16. The Design of Submission for the Wife (Eph. 5:22-24)
- Aubree Fahringer
- Oct 13, 2023
- 4 min read
Most women recoil from the idea of submission.
This is particularly true today in the 21st century when American women have the liberty and opportunity to shatter glass ceilings, operate their own businesses, run for office, own property, vote, and exercise many other freedoms that have been won over the last several decades.
The "independent woman who don't need no man" is championed as the ideal image of autonomy, and women who do get married are quickly encouraged by the culture, social media, and often even their friends to ensure their husband knows who "wears the pants" in the relationship.
In the media, husbands are often portrayed as bumbling, unnecessary buffoons, whose presence in many TV shows is more for comic relief than plot development.
Authors like Glennon Doyle and Rachel Hollis have become typographical cheerleaders, assuring their female readers that the quest for discovering your most authentic self is worth it all, worth everything, even your relationships, even your marriage itself.
The underlying message of society is that women should never sacrifice their desires, women should never cede an inch of ground, women should never willfully place themselves under the headship of a man... especially their own husbands.
Culture hates submission, and it especially hates Ephesians 5:22-24. Many Christian women get an uncomfortable knot in their stomachs from the verses as well.
"Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands." - Ephesians 5:22-24 (ESV)
But as is so common in today's culture, Scripture, especially when taken out of context, can be misunderstood. This is not a call to self-degradation and abasement.
Paul's words to the women of Ephesus are not a blistering reproof, but a tender encouragement. He calls them to play a significant role in the most beautiful metaphor. There is a Great Romance, in which the King of all the earth woos His people, and has loved them with an everlasting love that is so deep, so divine, that He sacrificed His own life for her sanctification and ultimately, her union with Him.
Marriage—the first institution in all creation—is a testament to that union and a symbol of its mysterious beauty. Later in the chapter, Paul writes,
"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 saying that it refers to Christ and the church." - Ephesians 5:31-32 (ESV)
Just as the Church is called to meekness and humility, acknowledging the position of Christ as her Head, so is the wife. This means that marriage is an analogy in which the husband is called to love his wife just as sacrificially, just as fiercely, just as selflessly as Jesus loves His bride, and the wife is called to lay aside her own entitlements for the sake of willful deference to the leadership of her husband, as they both submit to the kingship of Christ.
This is a difference in role, not in worth, and both roles demand humility. God, in His wisdom and grace, assigned the roles, and by respecting the unique calling given to their husbands by God, wives can mirror Jesus Himself through their own unique calling.
"Have this mind among yourselves which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross." - Philippians 2:5-8 (ESV)
Jesus, the One to Whom all authority on heaven and on earth has been given, the One who holds all things together, the One who willed the hearts of His murderers to continue beating even as they crucified Him, chose to submit His will to the Father, not out of weakness but out of humility.
The call of submission to a wife is a call to emulate Christ, to take up the cross, and to follow Him because that act of obedience is an act of submission in itself to the Lord. If we truly believe that we are not our own, that we belong—body and soul—to the King, we can trust that His design for marriage is far richer, far fuller, and far better than we can imagine.
We can also trust in His incomprehensible love for us.
God, who made man and woman in his likeness, issues commands time and time again throughout Scripture that restore to women their dignity, and in a culture that often not only dismissed women but neglected and abused them, God's directives to husbands to love their wives were radical and revolutionary. Women flocked to the early church because its teachings provided them with improved social status and protection. For those women, the call to submit to their husbands as an act of submission to God was not a deterrent. Instead, they found sanctuary and safety with men who loved Jesus and who had chosen to love and esteem their wives. Deliberate love and deliberate humility in marriage were countercultural then, and arguably, remain so today.
God does not call wives to submission in order to humiliate them, but rather to enable them to portray half of the relationship between Christ and His bride in a tangible way.
When wives intentionally submit to the leadership of their husbands, they reflect the Church. In this way, husbands and wives participate in the sweetest narrative, each mirroring one of the two crucial elements. Earthly marriage, designed and ordained by God, points us on towards the true and better union of Jesus and His Church.
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Works Cited
Scripture quotations taken from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version ®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
