Eph. 5:
25-33
The Bridegroom
12/14/2014
Lynchburg,
Virginia
EXHORDIUM
Last
week’s sermon was a chain of submission, focusing on the need that we all have
to submit to God. We talked particularly about the need for Christians to
submit to Jesus, for wives to submit to husbands, for children to submit to
parents and for slaves and workers to submit to masters and bosses. That sort
of emphasis may rub us the wrong way but it is the Bibles emphasis, not mine.
And the reason the Bible gives us this emphasis is because it puts a high value
on godly submission. It is the order that subverts the worldly system dominated
by domination.
This week I want to emphasize the
responsibility of authority from the same text we looked at last week. So, we
turn to husbands, parents, and bosses.
Keep in mind the categories. Last
week’s category was all those under authority. That includes all of us. This
week’s category is all those in authority. This also includes all of us. Well,
almost all of us. Maybe our newest babies and youngest children don’t have any
or much authority yet, but they will. Everybody else in this room IS in
authority, now. So, both categories apply to all of us and so we should pay
attention.
Keep in mind that these categories are
paradigms for Christian behavior. The
classic paradigm for Christian submission in wives submitting to their own
husbands. This follows the example of the Church’s submission to Jesus Christ.
Today, we look at the classic paradigm
of godly authority. It is represented in husbands loving their wives. This
follows the example of Jesus loving the Church.
The Scriptures set an amazingly high
standard for husbands and wives. God
calls us to bear His image and particularly, to bear the image of Christ and
His Church. Husbands are to be like Jesus. Wives are to be like a perfectly
ordered bride, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing. When hearing this, it
seems that a tendency for both husbands and wives will be to be really
discouraged. The standard is so high, I
don’t measure up and, therefore, I am a failure of a husband or a failure of a
wife.
There are multiple ways to respond to
this discouragement.
First, it is true. You cannot fully measure up.
Until the Resurrection, you husbands will not be complete, like Jesus. You
wives will fall short in many ways. If we know this up front, even as we strive
to meet God’s standards, we will also avail ourselves of God’s means of grace
and mercy. We will confess our faults to one another, especially to our spouses
and we will seek forgiveness and restoration.
This is also something God images as He is the faithful husband who
receives His ugly wife and makes her beautiful.
Admitting the truth of your failure to
measure up to God’s standard is the means of grace to be able to fulfill God’s
standard. None of us can be what God requires of us by our own strength or in
our own name. We cannot submit to God properly nor can we wield authority
properly. In order to do either, we need the Holy Spirit to empower us to do
that which is contrary to our fallen nature.
Second, after acknowledging that you
fall short and do sin, and availing yourself of God’s Holy Spirit, the next
step is to get about the business of doing God’s will. Find out what it is,
then start doing it. And here is where you will find that the Spirit is willing
but the flesh is weak. So, what do you do with that? You do it by the Spirit
instead of by the flesh. You do your duty but not in a begrudging sort of way.
You confess your unwillingness to do what is right and you lay hold of God’s
power, His Spirit, to do what is right.
If you find that you simply cannot do
what is right or even if you just do not want to do what is right, then you
need to be regenerated and filled with God’s Spirit. These things are a mystery
but I speak of Christ and His Church. How is the Church enabled to do what she
is called to do? She does this because the Holy Spirit gives her power. We
cannot always see this power at work but we know that when the Spirit is there,
Jesus is there and the Church accomplishes all that she was meant to accomplish.
Husbands and wives need to operate on this same principle.
If you are unfaithful in mind, word or
action, then you are not operating by the Spirit of God. Confess these things,
repent by changing your thoughts, words and deeds and walk forward by the power
of the Holy Spirit.
In
the beginning, a helper was sought for Adam. But in all of God’s creation a
helper suitable to him was not found. Adam was Lord of all the beasts but a
creature fitted to him was not among them.
A husband is called to tame and name
the wildest of all creatures, the one called Woman. And not only woman, even a
more lovely and dangerous creature than that, one called wife.
