Wives (Part 1 of 2)

Why do so many Christian marriages continue to struggle when there are churches emphasizing the importance of a strong marital relationship? Well, today on Truth for Life Weekend, Alistair Begg teaches that when the focus in marriage turns inward instead of toward Christ, the relationship is bound to veer off course. This message kicks off a new series titled The Christian Family.

Colossians 3 18. Wives, submit to your husbands as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them. Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord.

Fathers, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged. Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything, and do it not only when their eye is on you and to win their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord. Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.

Anyone who does wrong will be repaid for his wrong, and there is no favoritism. Amen. Let's pray together. God our Father, we thank you that it is to your Word that we turn, that it is to the authority of you, the living God, that we look, that we are mere mortals, that we see through a glass darkly, that one day everything will become clear. But now this evening we ask for as much clarity as is required in order to speak carefully and wisely, honestly, and in order to listen carefully and wisely and humbly, and in order to put into practice the things that you teach us through the Bible and by your Holy Spirit. For we pray in Jesus' name.

Amen. Christ, submit to your husbands as is fitting in the Lord. This, as far as the sentence is concerned, is as straightforward as it is shocking in our politically correct environment. I have determined that I'm not going to use any time at all providing illustrations of the way in which what the Bible says concerning the role of a wife is maligned and ridiculed and rejected.

Leave that low-hanging fruit for someone else or for another time. Nor am I going to take any undue time wondering about whether we are suffering within our own ranks—that is, within the church itself—as a result of the distortion of the biblical instruction on the subject of wives, husbands, and family. I just want to sow that seed in your minds—the whole idea that much of what is regarded as vital, useful, beneficial information when it comes to the affairs of the home and the family and marriage and husbands and wives—while without there being any motivation of wrong in it, it is worthy of consideration that the material may actually be distorted in the way it is both purveyed and received. And given the attention that has been paid to this area, it surely is worth pausing for a moment to wonder at the condition of our homes and the condition of so-called Christian marriages. Now, because I began to think along these lines, I think I made a discovery this week in thinking this issue through—something that I think I've maybe known in the back of my mind, but I hadn't brought it to the forefront of my thinking, and I haven't completely thought it out. But I've done enough thinking on it so as to advance it this evening with the measure of caution.

However, my observation is part of a larger observation, and it goes along these lines. In the declaring of the gospel when we seek to tell others the good news about Jesus, it is all too easy for us to appeal to the felt needs of men and women, while at the same time paying scant attention to the fact of God's wrath and the resultant wonder of God's grace. And to the extent that we are willing to do that or do that, then we distort the gospel. In a similar way, in approaching worship, it is all too easy for us to begin with man and his need rather than to begin with God and his glory. And when we start here rather than there, we start at the wrong place and therefore distort, in some measure, our understanding of the nature of worship. So in coming to this subject of marriage, in particular in addressing the issue of what it means to be a wife, it has caused me to wonder whether our predicament, despite all our helps and all our helpers, is due, in some measure at least, to the fact that we start in the wrong place or, if you like, that we start with the wrong person.

In other words, most of the material that we tackle or purvey on marriage is very, very man-centered, or very, very woman-centered. Come along now. You ought to do this, because if you do, it will mean such and such and so and so. It will be a benefit to you. You will feel better about yourself. You will make things easier in the home.

And so on. All of which is true. But all of that kind of exhortation and all of those discoveries may equally well be found in self-help manuals and in other religious forms of orthodoxy. And here, if I may use the first question of the shorter Scottish catechism, I think, is the right starting point for any discovery of Christian marriage.

It starts by reorientating the question, number one. What is the chief end of marriage? The chief end of marriage is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.

What is the chief objective of a wife? The same. And of a husband?

The same. And of parents. And of children. In other words, in the expressed terms of this verse, for the wife to live in the light of this text—wives, submit to your husbands as is fitting in the Lord—for wives to live in the light of this text is, I suggest to you, ultimately about the gospel.

And I'm going to show you why this is the case. It is in part what it means for a wife to declare that Jesus Christ is Lord. If a wife says, Jesus Christ is Lord, and yet refuses to bow beneath the instruction of the Word of the Lord Jesus Christ, then she fails to put into practice at the most foundational level a declaration which is easily verbalized and yet most difficult to live out. Now, in a way that I hope will prove both understandable and helpful, I want to gather all of my material under four words. Let me tell you what the four words are.

Word number one, piety. Two, mystery. Three, authority. Four, liberty.

