Well that is a clunky title! The inspiration for this was a conversation I had at work yesterday. One of my female co-workers said “I’ll submit to my husband when he starts loving me like Christ loved the church!” I got to thinking about it and there is a major problem there. The commands, the “how shall we live as Christians" commands, are not predicated on someone else treating us right. In other words, the commands are by and large not conditional on the behavior of others.
One of the best examples of this is found in the aforementioned “husband and wife” passages in Ephesians 5: 22-33
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.
It is instructive to read not just what Paul is saying but also what he is not saying. When Paul writes in Ephesians 5: 22 that wives are to submit to their husbands and Ephesians 5:25 husbands are to love their wives as Christ loved the church, the two commands are similar and adjacent to one another but are not dependent on one another. There is not an “if” clause in his exhortation.
When wives are commanded to submit to their husbands, Paul doesn’t add “as long as he loves you properly”. There is no doubt that submitting to a husband who doesn’t love you as Scripture commands is difficult. But a wife submitting to her husband does so as an act of obedience not to her husband but rather to Christ.
When husbands are likewise commanded to love their wives as Christ loved the church, Paul does not say "if she submits to you". If your wife is not submitting to your headship in the home, that doesn’t mean you aren’t obligated to love her. The command to love your wife as Christ loved the church is absolute and unconditional. My wife defers to my headship so I don’t have any complaints here, although I fall far shorter in my duty to love her as Christ loved the church. Even if she didn’t it is my obligation to love her because that reflects my love for God.
Here is another example. In Matthew 22:39, Jesus describes the second great commandment as follows:
And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
In no way are we led to believe that we are to love our neighbors as ourselves as long as our neighbors are lovable and love us back. It is far more likely that many (most) people we run into are not going to love us back but that is OK. Our neighbor love that is tangible and real as opposed to theoretical serves as a witness to our lost neighbors. Neighbor love does not carry with it a demand or even expectation that your neighbor will love you back.
When Paul says in 1 Corinthians 14: 26
What then, brothers? When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up.
He is not adding on “as long as the person speaking is ordained, an engaging speaker and agrees with every line item of the confession or statement of faith that our church adheres to”. Paul’s condition is that things be done in an orderly fashion and that people don’t speak over one another but there is no hint of the sort of restrictions we put in place. I have all sorts of problems with the church refusing fellowship with other Christians or at least denying them the ability to serve unless those other Christians first adhere to their manmade rules. The church does not exist for the best speakers to do all of the talking, the best singers to do all of the song leading, the best leaders to make all of the decisions. It is easier for me if someone else does all the work but it is unhealthy for me and for the rest of the church.
One of the hardest ones for us to swallow is in Romans 12: 17-21…
Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
Note that it is up to us to live peaceably, knowing full well that not everyone will be peaceable back to us. Nevertheless, we are to be a peaceable people who do not seek to avenge wrongdoings but rather to leave it up to God. That is hard in the West where we see retaliatory justice as something we are free to carry out. People love revenge movies where a good person is wronged by a bad person and the good person then metes out justice. Those sorts of movies are a staple of American culture but unfortunately are not Biblical. We see some of the best examples of this in the way that many Anabaptists, past and present, have lived. In the face of persecution they refused to fight back. This led to great temporal suffering for them as they were driven from their homes more than one time until they eventually landed in America. Even in this land that touts its religious tolerance the Anabaptists suffered persecution just as their forerunners did. The peacemaking that we are called to is not a peace through superior firepower peace or the threat of mutually assured destruction. It is a self-sacrificing, cross taking up kind of peacemaking that neither demands nor expects reciprocity.
These unilateral commands can be hard for us to swallow but no one said that being a Christian was going to be easy or comfortable. In spite of the difficulty, I thank God for all of this. I thank God that He didn’t wait for us to meet His standards before He stepped in to save us. God’s love for His people was not conditional and God didn’t meet us halfway or even 99% of the way. He came all the way. The Scriptures tell us that “while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). We who are redeemed in Christ Jesus ought to be the same, showing love to those who don’t love us, forgiving others before they forgive us, living peaceably even unto death with those who would seek to do us harm. All of these commands which require something of us with no expectation of reciprocity are difficult for selfish people to carry out but they are ultimately reflective of how God has dealt with His people, people who were by nature children of wrath and enemies of God. Instead of giving us what we deserved and returning enmity with enmity, He sent His Son to redeem some of us not because of what we did for Him but in spite of what we are. If God can redeem those who by nature hated Him, certainly we can love our wives without demanding they submit to us and certainly we should love our enemies without expecting them to first love us back.
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