The Devil’s Lies about Women and Wives
Family piety is not an afterthought to the Holy Spirit. It is the way our “doing all things in Christ’s name” comes to its most practical expression. In the Christian’s home is where all the professions and doctrines are lived out to our Master’s honor. In the Christian’s home is where the vitality and validity of a Christian profession is proven. We can act the part of good Christians in public and cite biblical morality to fight against the wickedness of the day. But doing all in Christ’s name is proven by the Christian’s actions as a husband, wife, child, or worker (whatever calling or profession). We all know this to be the case, and so does the Holy Spirit as he addresses the Christian home and its members. Here the light of Christ grows and spreads to other homes that were in darkness. They see the light and are by God’s grace drawn to it. Christian character is molded in the home more than anywhere else, as are expectations about life and the way to live as Christians in the world. The gospel came not only to save broken, sin-killed men, but to save broken, sin-killed families. It does the same today, and in Christ, real transformation and healing is a reality. Many of you have seen his hand in your homes. All of us desire more of Christ in our homes, more of his healing hand, more devotion to him, whatever our stage of family life or struggle happens to be.
We cannot approach the subject of wives and husbands in a vacuum. Satan’s war against Christian homes is occurring all around us. His lies deceive the children of disobedience – and can sometimes seem to deceive the elect. The first is about the woman, and it is the same lie he told to her in Eden – you can be and do whatever you want. You are your own god, and do not let anyone tell you differently. If you want to be a man, do it. There are no such things as unique men’s and women’s identities, callings, or spheres of responsibility. You, O sovereign woman, can do anything a man can do, and often better than a man can do it. Do you want to be a soldier, or a corporate exec, or a preacher – do it. Any limits upon your person, dreams, and life are acts of aggression and oppression against you. And, if you really want to be a man – a strange twist of his lies – become one. Mutilate yourself – the creature’s tantrum of self-loathing and rebellion. Mar God’s image. Get rid of what makes you beautiful, unique, and fulfilled. If anyone speaks of “submission,” spit in his face. Women can do very well out from under man. Society is doing fine with single mothers, bizarre and perverse family arrangements, man-less marriages. We are living in the horror of these lies, but many women and men believe them. There has rarely been such a weighty and painful proof of “and so God gave them over so that they would believe a lie” (2 Thess. 2:11) than the daily home lives of millions – no God, no self or home government under his will, no redemption in Christ – only autonomy, chaos, and hopelessness.
The Lord’s Call to the Wife to Submit to Her Husband
Assumes voluntary willingness
But the Lord has given us the love of the truth, that we might be saved (2 Thess. 2:10). The Holy Spirit here reveals his beautiful mind for the Christian woman who is married or plans to be married. These words are written directly to you, as the husband’s directives are to him. The Lord calls you to submit to your husband. To submit means to bring your will under his, to seek to please your husband, to help him in every way, and to live together as co-heirs of Jesus Christ in mutual love and service. Submission assumes a voluntary willingness. Even the middle voice of the verb suggests you have a choice to make – either to listen to Satan’s lies or to place yourself willingly under God’s authority. This is like our Savior’s submission – willing, voluntary. The command is not mediated through your husband but made directly to you. Your husband is not being commanded to command you to submit. You are not a slave, or a child, but a Christian woman, and you have but one Master, the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, in his name, doing all in his name as a woman, you are commanded in your marriage to submit to your husband. Marriage as an institution is God’s – he created and ordained and governs it. As a woman, he calls you to be submissive to your own husband. As a Christian, he calls you to be like our Master, who “humbled himself and became obedient unto death.”
Fulfills God’s creation purposes
We should not ignore that the New Testament assumes the Old Testament account of your creation as a woman. God made you as a woman to help the man, as a wife to be your husband’s helpmeet. Too many marriages assume that each spouse comes into the marriage with goals and aspirations, and that the husband is to help the wife fulfill hers. There is a real mutuality in marriage, but the wife’s specific calling from the Lord is not primarily to find a man who will help her reach her goals but to be a woman who will help her husband. Much misery in marriage, even in Christian marriages, stems directly from a failure to be the person the Lord created us to be. Seen in the light of Scripture and the Holy Spirit’s mind revealed therein, submission is never negative. Not only is it like Jesus Christ, the Son of God, but also the woman’s submission to her husband is what God created you to be and to do – to help your husband, by companionship and dominion, by childbearing and child-raising, and by everything that contributes to a well-ordered home. Satan always attacks the woman at the level of authority and identity. If he can convince women that they have no created, unique identity, divine destiny or purpose, they are easy prey for every other lie. But as he teaches in 1 Corinthians 11:8-9, the woman was made for the man, not the man for the woman. This is not derogatory to the woman or an insult to her person or worth. It recognizes that the Lord is the potter, and he made both man and woman to fulfill specific tasks and callings. Each is glorious and fulfilling. Each is person specific. Great harm follows when either is violated.
