Ephesians 5:23 – WIVES, SUBMIT YOURSELVES UNTO YOUR OWN HUSBANDS
Ephesians 5:23 Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.
In this passage, we are given instruction on how wives are to interact with their husbands. Wives are instructed to submit to their husbands. In the same way that Christ is the head of the church, so also the husband is to be the head of the home. In the same way that we as Christians are to submit to Christ and HIS perfect will for our life, so also the wife is to follow her husband.
One might ask if they are supposed to submit to their husband even if their husband is not a Christian. In 1 Corinthians 7:13-16, God is instructing us that if a woman is saved and her husband is not, she is to remain with her husband as long as he will stay with her. We are told that by her actions she might be able to encourage her husband to be saved.
Submitting to another is never easy. Our sin nature desires to be in control over our own lives. The same problem that wives have in submitting to their husbands is the same problem that most Christians have with submitting to the perfect will of God. We are naturally rebellious and we are easily offended by someone who desires to lord over us.
God had given permission to Adam and Eve to eat of anything in the garden except the fruit of the tree of Good and Evil. With all the options that were available, Adam and Eve chose to eat of the fruit of the tree that God had specifically admonished them not to eat from. The first sin was a direct result of a failure to submit to the authority of God. God did not need to tell Adam and Eve why they could not eat of the fruit, they simply needed to obey. By failing to submit to God, they brought upon themselves and to the entire world, death and destruction.
Wives are not to submit unto their husbands because their husband is a perfect saint. Wives are to submit unto their husbands as if they are submitting unto the Lord. God desires wives to submit to their husbands as an act of obedience unto him. Just because the husband is a jerk and is not enduring his wife to submit unto him, the wife should submit to her husband in obedience to the Lord.
Abraham twice asked his wife Sarah to lie and to say that she was his sister rather than say that Abraham was her husband. Sarah submitted to the will of her husband even though her husband was not doing his job in protecting her. Sarah submitted herself to her husband as unto the Lord and the Lord reached down and protected her both times.
God is greater than any husband. If God sees that you are obeying HIM and that is putting you in a position of danger, God can reach down from heaven and protect you in ways that you never could imagine.
It takes great restraint to submit yourself to another person. You see all the faults in your husband and you understand the mistakes that he is making. Nonetheless, the Lord has given you the grace to add temperance to your life and to restrain your desires to be your own boss so that HE can be magnified through your life.
It is the will of God that wives learn to submit to their husbands. This does not mean that men get to Lord over their wives; it just means that there is a natural order of authority in the household so that God can be glorified. Wives do not submit to their husbands because they naturally want to submit to someone, they need to submit to their husbands in obedience to God.