When I say that a husband is to tame
the wildest of creatures, called wife, I do not insult the wife. She is no
beast. On the contrary, she is fully human. Just as Adam would have his work
cut out for him in taming his own self, the Lord gave him a woman, born of his
own flesh, to be a partner with him in subduing all of creation. So, the woman
is an extension of Adam. She is bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh. He is
to take dominion over the woman and she is to help him in taking dominion over
the rest of creation.
Dominion is not merely lording it over.
Adam was most certainly lord but his lordship was one of service and work. He
was to tend the garden, raise the domestic animals and keep them in order. He was meant to bring forth children, raising
them up to advance his dominion to the ends of the Earth. Eve was to be a
helper in this. But Adam’s relation to her was one of servant lordship as it
was to the rest of creation. His service towards her was to enable her to be
all that she was meant to be in her role towards him.
Where was Adam? His job was to keep the
sanctuary of God pure from the defilements of the devil. He did not do so. He
failed to keep the serpent from the garden and thus his wife was deceived and
then brought him into the deception. There is much to be said about this. A
man’s role is out there in the world but as he works out there, he is to keep
his home, his garden, pure, from the defilements of the world. This is true of
both his wife and his children. He should not allow the devil to deceive them.
The devil should not have access. Once deceived, the wife has a very convincing
way to bring her husband into the deception. But if she is deceived, it is
likely the husband has already failed as an Adam. He must be diligent, knowing
the condition of his flocks and olive plants.
EXEGESIS
Ephesians
5:25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave
himself for it;
The command to husbands is to love your
wives. They are to love their wives in
the same way that Christ loved the church.
How did Christ love the church? He gave himself
for her.
What church did He love? The woman at the well
represents Christ’s bride. She has no husband, having had five men. It is time she forsook her lovers and
embraced her husband.
How is His love revealed? He gave all, up to
death. He taught, listened, was gentle, chided, scolded.
What did His love accomplish? The bride was
brought near and reconciled to her husband.
26 That he
might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,
Jesus sanctified and cleansed His bride through
His love. That must mean that the bride was unclean. An unclean bride is a
shame and scandal but Christ did not turn away from such a woman. Instead, His
love for her was the means of grace to make her clean and then to cherish her
into maturity.
His Word is the means of this sanctification and
cleansing. This means that there is an objective standard. What Christ says
must be obeyed. The unclean woman at the well was received by Jesus but He then
instructs her to go and sin no more. If she rejects His Word, then it ceases to
be a means of cleansing and sanctification and commences to become a means of
chastisement and eventually judgment.
This is one way that we balance the love and
patience of God with His holding us accountable for our sins. When we avail ourselves of His means of grace,
there is an unlimited reservoir of grace, where
sin abounds grace doth much more abound. But if we continually neglect His
means of grace, we will discover the limit of God’s patience, shall we continue then in sin? God forbid!
27 That he
might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or
any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.
Jesus is willing to take
on a disgraced bride but He is unwilling that she stay in such as state. His love and
forgiveness towards her makes her clean. Furthermore, this gracious love is the
source of growth in grace. She receives His love and renders back to Him the
respect and obedience that He deserves. In the heavenly realm, the bride of
Christ, the Church, is cleansed and becomes the One who perfectly adorns her
husband. Christ will accomplish this as He leads His Church towards the glory
of His rule in the Earth over every creature.
Before the resurrection, no wife will
ever fully reflect the perfect church, without spot or wrinkle or any such
thing. However, to the extent that she rests in his love and renders due
respect and honor, an earthly husband views his wife in this way. She may not,
in fact, be perfect. But in his eyes she is perfectly suited for him.
28 So ought
men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth
himself. 29 For no man ever yet hated
his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church:
First, let us notice what the apostle says about
Jesus. He nourishes and cherishes the church, as His own body. That speaks highly of the love that God has
for us. His every desire is that His bride be lovely. He cares for her as much
as He cares for Himself. In fact, we have learned that He cares for her even
more than He cares for Himself. He is so
unwilling that anything bad should happen to her, that He would rather sacrifice
Himself than see her harmed.
