14. “The Great Mystery” (Ephesians 5)

 

The Great Mystery

Ephesians 5:18-33

 

As we saw last week, Paul tells us in Ephesians that if you are a Christian, it’s important to be thoughtful and intentional about your choices: you need to look carefully at how you walk. Once, you were in darkness. The old way that comes naturally to you is a way that ultimately is frustrating and fruitless. My oldest son kindly pointed out after the sermon that I said last week that it is like us rolling a hill up a mountain, which I suppose even better illustrates how frustrating it is! That’s the old way. But that way doesn’t need to be our way anymore. The moment a person comes to know Jesus, the light of knowing God enters the darkness of our hearts, and that light enables us to begin to walk differently, to live differently—to live, not in a way that’s easy, but in a way that is fruitful and increasingly beautiful.

But because that old way is still the common way, we will need to give our attention to choices and practices. We will need to choose to stay in the light of Jesus, shaped by his Holy Spirit.  

In this morning’s passage, Paul applies all of this to marriage: “Now, let me tell you what it looks like to walk carefully with your marriage, so that the light of Christ allows it to be a relationship of growth and beauty.” 

Which seems like an important thing to consider, doesn’t it? Whether or not you’re married or even will be married, we’re all affected by marriage. So this passage seems important. 

And yet when it comes to this passage in particular, there’s a dynamic that we all likely feel as we hear these verses—as we hear of different roles between husband and wife, the latter of which speaks of “submission,” it causes an almost knee-jerk reaction; a kind of tension fills the room. Whether we might think about what Paul is saying, nearly everyone feels a kind of unease, because we know it’s controversial. As a result, sermons can basically become, “It’s not that bad, really.” 

Which, I think, keeps us from being able to hear what God has to say. Everything God says is always to strengthen us, to bring us to ourselves, and never to diminish us. Here in these words we find life and light for our marriages, if only we come with the curiosity and hopefulness that allows us to hear them. 

And let’s face it: marriage in our day could use a little light. 

If you’re familiar with the author Wendell Berry, you might know that he has never used a computer to write all of his many books and essays. Instead, he relies on his wife to help him with the typewriting of his manuscripts. He happened to mention this fact in an essay for Harper’s Magazine, and in replay, many wrote letters expressing outrage. How dare you exploit your wife like that rather than allowing her to develop her own career?

Reflecting on this reaction, Berry writes, “Marriage, in what is evidently its most popular version, is now on the one hand an intimate “relationship” involving (ideally) two successful careerists in the same bed, and on the other hand a sort of private political system in which rights and interests must be constantly asserted and defended. Marriage, in other words, has now taken the form of divorce: a prolonged and impassioned negotiation as to how things shall be divided. During their understandably temporary association, the “married” couple will typically consume a large quantity of merchandise and a large portion of each other.”

Often in our time, modern marriage is largely about two individuals asserting the rights of me, focusing on “my” needs, asking usually at a subconscious level, “Am I getting a good return on investment? Am I getting out more than I’m putting in?” It’s a transaction between two parties who remain distinct from each other. When the ROI is not enough, the transaction comes to an end. And such an approach does have advantages: it protects us from certain kinds of hurt, from being taken advantage of. But in the end, is it good? What fruit does it bear? What change or growth or beauty does it bring?

Berry goes on to say, “There are, however, still some married couples who understand themselves as belonging to their marriage, to each other, and to their children. What they have, they have in common, and so, to them, helping each other does not seem merely to damage their ability to compete against each other. To them, “mine” is not as powerful or necessary a pronoun as “ours.”

That idea lies at the heart of our passage. The kind of marriage that is illumined by Christ, filled by the Spirit is one where the defensiveness and protectiveness of asserting the “I” gives way to the mutuality and partnership of saying “we,” the “mine” because “ours.” When it is done rightly, it is beautiful. 

To understand how this is supposed to work, we need to take into consideration Paul’s different instructions to the husband and then to the wife. Though he starts with the wife, I think we actually will understand both roles more clearly if we jump ahead first to verse 25 and the more detailed instructions he gives to the husband. 

Husband

What we see is that in a marriage where the light of Christ shines, a husband is one who surrenders the project of living for himself and gives himself to pursuing the growth and sanctification and joy of his wife. 

Notice verse 25, “Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her—there’s the surrender I’m talking about—that he might sanctify her.” And then, again, verse 28 goes on to speak of how the husband should love their wives as their own bodies “nourishing and cherishing” his wife, helping her to grow. Husbands are called to surrender the project of living for self and give themselves to pursuing the growth and sanctification and joy of your wife.

Paradoxically, this surrender is what can actually satisfy us—he who loves his wife loves himself, he says in 28. Which sounds strange, but here’s what he means by that. Paul is saying, you need to understand,  through marriage, a change happens to you. You become joined to your wife. Quoting from Genesis 2, he says in verse 31. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” The man and woman are joined.

Perhaps you know the story in Genesis 2 of how, to provide Adam with a suitable partner, God removes a rib from his flesh and from that rib creates Eve: a woman who by the very way she was made is designed to fit together, side by side, with Adam. When God does this, Adam immediately understands the implications. “This is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh”—we belong together. 

