So far in his letter Paul has primarily been writing about what we might call spiritual things. But, the Christian and Messianic Jewish life is also about what we might call earthly or physical things. The physical and the spiritual are designed to work together. We must be right in the area of spiritual things, and we must be right in the area of physical things.
The Rabbi from Tarsus has written about spiritual relationships: our relationship with the Three-In-One God; the new relationship that exists in the New Covenant Community between Jews and Gentiles; and how the saints are to relate to each other within Messiah’s Holy Community. Now he addressed other relationships that have to do with other important relationship to human beings on Earth.
First is the relationship between husband and wife. With the divorce rate around 50%, and the out-of-marriage birthrate high, particularly in the African-American community, we need to embrace God’s principles for marriage more than ever. Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord.
The relationship between husband and wife is to be a married and fully committed for life secure, faithful relationship, not an uncommitted out of marriage, no covenant relationship, easy divorce when things get unpleasant or difficult kind or relationship.
The relationship between husband and wife is a relationship between a man and a woman, not a man and a man or a woman and a woman.
The relationship between husband and wife is not a relationship in which they have equal power and authority.
It is a relationship in which the woman is submitted to the man – not the man to the woman.
It is a relationship in which the wife is submitted to her husband in the very same way that she is submitted to the Lord.
Our relationship to the Lord is one of subject and ruler. He makes the rules. He makes the decisions. We obey those rules and decisions. We don’t tell the Lord what to do. He tells us what to do.
Why should a woman obey her man in the same way that she obeys the Lord? Because God has designed the authority structure within the marriage relationship between man and woman with the very same kind of authority structure that exists between Messiah and all of His followers – Lord and subject.
Gamliel’s greatest student emphases this teaching again: For the husband is the head of the wife, as Messiah also is the head of the church. The husband is the head, the leader in the marriage relationship, in the same kind of way that Messiah is the leader of those who have been called out from dying mankind to experience salvation. Messiah is the head of the church. He is in control. He is in charge. He leads. He directs. His leadership is not completely shared with us as equals. He may give a measure of authority to us over certain limited areas of responsibility, but that is His decision – not ours. We don’t fully and equally share His authority. If we have authority, it is because it is delegated authority. His leadership should never be challenged by us.
In the same way that we relate to the Messiah as our leader, the wife is to relate to her husband as her leader. He is in charge. He is in control. His leadership is not to be challenged. He leads, guides, directs. His leadership is not equally shared with his wife. He assigns the various areas of responsibility to him and his wife.
It’s not easy to submit to a leader who is selfish, difficult, mean and inconsiderate. But that is not the kind of leader that Messiah is, and that makes it easy for us to submit to His leadership. He Himself being the Savior of the body. In my opinion, in the recent history of the United States, we have not had great leaders. We don’t understand the willingness to serve, to obey, to sacrifice that comes to people who know that they are following a great leader. We don’t know the excitement that comes from following a great man.
But our leader is a great leader. Messiah Yeshua is not cruel, selfish, or tyrannical. He does not use and then discard people. In fact, it is just the opposite. He is the kind of leader who is the Savior of the body – the body being the community of His followers, Jews and Gentiles who He has rescued from the powerful and terrible forces of sin and death. He is a good and kind and merciful and wise and courageous and selfless leader; a leader who understood our greatest needs, better than we understood them, and knew exactly where we needed help and saving the most, and then personally volunteered and entered into the midst of a terrible battle to rescue us from certain destruction. That is the kind of leader that is a pleasure to follow, to serve, to submit to, to yield to, to obey, and that is the kind of leader that we have. And, that is the kind of leader that men need to be to their wives.
What is the nature of the wife submitting to her husband? She is to be subject to him in what areas? Limited areas? He has his areas of authority and she has her autonomous independent areas of authority? But as the church (the called out ones, who form the community of saints made up of Jews and Gentiles) is subject to Messiah, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything.
In everything – which includes decisions where they are to live.
In everything – which includes the responsibilities around the home.
In everything – which includes dealing with the children.
In everything – which includes work.
In everything – in spite of what our culture says.
In everything – in spite of what radical feminists say.
In everything – in spite of what your girlfriends say.
What if I am mad at him? What if I don’t like him? In everything – in spite of what you are feeling about him.
Woman, if your husband is making a bad decision, you can tell him, and warn him, and make your displeasure known – to an appropriate degree, but the final decision is ultimately up to him. Sarah did this. She obeyed her husband, and acknowledged Abraham as her lord. Today’s women are to be no different.
The only exceptions in the area of submission is obeying him in things that are wrong, immoral, or illegal. Then, you have a higher duty to obey the Lord, and you have a responsibility to resist your husband in those areas.
“Being subject to” characterizes the woman’s relationship to her husband. And the concept that is to characterize the husband’s relationship to his wife is love. Husbands, love your wives. Love is the desire to help another, to bless, do good to some other being. Love really helps the one who is loved. But to really someone, you must know what is good, what is right, what will really help the one you love. Only then will you be able to do what will really help.
Husbands, cultivate the desire to help that beautiful creature that the Lord has entrusted to your care. You must know the truth, and know what is good for your wife. You must study her and learn how to best help her. You must know her needs, and help her meet those needs. Men, it’s not always easy or convenient, and you may not always want to give more of your time and energy to your wife, but since she is one of your very highest priorities, you probably need to, and with God’s help and grace, you can do it!
Love is sacrificial. If you genuinely love someone, you are willing to diminish yourself so that they might become more; you are willing to have harm come to yourself so that the object of your love will be safe. That is the way a man needs to love his woman. Husbands, love your wives, just as Messiah also loved the church and gave Himself up for her.
