(…continues from part 3…)

4)             What happens if the man defaults in his love responsibilities to the wife, the woman of the house? Can the woman’s faithful submission substitute for the husband’s deficiency? Let us look into the Bible. It says in Ephesians 5:25 “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;” and verse 28 reads, “So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself.” And what is the spiritual implication of the husband’s failure to love his wife? He ejects the Christological consequence from the family picture. Any marriage that sprawls on the barrenness of the Christ essence has no locus standi before Divine scrutiny. A loveless marriage is a playing ground for demonic operations. The husband hates himself, and has refused Christ’s participation in the marriage. The man will get almost everything wrong. The Word of God, Jesus, is absent from that marriage.

                Why should the wife submit to the husband is entrenched in the holy writ. “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. 23) For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body” (Ephesians 5:22-23). The word ‘head’ is the Greek kephale (ke-fa-lee’): ‘the head (as the part most readily taken hold of); life; source; completion of a thing.’ A wife’s bent on nonconformism is an affront to the Person of Jesus. She is the malfunctioning Woman of the Eden Garden all over again. She is putting herself in jeopardy. It takes two to tango. Any deficiency on the part of either couple marks the dark spot of marital failure. It, certainly, is not compulsory to marry.

                If you have to marry, understand that the man, first of Adamic creation, is the head of the family and he is in control of family matters according to divine fiat! Reverend Chris Okotie was his recondite self when teaching on the relationship between Adam the man and his wife. He said, “Adam, as a worker for God, has the entire earth as his platform; and Eve, his wife, has Adam, her husband, as her own platform.” How so abstruse, this exegetical establishment. Does the Scripture agree with the erudition of Reverend Chris Okotie? Genesis 2:15 “And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.” The man, Adam, is the first worker for God and the earth is his platform. “And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” (Genesis 2:7). Being made out of ‘dust,’ which is the Hebraic `aphar (aw-fawr’): ‘1. dust (as powdered or gray). 2. (hence) clay, earth, mud;’ the entire earth of our world is the first Adam’s constituency, ergo, his platform.

                When it comes to the woman, the wife, it says in Genesis 2:18-23 18) “And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. 21) And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; 22) And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. 23) And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” Superintendence over an entity lies with the namer of the object. In naming the woman, he proved to be her superintendent husband. In her creation, she was taken out of the existing Adam, her husband. Her husband is her source. Do we all not know what happens when one is cut off from one’s source? One begins to malfunction. When the husband withholds his duteous love of commitment, or and when the wife decides to jettison God’s submissive mand, the home experiences malfunctioning.

Virtuous wife submits

                If the man’s platform is the earth, based on his scriptural formation from the dust, the wife’s platform of her duty to the Creator is the man, out of whom she came into existence. As far as the family organization is concerned, the husband – the one who has God’s oracle – seeks direction from God; and God expects the wife to look up to the husband for her own direction. You cannot change God’s protocol. Coming from the LORD God, His command is eternally in order and in vogue. So, you see, if you cannot abide by divine rules, just forget about marriage. I have always told ladies, “If you cannot trust a man with your submission, if the man you intend to marry is not intelligent enough, don’t bother marrying him; because if you make the mistake of going into marriage with him, he will supervise your life with his stupidity – till death do ye part!

                The husband is not Alpha and he is not Omega. He is definitely susceptible to erratic judgments and instructions. There are some things quite alien to the husband but which happens to be the wife’s métier, knowing it so well. Ephesians 5:21 is intended for the Church organization where there are departments and groups each with a substantive head; which reads: “Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.” There are times the husband, the man of the house, must submit to a superior view of the wife. What if the man will not bulge a smidgeon bit? You cannot, as the wife, raise your voice to him. Talk to the ultimate Master, the Lord Jesus, with Whom we all have to do. Amen!

                Spiritual acquittal and discharge takes place only when one is born again. To be born again, say, with all your heart, this simple prayer:

“Dear heavenly Father, I come to You now in the name of Jesus Christ. I believe in my heart that Jesus is the Son of God. I believe that Jesus died on the cross for my sin. I believe that You raised Him from the dead. I confess with my mouth that Jesus is Lord and I receive Him now as my Lord and my Saviour. I give God all the glory. Amen!”      

(…to be concluded…)

Read part 3 here

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