Continuing from last week)
CHRISTIAN spouses must always realize that male and female are created by God to be complementary making together as it were, one perfect being. Any serious contemplation of this thought would prohibit the frivolous manner in which many marriages are contracted, sometimes with the deliberate intention of divorce if they should not work out. God intended that marriage should be a lifelong association, and any society that treats lightly this institution of God, has within it, the seed of its own destruction. The family is too fundamental a unit of society to be tampered with as, Christ desires His union with His people to be everlasting (John 10:28, 29).
The revealed mystery of marriage union of husband and wife is indeed a great and profound gospel truth applied by Apostle Paul in Eph. 5:32 in comparison with the union of Christ and the believer- though a revealed truth, is still beyond unaided human comprehension. The mutual (husband and wife) honour and respect involved in marriage does not connote cringing. They should not in any way subvert God’s natural order of the human family, emphasizing the fact that the headship and leadership God has placed on the husband should be unlimitedly regarded, honoured and respected, for where there is mutual love and respect, questions of domination and alienation will not arise.
Apostle Paul said in 1 Cor. 11:3: “But I would have you knows, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of every woman is the man and the head of Christ is God”.
Head here means “lord” master. Man (Greek “aner”) as distinguished from woman. There are three (3) degrees of submission introduced here. The man is to acknowledge Christ as his Lord and Master; the woman, while recognizing the supremacy of Christ as Lord over all, is required to acknowledge that in domestic life, she is placed under the guidance and protection of man. Christ although equal with the Father is presented as recognizing God as head. This is a reference to the voluntary submission of Christ in the working out of the plan of salvation (see further, 1 Cor. 15:25-28).
The power and dignity of the husband depends on the position he holds toward Christ his head, therefore the dependence of the wife on her husband, in the true sense depends on Christ through the husband. The dependence of the wife on her husband was a divinely appointed plan for the good of both spouses. However this dependence does not imply in the slightest degree a degradation. As the Church does not experience dishonour by being dependent on Christ (see Eph. 1:18-23; 3:17-19; 15,16) neither does the woman by being dependent on man.
In verse 7 of 1 Cor. 11, the man is denoted as “… the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man” The Greek word translated glory is “doxa” This word originally means. “opinion, reputation, recognition. Based on its use in the Septuagint (LXX) the meaning “splendor” “brightness” “magnificence” or “character” “attribute in manifestation” have been given to Gr. “doxa” by NT writers. Here the expression, “glory of God” means that man has in himself a likeness to the splendor, greatness and character of God, in so far as he manages affairs in his assigned sphere in harmony with divine principles.
This is a reference to the high responsibility to which God called the man. Thus He placed him at the head of the newly created earth, and gave him dominion … over all the earth (Gen. 1:26). Thus God intended through man to reveal His wise and parental care, His protection, provision and guidance, before the universe. Even after man’s fall and the loss of dominion resulting from it, God planned that man should have the responsibility of leadership in the affairs of the home (see Gen. 3:16). There is no indication throughout the Bible that this order of things have ever been changed since that time, nor did even the gospel of Christ change this nature of things instituted by God, but it is common knowledge to the discomfiture of true gospel adherents, that some women who have been accorded some unscriptural influence in the Church are now trying in the adulterous churches to change this divine arrangement, through pastors who have ignored the doctrines of the church, Christ passed on to the church through Apostle Paul.
The woman is only the “glory of man” (1 Cor. 11:7) the word “image” is omitted a reflection of the woman’s relation to the man, indicating that by careful acceptance of God’s plan for the human family, she reflects the glory of her husband, and through him, the glory of God, who has made such wise provision for mankind. Further, woman was made from man being bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. Hence, in a certain sense, all her charm, beauty and purity reflect man’s dignity and honour (see Gen. 2:22, 23) This relationship should be maintained in the home between husband and wife.
God created Adam first, then Eve to be a suitable companion (Gen. 2:20,23). The creation of Adam was an independent one, but this was not so with woman. She was made from man, and was recognized by him as a part of himself (see Gen.2:23). Part of man’s glory is that the woman was created out of his very flesh and bones, especially for him not to be independent of him, not to have authority over him, but to stand by his side as a “help meet”
The record of the creation of Adam and Eve shows that woman was created to be the complement to man. Without Eve, Adam was not provided for adequately; he had no one of his own kind with whom he could converse and share his life experience, so God met this need by the creation of woman. She was made for man’s happiness and comfort. She was not to be a slave but a companion, not to be regarded as of inferior rank, but as man’s comforter in life — to share his sorrows, and, increase his joys; yet specifically after the fall to be subordinate to man (see Gen. 2:18-22; 3:11; Eph.5:22-25,33; 1 Peter 3:5-7) The husband is to be the head of the family and the ruler in the home, the wife is to help him in his duties, comfort him in his afflictions and share in his pleasures. The woman’s position is definitely honourable, and in some respect more honourable because of her subordinate position and especially because of her dependent status, she has prior claim on her husband’s care and protection.
In the foregoing wise, a wife should always give careful thoughts to her actions. She should not try to be domineering, especially over her husband, she should not compare her new home with any other, especially her old life nor attempt to introduce, without the approval of her husband any foreign ideas alien to Christianity. She should break all associations that would stand between her and her husband and identify herself fully with her husband. (see Ps. 45:10,11).
Devotion to her husband will enhance her claim in the eyes of her husband. Sincere affection binds man and wife. Sarah addressed Abraham as “my lord”. A wife should always show profound respect and honour to her husband as God’s appointed head of the family.
In 1 Peter 3:1-6, Apostle Peter sums up the duties of wives as subjection to husbands which implies to honour their, husbands in words and in conduct. This draws authority from God’s pronouncement in Gen. 3:16 “He (husband) shall rule over thee” The woman had in her encounter with the serpent (Satan) in Gen. 3:1-24 broken her divinely appointed relationship with the man. Instead of being a “help meet” to him, she had become a seducer. Therefore her state of equality with man was forfeited, he now has to rule over her as lord and master. A wife is described in Scripture as being “possessed” by her lord. This simply means that the Christian woman not necessarily under the oppression of the husband, must show untainted, total and complete respect and obedience, if she desires the Christian principles to lead her and her husband into an experience of real partnership, where each is so devoted to the happiness and well being of the other, that it never will occur to either of them to attempt to give offence to the other. The same is enjoined in Col. 3:18.
(To be continued)
