“Christ is the picture given to the husband to follow in leadership. He must be willing to give up the greatest personal comforts for the sake of his bride, just as Christ was. Therefore, the husbands concern in marriage is not his happiness and ease, but his wife’s.”

Last week we began looking at the roles God has set out in his word to guide Christian marriage. Usually men, in their carnality, love to hear the passages of Scripture that deal with submission. It can awaken a sense of entitlement, or pride. God anticipates this reaction when dealing with Christian marriage. Immediately following his teaching to Christian wives he follows up the husbands.

In Eph. 5:22-33 you may notice that, while 51 words are used to instruct the wife the husband needs 102. It is exactly in combining the instruction to the man with what we have previously seen given to the woman that we see the compelling beauty of God’s design for marriage. Here, God gives men the following instruction about his relationship with his wife.

1. Husbands are to lead as servants. The expectation of many is that men, in marriage, will be the selfish oaf sleeping on the couch while the wife scurries around doing all the work. Nothing could be further from the ideal, as far as Paul is concerned. The husbands is to love is wife as Christ loved the church (5:25). Christ loved the church by giving up the splendor of heaven and suffering humiliation from the day he was conceived up until the point when he is raised from the dead. He suffers those things to redeem his church because he loves her. Christ is the picture given to the husband to follow in leadership. He must be willing to give up the greatest personal comforts for the sake of his bride, just as Christ was. Therefore, the husbands concern in marriage is not his happiness and ease, but his wife’s.
2. Husbands are spiritual leaders. True happiness is not found in stuff, but in faith in Christ. Often the man is seen as the provider, which is part of his job in marriage. However, he is primarily to be the spiritual leader of his home. Christ gives himself up to sanctify the church, cleansing her through the washing with the word. That is where true joy is found. Therefore the tired, discouraged husband still takes time to open the Bible with his wife, to lead her. The husband does not affect spiritual change in his wife, but can be used by the Holy Spirit to bring about such transformation.
3. Husbands are to lead as they would like to be led. Husbands are to love their wives as their own bodies (5:28-29). I don’t know many men who would like to be ignored, taken for granted, and treated badly for the sake of some personal convenience. Therefore they are not to treat their wives that way.

It is in combining biblical submission with leadership that the beauty of God’s design for marriage is seen. The wife joyfully follows her husbands leadership trusting him to lead her spiritually as they are sanctified together by the Holy Spirit. That, my friend, is true joy.

Geoff Gleason is a minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and is pastor of Cliffwood PCA in Augusta, Ga. This article appeared on his blog and is used with permission.