Saved Wife’s Calling to Be Submissive

Minister:
Date: PM
Text: Ephesians 5:22-24
Psalters: 237, 134, 243, 125
Sacrament of Baptism
  1. The important setting.
    1. The calling of wives is closely connected to the self-submission of all believers to one another (21; 4:2-16).
    2. Second, practically no man is really the head of his marriage unless the wife submits.
    3. Our text is denied and mocked today because of the equality of the sexes or the woman having the same or greater gifts.
    4. The Christian view of marriage is antithetical to that of the world and of our fleshly desires, because it is “unto the Lord.”
  2. To “submit” is to put oneself under another.
    1. This is a spiritual submission, not physical (inferior under superior), but just the recognition God’s authority.
    2. The godly wife takes a position of submission by giving herself in such a way that she is living for him – a help to him.
    3. It is a voluntary submission.
    4. The submission/subjection is to be “in everything” (24), for the church is subject to Christ in everything.
    5. This submission (with charity) is the attitude which properly calls him to repentance for any and all sins
    6. When there is no submissiveness, there will be a loss of peace in the marriage and in your soul.
  3. The reasons for submission.
    1. First, your husband is “your own” (cf. Col. 3:18; Titus 2:5; I Peter 3:1), i.e., the one God Himself brought to you.
    2. Two, submission to your own husband is to be performed in faith to Jesus, “as unto the Lord.”
    3. Third, submission is required because “the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church.”
    4. Your Savior and Lord is the fountain from which you are to drink to gain the ability to submit.
      1. Submit as He submitted.
      2. Submit to Him for all that He has done for you.