The church, which not a building, but the community of believers, the holy ones, those separated from this dying sinful world, and set apart to love the Lord – we are like the wife, and Messiah is like our husband.
Men, Yeshua is our God-ordained leader who is the example that we look to regarding the way we are to love our wives. Messiah became our Savior at great cost to Himself – giving up the honors of Heaven, becoming a weak human being, submitting Himself to many inconveniences and the indignities of being a human being, enduring rejection by the majority of the leaders of the Chosen Nation, experiencing injustice, torture and a cruel and painful death. That is how He became the Savior of the body. That is the kind of leader Messiah is. That is how He loved us. And that is how we are to love our wives – with a “gave Himself up for her” kind of love. Men, ask yourself these questions: What will be best for her? What does she like? What does she want? What would please her. What would benefit it the most?
That “giving Himself up for her” kind of love accomplished what we so desperately needed – atonement, forgiveness, salvation, redemption, reconciliation with God. But Messiah did more for us. We also needed something else. Yes, we desperately needed salvation, but we also needed sanctification. We needed a restoration to genuine holiness. So, our great and wise leader not only sacrificially died for us, but He also taught us many things so that we could live a pure and holy life.
So that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless. I summarize this section in three words – sanctification through education.
Humanity is not only dead in our trespasses and sins, and headed to Hell, but we are spiritually and morally dirty, defiled, filthy and impure. We are repulsive to the infinitely pure and holy God, this Supreme Being who has such an amazing purity that He can tolerate nothing impure, so that anything impure that gets too close to the Holy One of Israel is incinerated.
One of our greatest needs is to become holy, to be sanctified, to be cleansed; to have all the hideous moral and spiritual spots and blemishes removed; all the sins and guilt and the things worthy of judgment and blame resulting in divine punishment, removed.
Sanctification, becoming more holy, more separate from sin, more separated to accomplish the purposes of the Holy One, comes through spiritual education. Truth, good teaching, sound doctrine cleanses, washes, purifies, and sanctifies us. As the sons and daughters of God study the Word of God, and hear the truth being taught, the Holy Spirit helps us understand what is right and good and pleasing to God, and He inspires us, and strengthens us to do what is right, and refuse to do what is wrong.
The result of us, along with the Spirit of God who lives in us, interacting with the teachings of the Law, the Prophets, the Writings, and particularly the teachings of the Messiah, is the washing away of our moral and spiritual dirt.
Messiah is the greatest teacher. He understood the Torah, the Prophets and the Writings better than any other sage or rabbi or wise man in Israel. He taught us the way to understand and apply the Tenach. He gave us His own teachings that give great light and truth. Are you familiar with Him and His teachings?
Messiah suffered and died for us. And Messiah taught us. His suffering and death made atonement, reconciliation with God, the attaining of eternal life possible. His teaching ministry made sanctification and growth in holiness possible. He did these great things because He loved us. He wanted fallen human beings – Jews and Gentiles, you and I, to be His friends and close companions throughout eternity. He did not want an ugly, dirty bride, but a clean and beautiful and honorable companion that will be fit for Himself, the holy Son of God.
This same kind of love and care that educates and elevates and helps her reach her potential, and be as beautiful and holy as she can be, is to characterize the way a man loves his woman. A man needs to plan the life of his family in such a way that his wife’s needs for elevation and exaltation are being addressed.
Men, we are motivated to love our wives as we look to the Messiah, and try to love our wives the same way He loves us – with sacrificial love. But, there is another motivation to love our wives, and that is self-interest. The more we love our wives the more we benefit ourselves! So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it.
Normal, healthy people take care of their bodies. They feed themselves, wash themselves, clothe themselves so they are protected from the elements. If they are sick, they go to a doctor to get proper treatment.
Men, when you make that commitment and marry that woman, she becomes part of you. The two become one. You are besar echad – one flesh. You are not longer two separate individuals, but two individuals who merge and form a team, a unit. If she suffers, you suffer. If she is unhappy, you will be unhappy. But if she is happy, she will make you happy. If she is spiritually weak, she will drag you down. But if she is strong, she will encourage and strengthen you. So, out of self-interest, if you want your life to be better, love her! Spend time with her, talk to her, be with her, do things that she likes to do, bless her.
Messiah treats those of us who are part of His body in the same way. Just as Messiah also does the church, because we are members of His body. Because of the activity of the Three-In-One God, we have been joined to Messiah. We are part of His body, His set apart community of human beings. Be are part of Him. We belong to Him. Therefore He lovingly nourishes and cherishes and takes care of us.
The sage from Tarsus quotes from the Torah about marriage: For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. We know this – that the man and the woman become a unified, loving team, but Paul has something more in mind. This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Messiah and the church. Something tremendous has taken place. Instead of being far from God, alienated from the Source of Life and Goodness, in rebellion against the King of the universe, because of what God the Father and Messiah His Son and the Spirit of the Father and the Son have done has enabled the redeemed followers of Yeshua to have the closest kind of relationship with Messiah, like the close and intimate and loving relationship between a man and his woman. We now have a new closeness, and sharing of intimacy and love and friendship and unity and nature and Spirit that is amazing and wonderful and precious.
Paul concludes this area of relationship with these words: Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife even as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband. There is something that God has designed into the nature of the male of our species that wants to lead, and to have his leadership respected. And, there is something that God has designed into the nature of the female of the species that wants to be loved.
Wives, respect the authority of your husband. Wives, submit, and acknowledge your man as the wonderful head that God has given to you, and he will love you. Men, love your wives. Do what is best for them. Think of their well-being. Make that the basis for your decisions.
Do this, and you will have a good marriage, a successful marriage, a marriage that lasts, a marriage that will form the foundation for raising godly children, and a marriage that will shine like a light in the darkness amongst the crumbling marriages in our society.