Made More Difficult by Sin and the Curse
If the wife’s submission is voluntary like Christ our Savior’s and the fulfillment of her creation purpose, why do we find it troubling to hear that the wife is to submit to her husband? Submission requires a tamed heart to the Lord’s will for our lives. Sin has made us inherently rebellious. Submission is a willingness to bend one’s own will to that of another and to respect their authority over us. Submission assumes an authority with a legitimate claim upon our reverence and obedience. Satan tempted us to seize deity, and our fallen god-complex, god-grasping makes us extremely unwilling to come down from our personal thrones and to bend our will to another. And the curse upon our rebellion was that the woman would find it very difficult to submit. This is for two reasons. First, she has lost the ability to do what is good and pleasing to the Lord. Second, her husband is not the gentle, peaceful, nurturing person he should be. He often lords it over her, tramples upon her, and uses her for his own ends. Thus, the wife’s submission to her own husband has been very challenging in practice. Her sin nature fights against it, and her husband’s sin nature tends to make him hard and unfeeling, or controlling and tyrannical. Nevertheless, as Genesis 3:16 says, the husband will rule his wife. The difficulties for the husband’s calling in his work do not mean he can be lazy and give up. The wife cannot rebel against her husband and her calling because her submission has been made hard. She, like her husband, must look to Jesus Christ the submissive servant of the Lord for healing, salvation, and help. Together, they must abide in him for strength to be faithful to their callings. Only in Him is marriage redeemed and delivered from the misery of our sinful claims to be like God.
Balanced by the Husband’s Sacrificing Love
It is not hard to imagine the difficulties of unbelieving marriages – still under the curse, untamed wills, no faith in the suffering servant of the Lord. But what of believing marriages? When the Christian wife is directed to submit to her husband, she is given special encouragement and help to obey her Lord. The Holy Spirit commands her husband to nurture and cherish her, to love her sacrificially. This does not remove all the difficulties of submission, but there is power and grace in Jesus Christ to do what would otherwise be impossible. Redemption in Christ thus redeems marriage. It is no wonder that unbelievers howl against the wife being told to submit. They know not the Redeemer, the tamer of our wills, the beauty of his submission to the will of his Father and his submission to the cross. They are still under the dominion of sin, and the untamed will does not submit. “It is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be” (Rom. 8:7).
And thus, your submission, Christian wife, is made a lighter and easier yoke on the assumption, first, that you marry a true Christian – not a cultural Christian, for this is a “form of godliness without any power.” You are commanded to marry only in the Lord (1 Cor. 7:39), for your submission to a man who is not in the Lord will be much harder and without sympathy. Second, even if you married a Christian man who knows he is to love you sacrificially as Christ does his bride, your husband is a very pale shadow of the love of Christ. You will often not feel very nurtured or cherished. Nonetheless, you must learn to trust the Holy Spirit’s work in your husband over months and years, through the furnace of affliction, as the Lord shapes him. Through this process, you are also being shaped, and therefore, you must submit with thankfulness that the Lord is your Master and that he is working in your husband.
Fitting in the Lord
“Fitting” can be taken in two ways. It might mean simply that it is only fitting that a Christian wife who loves her Master should submit to her husband. This is the way you relate to the Lord Jesus – tamed, seeking to please him in all things, and reverent to him who died for you – and in your marriage – pleasing your husband, helping him, reverencing him (Eph. 5:33). Or, and likely both are included, “in the Lord” is the Spirit’s usual description of our position in Christ, the relationship we have with him – in union, in communion, in his strength, and in honor to him through yielding to him. Thus, the wife’s submission to her husband is appropriate given her union with Christ. In submitting to your husband, you are living out your faith in submissive obedience to his will for your life. Both are likely implied. Whichever is chosen, both may be drawn clearly from this and related texts. The glorious idea, Christian woman, is that you are in the Lord. There is a certain way you must live because you are a Christian – not a robot, an object, a doormat, a slave of your husband. No, first and foremost, you are a Christian, a follower of Jesus Christ. However faithful or unfaithful your husband, worthy or unworthy, you are in the Lord, and submission is the fitting way you relate to your husband, because you have a higher Husband and Lord, Jesus Christ our Savior.
Never Absolute, Unreasonable, Degrading, without Appeal
There is one hurdle we should clear so that submission is not turned into something ugly. The Christian wife has only one Master, one absolute authority, and that is Jesus Christ. This is true of every relationship of superior to inferior, between the one exercising God-ordained authority and the one under that authority. All human authority is ministerial – it is exercised and given in service to God, under the higher authority of his revealed will in Scripture. Therefore, the wife never has to submit to sinful commands and demands. Her submission does not obligate her to be degraded or used by an abusive, tyrannical authority exercised by her husband, for this breaks the marriage covenant: leave, cleave, and oneness of flesh (Gen. 2:23). She may also appeal her husband’s requests and decisions to him, first, and humbly, with Scripture backing her up, for this is an authority higher than her husband’s. If she believes that the husband’s exercise of his God-given authority is harming her or the family, then she should and in some cases must appeal to her elders, to whom both husband and wife are to give obedience and reverence (1 Thess. 5:12-13; Heb. 13:17). Undoubtedly this is one reason that submission is such a feared idea in the sin-darkened world. Outside of Christ, authority corrupts, without recourse or appeal, other than violent interchanges, sulking, and constant bickering. In Christ, all authority in church and home is under Christ, in Christ, unto Christ, and must be exercised in his sovereign name and in obedience to his word, in word and deed, in mind and attitude.
