EPISODE 180 EPHESIANS CHAPTER 5 "Marriage when we are In Christ"

Welcome to Share the Word, a Great Commission project. There is a great deal of information within Ephesians chapter 5, but today Professor Jeff Arthurs is back and focuses on marriage and brings you an in-depth look from many perspectives, personally, culturally, theologically, spiritually, and so much more. Stay tuned. Here we go. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. My name is Jeff Arthurs.

I'm a friend of Paul. Been friends for many years, and you may remember that I kicked off this series in the book of Ephesians with chapter 1, and now I'm back to talk about chapter 5. As you've probably learned as you've gone through Ephesians, the first part of the book is heavily theological. Tells us all about God and who we are and salvation and the nature of the church. It's a very rich study. But then in chapter 4, it kind of turns and pivots, and the book becomes very applied and very practical.

And it talks about, okay, so what does all this theology look like in day-to-day life? Chapters 4 and 5 talk about our speech, how we should communicate. It tackles topics like alcohol, don't get drunk. It talks about sex, sexuality, and today, at the end of chapter 5, we come to probably the primary section in the Bible on marriage, the roles of wives and husbands. Now there's a lot in chapter 5, like speech and all those other things, but let's take this opportunity to focus on the Christian household, the Christian marriage, husbands and wives. And If I could give you the main idea of this passage, by the way, it's Ephesians 5:22 to 33.

If I could give you the main idea, here's how I would say it: Because you are in the Lord, when in the house, live in harmony. Do you hear the three in phrases? Because you are in the Lord, meaning you're in Christ, you belong to Jesus, you are his disciple. Because you are in the Lord, when you are in the house—we're talking about our relationships, husbands and wives—when you are in the house, live in harmony. Love each other. Defer to each other.

Honor each other. Live in harmony. One more time: Because you are in the Lord, when in the house, live in harmony. Well, there's a lot to cover, but let me first of all give the theological background of that teaching, of that statement, Because you're in the Lord, when in the house, live in harmony. Here's the theology behind that: Christians are in Christ. Do you remember that I emphasized that in chapter one?

We belong to Jesus. We have been raised with Jesus. His eternal life is granted to us. We are in Christ. If you and I were communicating face to face, I might use a visual aid, but maybe you can picture the visual aid: a book. And let's say I open the book and place into it a bookmarker.

It might be like a piece of cardboard or a ribbon, but I put a bookmarker in the book. Then I close the book. And I lift the book. It's down here on the table, and I pick it up and I lift it, and it goes up, up, up, and it's way above my head. I am lifting the book. All right, what's happening to the bookmark?

The bookmark is in the book, right? So the bookmark is also being raised. Do you understand my visual aid? Do you understand my analogy? If you are in Christ, you're like the bookmark, and Jesus is the book. If you are in the book, if you are in Christ, then if I raise the book, as God has raised Jesus from the dead, then guess what?

You also get raised. So all of the blessings, all of the wisdom, all of the spiritual life, all of everything associated with Jesus, it does come to those who are in Christ. If you remember C.S. Lewis, the British author, he said, If you want to get warm, come near the fire. If you want to get wet, stand in the spray. He means if you want to experience those things, you know, getting wet or getting warmed up, come to the source of those things.

Just so, if you want a beautiful, loving relationship, a life-giving relationship with God, come to Christ, who has that relationship with His heavenly Father. Are you in the Lord? Are you in Christ? Do you believe in Him? Is He your Lord and Savior? If he's not, it's very simple.

You simply repent of your sin and believe in him. Repent means to go a different direction. You get off of the wide road that leads to destruction, and you get on the narrow road that leads to life. You have to repent, and you have to believe. Believe means to trust him, cling to him, place your faith in him alone for your salvation. Only he can save.

So we repent and we believe. To do that, you might say, Dear Lord, I am making a mess of my life. I am filled with anger and jealousy and lusts and resentment. I'm on the broad road that leads to destruction. I turn from those. I repent, and I ask you in faith, please save me.

