Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. Gen 3:1

Why is the woman approached and tricked first?

What’s going on here is pretty clear.

What we have is a complete reversal of God’s created order. It’s no longer man submitting himself to God and the woman submitting herself to man by helping him, together having authority over the creatures.

Everything is reversed, the woman listens to the creature (Satan), the man listens to the woman, neither listens to God. There are hints all through the text that that’s what’s going on.

That’s why you get this in 2:17. “To Adam he said, ‘Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, not to eat.

Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It is true that that’s going to be applied to the woman too.

Women die at the same sort of rate, more or less. But the curse is expressed on the man. This, literarily, is tied to chapter 2:17, where the prohibition and the promise of the curse is tied to Adam before the woman is even there. It’s this sequencing of things in chapter 2 that establishes Adam as the kind of head of the race or the representative of the race.

Marriage Roles

Ephesians 5:22 Wives, be in subjection unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, being himself the saviour of the body. 24 But as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives also be to their husbands in everything.

When sin entered the world, it ruined the harmony of marriage NOT because it brought headship and submission into existence, but because it twisted man’s humble, loving headship into hostile domination in some men and lazy indifference in others. And it twisted woman’s intelligent, willing submission into manipulative obedience in some women and brazen insubordination in others. Sin didn’t create headship and submission; it ruined them and distorted them and made them ugly and destructive.

Wives

The wives are mentioned first, It presupposes that they are morally responsible agents themselves. Why, then is she supposed to submit to her husband? What’s the reason given? Simply because he is her head, as Christ is the church’s head. That’s the only reason given.

Submission is the divine calling of a wife to honor and affirm her husband’s leadership and help carry it through according to her gifts.

Just as the church in submitting to Christ, it is supposed to submit to Christ right across the board, there’s no, no-go area. There’s no place where you say no to Jesus, You can be Lord everywhere else but not here.

I think we find this difficult not because the text is so difficult but because we don’t like it.

Today, in our time, this discussion has gotten so weird that one doesn’t know what to do with it. When you come to Ephesians 5, where we’re told that wives are to submit to their husbands as Christ to the church, this has prompted one author, Alan Padgett, to write a book entitled As Christ Submits to the Church.

His argument is since we’re all supposed to submit to one another (submit to one another reciprocally is what is presupposed) then this must mean that in some sense, the church submits to Christ and Christ submits to the church. Can you see Christ submitting his role of leadership to us, Harmony Community Church, that is crazy.

Ephesians 5:21. Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. The verb “to submit” (hypotassomai) invariably in the New Testament suggests submission in some ordered array. It’s in a military hierarchy, or it’s in a master/servant relationship, or something of that sort of thing. It always suggests ordered array.

22 Wives, be in subjection unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, being himself the saviour of the body.

What Submission Is Not

When we are told, “so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything,” 1 Peter 3:1 don’t misconstrue this. This does not mean every decision a husband makes is always good and wise and godly and just, and therefore, right across the board without exception she must submit in everything. I don’t think that’s the point.

The point is there’s no no-go area.

For all that the cross is unique and sin bearing and substitutionary and all the rest, it also has a moral modular function. So as Christ did not retaliate, as Christ bore abuse, as Christ loved even to the death on the cross, so you die to yourself. That’s the commonality between the two, men and women. You have to die to self to love your wife as Christ loved the church. You have to die to yourself to submit to your husband too.

It’s part of the entailment of living under the shadow of the cross.

Prior in the chapter there has already been talk of submission. “Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human authority: whether to the emperor, as the supreme authority, or to governors …” and so on, so on, so on. Again this submission is an ordered array. You don’t submit yourself to the dustbin man, the garbage collector, or whatever. You submit yourself to the emperor, to the governors. There’s an ordered array. That’s where you submit yourselves.

Nevertheless, this is for the Lord’s sake. You don’t do it simply because you have fear of punishment, although nevertheless Romans 13 tells us the powers that be wield a sword in part to engender fear of punishment. Nevertheless, if you’re a Christian, it’s not primarily to avoid getting tossed into jail. It’s primarily for the Lord’s sake.

Within that frame of reference then you have the same flavor here in the ordered array where she submits herself to her husband. Clearly if it’s for the Lord’s sake and unto the Lord, then if the husband is wanting her to do something that is transparently against the Lord, she must not do it.

What Submission is not. 1 Peter 3:1–6.

1. Submission does not mean agreeing with everything your husband says. You can see that in 1 Peter 3:1 the husband is lost, she is a Christian and he is not. He has one set of ideas about ultimate reality. She has another. Peter calls her to be submissive while assuming she will not submit to his view of the most important thing in the world, God. So, submission can’t mean submitting to agree with all her husband thinks.

2. Submission does not mean leaving your brain or your will at the wedding altar. It is not the inability or the unwillingness to think for yourself. She thought for herself and she acted and became a believer.

3. Submission does not mean avoiding every effort to change a husband, for a Godly reason, not just for you. The whole point of this text is to tell a wife how to “win” her husband. Verse 1 says, “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.

4. Submission does not mean putting the will of the husband before the will of Christ. The text clearly teaches that the wife is a follower of Jesus before and above being a follower of her husband.

5. Submission does not mean that a wife gets her personal, spiritual strength primarily through her husband. A good husband should indeed strengthen and build up and sustain his wife. He should be a source of strength. But what this text shows is that when a husband’s spiritual leadership is lacking, it is not that a Christian wife does not have strength

6. Submission does not mean that a wife is to act out of fear. 1 Peter 3:6b says, “You are her [Sarah’s] children, if you do good and do not fear anything that is frightening.” The Christian woman is a free woman. When she submits to her husband, whether he is a believer or unbeliever, she does it in freedom, not out of fear.

