The courtship has ended, as it ought, in marriage. Now that we’re husbands we remember that the Lord Jesus, in answering the Pharisees’ question about divorce, shows that this relationship was established “from the beginning” (Matt. 19:88He saith unto them, Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so. (Matthew 19:8)). Further, God sanctions what He did as to His order: Therefore “shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh” (Eph. 5:3131For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. (Ephesians 5:31)). Now that we have become married, we have this great principle which is obviously seen in respect to Christ and the church. It is important for the young man to leave his father and his mother. We who are fathers-in-law and mothers-in-law need to listen to this and allow our sons to leave us.
Recently, someone asked me, “Why isn’t something said about the woman leaving her father? You know Rebekah did.” I believe the moral principle behind this is that if we read the Scriptures, observing the woman, we will see her whole life is under authority in the normal course of life. She is at first under her father and then she goes under the authority of her husband, but she never leaves the place of being under the authority of the man.
You see the same in Israel. The father could disallow the vows of his daughter, and the husband could disallow the vows of his wife. God held him responsible to protect that female vessel, and that’s how she is described in 1 Peter 3:77Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honor unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered. (1 Peter 3:7), “the weaker vessel.” It is more clearly rendered in the JND Translation: “As with a weaker, even the female, vessel, giving them honor.”
So we as men are responsible, once we’re married, to leave father and mother and start our own household. It must be so if our homes are going to be formed according to the mind of God. Practically, this means that I’m not going to try to make my wife be like my mother. If she has different ways to cook, different ways to keep house, different ways to shop, I cleave to her. I’m not permitted to allow my father (or my mother) to come into my house and order my house. Now that’s the relationship of the husband with his parents. Let’s go to Ephesians 5. We know these verses well; perhaps we don’t practice them as well as we know them. It says in verse 23, “The husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is head of the church: and he is saviour of the body.” In Ephesians 1:2222And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, (Ephesians 1:22), speaking of God putting everything under Christ, we read, “And hath put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be the head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all.”
We husbands, as heads of our wives, sometimes have a misconception of “headship.” We think of it as a master sergeant in the military who has men under him to order around. That kind of headship, and it is a form of headship, is described perhaps in Ephesians 1:2222And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, (Ephesians 1:22), “Hath put all things under His feet.” But the church is not put under the feet of Christ. To the church He has a different relationship. He is the Head to the church, “which is His body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all.” Husbands get a false concept of headship, thinking that it simply means that I tell my wife what to do. I don’t say that may not be involved, but if it is, it’s as giving direction to our body for the purpose of saving it, not for the purpose of subjecting it. My wife is not put under my feet. “He is the saviour of the body.”
In truth, I really doubt that a husband can make his wife be subject to him; I don’t even know that we’re called to that ministry. Husbands, are we exercised about saving our wives? Sometime, years ago, I personally coined a phrase for my own benefit: “the considerations of love.” How do you and I treat our own body? We don’t inflict hurt on ourselves for the purpose of showing that the head has authority over the body to direct it. We save our bodies.
Sometimes our wives may get into trouble; they can be willful they’re fallen the same as you and I are. I feel that one of the greatest challenges in the husband-wife relationship is not when I have done something wrong but when my wife has done something wrong and I know it. Am I willing to go through the painful exercise of seeing how I can save my wife from this path that is going to cause her hurt? It is the very failure of the first head, Adam. It is solemn to realize that Eve, when the serpent talked to her, had her husband standing beside her. I had for years thought that Satan had gotten a wedge between them and had gotten Eve off by herself, but it doesn’t speak that way. That man stood beside his wife and allowed the serpent to deceive her, and he didn’t love her enough to tell her, “Honey, you cannot do that.” You who are husbands know what I am talking about. Let us remember, “He is the saviour of the body.”
H. Short
Editor’s Note: Previous excerpts from the subject of “The Family and the Assembly” may be found in the March and April issues.