ES011. Ephesians 5:15-6:9
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15 See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, 16 redeeming the time, because the days are evil.
17 Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. 18 And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit, 19 speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, 20 giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, 21 submitting to one another in the fear of God.
22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. 24 Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.
25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, 26 that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, 27 that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. 28 So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church. 30 For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. 31 “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. 33 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.
1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2 “Honor your father and mother,” which is the first commandment with promise: 3 “that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth.”
4 And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.
5 Bondservants, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in sincerity of heart, as to Christ; 6 not with eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, 7 with goodwill doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men, 8 knowing that whatever good anyone does, he will receive the same from the Lord, whether he is a slave or free.
9 And you, masters, do the same things to them, giving up threatening, knowing that your own Master also is in heaven, and there is no partiality with Him.
From here to the end of the letter it is about one being filled with the Holy Spirit. Clearly, an unbeliever does not have the Holy Spirit for they are not God’s. They can certainly be convicted by Him but He is not directly part of their lives until he comes to faith in Him. The ways of the world can only but fill the hearts and minds of those still in the world which is why, when one becomes a Christian they, as we, must leave the manner of the world behind. We are to put off the old man as Paul said earlier in the letter (Eph 4:22) and put on the new man created in ‘true righteousness and holiness’ (Eph 4:24).
This passage says, that instead of being filled with wine or for that matter anything from the world, we are to be filled with the things of God, to be filled with His Spirit. We are to be filled by, with and in the Spirit.
Christians are automatically filled with His Spirit for He resides in us but to what extent we allow His dominating control in our lives is within our power. The more we allow His work rather than the works of the flesh we will exhibit the marks of being filled with the Spirit, which in this passage is declared to be, joy, thanksgiving and....drumroll....submission. An out-of-fellowship believer are short on these things. On top of that there is a daily battle that wars against our soul trying to take away these spiritual things. Instead we are to be those where the Spirit inhabits our lives in an ever-increasing manner instead of resorting to our natural state of worry, concern and eyes focused in this world rather than upon the glories of Christ and what He has done for us.
We are to live carefully in this world, in the wisdom that God gives us through His Word and His Spirit living in us not wasting our time away. We have to discern what God’s will is for us and what it is not. Clearly it is not to get drunk as indeed we heard this morning but to be filled with the Spirit.
Paul helps us along in knowing the will of God.
We are to get rid of evil and foolish speaking and, instead, fill our mouths with the praise of God and talking to each other with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, giving thanks to God. Today there is a movement to remove singing from the Church because, it is said, it is not masculine. Tell that to the men who go to rugby and football matches! Well, Paul also begs to differ, not only in word but in action as we find even when he was in prison:
But at midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them.
It is part of what we should always do. Of course, I have a particular taste in music as you do and there are songs I do not think should ever be part of a worship service, especially the kind which are like ‘Jesus is my boyfriend’, and ‘I’m in love with you’. YouTube is a great place to find great Christian songs and hymns: it is how I like to start the day with the Lord. Why not use it as part of your daily worship. You will find all the old hymns there as well as all the newer ones too. The people of the world listen to their radios and music channels, for music is part of life and for some, it is their life. This is plain when we watch X-Factor.
We, also, should also make music an integral part of our life, not with the songs of the world but with the songs of God and be like Paul, even at midnight, singing.
[The Greek word here is ὕμνος which is where we get the word ‘hymn’ means a song with religious content - not exactly how we understand a hymn today though it does include all of them for it also includes choruses and other such songs. Paul does differentiate between different songs such as psalm which is about singing praise, and spiritual songs.]
This singing is not just when we are together but singing on our own and also listening to spiritual songs. These songs should have such an effect upon us that we are using the words as part of our daily conversations with each other. I suppose the reason for this admonition is to cut out the kind of speech which is dishonouring to God. As we do them they become part of us and our character but this will happen only as we start to practice these things. A minister I know is always saying ‘Praise the Lord’ in all conversations, actually in almost every sentence. We have to learn to move to more spiritual language encouraging one another in our daily walk with Christ.
And this should not be so hard when we think upon those things that Jesus has done for us and meditate upon the words of hymns and spiritual songs…we can only give Him our praise. And that is because of His Holy Spirit who produces, in us, the fruit of the Spirit which includes joy and thankfulness to the God who has saved us.
Here we come to another part of the fruit of the Spirit which is submission! How we like words like these! But it is in this that we are showing the topsy-turvy world of the Kingdom of God. Something I ought to make clear is that this plainly is not how the world does things. I’d like to make it clear that the whole passage we read is for believers and believers only. We should not expect that the world will follow our example for, I think, it is impossible without the Spirit of God.
Now let us consider what Paul is talking of here. In verse 21 he says that we are to submit to one another.
Wayne Grudem says:
Biblical Foundations for Manhood and Womanhood An Acceptable Sense of Mutual Submission
If mutual submission means being considerate of one another, and caring for one another’s needs, and being thoughtful of one another, and sacrificing for one another, then of course I would agree that mutual submission is a good thing.
There is a general sense that we are to submit to one another. But then Paul goes on to explain submission further where the relationship is of authority to those under authority. And the rule is always love.
