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| Silver Tea Set, Tamorlan, Wikimedia Commons. |
Jenni: Why would Paul use marriage as an analogy for the relationship between Christ and the Church? If he was just trying to communicate the love factor, wouldn't he just stick to the father/child relationship? I wonder if you could build a case, or if it would even be right to build a case that the intimacy factor in marriage is one of the revelations Paul received.
Brett: Well, let's just stick to what has been revealed to us: the idea of presenting to Christ a church without spot or wrinkle. So, how do we love Christ? By submitting to the pressure, the heat...
J: I'm sorry, how does that relate to a wife submitting to her husband? Pressure and heat? Where are you going with that?
B: That Christ may present the Church without spot or wrinkle. So spots need soap and wrinkles need an iron (pressure and heat)...That's the sanctification process, right?
J: Um. Ephesians 5:25 says, "Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her..."
How does a husband love his wife? Is it the same thing as giving himself up for his wife? Hold that thought.
Verse 26: "that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word... "
So, specifically to make her clean? How does a husband give himself up for his wife so that she might be clean, if that's the goal?
B: Ideally, we would lay down our lives for the protection or safety of our family. Christ laid down his own desires.
J: He denied himself the pleasures of the flesh so that he could make his church spotless, blameless.
B: Yeah, tempted in every way, yet without sin.
J: So, specifically for a husband, what does he have to give up or forfeit for the sake of making his wife spotless or blameless or holy? He's supposed to lead his wife spiritually, so does he himself have to be blameless in order to impart that to her? He has to have some righteousness to impart, right? No pressure, dear.
B: No, that's true. You have to have something to give something.
J: So how does that work if a husband is not in a position of spiritual strength to lead his wife?
B: Well, according to Peter, you still submit if you have a husband who's not obeying the word.
1 Pet. 3:1-2: "Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, 2 when they see your respectful and pure conduct."
J: Unless he asks you to sin, right?
B: Right. Ideally he is submitted to the word of God himself because Christ left us an example, "that we might follow in His steps" (1 Pet. 2:21).
J: In order to reflect the model of Christ and the Church.
B: He has to lay down his own will, and train, teach, and discipline at home. How can you train someone without discipline? How can you get your children into subjection? Yes, it's love, but it's also discipline. And it's a picture of the elders. The elders are commanded to lead first at home, so they have to first be qualified by demonstrating their good character; they have to be submitted to the Lord and then be able to teach others what they themselves have submitted to, right? If they aren't leaders at home, how can they lead the church of God?
1 Timothy 3:4–5 (ESV): 4 He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, 5 for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church?
2 Timothy 2:2 (ESV): and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also.
J: So you're incorporating these ideas into the idea of his leadership of his wife? How does the husband "give himself up" for his wife in order to make her holy and blameless? Because that's the comparison of Christ and the church. He must first have something to impart to her, which is...
B: a standard of what is holy and right. And you can go to Jesus, speaking to his Father in John 17, that he has given them the commands that God wanted them to have, and they have received them. The purpose of that is to sanctify them, in John 17:17, by the word: "Your word is truth," which is continued in the apostles' teachings.
J: That lines up with "Through the washing of the water of the word" (Eph. 5:26). Okay, and then V. 27: "so that he might present the Church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish." So you think that the way a husband washes his wife with the word is by what? Reading the Bible to her?
B: More than that. Keeping the standard, right?
J: So, just reminding her of what the standard is?
B: Yes, and of her role. As you're reading the Scripture, a lot of things come out, because the word of God judges the thoughts and intents of the heart:
"For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart" (Heb 4:12).
If we do not have an expressed standard in our home, then there is no accountability. Romans 7:7 says that without law, there is no knowledge of sin. Discussing biblical roles opens the dialog about the biblical standard that we are to live up to. It's so simple and yet so difficult. What does it mean to be a keeper of your home? These discussions reveal a lot about our roles as men and women. And when you kick against your biblical role, you're really complaining to God, "Why have you made me this way? Why are women to keep the home? Why are men the ones who are out, working? Can't women be as good as men at being pastors?" I just hear, because I've been conditioned culturally, "You're just trying to keep women down," but it's really about God's design.
J: Yes, it's hard to ignore the cry of our culture.
B: Well, in reference to 1 Corinthians 14:35, where a woman who has doctrinal questions is urged to ask her husband at home, there should be a discussion of biblical principles for the specific purpose of the husband making her "holy and without blemish."
J: Because that's the parallel to Jesus and the Church.
B: You can't have a reflection in dirty vessels.
J: So, the Church is reflective of his glory.
B: Spots and wrinkles hinder that reflection, so the church is like a well-polished instrument reflecting the glory, shining in the glory of Christ. God likes shiny things. At work, I used to polish my pliers and the screwdrivers. I had a toolbox full of old, rusty tools that didn't work; the pliers were rusted, so I went through them and polished them (he says as he's sanding a saw handle), like this. Put this tool in your hand; it's sharp, shiny...
J: Yeah, very nice. Okay, so verse 28 says, "In the same way, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself." So how is a husband loving his wife as himself reflective of Christ loving the church as himself?
B: He wants to see himself in her, that she's shiny and reflective.
J: Oh, and they're one.
B: And the reason he withheld from his earthly temptations was so that he could be a participant with her in glory.
J: Verse 29: "For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, 30 because we are members of his body."
B: I would amplify those two words: Cherish and nourish, because they're not understood easily. Define them in the Greek?
J: Dictionary of Biblical Languages* says nourish can mean "provide food for," or "rear," as in, bring up, like a child. Cherish is "to take care of" or "warm up." In what ways does Christ nourish and cherish the Church?
B: He is the vine, the picture of the nourishment that the root supplies to the branches, which is life-giving and enables the vine to be fruitful (John 15:4-5). He cherishes her by keeping her safe. John 10:29: "...no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand." The husband is to be the provider and protector. Husbands lay down themselves for their wives. Part of what Christ has done is provided for us the daily bread through his word, and he's provided for us protection, in that he has given us his Spirit and his word, which keeps us.
J: Verse 31: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. 33 However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband." Comments?
B: Can I get an amen?
Crickets.
B: She wants to be acceptable to him. Nobody wants to be rejected by her provider. Biblically, men had the privilege of divorcing if they found some indecency in their wives (Deut. 24:1). The goal of a wife was to strive to be acceptable, so that she would not be put away. Her marriage was her means of subsistence. She wants to be acceptable.
J: As does the Church. Closing thoughts?
B: Maintenance. Scrub with finer and finer grits til she's polished. Husbands, don't be harsh with your wives. Don't put 80 grit sandpaper on your fine china.
J: Nice. Maybe that's honoring as the "weaker vessel" (1 Pet. 3:7). Or honing. So, biblical marriage and the respect for roles as they're outlined in the Bible is supposed to demonstrate the relationship between Christ and His bride, the Church.
B: Yes. I would encourage men to sit down with their wives and discuss these verses and their meaning. Don't let your marriage be "conformed to this world," but "be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect" (Rom.12:2).
*James Swanson, Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains: Greek (New Testament) (Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997).
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