As I stated in my previous blog post, “Patriarchy and How it Departs From God’s Desires For Society,” the world views male headship as the man telling the family what to do and the family obeying (and many Christians teach this). In contrast God’s intention was that the man and woman are a unit which cannot function without each other — they just have different roles. Adam was given the job of dominion, or stewarding, the world, but then shown by God that he could not do this by himself, and was given Eve to complete what was not complete in Adam. For one thing, Adam was told to fill the earth and subdue it; really hard to accomplish without Eve! Adam, as one single man, could not subdue the earth – it would take people filling the earth, each stewarding their little part of the earth. So Adam could only fill God’s mandate in conjunction with Eve.
In an ideal marriage, both man and woman are submitting to the authority of God to obey the individual mandates God has given them, and that it’s only in their working together that they can fulfill what God has called them to do.
Here is an analogy: In Lifeflight, the pilot and medical person receive an order from “the boss” to go save someone’s life. The pilot flies there and gives directions to the medic about when to jump out, get the patient and load him in. The pilot has this designated authority, but without the cooperation and the added skills of the medic, the patient will die. The medic is successful in his mission of saving the patient because of the pilot, and the pilot is successful in his mission of saving the patient because of the medic.
In the same way, Eve did not help Adam to fill the role the God gave Adam to protect and steward her because she didn’t seek his guidance, and Adam did not help Eve to fill the role God gave her to be fruitful, and bring only life instead of death into the world.
As we can see in Genesis 3:16, sin impacted this because in rejecting God’s authority, man and woman were now no longer brought together in joyful, mutual submission to God. They each began to desire to be their own authority, and so conflict with God and with each other began. They suddenly reflected the nature of Satan, didn’t they? Thus the beautiful mutual benefit that man and woman gave to each other became twisted. The Spirit begins to redeem these roles and mutual godliness to their original glory, but apart from the Spirit, when men and women seek to be their own authority or when others take the authority over others that belongs to God, very ugly things happen.
The point of the wife’s compliance is to help the husband obey Christ fully in his job of stewarding his family. When the husband understands this, he must seek his wife’s input, knowing that she is a gift from God to help him. He certainly would not regard her as a child, or inferior as that is not the role God has given. In turn, the wife must understand that when she respects her husband she is acting as a tool or influence of Christ in his life. She recognizes the honor of being trusted by God to be the physical expression of the Spirit’s work. Even if her husband is a moron, she understands that she is serving Christ in this. Christ came to save morons, even if they ultimately rejected Him.
This is why God does not listen to a man’s prayers if he mistreats his wife, because that man is ignoring the work of the Spirit through her. It is noble work. It reflects what the Spirit Himself does in our lives.
Of course, if the husband is telling the wife to ignore the authority of God, he is telling her to obey his authority, which is just what the serpent did in the garden. Clearly, the wife needs to obey God in this matter.
The world battles a lot about control issues, but much more rarely so we hear about “how do we, as a couple, fulfill what God has asked us to do, that we cannot do by ourselves?” This is not just the “fill the earth” part (sometimes couples don’t have kids), it is showing the world many aspects of God that can only be shown by a couple, such as what covenant love is, faithfulness, a picture of the Trinity (Spirit-husband-wife), etc. Sometimes, sadly, married couples try to fulfill God’s mandate as two individuals who happen to live together, rather than as two-becoming-one. They don’t understand God’s purpose and witness to the world through marriage.
A husband’s role is like a priest. The priest’s role was to help the people come into the presence of God. That’s what the leadership was; “Come learn to love God and to obey Him.” The husband guides and supports his wife into submission to Christ. Of course, the Bible says in Ephesians 5:18-21 that we are all to submit to each other in Christ,
“And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.”
So also, 1 Peter 2:9 says we are all priests!
“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”
The purpose of wives’ submission to husbands is to guide and support husbands into submission to Christ too.
Again, marriage reflects the Trinity, where Jesus obeyed the Father, and the Father glorified Jesus, and within the totality of the Trinity, they brought Believers into relationship with Themselves. The Father draws us, the Son redeems us, the Spirit transforms us. They each have 100% honor and glory, but they humble themselves, they honor each other, they are truthful with each other, they communicate, they love each other etc, and they work together in their various roles to bring about all that is righteousness and love in us and through us. This is the ideal of marriage too.
Anna Sojourning 