Wives are to submit to their husbands in everything. Not to another man but only to their husbands. This submission is one of obedience. I’m sure that this is open to abuse but this is not what is called for here. The husband is to love their wives and therefore anything that the husband asks of the wife would be with that in mind. There are simply different roles being played out here. Feminism is not in the Bible. The woman is equal to a man. But, in relationships, the wife is not equal to her husband, in that sense. This is a touchy subject but biblical. When the wife usurps the husband I have seen the result of such relationships and it has not been good. Equally I have seen some overbearing men with their wives. And to show that the wife is to submit to the husband Paul says that the church is subject to Jesus. Is the Church and Jesus equal? No? Does Jesus submit to the Church? No? Well, this is how it is with wives and husbands. As Christians we need not be embarrassed. It is the God-ordered way of things. Never, in Scripture, is the husband told to submit to his wife. There is equality only in creation and in salvation. Equality is the word of our age but it is not Scriptural. Submission is a biblical word. But husbands you are not to abuse this for you are to love your wives as your own body. And wives you are to respect your husbands. And husbands are not to be bitter about their wives. And, Paul says elsewhere that the man’s body belongs to his wife and the wife’s body to her husband.
Paul gets sidetracked into talking of the Church for he sees it like a marriage. The Lord loves and nourishes the Church. The Church is cleansed by the hearing and the acceptance of the Gospel to present a people presentable and glorifying to God. This is the washing of water by the Word.
So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
For Christ gave Himself for the Church. He is able to present us blameless, holy, faultless, with no spot or wrinkle. I mean, who wants to marry someone who looks spotty and have lots of wrinkles around the eyes and mouth unless you are legally blind! And Christ makes us look youthful and pure before God; a bride of the most beautiful countenance presented to God as the result of the sacrifice of Jesus for her.
Children and then told to submit and obey their parents. This is a relationship that is never equal even when we have grown into adulthood. Jesus Himself was subject to His mother and Joseph.
Then He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was subject to them, but His mother kept all these things in her heart.
And, again, in an unequal relationship as this the parents are still admonished not to wind the kids up - but there should never be equality here. Because there is a power imbalance we who have the powerare not use it unwieldy.
Then the last relationship mentioned here is one of slaves. There has been uproar about the so-called biblical assent to slavery but we also need to remember the world into which this letter was written where a quarter of the world’s population were slaves. Actually, the bible does not condone it but simply accepts it being a part of life. Whilst there is no longer this kind of slavery most of us have worked for someone or had others working for us whether as a manager or boss and again in this unequal relationship there is no room given for abuse of power. All that we do should be done as to the Lord whether we work for ourselves or for someone else. It is when the boss is not watching, what are we doing? The test of character is what we are like on our own. All that we do, whether we work now or not, needs to be done as if it is personally for God. And I am sure we want to do our best for Him.
Relationships are not equal, there is always an imbalance. Equality does not exist in the bible except in the sense that before God we all have to give an answer to Him. He created us male and female. He has saved us where male and female is irrelevant. But where there are relationships other than simple friendship one has greater authority than the other.
It is a politicians’ pipe dream to think that equality works. Human nature simply would not allow it. We only need to remember Russia and the other communist and socialist countries to see this. For those who have read Animal Farm we see what happens when such a system is in force - it is equality...with force. It all collapsed in the 90’s but it is making a comeback in our time even here again in the UK. How ignorant we are of history. Someone always has to lead and someone always has to follow. This is not just about politics but about faith too.
It is how we lead and how we follow that matters before God. And the overwhelming theme is love.
We are to be those filled with the Spirit of God, yielded to Him and His ways, no equality here. The result of this relationship with God is that it leads to joy, thanksgiving and submission. To what extent these are true in our lives reveals just how much we are allowing His Spirit to live in us. This is for no other to judge other than yourself. Let us submit to God and let Him truly have His way in us.
Benediction
Benediction
Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling,
And to present you faultless
Before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy,
To God our Savior,
Who alone is wise,
Be glory and majesty,
Dominion and power,
Both now and forever.
Amen.
Bibliography
Bibliography
Barry, J. D., Mangum, D., Brown, D. R., Heiser, M. S., Custis, M., Ritzema, E., … Bomar, D. (2012, 2016). Faithlife Study Bible. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.
Baugh, S. M. (2015). Ephesians: Evangelical Exegetical Commentary. (W. H. House, H. W. Harris III, & A. W. Pitts, Eds.). Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.
Brown, D. R., Custis, M., & Whitehead, M. M. (2013). Lexham Bible Guide: Ephesians. (D. Mangum, Ed.). Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.
Grudem, W. A. (Ed.). (2002). Biblical foundations for manhood and womanhood. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books.
Josephus, F., & Whiston, W. (1987). The works of Josephus: complete and unabridged. Peabody: Hendrickson.
Freedman, D. N., Herion, G. A., Graf, D. F., Pleins, J. D., & Beck, A. B. (Eds.). (1992). In The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary. New York: Doubleday.
(2002). Priscilla Papers Volume 16.