HUSBANDS, WIVES, AND THE LORD
Tuesday – March 7, 2017
Greetings and welcome to Eastern Gate Ministries International and The Three Minute Word publication. God is so good to give us His Word that will guide us in all things if we will have ears to hear. As most of you know, on Tuesdays I remind us all to be very diligent in praying, really decreeing over this nation. I am sure that you are all aware that especially since the election of Donald J. Trump as the 45th President of the United States the vitriol and display of hatred and wickedness toward him and all things righteous has gone off the charts. In Scripture the number forty-five has to do with preservation. Ladies and gentlemen this nation is being turned around and is returning to Godly ideas, words, and ways. The devil is raging and we see that in the raging of the heathen, those who identify as the left, liberals, or progressives. That is not to say there cannot be a child of God in that group but if there is, they are severely delusional and in need of prayer and deliverance into the light with the rest. Not even gross darkness can prevail in the presence of the light. Declare righteousness over this nation and it will be established and the light will become brighter and brighter for us all in Jesus name. Now, let’s return to our text in Ephesians.
Ephesians 5:20-25 (KJV)
20 Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ;
21 Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.
22 Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.
23 For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body.
24 Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.
25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;
We have now come to a difficult area of Scripture and an abused area in Christian circles and severely perverted in other circles. As we delve into this topic of wives submitting to their own husbands please know we are not talking about brute power over the wife or the exercise of a lower authority, but the authority that emanates from the Word of God and covenant that exists between them. The other thing the Lord brought into my thinking as I was about to delve into this sensitive topic was that this is in the context of marriage, an agreement between two people before God.
First off we see from Ephesians 5:22 that wives, which is always one born of the female gender, are to submit or be subject to their “own husbands”. All wives must guard against becoming enamored by another man, someone else’s husband and subjecting themselves to his authority. This is idolatry, more specifically fornication. Another man is to never usurp the authority of the husband. That is not to say that other men cannot play an important role in the lives of other men’s wives just as other people male and female, married and single, play important roles in all of our lives in one capacity or level of authority or another. The final part of this verse tells wives to submit to their own husbands in the same way that they submit to the Lord (Jesus). We might conclude that a wife (really anyone) who is not wholly submitted to Christ will not fully submit to other legal authority, higher power, of her husband or anyone else.
I will now move to Ephesians 5:23 which you can review above in the KJV and below in the ESV.
Ephesians 5:23 (ESV)
23 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.
Paul starts of show us the example of the relationship between Christ and the Church and how that is like the relationship between husband and wife. When we entered the Blood Covenant declaring Jesus as our Lord we were saved, and taken from darkness into light. Jesus is our Savior, both husband and wife, male and female there is no difference. All of us at salvation embrace and accept a marriage, a Blood covenant relationship with Christ, before the Father. We submit our will to His will. The will of Christ is the will of the Father and so should the will of the husband be the will of the Father. When a woman accepts and steps into the position of wife of her own freewill she accepts the terms of the contract (covenant) which is one of submission to the husband as we all agree to submit to Christ at salvation. This does not make the wife any less equal or destroy her equality before the Father, before God. Both the husband and the wife have a vital role to play in the marriage contract, covenant, and each is uniquely talented and gifted of God to accomplish that role. Each strengthens the other and supports the other. There is no obligation for the wife or the husband for that matter to submit to anything, follow after, or support anything contrary to the Word of God.
By: Dr. David Wood, Author, Bible Teacher, and Prophetic Voice