And Genesis goes on to tell us that this establishes the foundation for marriage. Every marriage is, in some sense, a kind of rejoining of what was separated, where a man joins with a woman through covenantal union so that they become “one flesh.” They, the husband and wife now have a shared identity. 

If you’re married, you are no longer just two people who only say “I.” You are now a “we,” and you now share in the joys and responsibilities of life together. In letting down your barriers against each other you become, to speak metaphorically and yet also truthfully, one body where you both experience each other’s hurts and each other’s joys.

And so, Paul says, love your wives as we love our own bodies, because that’s the kind of connection you have. We go to a lot of work to care for our bodies. If our body aches, we might take some time to lay down. If we feel hungry, we cook some food or buy some food to feed it. We don’t say, “That’s my body, not me—I don’t need to work to take care of it.” Because we’re completely tied together. In the same way, when you chose to become joined together in your life to your spouse, your well-being became inextricably tied to hers. And that means that when one is miserable, you both are miserable. When one flourishes, so does the other. Because you’re a “we.” 

And my guess is we get that. But Paul says more than just this. He doesn’t just say that husbands are one flesh with their wives. He says, back in verse 23, “The husband is the head of the wife.”

We’re likely to misunderstand this, because we see the head as the command and control center of the body. The head makes the choices, the body passively follows. The head is where the identity is, the sense of self; the body is almost an appendage, something we sculpt and even change to fit the body. When we hear that the husband is the “head” it can conjure up the worst kind of images like “Wife, get me the remote control.” 

But for the Hebrew conception of the person, it’s actually the heart, not the head, that is the willing center of the body. The self is spread throughout the body. Mercy is found in the intestine, joy in the liver. 

The head, including the face, is the part of the body that, you might say, represents the whole person. When someone blesses another, they put their hands on that person’s head—not just to bless the head; the head is viewed as standing in for the whole person.

And so, likewise, when tribes and clans had “heads,” one of their primary purposes was to represent their group—when the heads of clans gathered with Moses, they spoke on behalf of their clan. As the representative leader, these heads were both part of their clans, not removed and above, and they also bore responsibility for the wellbeing and holiness of their clan.  

It’s a little bit like in our day when you have a business meeting between different corporate “heads,” each of whom represent their particular team. If their team has made a mistake, they don’t say, “That was Stephen’s fault”—they take the responsibility, because they’re the representative head.

And this is what Paul is talking about: he’s saying that the husband has been given the role of head, of bearing greater responsibility for the well-being of the marriage. Have you ever wondered why the New Testament always talks about the sin of Adam and not the sin of Eve? Eve is the one who first succumbed to the serpent’s temptation. But it’s Adam who especially bears the blame for their mutual failure—because he was the head—he had the greater responsibility for the well-being of the relationship. And that’s why Paul especially focuses on the husband’s calling to love.

This might seem all kinds of abstract—but it’s not for Paul. Because Paul doesn’t just give us this principle of headship. He shows us, in Jesus. 

Here’s where we get to the most extraordinary part of the passage—if you let it sink in, it will take your breath away. Did you notice how Paul, after quoting from Genesis 2 about one flesh says in verse 32, “This mystery is profound!” And we might go, “Yes, it’s hard to understand what it means that husband and wife become one flesh!” But Paul says, No, wait, you misunderstand me. The real mystery here is that this “one flesh” is actually a description of Christ and his church.

Marriage, we’re given to understand, always was intended by God to do something even greater than join two people together in love. It’s always been meant as a shadow to point to a greater reality—to the relationship that exists between Jesus and his church. 

Christ came into this world to be our husband and we to be his bride. Jesus took on human flesh in order to be “one flesh” with us, to be joined with us and all believers in covenantal union so that between him and us there’s no longer only two “I’s”; there’s a “we.” Jesus surrendered any sort of defenses or protection from and created a partnership so intimate with us that now everything is shared. Our griefs become his griefs; the church’s triumphs become his glory. We, Paul says in verse 30, are members of his body—we are one flesh. 

And within this one-flesh relationship, Jesus is our head. He is the one who represents us, who takes responsibility for us. Notice again how Paul puts it in verse 23, “Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior.” Head and Savior are not two completely separate ideas. Jesus is the one who saves us because he chose to be joined with us as our head, as our representative. As our head, he took on our guilt as his own. Verse 25 tells us that he, our representative, gave himself up for us, his church, like a lamb given up in sacrifice, in order to make us pure, beautiful, pleasing to God and to him. 

Marriage is meant to be a picture of Jesus and his love for us. Which is mind-boggling. Sometimes the way we can speak of Christ’s salvation almost conjures up a stoic Jesus doing his duty to honor God who told him to save sinners. But that’s not right, is it? Jesus is the bridegroom who is besotted with his bride, who looks at us with love. He is the one who out of love chose to join himself to us with everlasting union; he says to us, “I am yours and you are mine.” He chose to be our head who surrenders everything to make us holy and beautiful. Like Paul, we shake our heads and say, “What a mystery!”

