-One of the more despised and misused and misunderstood verses in the entire Bible, this. And part of the challenge in understanding this verse is that our perspective is entirely warped by the Fall. While fully half the human race - an entire gender - carries the scars of its misapplication, all men and women have been living under a curse since that time, unable to fully rise to the level of experiencing marriage as God intended. Things have been muddied still further by generations of ungodly examples and abuses and subsequent guilt and over-compensation, both on a familial and a societal level.
-Remember that we are talking about the new self, the life that is in Christ and IS Christ, life as it was originally designed, life as it was always meant to be before it was broken. In the beginning woman was taken out of man and given to man to be a perfect helper and companion. There was a partnership, and it was beautiful. There was oneness - they were one flesh. best friends. There was honesty and intimacy and open communication, there was encouragement and shared responsibility. There was kindness and mercy and patience and respect. Healthy give and take. There was love, sacrificial selfless love, and humility. And all of this has been marred in the aftermath of the curse, which specifically states, ‘your desire will be to control your husband, and he will rule over you’ (Genesis 3.16).
-And so now there is no longer this capacity to love without limit, this beautiful dance of give and take. It is take and take. And take some more. And this desire to get my own way, to get even, to get what I want when I want and to be in control, wounding each other and walking in unforgiveness. And thus we see best friends for life, a man and a woman divinely designed and designated as perfect life partners, become enemies, hurting and hiding and ultimately hating each other. All too often.
-But we are also talking about life IN Christ, this One Who is fully God and co-equal with the Father and yet Who voluntarily emptied Himself, lowered Himself, subjected Himself to the Father (which included subjection to His earthly parents - cf Luke 2.51) and Who obeyed to the point of death (at the hands of sinners). This Submitted One is now the Head of the Church, which is His bride. We must remember that marriage is designed to give a picture of this relationship between Christ and His Church (Ephesians 5.31-32), and so we are talking about a situation where two people who are co-equal in God’s eyes, joint heirs with Christ (Romans 8.17) who are normally living in mutual submission to one another (Ephesians 3.21), fully empowered and encouraged to serve (Galatians 5.13) and admonish (Colossians 3.16) and build up (1Thessalonians 5.11) each another, spurring each other on towards love and good deeds (Hebrews 10.24) - these two both are called to voluntarily assume roles within the ordinance of Christian marriage which will reflect this divine hierarchy but will at least in some respects run counter to both their flesh and their culture.
-We must also understand the nature of this subjection. We are considering a hierarchy of relationships, ostensibly between those who are fully on equal standing in God’s eyes but who occupy God-ordained positions in specific relationships (i.e. ruler/subject, master/slave, parent/child, husband/wife). One party has been appointed to stop the buck and ultimately call the ball, and the other is called to follow that lead and respond accordingly. God has set this up. If you or I object to the arrangement we need to take it up with Him. But the way we voluntarily embrace whatever station in life God has assigned to us reflects our heart of submission towards Him (or not). We do well to remember that God has put us where we are for a reason, and there is an order to His design. Both the fact of my submission to whoever God has placed in authority over me, and the attitude I display as I submit to them have the potential to show off my awareness that God is the One Who is really in charge, and He is my Boss. I am ultimately serving Him. And so my subjection is not even based on what the person is like or on how they are doing in their God-ordained position (cf 1Peter 3.1). It is from God, and to Him.
-But what we see in play at the Fall was that the woman took the lead, she initiated, she was in charge. And she is now cursed to want to be in control as it relates to man. This is certainly understandable - most people prefer to have the remote anyway. The man, however, said and did nothing. He was passive, and he was silent. To this legacy we see him additionally cursed towards despotism, ruling his household (if and when he chooses to do so) with a fist of iron, like an oppressive dictator. So we have the man either abdicating leadership or exercising authority badly (to say the least). Either way we have a fertile seedbed for confusion and conflict - the battle lines have been drawn.
-So when paul now exhorts the woman who has entered into Christian marriage to be submitting to her husband, he is asking her to do the exact opposite of what her flesh and experience and our culture tell her to do. But it happens to be the very thing that Christ Himself has already modeled and which the Church as His bride is similarly called to do. The woman is most like Christ and best shows a picture of God’s design when she voluntarily submits herself to this man who is in all other respects her equal in Christ. We’re not saying that women do not have the ability to lead or permission to be in charge in other contexts, nor that the man does not also have his own set of responsibilities (next verse), nor are we saying that this will be easy or play out perfectly all the time in every situation. We are talking about what is fitting in the Lord, the way God designed it, what shows off His goodness in and through our lives and relationships (cf Titus 2.5). And to be clear, the manner in which she subjects herself is just as significant (1Peter 3.1-5) - pure, respectful, gentle - God sees this, He is watching. And so are the kids and the neighbors and the rest of the unbelieving world. What a tremendous opportunity...
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