Mutual Submission

Since sermon teaching on Sunday touched a little bit on submission for each gender, i think it would be good to know more and from a differnet angle what u'll be heading into when one gets married in the near future and how to view marriage in a differnet light altogther. Blessed learning all.

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True servants of Jesus who are married understand clearly what Ephesians 5:21-33 really teaches about the roles of husband and wife in biblical marriage. They do not have to fight or argue over what respectful submission to the husband means for the wife, and what sacrificial and nurturing love for the wife means to the husband. They are already servants or bond slaves of Jesus Christ: they understand that Christian marriage means they will be loving and humble servants to each other, as husband and wife in mutual submission, because each of them is first submissive or surrendered to Christ (Eph 5:21). They realize that mutual submission to each other out of reverence for Christ in Ephesians 5:21 precedes the rest of the text that speaks of wives submitting to and respecting husbands, and husbands loving their wife even to death, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up and died for the church!

Paul Stevens insightfully points out that mutual submission is actually reversing the curse that came after Adam and Eve fell into sin (Gen. 3:16)

Rule and revolt is not what God wants between the sexes, but the inevitable consequences of separation from God. But in Christ, instead of ruling his wife, the husband loves her to death. Instead of revolting against her domestic master, the wife is free to bombard him with respect. This is not what each deserves. It is not even the duty each has to each other. It is gospel freedom, sheer grace ….. The key to understanding the marriage section of Ephesians 5 is the emphasis on Christ. We submit to one another, Paul says “out of reverence for Christ” (v.21) ..... All of these relationships – mutual submission, servant headship and reverence – are in Christ. They are not roles but expressions of spirituality. Our life together in Christ is not based simply on mutual submission or on a male-female hierarchy, but on Christ who chooses to dwell in the covenant.

Servants of Christ who are married know they are married in Christ, and need the continual filling of the Holy Spirit (Eph.5:18) with his presence and power, to be such loving servants to each other as husband and wife. They become “intimate allies” in the battle against the chaos in life in this world.

Gary Thomas had written what I believe to be one of the best and deepest books on what marriage is really all about from a biblical perspective. He asks the searching question: “What if God designed marriage to make us holy more than to make us happy?” He writes not about how to have a happier or more fulfilling marriage, but about the real purpose of marriage as sacred marriage: a spiritual discipline that helps us to know God better, trust him more fully, and love him more deeply. Hence, marriage is not as much about you and your spouse as it is about you and God! In Thomas’s own words: “Marriage calls us to an entirely new and selfless life ….. Any situation that calls me to confront my selfishness has enormous spiritual value, and I slowly began to understand that the real purpose of marriage may not be happiness as much as it is holiness….. If we view the marriage relationship as an opportunity to excel in love, it doesn’t matter how difficult the person is whom we are called to love; it doesn’t matter even whether that love is ever returned. We can still excel at love. We can still say, ‘Like it or not, I’m going to love you like nobody ever has’….. But there’s another challenge when two believers are both committed to pursuing a deeper spiritual reality in marriage – the formidable task of working to become not just a holy spouse, but a holy couple.”

Some examples of ways in which we can grow to become more like Christ in sacred marriage include learning to love and respect others, fostering good prayer, having our sin exposed, growing in the spiritual discipline of perseverance, embracing difficulty to build character, learning to forgive, developing a servant’s heart, becoming more aware of God’s presence, and developing our spiritual calling, mission and purpose. A crucial part of sacred marriage therefore is learning how to serve our spouses with a true servant’s heart.

- Tan Siang Yang