Join our panel for an insightful discussion of marriage as we cover Lesson 10, Husband and Wives: Together at the Cross. 

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Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/husbands-and-wives-together-at-the-cross-hit-the-mark-sabbath-school/

Join It Is Written Sabbath School host Eric Flickinger and this quarter’s author, Dr John McVay, as they provide additional insights into this week’s Sabbath School lesson
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgjbPnCZ_KM?si=dLDC0DaYJMnnPeaR&w=560&h=315]

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submitting to one another in the fear of God. Ephesians 5:21 NKJV

Do you picture God as just one Being who is a dictator, or do you picture God being a heavenly Trio made up of three persons creating a community of love? If we view God as a single dictator then it is highly likely our families and churches will fall under a dictatorship mentality. If we view God as three persons, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, each one creating a community of love, then it is more likely our families and churches will follow the same model.

1 John 4:8 tells us God is love. Love is being others centered. Even before another creature was ever created God was love, because God was three Persons, each one centered on the needs of the other. 1 Corinthians 13 describes love so it must also be describing God. 

It does not demand its own way.  1 Corinthians 13:5 NLT 

Love does not demand its own way. If God is love does He demand His own way? No. In Matthew 26:39 you have the Son submitting to the Father, saying, “not my will but your will be done.” Did the Son submit to the Father because the Father had to have His own way? No. when being arrested Jesus said in Matthew 26:53 He could have asked the Father to send him 12 legions of angels to rescue Him and the Father would have complied. What you have in Matthew 26 is a heavenly family submitting to each other, the way Paul says families should all submit to one another in Ephesians 5:21 as well as the rest of Ephesians 5. God is all powerful but God is not all controlling. God is not a tyrant  calling all the shots. God is a community of love creating other communities of love. 

Lucifer, on the other hand wanted to destroy God’s community of love and set up His own dictatorship. In  Genesis 1:26 God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness.” Notice how God did not speak as a lone dictator. God spoke as a community of love, using words like “us” and “ours.” Now notice how Lucifer spoke as he sought to destroy a community orientated government by attempting to set up his own dictatorship. 

For you have said in your heart: ‘I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation On the farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High.’ Isaiah 14:13-14 NKJV 

Notice instead of using words like “us” and “ours” Lucifer is using words like “I” and “my.” Instead of a government being operated by a community of love Lucifer is introducing himself as a lone dictator. Lucifer is also creating something God never intended- a hierarchy. Remember God is all powerful but not all controlling. Lucifer now wants to be the lone dictator with total control. This is something God never intended-ever. God created Adam and Eve as equal partners. Not the same of course but equal. When they sinned in Genesis 3 they were blaming everyone but themselves . By saying others should have been more responsible they were saying others have more responsibility which creates a hierarchy. So when the Lord tells Eve in Genesis 3:16 that your husband will rule over you, He was not creating a hierarchy as much as He was telling Eve by passing blame and responsibility they had just created a hierarchy. 

In Ephesians 5:21 Paul tells us to submit to one another. In Ephesians 5 Paul is trying to destroy a hierarchy and tyrant model family, and replace it with a family like the heavenly Trio, which is a community of love model family. If we see God as just oner person who is all controlling, then it is very likely our churches will fall under a hierarchy with one very controlling tyrannical  “leader” calling all the shots. It is also very likely that our families will fall under a hierarchy with one person dominating the rest of the family.

This obviously is not God’s plan. God never created a hierarchy. He never created a dictatorship. He created a community of love. Years ago my church was having evangelistic meetings. One night I was clearing several baptismal candidates for baptism while the baptistry sprang a leak. Deacons were working all night to fix the leak so we could have the baptism the next day,  while I cleared the candidates for baptism. We were working together. That night both our jobs were extremely important. The deacons and I were not the same. We had different functions, but we were equal. As the pastor on the church board, I have a multitude of counselors as Proverbs 15:22 suggests. God’s government is not a dictatorship and neither is my church family. I have worked with a church that changed its lead elder every year, but all the elders worked so well together they often forgot which one was the current lead elder. A community of love is like that. When teaching 1st graders I liked to play a game where one student stepped out of the room while a leader was chosen. When the student stepped back in, the class would be following the leader as the leader would pat her head or rub her stomach and then clap and so on. The others followed the leader mimicking the same motions so closely so that the student who was watching could not tell who the leader was. I believe our churches and families should be governed by a community of love, working so well and closely together that you can’t even tell who the leader is. 

We destroy Lucifer’s tyrannical dictatorship and hierarchy system when we revert back to God’s plan of a government which is a community of love, just as the Father, Son and Holy Spirit create a community of love.

