Truth For Life

Alistair Begg: One of the clear evidences of a gospel-centered life is love for and submission to Christ. The same evidence is observable in Christian families. Does your home, your marriage, your family, reveal that you live under the Lordship of Christ?

Today on Truth for Life, Alistair Begg considers how our marriages can display the gospel to each other as well as to a watching world.

Alistair Begg: I invite you to turn with me to the New Testament and to Colossians and chapter 3. And let's just read from here initially and then a couple of other passages to set a wider context. Colossians 3 and verse 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 provoke your children lest they become discouraged.

And then let's turn back to Ephesians and to chapter 5 and read again a similar exhortation by Paul when he writes to the church in Ephesus. Ephesians 5 and from verse 22: 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. 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. And then finally, in 1 Peter, and in chapter 3.

And here is Peter on the same theme. 1 Peter chapter 3 and verse 1: Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won over 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 the 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. Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.

Amen. May God bless to us the reading of his word. And our text tonight is just as short and as clear as our text this morning. This morning in the 18th verse: wives, submit to your husbands as is fitting in the Lord. And tonight, husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them.

Or as J.B. Phillips paraphrases the second half of that: don't let bitterness or resentment spoil your marriage. We are in this position in studying, in familiar territory, out of a concern for the well-being of our children and the parental exercise of control by the parents of these same children, so that we might be clearly together in our desire to see them understanding the Bible and being conformed to the image of Jesus.

And that then led us to a consideration of the family itself, setting the understanding of God's specific instructions for the physical family in light of his spiritual family, namely the church, which has caused us to think significantly about what it means to be the church, to be members of the church and so on.

And we saw this morning, and it's important that we remind ourselves of it this evening, that our understanding of these specific instructions, either here in Colossians or elsewhere as we've read it, these understandings directly as it relates to marriage, must be viewed in the context of the gospel. Must be understood in light of God's ultimate purpose in seeing men and women conformed to the image of his son.

And that is why, for example, in Ephesians 5, Paul speaks about this immense mystery, which is usually mentioned when that passage is read at the services of a marriage. And he says, and I am talking about Christ and the church, which of course should cause people to say, but I thought we were here for a wedding. Why would he be talking about Christ and the church? Well, because marriage has to be understood in those terms.

And as we said this morning, the chief end of marriage is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. It is that same emphasis which caused Martyn Lloyd-Jones in one of his books, to actually in one of his sermons, which then of course was eventually in a book, to say to his congregation, preaching along these lines, "How many of us," he asks, "have realized that we are to think of the married state in terms of the doctrine of the atonement?"

Books on marriage are found in a library under ethics. But he says they do not belong there. We must consider marriage in terms of doctrine, and that doctrine primarily of the atonement, of the seeking love of God for rebels whom he woos and wins to himself, and who, and upon whom he pours out his Spirit, and who he loves with an exclusive affection.

That, says Lloyd-Jones, which is really that, speaking the Bible, that gives us our bigger context. Now, with that said, let's just be very honest about things as we must be, and recognize that we may embrace that, we may affirm it, we may say, yes, of course, we believe the Bible to be authoritative and clear in this regard.

And yet, we live our lives in the mainstream of a contemporary culture, which seems to pay scant attention to that, and in many cases is actually opposed to it. Men and women, in coming into our homes, in meeting us in common conversation, in accepting an invitation to dinner or in engaging with us in a sporting event.

If we are very honest, many of them who do not share our convictions in our faith could be forgiven for concluding that we have no higher view of marriage than that which is common in our culture. They could be forgiven for concluding that. I'm not suggesting that they would be right in concluding it, but I'm saying they could be forgiven.

Because our contemporary view of marriage is vastly different from what we have just read. It is a union that is based, if you like, on fluctuating human experience. The kind of thing you used to do in the first flush of love, when you had fastened your affection on some girl and you picked up one of those dandelions and you and you walked down the road with it blowing on it. She loves me. She loves me not. She loves me. She hoping desperately that it would end up at the right point, you know.