I believe in you. Make me your child. Amen. So asking for and receiving that gift of salvation places one in Christ. It makes us in the Lord, and that is the root. That's the theological foundation of this passage, very practical passage about husbands and wives.

Here's an illustration I heard a number of years ago. In 1958, the little town in America, the state of Pennsylvania, called Upper Saint Clair, built a new town center. It had the post office and the fire station. It had the government offices. They were proud of their new civic center. But Upper Saint Clair is in a part of the country where a lot of mining takes place, coal mining.

And after a while, they discovered in their new civic center that cracks started to appear, and windows were hard to shut, and the doors stuck. They called in the engineers and the builders, and the engineers said, Well, there's nothing wrong with the building, but mining explosions deep underground, miles away, sent vibrations through the earth crust, and it kind of shifted the foundation of their new civic center. The engineer said, Look, it's no use fixing cracks if the foundation isn't sure. And in the same way, we have this instruction about husbands and wives, and let me say to you, it's no use working on the specifics of marriage, like, you know, ways to better communicate and techniques for this and that and shared responsibilities. All of that's good. All of that's important.

But if the foundation isn't strong, I'm not sure you'll have a very strong building. So the theology behind husbands and wives is you've got to be in Christ. One more time, those who are in the Lord, when they are in the house, live in harmony. But it all starts with being in the Lord. Can I give you one other theological background to this teaching on husbands and wives? And it is this: marriage is a picture of Christ's relationship with the church.

Marriage is a human, you know, it's a picture, it's an expression. It's like a picture, almost a living parable of the theological truth, the spiritual truth of Jesus' relationship with the church. That's what it says in Ephesians chapter 5. He gives us this theology of verses 32 and verse 35. Verse 32 says, This mystery of the church and of the husband-wife relationship, this mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. So go back and look at verse 25.

Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, so that he might sanctify her and cleanse her. And so this earthly picture that we call marriage, husbands and wives, is really illustrating the deeper relationship that Jesus has with the church, namely, the church submits to Christ. We honor him. We love him. We say, Yes, sir. We do his will.

Thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. That's what we pray. And Jesus loves the church, and that is how husbands should love their wives. So that's some theology, but boy, there's a lot packed into that, and I'm going quickly, but I'm trying to give you the basic teaching here of Ephesians chapter 5 on husbands and wives. Well, one other background issue. And that is culture.

Many cultures in the ancient world, you know, when Paul was writing and Ephesus was a grand city of the Roman Empire, many cultures in that ancient world tended to be very conservative. And it's the same for some cultures in our world today, maybe in the Middle East or maybe in Africa. And so the roles of husbands and wives were, you know, pretty prescribed and pretty traditional, very conservative. The man was the head of the house, and the woman was, you know, supported the husband, very conservative and traditional. And so this instruction that we're about to read in Ephesians would have struck those ancient people, or maybe the modern people in the Middle East or in Africa, it would have struck them as very progressive. They would have thought, Whoa, this Christianity thing, it's turning society upside down.

You're giving us a whole new way for husbands and wives to relate to each other. See, in those cultures, husbands were to provide for their wives and their children, but this idea of loving your wife and this idea of mutual submission, that was entirely missing from those ancient cultures. Their cultures were very top-down, very patriarchal, very, you know, what the man says goes. And so they would have heard what we're about to read as very progressive. No other wisdom instruction in the ancient world called for husbands to love their wives, but that is precisely What Ephesians 5 will tell us. Well, in contrast to that ancient traditional culture, much of the Western world today is not traditional and conservative.

And so we today may hear this instruction in Ephesians—I'm going to read it to you in a minute—we may hear this as almost offensive. After all, the text says that wives are to submit to their husbands, and we hear that today and say, Well, that sounds patriarchal, and it sounds like the husband is more important than the wife, and the wife has to just sort of submit and do everything the husband says. And so it's offensive to us. So the question is, is Christianity, is Ephesians chapter 5 progressive or traditional? Is it liberal or conservative? I'm going to suggest that Christianity is a third way.

