In the New Testament, the roles of husband and wife in marriage are presented as complementary.
While specific roles are outlined, the overarching theme is one of love and respect between husband and wife.
Focus Texts: Ephesians 5:22-33; Col. 3:18-19; 1Pet. 3:7
“22 Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.
23 For the husband is the head of the wife, and Christ also is the Head of the Church, being Himself the Savior of the Body.
24 But as the Church is subject to Christ, so let the wives also be subject to their husbands in everything.
25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the Church, and gave Himself up for it;
26 that He might sanctify it, having cleansed it by the washing of water with the word,
27 that He might present the Church to Himself gloriously, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.
28 Even so husbands also ought to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself.
29 For no one ever hated his own flesh; but nourishes and cherishes it, even as Christ also does the Church;
30 because we are members of His Body, of His flesh and of His bones.
31 “For this cause a man will leave his father and mother, and will be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”
32 This mystery is great, but I speak concerning Christ and of the Church.
33 Nevertheless each of you must also love his own wife even as himself; and let the wife see that she respects her husband.
Before going into details about the man’s role in the marriage relationship, let me point out that submission is expected of every member of Christ’s Body.
Ephesians Chapter 5 and verses 1 and 2 involves ALL BELIEVERS, married or not:
“Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”
That speaks to the entire Church as brothers and sisters in Christ. God is our Father, and we are one in Him. We are to submit to each other out of reverence for Christ, out of the fear of Christ.
It is not a humiliating thing to subject ourselves to one another, it is actually a very God thing. In fact, Christ did this very thing, lowering Himself, not regarding equality with God as something to be grasped, and taking on the dependent form of a human. Dependent on God, He never did anything on His Own initiative, but did only what He saw the Father do. (John 5:19)
I mean, even becoming a Christian is about submitting to Christ, right? So, to not be submissive is contrary to everything Godly.
Wives are to submit, then, just like everybody else in the fellowship, but in particular in relationship with their husband, that one person with whom God has united them (note that she is not expected to submit to another man in the same way that she submits to her husband).
There is nothing belittling about the idea of wives being subject to husbands in the same way we are all subject to Christ. And there is nothing belittling about a wife being called a helper. God is referred to as a Helper in Scripture. The Holy Spirit is called our Comforter and a Helper. So being a helper is a thing of importance and value, no?
Now, to our main topic: The husband’s role and responsibility.
The twelve verses of Ephesians chapter 5:22-33 are the longest and most detailed passages in the Bible on the roles and responsibilities of the husband and the wife in the marriage relationship. And of these twelve verses, more verses (8 ½) are devoted to the role of the husband. The verse ratio is an indicator of how vital to the success of the marriage relationship the man’s responsibilities are.
In fact, you could say that the larger percentage of problems in marriage are a direct result of a husband’s failure to fulfill his responsibilities. This means that if your wife is not the kind of wife the Bible tells her she should be, chances are you are not being the type of husband the Bible says you should be. The corruption, sinfulness and ignorance confronting us in today’s society are largely due to men failing to be spiritual leaders in the home.
So men are to love their wives. That is the command. Of course, most men would argue that they do love their wives. But buying her things, taking care of her, spending time with her, while good, fall way short of the love we are commanded to show.
The love I’m talking about here is Agape love. Agape love is unconditional love, the God kind of love. What this means, men, is that whether your is submissive or not, you have to love her. Of course, it’s easier when they submit, right? But, there is no condition she must meet for you to show her this kind of love. Most of us said some sort of vows at our marriage ceremony, usually with a promise that no matter what happens, we will love our wives. The reality though, is that we are only faithful to those vows when the going is good, and everything feels great. But once the feeling is gone, it’s over.
The love God commands husbands to have for their wives is not a love that comes or goes with feelings. It has NO conditions. Not even the condition of feeling like it. Rather, this love is an act of the will. Agape love, because it is unconditional, IS A DECISION, A CHOICE TO LOVE, EVEN WHEN WE DON’T FEEL LIKE IT.
Now don’t get me wrong, emotional love has its place. It keeps a marriage exciting. But emotional love is transient in nature, and so it cannot be relied on to keep the marriage going. For a lasting marriage we need Agape love, the decision to love our wives no matter what.
The greatest example we have of this is the kind of love God has for us. Agape love is Godly love, and is one of God’s primary characteristics. 1 John 4:8 tells us that God is love. And God unconditionally loves us. He did not wait for us to become good, or to draw near to Him, or to seek Him, but initiated the relationship and loved us WHILE WE WERE YET SINNERS. God chose, as an act of the will, to love what is unlovable. But because Godly (Agape) love is unconditional, it comes with a certain level of risk. If you place no conditions whatsoever on the object of your love, if you love those who are inherently unlovable, then there is the very real risk that they might not choose to love you back.
Isn’t that what has happened with God? God loves the whole world, every single person, but not everybody chooses to love Him back. God put Himself on the line for each and every person, but most reject Him, spit in His face, and turn their backs on Him.
The most well-known verse in the Bible, John 3:16, says “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
And then, just three verses later we read, “but men loved darkness rather than light.” In other words, they did not return God’s love. Agape love, unconditional love, Godly love, is a very risky love, because there are no guarantees that you will be loved back.
I love the way C. S. Lewis put it:
“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness.” He goes on to say that the only place you can be safe from the pain of true love is hell…
Looking at the definition of Agape love, it’s easy to see why so many husbands miss the mark. Everything in this world is conditional, and everything we do is based on the potential risk-to-reward ratio. Most things in life are low risk, low reward. Naturally, we tend to prefer low risk, high reward…
But love is high risk, high reward: Initiating a relationship, putting your heart on the line, not knowing if the other person will chew you up and spit you out or not. This is love. It is risky, but when it works out, there is no greater reward.
This is the kind of love God has for us. This is the kind of love husbands are to have for their wives. And it is a very difficult (maybe impossible!) kind of love for us to have.
But remember, one of the effects of being filled with the Spirit – and the very first fruit of the Spirit mentioned in Galatians 5 – is love. Agape love. So men, this kind of love which we are to have for our wives is a result of being filled with the Spirit. All the more reason to seek to be filled daily!