Or, When Spouses Get Contrariwise
Scripture: Selected Scriptures
Date: July 25, 2021
Speaker: Sean Higgins
I gave the impression to some that I was going to do a series on marriage rather than just one sermon. Okay. It will be a two-parter, and this is number two.
Also, I really do understand that not everyone is married, just like everyone doesn’t have kids, which was the focus last Lord’s Day. But all Scripture is profitable, the parts about the dragon and the beast, and also husbands and wives, which I’m not saying are the same.
Marriage is a mess because of Genesis 3. Sin separated Adam and Eve, and part of the punishment God gave them included difficulty in life together and between one another (see Genesis 3:16). Two sinners living in such close proximity will see sparks and stings and sorrows. It will happen even between couples who are actively being sanctified by God’s Spirit.
The institution of marriage is a mess in our culture and there are levels of mess in marriages among us. Every marriage has some mess, but, by grace, it can be cleaned up. That said, only those willing to do the work (and endure some pain) truly see the profit.
He blesses marriage, and husbands and wives taste it, and see the fruit. If we want our homes to be a destination, then the linchpin relationship is between the spouses.
One of the first and weightiest principles of marriage I ever considered was based on an observation about the household responsibilities in Ephesians 5 which are also visible in Colossians 3 and 1 Peter 3.
Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. (Ephesians 5:22–24, ESV)
Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. (Ephesians 5:25–33, ESV)
Here is Paul’s two-verse edition to the Colossians.
Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them. (Colossians 3:18–19, ESV)
Both the husband and wife receive commands. Both also receive clarifications. Neither, however, receive any conditions based on the other person’s character or obedience to his/her command.
Husbands, you must love your wife, dying to bring life to her, regardless if your wife is:
Should a man choose the least-lovely-to-him woman to be his bride? No. But is her initial loveliness or her maintained/unfading loveliness a condition for his ongoing obedience? No. In fact, for him to really be like Jesus, he must love her when she is truly unlovely.
For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:6–8, ESV)
God’s love is so great that He loves His enemies out of rebellion and hostility into loveliness and fellowship. Jesus sacrificed because He loved us first. He loved…and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her because she is not yet sanctified. She is not yet in splendor or without blemish , but she will be by His love. We respond to His love, He does not love us because we responded. It’s also why Jesus taught that when you love those who love you, big whoop. This isn’t calling your wife your enemy, but she should get better treatment than your enemy.
The costly love of a husband must be start with the subject rather than object, it must be based on what comes from his heart and not based on what he finds in her heart. The husband answers to God for his obedience whether or not she responds positively, quickly, or reciprocally. Holy Spirit enabled love, which is the context for these household commands (Ephesians 5:15-21), depends on the root of love not the recipient. You’ve got to start with the man in the mirror.
Does your wife appreciate your hard work for the family? Does she speak well about you? Does she speak well to you? Does she attend to the priorities you’ve expressed, follow your lead, and cheerfully submit when you make a tough decision (assuming you are in fact communicating and leading)? If I am talking to the husband about these issues then the answer to all of those questions is the same: Who cares?! None of them, not even one, qualify you for an exception due to marital hardship. If she is cold to you, or even opposes you, you are responsible to obey God, to act like Christ, to love your wife, to nourish and cherish her.
Will a godly husband care about his wife’s obedience to God’s commands for her? Of course he will. According to Ephesians 5 he is responsible to be presenting her blameless and blemish-less. That is part of the husband’s responsibilities. But, and this is a hard word, are you, husband, obeying? If only we could grasp the incongruity of admonishing our wives to get out of the rain while we are splashing about in mud puddles. She may in fact have a splinter in her eye, but did it break off from the log in your eye?
Men, this is not the same thing as being a push-over. In love you will need to speak the truth. You will undoubtedly need to correct her thinking or confront her complaining or withstand her desire to rule over you (Genesis 3:16). But you will do this because you love her not because you can only love her if she stops behaving badly. You will do this because she is an “heir with you of the grace of life” not because she has earned her justification with God or you (1 Peter 3:7). It is easy to be weak and to let her wallow in sin because you’d rather wait and see if she’ll become lovely at some point.
As Doug Wilson has written, love bestows loveliness. That is the heart of the gospel in three words.
Wives, note that the command to you likewise has nothing to do with your husband’s:
The barrage of “If only he would…If only he was…If only he…” cannot be supported by the Scriptures. In fact, the Scriptures argue “If only you…”
Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, when they see your respectful and pure conduct. Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear— but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious. For this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves, by submitting to their own husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord. And you are her children, if you do good and do not fear anything that is frightening. (1 Peter 3:1–6, ESV)
Submission is divinely powerful and attractive. Submission may be used by God to bring about salvation and obedience and therefore, respectability. Too many Christian wives want to win the world’s way, by manipulation or demand. They will respond when there is something worth responding to.
