Brief meditation on submission and marriage

And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ, wives to husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also should wives submit in everything to their husbands.Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her that he might sanctify her, cleansing her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without stain or wrinkle or any other mark, that she might be holy and unmarred. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. Whoever loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am talking about Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself,
and let the wife see that she respects her husband.—Ephesians 5:18-33That first paragraph above is Ephesians 5:18-24, and if you’re used to English translations, it probably looks weird to you. Your typical English Bible will put a full stop after “our Lord Jesus Christ,” then set verse 21 off as a separate paragraph: “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” Then you’ll have a heading, most often Wives and Husbands, and then verse 22 will read, “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.”The only problem is, that verb in verse 22 doesn’t exist; inserting it, and the heading, makes it sound like a new and separate command from everything that’s gone before, and it just isn’t. It’s a particular application of a broader command: the command to mutual submission. To the world, this sounds like a really strange concept, since what the world has in mind when it thinks of “submit” or “be subject” is one person bossing another around—I tell you what to do and you do it, and that’s that. It’s a one-way street. What Paul means is something very different: all of us as brothers and sisters in Christ are supposed to submit to one another as part of being filled up by the Spirit. What this means is, submission isn’t about hierarchy, and it isn’t a matter of most of us doing what a few people tell us to do. Instead, it’s a matter of how we as Christians relate to one another and care for one another. It’s a matter of heeding Paul’s words in Philippians 2: “Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.” As the ultimate example of this attitude, Paul points to Christ, who had more right than anyone to insist on his own way and his own prerogatives, but chose instead to give them all up and accept crucifixion. It seems to me that the command to submit to each other doesn’t mean that we have to do whatever anyone tells us to do, but rather that we don’t have the right to dominate others; we can’t insist that we are more important than they are. Instead, we should be willing to let others be more important, we should be ready to let others have their way, and we should be as concerned for the good of those around us as for our own good.This is the context in which Paul turns to address wives and husbands. Many argue that this is a special case, that mutual submission is only the rule outside of marriage, and that inside marriage, submission is a one-way street. The reason I’ve usually seen offered for this is that Paul doesn’t go on in either of these passages to tell husbands to submit to their wives, and that therefore this must be a special duty for wives, not husbands. On first read, that makes sense; but if that’s the correct reading of these passages, then what do we make of the fact that Paul tells husbands to love their wives, but never tells wives to love their husbands? Clearly, he doesn’t mean that wives don’t need to love their husbands. This suggests—especially in light of the command in Ephesians to mutual submission—that he doesn’t intend submission to be just one-way, either; after all, one element of loving another person is being willing to put them and their will and their good ahead of ourselves and our own. Rather, it seems likely that Paul emphasizes submission to wives and love to husbands for some other reason.My guess is that that reason is the cultural situation he’s dealing with, which enshrined the legal superiority of husbands over wives. Husbands had, at least in theory, absolute power over their wives—and, for that matter, their children; and we all know what absolute power does: it corrupts. It corrupts those who wield it; it also corrupts those who are under it. Paul’s driving concern, then, is to address both halves of this relationship and tell both husbands and wives how to deal with the situation as Christians. The key principle here is that this should be all about Christ, and doing what pleases him (which includes not submitting to things which clearly do not please him); along with this, we see the truth that greater authority doesn’t mean a greater opportunity to get your own way, but rather a greater opportunity to love and serve. Thus Paul tells husbands, “Love your wives as Christ loved the church.” How did Christ love the church? He laid down his life for the church. That, and nothing less, is the standard.