Gen 3:16 (HCSB) He said to the woman: I will intensify your labor pains; you will bear children in anguish. Your desire will be for your husband, yet he will rule over you. How about we start with this issue of men ruling over women, which is not as it seems, since to rule over someone implies a sense of authority is present. Here, it can apply to a position of governing, keeping on a straight course, or an order of maintaining proper control, or to maintain a rule of operating for the good of the individual or the whole. It may also be expressed as a rule by organizing activities – such as laws, rules, and/or regulations, both natural and spiritual to be enacted or acted upon by one or all.
Eph 5:21-32 (BBE) Letting yourselves be ruled by one another in the fear of Christ. 22 Wives, be under the authority of your husbands, as of the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the church, being himself the saviour of the body. There is an important perspective in what Paul says here regarding wives and why they should be submissive to the position God has placed a husband in, with respect to authority. For the wife, first, it is a choice to submit to such authority; for those who understand why and how it operates, it is an honor to do so. To know that God has placed a husband at the point at which His authority flows into the covenant of marriage is the entry point.
God held Adam responsible for listening to his wife, Eve, rather than remaining in obedience to the words He spoke regarding the fruit and eating of it. Thus, are husbands today held in a responsible position regarding the word of God and the Holy Spirit’s ability to affect the well-being of the marriage covenant? 24 And as the church is under Christ’s authority, so let wives be under the rule of their husbands in all things. This aspect of the rule means placing herself under the God-ordained authority her husband has been given, by virtue of the headship he is accountable to God.
As every believer has been placed under the headship of Christ, who is the head of the Church, so are wives to willingly take a place under a husband’s headship. This does not mean she lacks authority; it simply means she is submitting to the order of authority God established at the beginning. 25 Husbands, have love for your wives, even as Christ had love for the church, and gave himself for it; 26 So that he might make it holy, having made it clean with the washing of water by the word, The kind of love a husband is to have for his wife is Agape, not Phileo or Eros or any other affectual manner of love, but the God kind of love that He is and expresses toward all.
This is where many a marriage covenant is in trouble, as to love in this manner means her faults and failures are not relevant to him loving her, nor her loving him, since Agape is the love believers are to have toward everyone. 27 And might take it for himself, a church full of glory, not having one mark or fold or any such thing; but that it might be holy and complete. 28 Even so it is right for husbands to have love for their wives as for their bodies. He who has love for his wife has love for himself: 29 For no man ever had hate for his flesh; but he gives it food and takes care of it, even as Christ does for the church; 30 Because we are parts of his body. 31 For this cause will a man go away from his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. 32 This is a great secret: but my words are about Christ and the church.
The love mentioned in those verses is Agape, a love to which no excuse can be given. It does not hold account of what one does but holds account of who one is in Christ, making it the kind of love that only comes from above. Rom 5:5-8 And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. 6 For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. 8 But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Agape love does not exist within the nature of humanity, as the only kind of love it can produce for one another is the social-based love of Phileo and the erotic based love of Eros, and a couple of others. However, God had to make a way for His kind of love to be a part of us, so He provided it as part of the union with the Holy Spirit. He not only provided it, but He commended it to us in Christ even before we ever knew Him. John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
We need to bring this authority into view to recognize that husbands and wives, by such stature, are to be servants to each other, thereby placing this in God’s perspective. God, who is the creator of all things, has the ultimate authority to be exercised as He sees fit, and yet He does not rule over His creation; He serves it. You can stop scratching your head; it is just as I said: He does not rule over you; rather, He does for you everything that He says He will do by an authority and power that exists throughout the whole of our universe and the others He has created. God can never be a taskmaster. He who is love serves His creation in ways it does not understand, but sees all the evidence of it as it reveals to them who He is.
Rom 1:16-20 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. Jesus not only came to reveal the good news but to be it, as He revealed the truth of God’s word to everyone who would receive it. Note that it states that the Gospel of Christ is the power of God unto salvation for the Jew and the Gentile; there is no greater power at work. 17 For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith. 18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; 19 Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.
God’s wrath is judgment upon ungodliness and unrighteousness for which the ungodly part of humanity revels, because it is the fact that creation reveals He is real. Those who by faith receive Him as He is perceive the righteousness in what He has done and are situated in it by faith in Christ.
Something most believers do not know, they are redeemed to once again be a righteous part of God’s family perfectly fitted into His eternal plan.
20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: The love God is, is revealed in His righteous creation and cannot by any means be excused by anyone, as it shows us everything is for us and not used to rule over us by an authority and power so great. Nowhere in the whole of creation is there one greater than God. So, believers are redeemed offspring of God who, by the authority and power of God, exercise dominion on the earth. Not to rule over one another but to serve one another just as He does, since they now have the very Divine nature of God working in them by Agape.
2 Peter 1:2-4 Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord, 3 According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue: 4 Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
In marriage, spouses have fundamental roles to fulfill, both from a natural and supernatural perspective. Love is a paramount issue and must bring stability to the union, agape, which is God’s love. Completely fulfilling such a role entails marriage to the Holy Spirit, who knows how to do it. It is time for love in a way that supernatural power and authority flow through the marriage covenant, as it does in your covenant with God through Christ.
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