Of course husbands have the example of Christ to love the unlovely; Christ died for sinners. Wives don’t have an example of respecting a jerk because Jesus has always been not a jerk but instead perfect in His sacrifice and wisdom and righteousness and love. But that’s why wives get a different argument. Husbands, “love your wives, as Christ loved the church”; wives, “submit to your own husbands as to the Lord” (Ephesians 5:22). You are not imitating Jesus, you are submitting to Jesus as you submit to your husband.
Respect is not a barrage of strained flatteries, though it should include purposeful thanks. Sometimes respect means raising your expectations and then letting the weight fall on your husband. Find ways to give him a pat on the back, and make sure you let family burdens sit on his back. If it’s his deal, it’s not respect to act as if it’s your deal.
Respect bestows respectability, and you have no excuses for disobedience based on your husband’s lack of qualifications as you perceive them. Wives, you’re commanded to submit in everything whether your man is a stud or a dud.
What happens if neither husband or wife will obey? It will be a misery-go-round circle. He is unkind, she is cold, so he is more unkind. She is whiny-bossy, he withdraws, so she gets more whiny—bossy. He’s waiting for her, she’s waiting for him, and they are in a holding pattern except for the increasing bitterness or becoming satisfied with no feelings or interest in the relationship at all.
Marriages like this will orbit the planets of anxiety, reactivity, and emotional terrorism unless someone stops playing the victim.
Give some spillover attention back to 1 Peter 3:9.
Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing.
There’s no reason to think this doesn’t have application to spouses. Instead of rising to the bait, rather than adding insult to insult, be the other hand. Do the contrariwise. That’s actually how the KJV translates the turn, the alt-route:
“Not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing: but contrariwise blessing; knowing that ye are thereunto called, that ye should inherit a blessing.”
When you’re in the argument, be a good kind of contrary. Be contrariwise, which is a good, old word. Take the opposite way, not just the high road, but the road of good returns. You are not social justice spouses. Some couples hire a house-cleaner to pick up after them, some couples act like they need to hire a judge and jury to follow them around.
”Repay” is the same word translated as “recompense,” which we recently heard Jesus say about His return; He’s going to bring it with Him (Revelation 22:12). This is a different context between husband and wife. Pay him/her back with blessing.
Be the grown-up. If they come at you like a lit match, be wet bread dough.
A soft answer turns away wrath,
but a harsh word stirs up anger.
(Proverbs 15:1)
AND, think of the blessing you’ll experience, the blessing you obtain by not jumping up and down in puddles of anxiety. Think about not being bound to severe litigiousness. The payback to your payback is blessing.
It is not a burden to be free from reactivity. It is not a burden to be free from the quicksand of offended-ness. It is glory not to overreact, not to get bent out of shape by aluminum foil.
Good sense makes one slow to anger,
and it is his glory to overlook an offense. (Proverbs 19:11)
I am mostly thinking about “regular” problems. You may need outside help. There are homes where husbands are dangerous and where wives are unapologetic for their disrespect or unfaithfulness. Seek counsel. The elders are willing to help. But don’t do that instead of obeying yourself, do that as you yourself are obeying.
Thankfully we are justified by faith alone through grace alone in Christ alone. We are not justified by our obedience, let alone by happy marriages. But the justified will want to be sanctified, and that includes a desire for sanctified marriages.
The imperatives in Ephesians 5/Colossians 3/1 Peter 3 have nothing to do with the other person other than to identify him or her. This is a truth I knew and a truth I talked about before getting married. What I didn’t know is how easy it would be to rationalize away.
God doesn’t bless dealing with another person’s sin first. Maybe you aren’t the biggest problem in your marriage, but don’t shirk the blame for your problems. Be the right kind of spouse before being the spouse who is right. Work on adorning the gospel and being attractive in obedience. Trust God. Most of the time spouses should act less like Jesus in Revelation riding His white horse with flaming hair and a sword at His side, and more like Jesus in the Gospels riding a donkey to His sacrifice of love in obedience to God.
Hosea prophesied that those who sow the wind will reap the whirlwind, and a whirlwind rips up whatever had been in the field anyway (Hosea 8:7). There’s a warning side to sowing. There is also promise. James wrote that “a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace” (James 3:18). And as Paul told the Corinthians, God Himself multiplies seed for sowing bountifully and overflowing blessing (2 Corinthians 9:6-12).
Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. (Galatians 6:7–9, ESV)