A husband ought to have this same kind of love
towards his wife. He is not merely interested in what he can get out of her,
whether a beautiful adornment, the joy of consummation, the blessing of
children, an able helpmeet and house manager.
These are all true blessings of a wife. But a husband that loves his
wife is first concerned with what he can give her. It is true that he
receives blessings back but he must learn to give even if he does not receive.
A good question for husbands to ask themselves
is, “What am I giving to my wife?” I think if we are honest, most of us could
quickly answer what our wives are giving to us. We receive numerous blessings
from them. But how are we doing in the giving department?
No doubt, provision is a big part of what we do
as husbands. We are called to be hard workers to provide financially for our
wives and children. This is fundamental to who we are as husbands. We should not
belittle that role, at all. So, that might be the first place that you answer
the question. Are you meeting the fundamental financial obligations in your
home? I think most of you are doing this and God be praised.
But after that, what are you giving to your
wife? Is she secure? Happy? A friend? Does she feel loved in ways that are
meaningful to her? Or, do you think that your financial provision is
enough? It may be enough for you but I
guarantee you that it is NOT enough for your wife. More than your money, your
wife wants you.
If we understand the relationship of Christ and
the Church, I think we can grasp this principal more easily. Jesus provides for
His Church. The Church as an institution has ministers, has children, has a
vision, and it has the power through the Spirit to achieve all that the Lord
calls it to. This is Provision. But, as the Church, we want more than that. We
do not simply want to be able to do all that Jesus calls us to. We want Jesus.
We want Jesus to be with us, pleased with us, there for us, sustaining us. We
need His attention and favor and the watching world needs to know that God, in
Christ, is actively present in our midst.
So, too, do our wives feel this way. Our duty to
them is not accomplished by simply bringing home the check. That is great, you
should do so in great abundance. But having brought home the check, sit down,
break bread, talk, share, be intimate, because your wife wants you!
Think about this for a moment. How do you treat
yourself when you are not doing well? Do
you make it even harder on yourself? Or do you cut yourself some slack? If you
have the flu, do you scold yourself for staying in bed? Probably not. But you
may have greater expectations of your wife than you do of yourself. This should
not be the case. You should defer to her as the weaker vessel, being a man of
strength. Of course, this is easier done when you are full of respect and honor
and motivated to love her. But if you cannot love her UNLESS she respects you,
then you are not imaging Christ correctly. Jesus earned the respect of the wife
through His sacrifice. She was unlovely,
to some degree, and so He labored on her behalf.
The text is telling us that just the way that
you pamper yourself is the way the Lord pampers the church. And so you ought to
seek to give your wife all the comfort that you seek yourself. Slow down here.
Do not rush by this.
Men, if you simply love your wife the way that
Christ loved the church, then it is going to make it a whole lot easier for her
to give you respect.
30 For we
are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.
The
apostle compares the relationship of husband and wife to that of Christ and the
Church. And he says of Christ and the church that we are members of His body,
of His flesh and of His bones. This is another one of those very significant
passages that we don’t take the time to pay attention to.
We are not merely spiritual members of
Christ’s Spirit. That is not what the text says. It says that we are members of
His body, flesh and bones. It is not exactly clear in Scripture how this
connection is made. We are taken from Him, that much is sure. Our very
existence is because He first was.
Without Him, the Church could not exist at all and even more so than
Adam and Eve. If Adam died, Eve would keep on living, although her ability to
have children would have ended. But if Jesus does not continue to uphold the
church, then the Church dies. The Church is even more a part of Christ than Eve
was a part of Adam.
The Bible encourages us to be
self-identified with Jesus Christ. He is our all. We are to honor and respect
Him, doing His will, seeking to please Him, submitting to His authority,
because our very existence depends upon it.
As we do this, we become increasingly aware that all that Jesus
possesses, we also possess. So, as the Church, the more we focus on pleasing Jesus,
the more it accrues to our own benefit. Wives, take note, as you give yourself
away, you benefit more and more. Husbands, this is also true for you. As you
give yourself to your wife, you become more and more exactly what you ought to
be in Christ.