The Beautiful Fruit of the Wife’s Submission to Her Husband
To Imitate Christ
It should astound us that in the church, submission should be controversial. We are saved because of the submission of the Son of God to take our flesh upon himself and obey the will of his Father, with whom he is eternally equal in power and glory. We are followers of Jesus Christ especially in his servitude (John 13:15). Because we are sinful, the practice of submission is never perfect and always has its challenges, but we should nonetheless embrace the privilege of looking more like our Savior in his submission. This is the call of Christ to us in all ages, all spheres, even husbands, parents, and masters who have a real authority – to practice the submission and humility of Christ in every area of their lives. In every Christian’s heart is the dominating desire to be like the Lord Jesus – to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow him. The wife’s submission is an extension of this in her closest human relation and highest earthly calling.
The real issue with submission is that it calls us to be like Jesus Christ: to put to death our sinful deeds and desires, to put ourselves to death so that we do not hold to one little place in our lives over which we claim autonomy, the right to be as gods. Yet, since Eve said “NO” to the Lord and “YES” to the devil, submission is distasteful, even horrifying. Therefore, whenever you, Christian wife, hear hell’s howling against submission and your sinful flesh groaning at the challenges of submission in your particular circumstances, look by faith at the bleeding Savior on the cross, and bury your rebellion in his wounds. Boast in the sufferings associated with your submission. Ask him to strengthen you to be more like him. However hard submission is in practice, however lousy husbands are at nurturing and cherishing, the Christian wife is honored to be a living model of the submission of Jesus Christ.
To Save Her Husband
But there is another aspect of the wife’s submission, something rarely mentioned, although it is directly stated in Scripture. By living as a Christian wife in your marriage, the hope from the Lord is that you will “save your husband,” if he is an unbeliever (1 Cor. 7:16; 1 Pet. 3:1). And if the unbelieving husband is sanctified by his believing wife, how much more is the believing husband directly, personally impacted unto godliness. He daily watches your faithfulness, sees your example of submission, your love for Christ, your thousand daily acts of sacrifice for your household. Now, the world says that you will save your bad husband by yelling at him, or asserting your will against his, or demanding your right to have your way. To be a real woman, you must stand up for yourself and allow yourself to be led by none. The Christian woman and wife has new eyes and sees things with the mind of Christ. Yes, your husband is imperfect and makes bad decisions at times. He is not the head of the home because he is necessarily good or wise, loving or cherishing, but because God has called him to that office. He will answer to the Lord for the way he exercises it.
And the Christian wife? She desires to see her unbelieving husband saved, delivered unto Jesus Christ, and her example of submission preaches Jesus Christ to her sin-killed husband more than anything else she can say or do. And for the wife who has a Christian husband, she desires to see him be more like Christ, die more to himself, serve the Lord Jesus more wholeheartedly, and be sanctified in every way. One vital way she does this is by her plain, transparent living in submission to her husband, as the Lord Jesus humbled himself. Let Christian wives everywhere respond to the bellowing of women demanding liberation by setting a shining example of submission. It will condemn the evils of our day, set an example for her children, and protect her home from demonic influence. Yes, demonic influence – devils and sin surge when they sniff rebellion. They flee when they see the submission that reminds them of Jesus Christ. They love pride; they love bluster. They tremble and flee when we hold up the cross of our Savior’s submission in their faces. Submission to God’s will is their doom.
To Please Her One Master, Jesus Christ
And this leads to the highest consideration of all, the grand motive and goal of the wife’s submission to her husband. You will certainly be happier by fulfilling God’s creation purpose for your very existence. You will by submission have a more peaceful home and more inner peace, for “by strife comes contention.” Your husband will undoubtedly love you better for your cheerful attention to your calling, helping him tenderly, serving tirelessly and without complaining. But there is One other for whom you submit, the One whose one look at you will wipe away forever any pain at being trampled upon and ignored, treated shabbily by your husband, and vilified by the world. There is another Husband whom you will soon meet and in whose love you will live forever. Think of the moment you see your Savior’s face, the One who submitted himself, suffered, and served. And he will look upon you, submissive Christian woman, and that one look will be heaven – to see him in his glory, and yet in his tenderness, the true Husband who has always nurtured you, always cherished you, so much that he endured all the pains and miseries of hell to makes sure his wife would be saved. So, think of him often, your future life with him, the smile and embrace he will give to you, the wonder of being loved so perfectly by such a Husband, and then living in his kingdom forever, loved and being loved, no more tears or pain, death or sorrow. And in this light, joyfully submit to your husband, “looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of your faith.”
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