That's so much the view, isn't it? She loves me? I love her. Maybe I don't. Maybe she does. Maybe we stick, maybe we leave, maybe we twist, maybe we turn. You say, but wait a minute, that's not what we believe. No, I didn't say it's what we believe. I said our pagan friends could be forgiven for thinking it is what we believe because of the way we are tempted to behave.

In other words, to make our own adjudication on these things, not on the strength of the instruction of the Bible, but on the shifting shadows and changing affections of passing time. And recognizing then, when we turn to a section like this, that we are dealing with the divine will, and we are dealing with the divine word.

And that the express reality of what is involved is, as from the very beginning of creation, that the two shall become one flesh. They will become one flesh. In other words, it is saying something that is vastly different from just a kind of mutual engagement with one another. It's something vastly different from hooking up.

It is very, very different. In fact, it has little to do with a contractual obligation. It has everything to do with a divine covenant. And that is why the marriage ceremony itself, and the way marriage is approached, and the vows that are made by both husband and wife in marriage is important.

It matters how it takes place, it matters where it takes place, and it matters among whom it takes place. Because if you think about it, the marriage bond is, number one, exclusive. Right? It is that there will be one man and one woman. There will be a man and his wife. It doesn't involve anybody else.

None of this nonsense about two and three involved in the process of contemporary thought. Secondly, it is publicly acknowledged. You say, why would it be publicly acknowledged? Well, because the person leaves. Leaves where? Leaves their house. Leaves their family. Ceases to be what they were and becomes something absolutely different.

I came on a marriage the other day with my children. We were in Utica, New York. Not my children, my three of the grandchildren. And we came on a wedding and it was out in the in the square. And I and I turned to Sue and I said, you know, years ago, this would have been a treasure trove.

Because in Scotland, one of the things that happened when the bride and groom and the wedding party left the church was that they threw money out of the windows. Now, this is Scotland, understand. Scottish people don't throw money away, not by nature. But they threw money out of the windows. And so it was a phenomenal afternoon when I was riding my bike home from school and I came on the Presbyterian church just around the corner from my home and the cars were there.

Oh, I parked the bike and I waited. I didn't care how long the service lasted, I waited. And then the small crowd assembled and eventually they shared their joy in marriage and their largess, and it was very, very clear what had happened. They had been in their home, the man had come from his home, the wife had come from her home. They had come into the church. They'd now been united with one another and they were going away entirely differently. We understood that. That was what had happened.

It was something far more significant than often what we see now. So that the nature of it is exclusive, it is publicly acknowledged, it is absolutely permanent. And he will cleave to his wife. She will cleave to her husband. The picture is sticking with it.

It's super-glued together. And it is consummated. Consummated by sexual intercourse. That is biblical marriage. Do you hear that, young people? Do you hear that, teenagers? As you as you listen to all the voices in your ears, understand this. And understand this, too. That God who made you knows how it works. And how it works properly.

And the disaster that accompanies it when we decide to try it on our own. This is the word of God. It is valid, it is permanent, it is universal. And when entered upon as God intends, as we said this morning, it is an advertisement for the Christian faith. And how we need this advertisement for the Christian faith.

Do you realize that it was in 1964, when I was 12 years old, that the Sex Information and Education Council of the United States of America was set up to deliver sex education in schools. And in 1964, it supported ideas such as merging or reversing sex roles, liberating children from their parents, and abolishing the traditional family.

A government organization established so that children may be impacted in this way. Goodness gracious, how long is it since I was 12? It's what? 57 years. Half a century. Are you surprised by where we are today? You shouldn't be. 1979, the Gay Liberation Front manifesto reads, "We must aim at the abolition of the family, founded on the archaic and irrational teachings of Christianity."

Make no mistake about it. We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against spiritual wickedness in the heavenly places. And the absolute point of contact in contemporary culture is right here, in the realm of sex and marriage and family. You have to be dead not to know that.

And you have to be of the most naive of people not to take seriously our real need to cry to God, to revive the church in the midst of these years, and so that it might be that our marriages, our homes, our kids are an attractive alternative. Are an adventure that is labeled following Jesus.

Now, at the time of Paul's writing, there were in existence both Judaistic and Greek and Roman codes of ethics that related to family living, related to the life of the of the house. And so it is no surprise that Paul himself, given that kind of framework, would under the direction of the Holy Spirit, be providing, if you like, the rules or the codes or the framework for marriage within the context of the gospel.