1.
He has risen from the dead. We have the promise of the Holy Spirit, the
earnest promise of God that we, too, will rise from the dead. But the promise
that we will one day be raised bodily from the dead has already been
established with us now in the Holy Spirit. We are already alive from the dead
by the power of the Holy Spirit. This means that we can live new lives in
Christ.
Husbands,
you do have the power to live for Jesus and die for your spouse.
2. He is
at the right hand of the Father ruling the world. We are seated there
with Him, carrying out His sovereign rule on the Earth. For husbands, that rule
starts in your home. God has made you the head of your wife, just as Christ is
head of the church. That is true, right now.
Perhaps there is someone here who thinks he is not ruling at all because
you are not the one really making the decisions. But you are the ruler in your
home. That part is a fact. Whether you are a Christ-like head or not remains to
be seen. Incidentally, you do not become Christ-like simply by taking back the
reins of authority. The authority is yours, by right, so to speak but if you do
not wield it well it is really hard to keep hold of.
Husbands, if
you are to rule well, you must rule like Jesus, which means laying down your
life for the sheep, for your wife and children. If you do this, then they will follow your lead.
3. He is
the Father’s only begotten Son, in Whom the Father is well pleased. Through Him, we are
also the Father’s own children, with Whom the Father is well pleased.
Thus, you
can please the Father, even in the difficult responsibility of husband. You may not always
fully please your wife, even when you are being perfectly godly. But you can
please the Father as you act like Christ. So, if you learn to rule, make
decisions, be a man, while loving your wife sacrificially in the manifold ways
this requires, then the Father will be well pleased with you.
This may cause some conflict in your home. The
Christian marriage is not without conflict. But if you live in a godly way, pleasing
the Father in heaven, then the conflict is going to resolve into peace and
unity.
4. Because
the Church is bone of the Lord’s bones, we trust that Christ will do everything
needful for the Church to fulfill all of her duties. He
does this through His presence.
We husbands need to think about this a great
deal and find ways to apply this great principle in the way that we love our
wives, bone of our bones, flesh of our flesh.
This is something that seems to be felt in two
different ways by a man and a woman. A man would do anything for his wife. He
thinks that amounts to her being bone of his bones. He is surprised to find that she has a
different take on it. She wants his attention, not his work. There are limits
to this and degrees, as well. But a husband’s attention to his wife is what
causes her to feel that the two are one.
Again,
we can take the lead from Jesus. Jesus did not just die on the cross and then
leave His bride in awe of His great sacrifice.
It was a great sacrifice and one that she cannot live without. However,
Jesus does more than this. After He dies, He tells her that He is going up to
heaven but to wait, He will come to her
in the Spirit and be with her always.
Now husbands, do not then say that you
are with your wives in spirit. The
presence of Jesus in the Spirit is a real presence. He really is here with us
by His Spirit. His Spirit actually dwells with the Church, leading, guiding,
protecting, teaching.
Husbands, you want your wives to feel
secure when you are gone for work or out of town. You have to build the world
around her in such a way that this is the case. You need to continually come to her in body and mind and unite to her
through your presence. This is not easy for a man but it is what Jesus does
with the Church and it is what you are called to do as a husband.
31 For
this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto
his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.
The apostle says that this statement is also
about Christ and the church. Jesus left His Father and was joined to His wife
in such a way as they are one flesh. We ordinarily think of the one flesh union
as being only between a husband and a wife but the apostle says that Jesus
bears this same relation to the Church.
The church and her children is the consummation
of the son and the bride. Interesting
that God speaks in terms of sexual relations with husband and wife when He is
speaking about how Jesus loves the Church. He loves her so much that He is of
one flesh. He cannot get closer to her than He is. He considers the church as
being the same as His own body.
A man leaves his father and mother and cleaves
to his wife. He becomes one flesh with her, he in her and she in him. This
signifies a closeness of which there can be nothing closer. And we are not
remiss to speak of this sexual relationship between a man and a woman when
referring to Christ and the Church. I am not the one who came up with this, the
Apostle Paul did so!
