Radiant Respect Flows From Loving Submission

As Christians dig into the Bible, pray, and surrender their lives to God, their love for Him sinks deep into their hearts, souls, and minds. When they grow, they discover that their love is spreading to their neighbors. Wives begin to see their husbands from God’s perspective, reflecting God’s love in their marriages becomes a priority. Radiant respect develops, and they find that radiant respect flows from their loving submission.

I recently gave a meditation on wives respecting their husbands in the Reflecting God’s Love in Marriage: A Wife’s Call to Action Bible study. Scroll down for the video and full version of the meditation.

“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?” Jesus said to him, “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”
Matthew 22:36-40

You might ask, what in the world does this Scripture have to do with wives submitting and respecting their husbands?

Everything, my friends.

My husband woke up a few days before the teaching and told me that I should be working on the Ten Commandments.

“I’m giving a meditation on submitting to and respecting husbands! You dreamed I should be working on the Ten Commandments?”

Puzzled, I turned to Exodus 20. “God, what do you want me to do with Your commandments?”

Then, I read Jesus’ summation of the Law and the prophets in Matthew 22.

If we love God with all our hearts, souls, and minds, will we submit to Him—do His will? Since we love God with all our hearts, souls, and minds, will we respect Him—stand in awe of Him? Revere Him? Honor Him? Value His creation?

And if we love our neighbors as ourselves, will we love with divine love, agapao? Are our husbands our neighbors? They’re more than our neighbors! Our husbands are one with us … partners on a mission for God.

God fashioned women and presented us as a gift to our husbands to become one with them. To be helpers to our husbands. Comparable to them, like them. Working side-by-side with them in the work that God gave us. We’re one with our husbands!

If man is the head, she is the crown, a crown to her husband, the crown of the visible creation. The man was dust refined, but the woman was dust double-refined, one removed further from the earth.^[1]
Matthew Henry

Let’s focus on the wife’s calling.

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.
Ephesians 5:22-24

We start this passage with “submit” and end with “respect.” Have you wondered what submission and respect have to do with each other?

Does the word “submit” kind of get under your skin?

The word for “submit” is hypotassō (hoop-ot-as’-so). It’s a military term that means to “arrange under the commander or leader.” BlueLetterBible.org says “In non-military use, it was ‘a voluntary attitude of giving in, cooperating, assuming responsibility, and carrying a burden.’”

Can you imagine if there were no submission in this world? If there were no laws. Imagine no CEO of a corporation. What if there were no parental authority in a family? And if a husband and wife did not work in unison. Chaos!

Friends, the world needs submission.

John Piper thinks of submission this way, “Submission is the divine calling of a wife to honor and affirm her husband’s leadership and help carry it through according to her gifts.” (John Piper)^[2]

Loving Submission As To The Lord

Notice the last phrase in verse 22, “as to the Lord.”

Paul writes in Colossians 3:17-18, “And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him. Wives, submit to your own husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.”

“Do all in the name of the Lord Jesus.” And then as he tells wives to submit, it’s “as fitting to the Lord.” Everything to honor Jesus.

Loving Respect Leads to Correction As To The Lord

There are times when wives should not submit to their husbands. Times when our husbands may ask us to sin as Ananias asked Sapphira to do (Acts 5). She submitted. But was she right in submitting?

What would a loving wife have done instead of going along with Ananias? She would have lovingly helped him see that telling the church a lie about their offering was not honoring God. She would have encouraged him to tell the truth. She would have prayed for him. If all failed, she would have told him that she would not lie.

God doesn’t expect you to submit to your husband if he asks you to break the law.

God doesn’t expect wives to submit to abuse, either to her or their children. In those cases, help is readily available. Help is available. You can find ways to get help in this post, “God Hates Domestic Abuse.“

The key, “Do all things as to the Lord.”

The Husband’s Responsibility

The following verses tell our husbands their job: to love their wives as Jesus loves the church and gave Himself for her. They are to love their wives as they love their own bodies.

This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church.
Ephesians 5:32

God sees our Christian husbands as human examples of Christ’s love for the church. What if we saw our husbands as representatives of Jesus? Yes, stumbling in many ways just as we stumble, but representatives or ambassadors of Jesus.

Throughout the Bible, God refers to Israel as His wife, many times as His wayward wife. The New Testament refers to the church as the bride of Christ.

Nevertheless let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.
Ephesians 5:33

Respect Flows From Love As To the Lord

“… let the wife see that she respects [phobeō (fob-eh’-o)] her husband.” Phobeō means to value, honor, “reverence, venerate, to treat with deference or reverential obedience.”

Seeing our husbands through God’s eyes, we can see them as our leaders or shepherds. Although flawed, as we are, they have an amazing job. They are to care for God’s creation, including us. They are to love us like Christ loves the church.

Loving wives, the will of God is that we submit to our husbands as to the Lord. In submitting, we are honoring God’s order of creation. Respect flows from God’s order and love. Respect flows from our love for our husbands.

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Radiant Respect Flows From Loving Submission