Submit. It is a word nobody seems to like, even conservative Christians who feel that Christian wives ought to. It occurred to me today that there is another helpful way of viewing this concept in marriage. Everything that the Bible requires of us in response to our salvation, every virtue, must be found in our Lord Jesus. Jesus displayed perfect submission to his Father, when in the garden of Gethsemene, he said, "Nevertheless not what I will but what thou wilt." Never was there a greater act of submission, no one has had to go farther than Jesus Christ. There is also no greater glorification than that of Jesus Christ: "Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth: and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." Phil. 2:9-11. So, we see that with the obedience of submission to those whom God has ordained authorities (and no others) comes glorification and honor. Another virtue that Jesus Christ embodies is that of sacrificial authority. God the Son, incarnate and laying down his life for his people-this is how Christian husbands are to live with their wives, and again, because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ he has been exalted to the highest place.
So we see that husband and wife are both called to imitate Christ in their relationship in a particular way. Both are submit to the word in doing so. This results in glorification, the one of the other. This is beauty; this is Christ and his bride in a miniature. For as a wife submits her will, and as the husband sacrifices his body both in small ways, they are imitating Christ, and as they imitate Christ in the specific ways particularly assigned, they are a more truthful picure of Christ and the church, and lest we devalue the church aspect of this image, we see that Paul prays for the Ephesians that "the eyes of your understanding being enlightened: that ye may know what is the hope of his calling and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints" Eph.1:18. This leads us to the astounding conclusion that Jesus' inheritance in the saints i.e. the Church, is a rich one. Again in Ephesians we see a glorious picture of the culmination of all things in Christ: "That in the dispensation of the fullness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him" (Eph. 1:10). The glorious unity of Christ and his spotless bride is here, but not only that, this unity of Christ and his Church catches the church up into the glorious unity and indwelling of the eternal Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit world without end. Amen.
Therefore husbands and wives have the immense privilege to picture in a tiny way the beauty of the good news, embodied in a particular way in their relationship with one another, and the more you think about that tiny picture of the gospel the more you are swept away into the greater mysteries of the glorious story. Paul was (Eph. 5:32).
Post Scriptum: I am musing about marriage, and it sometime happens that someone stumbles upon a post like this and is offended because they are single, but I am not talking about the individual Christian life here. This is not a devaluing of other stages of life or other situations that God has put you in. In all things and everywhere imitate Christ.
Good one, Brooke. Thanks.
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