What Submission Is.

Submission is the divine calling of a wife to honor and affirm her husband’s leadership and help carry it through according to her gifts. It’s the disposition to follow a husband’s authority and an inclination to yield to his leadership. It is an attitude that says, “I delight for you to take the initiative in our family. I am glad when you take responsibility for things and lead with love. I don’t flourish in the relationship when you are passive and I have to make sure the family works.”

Submission does not follow a husband into sin. Submission says, it grieves me when you venture into sinful acts and want to take me with you. I have no desire to resist you. On the contrary, I flourish most when I can respond joyfully to your lead; but I can’t follow you into sin, as much as I love to honor your leadership in our marriage. Christ is my King.”

The Husband, the HEAD

Ephesians 5:23

The meaning of (head) so much ink has been spilled on the word meaning. The two dominant theories are that it means source, like the head of the river is a spring, or something like that, or authority over, but almost everybody in the field today, takes it to mean authority.

Almost everybody who is linguistically trained and who has actually looked at the evidence right across the whole theological spectrum recognizes that when kefάli (head) is used in the singular to mean something other than the organ that wobbles on the top of my neck (when it’s used metaphorically) it has the overtone of authority somewhere in the context, usually very strongly.

Headship is not a right to control or to abuse or to neglect. (Christ’s sacrifice is the pattern.) Rather, it’s the responsibility to love like Christ in leading and protecting and providing for your wife and family. And submission is not slavish or coerced or cowering. That’s not the way Christ wants the church to respond to his leadership and protection and provision. He wants the submission of the church to be free and willing and glad and refining and strengthening.

Headship is the divine calling of a husband to take primary responsibility for Christ-like, servant leadership, protection, and provision in the home.

Meanwhile, the husbands for their part are to love their wives as Christ loved the church. That’s a pretty miserably high standard, speaking as a husband. What does that mean?

You can put words to all of these things from the whole sweep of the way the church is supposed to submit to Christ. How does it work the other way? Christ loved the church with utmost self-sacrifice for her good, and that’s how husbands are to love their wives (with utmost self-sacrifice for their good).

Reasons “Head” Means Leader

1) It was commonly held in Paul’s day that since the head was on top of the body and had eyes, it was the leader of the body. Philo (a contemporary of Paul) said, “Nature conforms the leadership of the body on the head” (Special Laws, III, 184).

2) “Head” is used for leader in the Old Testament. For example, Judges 11:11, “So Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead, and the people made him head and leader over them.” (See also 10:18; 11:8, 9; 2 Samuel 22:44; Psalm 18:43; Isaiah 7:8.)

3) Ephesians 1:21–23 says that Christ is “above every name that is named … and God has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body.” Christ is not seen here as the source but the ruler over all things when he is called head.

4) In view of all this, when Paul says that a wife should be subject to her husband because he is head, headship must be something that makes submission especially appropriate. And what makes it appropriate is that God has ordained that man, as head, be the leader of his household.

Areas in Which the Husband Should Lead

1. His Personal Relationship with God

No man will be a spiritual leader in his home if he is not going deep with God in his own private life. He may try to lead, but it will not be spiritual leadership; it will not be Christ-like leadership.

Leadership is something you are as much as something you do. If you come out of your solitude with the aroma of Christ lingering in your life, your wife and children will sense intuitively that you are at the helm of the ship with God’s hand on your shoulder.

A Shared Responsibility

This first step of leadership is not like the other three because this one is shared equally by the wife. Every wife has the duty to go hard after God in her own soul. There is no borrowed or substitute spirituality.

But there is a difference in the husband’s and wife’s pursuit of personal, spiritual strength. For the husband it is the foundation of his headship and the heart of his leadership. For the wife it is the foundation of her submission and support for her husband’s headship.

Do Not Abdicate Your Responsibility

Some men react all wrong to a wife who is growing spiritually. He may say, “Well I’m not into that, so I’ll let her be the spiritual leader in the family and I’ll make sure we stay afloat financially and have food on the table.

Become a godly man. Go hard after God in the solitude of your room, and it will bring a new depth and joy in your relationship.

2. Shaping the Family’s Moral and Spiritual Vision

The husband should take the lead in shaping the moral and spiritual vision of the family. A leader is someone who takes the time and initiative to think about priorities and goals.

3. Gathering the Family for Worship

When a husband fails here and the wife has to constantly remind him or call the kids by herself, the soul of the marriage is in jeopardy. I would go so far as to say that this one act of leadership is so important that if you men would take the initiative here, almost all other leadership issues would fall into proper place.

4. Reconciliation

The husband should take the lead in reconciliation. I do not mean that wives should never say they are sorry. But in the relation between Christ and his church, who took the initiative to make all things new?

There is mutual serving in marriage.

Marriage is not mainly about staying in love. It’s about covenant keeping. And the main reason it is about covenant keeping is that God designed the relationship between a husband and his wife to represent the relationship between Christ and the church.

If this is true, then the redemption we anticipate with the coming of Christ is not the dismantling of the original, created order of loving headship and willing submission, but a recovery of it from the ravages of sin. And that’s exactly what we find in Ephesians 5:21–33. Wives, let your fallen submission be redeemed by modeling it after God’s intention for the church! Husbands, let your fallen headship be redeemed by modeling it after God’s intention for Christ!