And so when you think about it, and you think about the people living in the contemporary world, the Greco-Roman world, who knew what it was that the husband was supposed to be this, the wife was supposed to be that. And they would say, yes, well, this seems to make absolutely perfect sense. But what they wouldn't get is what is at the heart of what Paul is saying.

Because the heart of what Paul is saying is that the execution of these principles is under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. That Jesus Christ is Lord. He is Lord as creator of the universe. He is Lord as the one who has redeemed his people from our sins. He is the Lord who reigns in heaven. He is the Lord who will return again. He is the Lord who will reign in a new heaven and in a new earth.

And so the Lordship of Jesus Christ is then to be on display, not simply in the church as it gathers, but it's to be on display in the home life of the members of the church. I've been greatly challenged just recently Crossway came out with a wonderful new copy, an abridged version of The Reformed Pastor by Richard Baxter, which was written in the 17th century.

The original book is hundreds and hundreds of pages. It's just very hard to read. And so this individual has done us a great favor by reducing it in quite a masterful way. And Baxter's exhortations are based on Acts chapter 20, verse 28, which reads, "Pay careful attention to yourselves and to the flock."

Now, first of all, to yourselves. Now, in doing that, we have to take seriously what the Bible is conveying. Earlier, we noted that for the wife to submit to her husband in this way is somewhat necessarily conditioned, if you like, and conditioned significantly by the demand which then follows here in verse 19.

So, wives, you submit to your husbands as is fitting in the Lord, and husbands, you love your wives and don't be harsh with them. This is the this is the the two pieces, if you like, of the puzzle. That's why we read 1 Peter 3, that's why we read Ephesians chapter 5. So you have submission and you have love.

Now, we might ponder why it is that these things are set in juxtaposition to one another in this way. I think it may be because, if we are honest, we understand the particular susceptibility of each member in marriage. Namely, the susceptibility of the wife to chafe and push back under the leadership of her husband.

And the susceptibility of the husband to seek to abuse his leadership role in giving direction to the family and seeking to love his wife. Now, again, I'm going to keep saying this because it is so vitally important that these admonitions are not culturally bound, they are permanently valid.

And the counter-cultural element to what Paul is writing here is what he has to say concerning the love that a husband is to show. Now, let's just acknowledge that he puts this both positively and negatively. Positively, to love your wife means that we must do sacrificially. Sacrificially. The model, the measure of a husband's love is to be Jesus' love for his people.

Couldn't we have made it a little harder? Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church. When Paul writes in Philippians 2, in that amazing passage about Christ who did not think equality with God something to be grasped but made himself of no reputation. In that context, Paul makes these exhortations.

In humility, count others better than yourselves. Look out for the interests of others rather than your own. And remember, when you're tempted to say, but I don't want to do that, that your example is Jesus, who was prepared to give up himself sacrificially even to death on a cross.

You're listening to Truth for Life with Alistair Begg. We'll hear more tomorrow. As we study what the Bible says about God's design for family life, we have a visible, tangible testimony to the reality that we're not on earth by chance. God made us and gave us the gift of children and the family unit.

But there are many who dispute this reality, claiming that science somehow disproves the existence of God. So today, we're excited to offer you a free audio book that looks at this claim from the perspective of a scientist. The book is called Can Science Explain Everything, and it's written by Oxford mathematician John Lennox.

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And John Lennox doesn't take a combative stance; he simply lays out the evidence. And while he's a well-known scholar, he's written Can Science Explain Everything in a way that's easy to understand by walking you through his logic as if he's sitting across the table from you, having a conversation. If you've ever been challenged to clearly address the tension between faith and science, this is a great book to get you started.

It's available today for free as a downloadable audiobook at truthforlife.org/science. And feel free to share this link with others you know so you can listen to and discuss the book together. The audiobook is free to download through the end of May, so don't miss out. Again, the link is truthforlife.org/science.

I'm Bob Lapine. Thanks for listening. How can a husband love his wife in a way that glorifies God? We'll learn tomorrow from the perfect role model. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the learning is for living.