her husband, and her role as being the one that follows his authority. Now again, as we talked about at the beginning of the message, if there is a Christian couple out there that doesn't take that stand, that feels, well, this is really first-century archaic stuff. This is really outdated. This isn't for now. Well, I mean, if you can find a way to live where you're both happy and co-equal, whatever it is, and you can be happy that way, have at it. But you may struggle because of the sin-affected world, because of even the sin-natures inside of us. If you can get to that place where maybe you're so heavenly-minded and your sin nature has just become less and less, and you feel you can love each other in a more co-equal heavenly way, then sure, have at it. But you're probably going to have to keep that on the down low because most people probably aren't going to be able to do that. So that's just some two cents there going back to that original discussion back at the beginning.

       But the wife needs to honor her husband, needs to honor his authority. And so, just as Paul's laid out, just as Christ, just as the church submits to Christ, so the wife submits to the husband. And again, I've talked about it in the past that I think that as we become closer to God, as we are just closer to God, that he gives the believer more authority, more say-so, more choice. He doesn't have to lead that person as much just because they've let Christ flow through them so much that they're naturally making the good, correct choices. Well, it might be that way with certain marriages. But again, for the majority of people who are either newer in the faith or just haven't been able to reach a more mature level—that may not be the case. Just stuff to kick around in your head to think about, to mull over, whatever. But yeah, I think that'll wrap up things for this message.

       And, as I've said many a times, anyone out there who's not a Christian, even a couple listening, and either one of you is a Christian or you're a raised Christian, but you haven't really followed the Christian ways, and you're thinking, well, maybe we should start going to church somewhere. Or maybe we should start looking into this Christian stuff. Maybe this has the answers for us. I would definitely encourage you to do that. Just remember that God wants anyone who's willing to believe to come into his family as a whole and to the big picture family. And that includes anybody today, anyone out there listening. You can go to God in prayer and tell him you want that relationship with him, that you want to take that step forward to being more like he wants you to be, that you want to believe in Jesus, what he accomplished, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection from death. You want to believe in that? Certainly go to God in prayer today and have these discussions about your personal relationship with him, about accepting Him and following Him and doing the things the way God says they should be done. Maybe you've tried multiple different ways in the world to try to figure out your marriage, but it just ain't panning out. Well, God has His answers laid out here today for everybody and anybody who wants to participate. Just stuff to think about. I encourage anyone today, Christian or not, to go to God in prayer and discuss these matters.

- Daniel Litton