It is neither of those categories, or you might say it's both of those categories. It is a third way. It is the way of the gospel. The gospel says that we are in Christ, and that changes everything. We in Christ are looking for ways to honor God. We're looking for ways to serve each other.

So because you are in Christ, in the home, live in harmony. Okay, that's the background. Then very briefly, let's look at this teaching on wives and husbands, verses 22 to 24, wives. 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 wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

Now, what does that mean? To some cultures, it might sound very progressive. To others, it might sound offensive and super traditional. Well, notice that it says, Wives, submit to your husband. It's not making a general statement about a male and female and, you know, work relationships and government. It's talking about in the house.

Wives, submit to your husband. This submission does not imply inferiority. In Christ, the man and the woman, the husband and the wife, are equal. We have the same standing in Christ, same spiritual blessings. As I said previously, we are—the ground at the foot of the cross is level ground. One person is not higher than the other.

So submitting does not imply inferiority. It also does not imply that wives must submit to abuse. If husbands are being abusive, then the wife should seek help or flee or, in some way, protect herself. No, this is just talking about the everyday life around the house. Wives, submit to your husbands. Later on in the chapter, verse 33, it says she should respect her husband.

Now what does that look like on the day-to-day grind? In terms of application, there is plenty of room here for different styles and different personalities, different cultures, but the principle still stands. Just as Christ submitted to His Father, just as the church submits to Christ, so wives who are in the Lord submit to their husbands. Now, I don't want to give any specifics on application. You work out the specifics according to your personalities, according to your culture, according to your own life circumstances. What would this biblical teaching, wives submit to your husband, what does that look like for work and managing money and managing time and childcare?

And so you work out what it looks like, but it is God's teaching here in Ephesians chapter 5, wives. Just as the church submits to Christ, so wives should respect and honor their husbands. And then it turns to husbands. The basic teaching is, husbands, love your wives. Verse 25: Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her, that He might sanctify her, cleansing her with the washing of the water and the word. Verse 28: In the same way, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies.

He who loves his wife loves himself, in a sense. For no one has ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes it and cherishes it, just as Christ does for the church. We are members of his body. So husbands, love your wives sacrificially, laying down your life as Christ loved the church, so you should love your wife. The Greek word for love here is agape. Have you heard that word?

It's that rich word. It describes God's love for us. And here it says, Husbands, you should love your wives with agape love, sacrificial, selfless, not lording it over your wife, not domineering, not being mean, not throwing your weight around, not using Ephesians 5 as a whip. You know, Look, you're right there, wife. It says you need to submit to me. No, that's not the spirit that one who is in Christ has.

The husband who is in Christ in the home is trying to live in harmony, selflessly, sacrificially. Now, in terms of application, there's lots of room here for different styles and personalities and different cultures for what this principle looks like. But the principle does stand. People who are in the Lord do not domineer others. We love, we serve, we lay down our lives for others. So what would this look like for you for, you know, household chores, with communication with your wife?

This agape love. What would it look like for your sexual relationship? What would it look like with your management of money? Because Christian husbands are in Christ, in the house, they conduct themselves in harmony, with deference, with sacrifice, with love. Well, wives and husbands, is the Bible traditional or progressive? Well, it's kind of both, or you might say it's kind of neither.

It is a third way. It is the way of the gospel. We belong to a new household. We have put off the old self. We have been raised with Christ, so we live differently. Christians who are in the Lord, when in the house, live in harmony.

I absolutely love the perspective of how Professor Arters has us compare marriage as progressive, traditional, conservative. But when he speaks about marriage being the way of the gospel and looking at it with a servant's heart, wow, I started to see the difference between my marriage and that of my grandparents. How do you view your relationship? Do your actions and your language put you in the progressive, traditional, or servant category? And here's what I did. I spoke with my wife and got her perspective on it.

Take what Professor Arters talks about today and put it to the test with your marriage. Are you both on the same page, or are you looking at it from different viewpoints?