Nothing can separate Jesus from His Church because
He has left the Father and cleaves to His bride. There is no husband like Jesus
that will, in fact, cause the bride to be all that she should be. All earthly
husbands fail at this. That does not mean that earthly husbands do not have
wonderful and beautiful brides. They do and some wives are far superior to
others. They may be so because they are simply more godly than their husbands
or they may be so because the husband has poured himself into her to make of
her something she never could have been without him. But Jesus is the perfect husband and will
settle for nothing less than a bride without spot or wrinkle or any such thing.
And He has the gifts and the power to accomplish what He intends. Thus, we
should have no doubt that the bride will be exactly what Jesus intends her to
be. This also gives us husbands an incredibly high bar to shoot for. Just as
Jesus continually cleanses and washes His bride, so we are to do the same.
And as we do so, the closeness represented in
this one flesh relationship becomes an absolute reality. We become almost as if
we were simply one person. That is never quite true. You always remain two but
the twoness becomes hard to distinguish amidst the unity.
We have something similar going on in the Lord’s
Supper. The Lord, Himself, identifies with His Church. I in them and they in
me. Communion is a consummative meal. It is a way of representing the truth
that Christ is in us and we are in Christ. And as we grow more like-minded with
Jesus, there is closeness with Him that no one can come between.
Rom. 8:35
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or
nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36 As it
is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as
sheep for the slaughter. 37 Nay, in all
these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. 38 For I am persuaded, that neither death,
nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor
things to come, 39 Nor height, nor
depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of
God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
32 This is
a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.
We
sometimes reason from marriage to the relationship of Christ and His Church,
see Christ and His Church is like marriage. But we need to get things straight.
The analogy is always less than the reality. The analogy is marriage, the
reality is Christ and the Church. So, we should seek to understand that
relationship first and then we can understand marriage better.
This is true both of how Christ
husbands the Church as well as how He lives with her in an understanding way.
He lives with the Church according to knowledge. That is, He knows the Church.
We may tend to think of Jesus as only living with a perfect bride but we see
something different going on in reality. We have a perfect groom but not a
perfect bride. She is a work in progress. But Jesus treats her, the forgiven
bride, as if she were perfect.
We also see a glorious principle in the New
Testament, one that has been set on its head from the older testament. Namely,
that holiness purifies unholiness. In the old covenant, unholiness soiled
holiness. But not so in the New. A Holy Incarnate Jesus touched lepers, those
with bleeding sores, prostitutes and even dead bodies. None of these defiled
Him, quite the reverse. When He touched them, they became clean.
We can see how this applies to husbands.
Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church. Also, live with them
according to knowledge and in an understanding way. You desire your wife to be
perfect, just as you desire this for yourself. Unlike Jesus, you are not
perfectly holy. You also require the touch of Jesus to make you holy. You need to
apply this same standard to your wife. She needs the touch of Jesus to make her
holy. He does touch her and forgives her sins. He then receives her as a holy
bride.
Husbands, look to your wives in the same way but
give her great compassion and empathy. If Jesus, who is the perfect husband,
understands her and you, forgiving you and then receiving you as holy, HOW MUCH
MORE you earthly husbands, who are not perfect, who are also sinners in need of
grace?
EXHORTATION
33
Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as
himself; and the wife see that she
reverence her husband.
This is not merely a call to be self-less. It is
a call to be self-less in the same way that Jesus Christ is selfless. How is
this? Even unto death. A husband needs to seek his wife’s good every bit as
much as his own. This is difficult to do. It goes against the grain. It causes
him to stop doing that which only pleases himself and causes him to do that
thing which accrues to her benefit. Of course, a Christian man realizes that
when he does this, he directly benefits himself. That is okay. That is the
point. When a man loves his wife as he should he builds his own kingdom. But
when he neglects and forsakes her, he neglects and forsakes himself.
So, let us cling to Christ’s Spirit so that we
can be Christ-like, giving to our wives, even as Christ love the Church and
gave Himself for her.
No comments:
Post a Comment