And it is this light of Christ’s love for us as our head that shines for husbands a path to follow. In his strength we over time learn to surrender the project of living for ourselves and to give ourselves to encouraging the growth and sanctification and joy of our wives. This is what being the head means: not command and control, not trying to exert authority, but taking the initiative to surrender our personal desires in the service of helping our wives grow and draw nearer to God. 

Husbands, being the head as we follow Jesus means, for example, taking the lead in praying for your wife. By thinking carefully upon what your wife is facing, what her needs are and bringing all of them in prayer regularly before your God. As you do, you are joining with Jesus who, the Bible says, lives to intercede for us, praying day and night for us as our head. Praying in this way does so many important things. It focuses our attention on her needs above our own; it surrenders our ideas of what might be good for our wives to God’s plans; it seeks her well-being, not through our control but in God. And as we pray, God really answers our prayers. To the head means taking the lead in praying.

What’s more, being the head means taking the lead in repenting. When you and your wife are at odds, when both of you have hurt each other, taking responsibility means not waiting for your wife to make the first move. Take the initiative in recognizing your wrong and seeking to change. By this I’m not saying that we are called to bring about a false resolution to conflict where we say whatever we need to in order to resolve things. I’m speaking about what Jesus means when he says, “Before you try to remove the speck from another, take the plank out of your own.” One of the most loving and important things you can do in your marriage is pay attention to your own selfishness, your own pride, your own anger—to see where you have opportunities to choose a different way, the way of Jesus, and take the lead in repenting. 

We could say much more, but we need now to return to the beginning of our passage and consider the instructions to wives. Wives also are called out of an exclusive “I” into saying “we” in this new one-flesh relationship. In particular, the self-surrender to which wives are called involves letting go of autonomy. “Wives, submit to your husbands, as to the Lord.” 

Whatever does Paul mean? Importantly, “submit” is not the same word as “obey.” To submit is to place oneself under, but what “under” means can look different in different contexts. The Bible tells us to submit to governmental rulers, and that means one thing; it also says to submit to church leaders, and that means something different. Perhaps most interestingly, at the end of 1 Cor 16 Paul speaks of a family, “the household of Stephanas” who have devoted themselves to service of the church. Paul says, “I urge you to submit to every fellow worker and laborer such as these.” What does it mean to submit to every person who is earnestly serving in the church? Certainly Paul isn’t talking about obey. It’s about being receptive to, sitting under the work that Christ is doing in their service.

Likewise, Paul is not speaking to wives about obedience—for that wouldn’t make a whole lot of sense, given that he doesn’t tell the husband to make commands—which is an important thing to notice. He tells the husband to take a kind of responsibility for the relationship, to lay down his life to see you grow. Your work as one who sits under that, is to help your husband flourish in his role of helping you to flourish. Your calling is to do everything you can to help him do his job of loving you and serving you well. 

The reason this is possible for wives is that you are to do this “as to the Lord.” For the reality is that your husband on his own likely is not yet worthy of the respect you are called to show them. It is, in fact, your respect that will help him to grow into that person. No, the reason you can love him and serve him and place yourself under him in this way is because in doing so you know you’re serving Jesus, sitting under Jesus, your Lord, and he is worthy.

What does this specifically mean? Wow, there’s so much that could be said—I wish we had more time to discuss all the important questions connected to this. Let me just briefly say that sometimes a marriage is very much not how God has designed it to be. Sometimes, in really tragic circumstances of abuse, the fact that your highest allegiance is always to Jesus, not your husband, may mean that the Christ-honoring thing to do is to leave the home and call the police. 

But when the marriage is working as it should, what then? What does the receptivity to which you’re called look like?  Well, when your husband seeks to take the lead by sacrificial loving, part of your calling of sitting under this is to help your husband know it when he gets things right. Your praise and admiration of what is good in your husband and what is right in how he loves you will act like nourishing sunshine and rain enabling the best parts of him to grow. Him experiencing your confidence in him strengthens him.  Your loving attention will help him to become more like Christ.  

And when your husband fails, and of course he will, this receptivity, this seeking to help him succeed involves being thoughtful about what to bring up and what to overlook. Being thoughtful about, when he needs to be confronted, how to do so with the kind of gentleness that will lead to hope and change rather than despair. This too is what is involved in helping him to step into his role.

There is much more we could say as we’re only scratching the surface: Tim Keller wrote an entire book on this, after all. But do you see what’s being described here? Husbands, rather than demanding and taking or being passive, devoting their energy to take initiative to love their wives sacrificially, seeking to see them grow and become more fully the people God created them to be. And wives, rather than asserting control, encouraging and supporting their husbands as their husband seeks to love them. Both man and woman letting go of me and mine for the sake of us and ours. Both surrender selfishness and both give to each other, increasingly becoming “one flesh.” In all of this at the heart is Jesus, shining, showing the way.

This is what God’s vision of marriage looks like. Is it fashionable? No, not at all. But it will change you and teach you how to love. And it is beautiful.