If you needn't remember them, I'll take them in turn. Number one, piety. Well, here's a rare word, is it not?

A rare plant, a seldom-used, devalued word. Perhaps the last time you heard piety or pious used as an adjective, it was in relationship to this sort of familiar dismissive statement which refers to the pious person as being so heavenly-minded as to be of no earthly use at all. And people, of course, usually chuckle at that little anecdotal statement.

But the fact of the matter is, if we're honest, we would have to admit that the reverse of that is a far more pressing issue. I haven't really come across too many people in the last few weeks who have been so heavenly-minded that they have been of no earthly use. But I have looked at myself in the mirror of God's Word and found myself to be so earthly-minded that I am actually of very little heavenly use. No, piety is really another word for godliness. And godliness is simply the living of life with an all-pervasive sense of God's presence. The living of life with an all-pervasive sense of God's presence. And that not in some kind of mystical experience that is enjoyed, then, in isolated splendor, but rather a practical encounter discovered in the everyday matters of life. You see, for piety, for the all-pervasive presence of God in a life to be worked out, it has to be worked out at the most fundamental level of our everyday activity.

And therefore, I begin with this word. It is equally applicable—unless the wives feel that they're being picked on in any way—it is equally applicable through all of our four verses, but our orb this evening is simply in the realm of the women. It involves bringing our minds and our judgments and our will under the mind and judgment and will of God, and to bring all of the assessment of God's Word upon our conduct, and therefore, in this instance, upon the nature of what it means to be a wife. The first test is the test of piety. It is not the test of beauty. It is not the test of giftedness.

It is not the test of physicality. It is the test of piety. An all-pervasive awareness of God that adjudicates brings his judgment and his mind and his will to bear upon the fact of what it means to live life as a wife. And the context bears this out, because verse 18 does not exist in isolation.

The context of verse 18 is essentially all that has preceded it. And from the beginning of the letter, Paul has been addressing a very specific group of individuals. This group of individuals, like others to whom he addressed letters, were essentially living with two homes. They had a kind of dual citizenship. But that is true for every Christian.

I actually have a dual citizenship—two passports, a British one, a United States one. But the significance of this dual citizenship is that those to whom he wrote were both in Colossae and in Christ. And for that, this evening, we could read, In Cleveland, and if we are believers, in Christ.

And the real challenge of what it means to be in Christ is directly tied to the fact that we are in Cleveland—not Cleveland per se, but that we are in the real world, with all of its challenges and opportunities, with all of its difficulties. These individuals—I'll just point these things out to you—he has identified in verse 6 of chapter 2 as those who have received Christ, in verse 20 of the same chapter those who have died with Christ, to the basic principles of the world. And then in the first verse of chapter 3, he identifies them as those who have been raised with Christ. Now, let me say this, and we'll move to our second word. What Paul is doing here is not unique to this particular letter.

He does it all the time. And he is arguing, if you like, from the larger to the smaller, from the greater to the lesser. He is reminding these individuals that by God's amazing goodness they have been made members of his family. As members of his family, one day they will be gathered into his family gathering forever. That's the verses with which we began this evening—a great company that no one can number. But for the time being, although they have the privilege of gathering with little bits of that forever family in local churches, such as we are doing this evening, most of their lives are going to be spent not in gatherings like this, not in an awareness of their relationships with the big family of God that is existent throughout the world and in heaven, but most of our lives, and the most time in our lives, is going to be spent within our own wee families.

That's what makes it so hard! If you simply became a Christian and went immediately to heaven, then that would be one thing. But we are placed in Christ while still in Cleveland. If what it meant to be pious or to understand the nature of an all-pervasive sense of God had to do with some esoteric experience whereby we went off on our own into the woods and cogitated, that would be one thing. But no, the poor wife is confronted by piety while she is confronted by her husband, by her unruly children, by her own personal challenges, by the warp and woof of life, by all of that which makes up life. And she opens her Bible and is confronted by such a striking, straightforward statement, Wives, submit to your husbands as is fitting in the Lord.

Those of you who are wives know what a demanding, striking, straightforward exhortation that is. And unless we set it first within the framework of piety, we seek to plant the bloom in the wrong soil. Now to the second word, and the word is mystery. Mystery. Some of you are looking at me as if you regarded the story of piety as a mystery. I understand that. That's all right.

I said that I hoped it would be understandable and helpful. It remains to be seen. In order to get to this mystery, you should turn, really, to the parallel passage in Ephesians 5, which is worked out in far greater detail than what we have in these pithy statements here in Colossians chapter 4. We're not going to expound five, but it is in chapter 5, in the passage concerning wives and husbands, that we come to this statement in verse 31 and then 32. Paul says, speaking of marriage and quoting from the Old Testament, For this reason a man will leave his father and mother, and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.

