Wait! Don't stop reading just yet. I know these verses carry a lot of tension and emotion for many people—even Christians. So I was hoping you'd afford me the opportunity to share my heart on the matter, to illuminate the beauty of these truths through my personal experiences. Still with me? Good.
God has worked a deep passion and conviction into my heart for this passage of Scripture, but the experience was far from pleasant. In fact, it was an extremely difficult and bumpy road, a road marked with grief and doubt and heartache and loss. But I'd do it all over again if I had to, because it's the truths we cling to in the midst of the raging storms that become most precious to us.
However, just because I now find these words to be precious to me does not mean that holding to them is somehow easier. I still struggle to maintain these convictions in my own marriage. I still struggle to hold ground in the truth, to stand firm in the unseen battle being waged this very moment just beneath the surface of all things. It is truly agonizing to see God's good design for marriage being met with so much hostility and perverted by so many deceptions, even within the church.
We must ask ourselves, why? Why is the enemy so intent on attacking marriage? Why is he ever so subtly infiltrating this God-ordained union and deconstructing it? Why is he deceiving us into thinking about marriage in modern, world-based terms rather than timeless, Word-based ones? Like a vicious, prowling lion, he is ripping marriage apart and tearing it to shreds. Why?
I believe the answer hinges on one little word sprinkled throughout this great passage: as. The phrases "as to the Lord" (Eph. 5:22), "as the church submits to Christ" (v. 24), "as Christ loved the church"(v. 25), "as their own bodies" (v. 28), and, "as he loves himself" (v. 33) all speak to manners of relating to God and one another. Marriage and family life are the closest examples we have, the relationships most resembling how we relate to God and how He relates to us.
The Bible calls us God's children (Jn. 1:12), His family (Gal. 6:10), and Christ's bride (Rev 19:7). Jesus calls us His brothers and sisters (Matt. 25:40), and He taught us to pray to our Father in heaven (Matt. 6:9). Believers are adopted sons and daughters who have become God's children and heirs together with Christ (Rom. 8:15-17). Jesus Himself is called our husband (2 Cor. 11:2).
There is no denying the fact that God teaches us how to relate to Him through the examples provided by our earthly relationships. He reveals aspects of Himself through marriage and family that we wouldn't be able to understand otherwise! And there, my friend, is the key. If the enemy can pollute and distort the Biblical operation and structure of marriage and family life, he can effectively sever our lines for correct perception of and relation to God.
And our marriages are the front lines. We must fight together, husband and wife, to uphold the sanctity of marriage and guard our families from the enemy's attacks! If Satan can break through, if he can divide spouses from their one-flesh unity and drive them toward individualistic pursuits, if he can demolish the headship of the husband and create a vacuum of leadership, if he can undermine the very connections that make us a family, then the battle for our children is as good as lost.
It is harder for the child to cry out, "Abba! Father!" (Gal. 4:6), who has not known the love, presence and protection of their earthly daddy. It is harder for the child to know the "motherly" love and anguish of Jesus for His little ones (Matt. 23:37) who has not known the doting, care and concern of a mother here and now. It is harder for boys to become husbands who lead their homes, who selflessly love their wives as themselves without a proper understanding of Christ's sacrifice for the church. It is harder for girls to become wives who submit to their husbands, who respect and honor them without a proper understanding of Christ's relationship to the church. (Eph. 5:33)
Now, I don't intend to infer that those bereft of families or called to singleness have a stunted understanding of God. What I mean to say is that it is by these very relationships that God reaches out to us, bonds with us, and helps us understand Him! He says to the orphan, I will be your Father. He says to the widow, I am your Husband. To the single, Wait for Me, your Bridegroom.
This is immense. As the traditional (that is, Biblically based) family model becomes increasingly foreign in our culture, so does God. It doesn't take a great amount of insight to see the correlation between the decay of marriage and family structure and the decline of godly morals and values at work in this country. And, whether we would see it or not, it is seeping into the church.
Now, I myself cannot convince others of these things. It is of no benefit to rant and rave and attack—I can only defend and speak the truth in love. I can tell you I didn't always feel this way about marriage. Even as a Christian there was a time when I considered these passages irrelevant and outdated. But God changed my mind. He convinced me of the truth of His Word and showed me the inherent blessing in living by it.
For this reason I encourage you—allow God to speak to your heart through this divine passage of Scripture (Eph. 5:22–33). Don't listen to me; find out for yourself! Discover the beauty in submission. Unearth the greatness in God's design for marriage. And find the blessing and unity forged in fulfilling your role as a man or a woman, husband or wife, father or mother in all godliness and holiness as unto the Lord!