Cheryl

Tarun,

Again, welcome and thanks for posting.

You said: I was not trying to imply that the Husband “is” the Saviour/Lord and God of his wife.That is a role that only Christ can fulfill. However even though he “is not” what Christ is in full, his wife is expected to have an attitude toward him “as if he were”.

Actually that is pure and simple idolatry. Wives are not to look on their husbands as Lord and God. Can you imagine if we take this explanation and use it for a carved idol? We could then say that the idol is not God nor is the idol Lord, but we can have an attitude towards the idol “as if it were Lord and God”. Do you see how idolatrous this is? No, my friend, Jesus is our God and there is to be no other Lord or God besides him.

You said: We are not inputing everything that Jesus is to the Husband, what we are doing is defining the attitude a wife should have towards her Husband and scripture does tell us so.
***Ephesians 5:22 Wives, submit to your husbands “as” to the Lord ***

Scripture is not saying here that wives are to submit to their husbands as if they are their Lord and God. Scripture rather defines it’s own terminology:

Col 3:23 Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men,
Col 3:24 knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance. It is the Lord Christ whom you serve.

The Amplified Bible says:

Col. 3:23, 24 Whatever may be your task, work at it heartily (from the soul), as [something done] for the Lord and not for men, Knowing [with all certainty] that it is from the Lord [and not from men] that you will receive the inheritance which is your [real] reward. [The One Whom] you are actually serving [is] the Lord Christ (the Messiah).

The husband is not the replacement for God, but honoring the husband is something that a wife does that is actually done for Christ’s sake and will rewarded by Christ.

You said: “in the same way that the body of Christ looks up to Jesus as the High priest (being priests themselves)so also should a wife look up to her Husband as her head not considering him to be “the” High priest but definitely a priest who has the calling to lead and she as a priest with a calling to follow.”

My point is that this isn’t scriptural. Nowhere is this view found in scripture. One can only get the idea of the husband to be considered a higher priest than the wife nor can we get the teaching that the husband is called to lead and she is called to follow. I know that this is tradition, but it is a tradition that has no foundation in scripture. Give me just one verse that says that a man is to “lead” his wife. It just isn’t there. When women follow this teaching they are prone to stay back and not take any responsibility for their own spiritual growth. It is too easy to rely on someone else when scripture says that we are all to grow up and be mature Christians trained to make wise decisions.

You said: Yes I am called to give myself for her and I will or atleast die trying. I do not mean a sacrifice which leads to salvation for my wife as I know it will not, but sacrifice in as much as is required even unto death putting her before myself which by the way is a given when you are talking about the love Jesus had for the church and incidentally is also a parallel calling for the Christian, Revelation 12:11c “and they loved not their lives unto the death.”

I think it is a wonderful thing to sacrifice yourself for your wife. Many godly men do that as an act of love. However what many men mean by this is that they sacrifice of themselves to make all the decisions for their wives. They are to lead her and make her decisions for her and this leads the woman to remaining childlike and dependent. When the man is willing to lead in love and sacrifice himself so that he allows her to make decisions too, then that is a true and godly sacrifice. Somehow I am not sure that is what you are saying.

You said: “I would say that scripture does not say that he is responsible but that he is called to (there is a difference)lead her spiritual walk upwards, refer below

Ephesians 5:27 so that he may present the church to himself as glorious – not having a stain or wrinkle, or any such blemish, but holy and blameless.36 5:28 In the same way husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies”

Please note the very clear “In the same way”

We understand scripture by reading the entire text and not isolating one scripture. Look again at the verse and the one following.