If you view God as being one single dictator, then chances are when you read Ephesians 5 you only see the part about the husband being the head and the wife is supposed to submit to the husband. But if you understand the heavenly trio, and understand the Godhead is one family where each one submits to and serves the other, then chances are when you read Ephesians 5 you see more than just the husband being the head and the wife submitting to him. You will also see Ephesians 5:21 where we are to submit to each other. You will also see the part where the husband loves the wife so much he would die for her the same way Christ died for the church. You will see the wife respecting the husband, not because of his power and authority but because of his self-sacrificing love for her. 

Lucifer presents to our churches and families a government ruled by a  lone tyrannical dictator. The heavenly Trio offers our churches and families  a government ruled by community and self sacrificing love. 

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Study the Creation narrative of Genesis 2:15-25. What happens in the story before the statement concerning a husband and wife being “one flesh” (Genesis 2:24)?

A key to applying Paul’s counsel to wives and husbands is to see his citation of Genesis 2:24 (in Ephesians 5:31) as the culmination of it. As he meditates on the Creation story of Genesis, Paul considers the needs of Christian congregations and the health of family relationships within them. He hears in Genesis 2:24 a message that echoes down through time. By divine design, marriage is intended to be a “one flesh” relationship, with sexual unity mirrored in emotional and spiritual unity, and emotional and spiritual unity bringing meaning to the sexual relationship.

Image © Lifeway Collection at Goodsalt.com

Note that in choosing Genesis 2:24, Paul selects a statement about marriage made before the Fall and applies it to the relationships between Christian husbands and wives. In our distinctly post-Fall world, rampant exploitation of the sexual relationship between a man and a woman reveals how deeply entrenched in modern cultures is the idea that the sexual union represents subjugation of the woman. Paul argues that the sexual relationship, as reflected in Genesis, is not one of subjugation but of union. It does not symbolize or actualize the dominance of the male but the union of husband and wife, so much so that they are “one flesh.” We may look to both Ephesians 5:21-33 and Genesis 2:24, then, for an important, countercultural, and corrective theology of marriage and sexuality.

In this same context, Paul in the next verse talks about a “profound mystery” (see Ephesians 5:32, ESV). This includes both sides of the double metaphor Paul has been discussing: Christian marriage understood in the light of Christ’s relationship with His church (Ephesians 5:32) and Christ’s relationship with His church understood in the light of Christian marriage (Ephesians 5:32).

Christian marriage is elevated by comparing it to the relationship between Christ and the church. In addition, by thinking of the church’s relationship to Christ through the lens of a caring, Christian marriage, believers gain new clarity about their shared relationship to Christ.

<–Wednesday Friday–>

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What new argument does Paul use to encourage husbands to practice tender love toward their wives? Ephesians 5:28-30.

Paul’s rules for the Christian household (Ephesians 5:21-6:9) disclose a challenging social context. In Ephesians 5:28-30, Paul addresses husbands who, following the all-too-frequent pattern of the time, may choose to “hate their own flesh” (see Ephesians 5:28-29), abusing and beating their wives. In the Greco-Roman world of Paul’s day, the legal power of the “father of the family” (Latin, pater familias) was very broad. He could punish harshly or even kill his wife, children, and slaves and be within his legal rights (though exercising such power in extreme ways was increasingly constrained by public opinion).

Image © Bjorn Thorkelson from GoodSalt.com

In Ephesians 5:25-27, Paul has detailed the ultimate example of love, Christ’s love for the church, offering a drastically different model for husbands than the usual one. Now, before laying out a new argument, he points again to that great Example, asking Christian husbands to respond “in the same way” (Ephesians 5:28-29) as Jesus, who “gave himself up” for His bride, the church, and attends to her every need (). Paul challenges Christian husbands to turn from the expected practices of their time and seek to match Christ’s tender love.

In Ephesians 5:28-30, Paul adds a new rationale to support the love of Christian husbands for their wives: Self-love. Paul offers a truism: “no one ever hated his own flesh” (at least no one thinking clearly). Husbands don’t harm themselves or beat up on their own bodies. Instead, they “nourish and cherish” them (Ephesians 5:29-30). In a bid to eliminate harshness and violence against Christian wives, Paul invites the Christian husband to identify with his wife. You are so much one with your wife, Paul argues, that to harm her is nothing short of inflicting self-harm, and most people in their right minds don’t do that.

Returning to the example of Jesus, Paul argues that Christ is Himself practicing tender self-care in cherishing believers who are “his body” (, Ephesians 5:30, ESV). Model your behavior toward your wife, says Paul, on the way you treat yourself and, ultimately, on the way Christ treats you.

<–Tuesday Thursday–>

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