And then here's our mystery. This is a profound mystery, but I'm talking about Christ and the church. Now, if you have attended weddings—and I've attended a few of them—and you've heard this passage of Scripture read, then, like me, you have probably made a mental note to figure out what that means. This is a profound mystery, but I am talking about Christ and the church.

And most of us can say a hearty amen to it. It remains a profound mystery. Because although we have had it read and we may have thought about it in passing, we've never fully understood what he's getting at when he says, This is a profound mystery.

I'm not sure that I've got it completely myself, but I think I can make a stab at it. Now, he tells us that the mystery is directly related to Christ and the church—the mystery, if you like, of Christ's initiative in loving the church and giving himself up for the church. The mystery of the church's response to that initiatory love—the bride's joyful, submissive response—is all part of this mystery. And this mystery, says Paul, is at the very heart of Christian marriage.

And unless we nail that home in our thinking, then I think we go dreadfully astray. The essence of it is simple—that the mystery of the initiative-taking love of Jesus and the joyful submission of his bride in the church to his love is mirrored in healthy biblical marriages. A healthy biblical marriage is in some measure supposed to allow somebody to get a greater grasp of the gospel. It's supposed to allow a child to observe the interaction of his or her parents and get an inkling of the mystery of Christ's redeeming love. Now, let me pause there for just a moment and say to you, Does this not suddenly set everything at a far higher level than whether my sexual needs are being met or whether my desires or my designs are being fulfilled or whether I'm getting my equal share of whatever else it is?

You see, all of that is an issue, but not the issue. Because at the very heart of the matter is not only the piety of an all-pervasive sense of God, but it is the very mystery of the initiative love-taking of God and the joyful submission of the people of God to the lordship of Jesus. None of us have any right to say, Jesus is Lord, if we do not do what Jesus says. I cannot say, Jesus is Lord, and remain unwilling to love my wife without disregarding her. Nor can the wife say, Jesus is Lord, whom she has never seen, as she's supposed to submit to a heavenly Lord that she has never yet met while being unprepared to submit to an earthly leader with whom she sleeps. This is the challenge.

It's a significant challenge. And I say again to you, the gospel is at stake. Now, you wonder why the evil one would vent such an attack on Christian marriages. Is it simply so that we won't have a happy time together?

No! It is because he knows what we miss—that a healthy Christian marriage is a mirror of the initiative love of Jesus towards his bride. In fact, Ferguson refers to marriage as a domestic cameo of grace.

A domestic cameo of grace. And goes on to observe that in the marriage relationship, a gospel drama is being portrayed in a unique way through a human relationship. Now, ladies, wives, here you have it in a simple sentence. As daunting as it is, search the Scriptures to see if what I'm telling you is accurate. When a wife expresses submissive love for her husband, she is depicting how a believer responds to the Lord Jesus.

When she doesn't, she is confusing the issue and mowing the gospel. Our marriage is designed by God to put the message of the gospel on display. That's from today's message on Truth for Life Weekend with Alistair Begg. As I mentioned, today's program is part of a new series titled The Christian Family, which coincides perfectly with Mother's Day Weekend.

So on behalf of all of us at Truth for Life, we want to wish you a very happy Mother's Day. If you listen to Truth for Life regularly on the weekend, you know we carefully select and recommend books that supplement Alistair's teaching. Our current offer is especially useful because it helps bring the story of the Bible to life for children, for teenagers, or for adults. It's titled God's Bible Timeline, the big book of biblical history. The book is organized into over a dozen timelines. Each one spans two pages and presents a unique era in biblical history. The first timeline begins with the creation, and then the flood, and the chronology of biblical events continues right through to the book of Revelation. This is a great book to use in learning how one era of biblical history flows into the next. God's Bible Timeline is a great reference tool for studying or teaching the Bible, and you can request your copy today when you visit truthforlife.org. Let me also mention, if you enjoy the convenience of on-demand listening using an Amazon Alexa device or a Google Home device, you can use it to hear Truth for Life. Simply ask Alexa to play Truth for Life, or if you use Google Home, ask Google to listen to the Truth for Life broadcast. I'm Bob Lapeen. Again, we want to wish you a Happy Mother's Day, and we hope you'll join us next weekend where we'll learn about the relationship between a healthy marriage and the experience of true freedom. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.