Eph 5:28 So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself;
Eph 5:29 for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church,

Scripture is talking about nourishing and cherishing the physical. It is talking about loving their wives “as their own bodies” and is not talking about presenting their wives to God spiritually. While Christ cherishes and looks after our spiritual welfare so the husband is to cherish and look after the wife’s physical (and emotional) welfare. If this scripture meant that the husband is responsible to present their wives to God pure spiritually, then we have a big problem. Every doctrine in scripture is repeated so that it is verified. Where does scripture ever repeat the thought that a man is responsible for his wife’s spirituality? Also every example that we have regarding a husband and wife brought before the Lord for judgment, the husband and wife are judged individually and no husband is ever said to be responsible for the wife’s actions. If this is the only scripture that you can pull out to verify that husbands are responsible for their wives, then you are left with an unverified witness of this “doctrine”. No other doctrine is every left without a second witness.

You said: “The husband is not held responsible for his wifes decisions, neither are wives allowed to be irresponsble in following the lead of their Husband. It is a question of who leads and who follows if its quite obvious the Husband is guiding the wife the wrong way then she is expected to adhere to the Word of God as a priest in her own right and follow the leading of the Spirit.”

I do understand that this is what you believe but the problem is that you don’t have any verses to prove that this is what the scripture teaches. No where is the husband ever told to guide the wife, or take authority over her. Each of us are required to hear from and follow the Holy Spirit for ourselves. If the woman only hears from the Holy Spirit when her husband is going in a wrong direction, then she is inferior in the body of Christ. No, my friend, the woman is expected to grow up and mature in her own faith and her own ability to hear from God.

You said: “However if it is for e.g something like choosing a church when both have different preferences and both churches seem good I believe that the Husband’s prayerful choice should prevail.”

The wife certainly can submit to her husband’s decision here or the husband can sacrifice his preference for the wife’s preference 🙂 That is sacrifice in action!

You said: Let me put it this way – when you are “married” we are required to be mature Christians and follow the Lord “together”

Togetherness is wonderful and this is the goal. However this doesn’t mean that the wife isn’t to hear from God equally with her husband. If both of them are equally submitted to God, he should be speaking to both of them so their decisions will be much easier.

You said: Yes, he does not give him the mandate of a priest who makes the spiritual decisions for his wife in those words exactly but what he does say is ***Eph5:24 But as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.***

However what does this submission look like? The wife submits by honoring her husband and the husband sacrifices by giving up his own personal choices to sacrifice for her. This is submission and sacrifice in action. Anything else is taking authority over another person’s will when there should be sacrifice instead. When they both work together in equal honor, it is an easy thing to work things out.

You said: “We all have a free will and Jesus does not make our spiritual decisions for us, however He does let us know what His opinion is and I think that we would be wise to follow – would’nt you ?”

What I have found from scripture and personal experience is that Jesus does not always give us any more of his opinion than what is given in scripture. He gives guidelines and then he expects us to “work out our salvation” by taking the guidelines that he has set and deciding for ourselves how best to honor him with our mature decisions. After all in the next life we will be required to judge the world and the angels so we need to all learn how to make our own decisions here in this life. In the next life, there will be no relationship of husband and wife so the wife will be on her own to judge angels and will the men also be on their own. Maturity is the mandate and wise decisions by all is the growing experience.

You said: “(d)The husband is expected to provide leadership in their spiritual walk together

I think it would be safe to say that in the context of the home the Husband is the priest.
Please note that I am not taking away the wife’s calling as a priest but when we use the term “Husband is the priest of the home” what we are implying is that he is the spiritual head in the context of his household.”

No it is not scriptural to say that the Husband is the priest of the home. This is a cultural understanding, but it does not come from scripture. In scripture, the wife is also referred to as manager of the home. 1 Timothy 5:14 says in the Amplified Bible:

So I would have younger [widows] marry, bear children, guide the household, [and] not give opponents of the faith occasion for slander or reproach.

The Greek word for “guide” is oikodespoteo and it means (in Strong’s) to be the “head” of the family and the WordStudy Dictionary adds:

“the master of the house To be master of a house exercising authority, with the emphasis on absolute rule, as of a despot”

No, my friend, there is no one “head” of the family and no one priest of the family. This is just not scriptural.

We will be exploring this further at a later time as I will be posting on marriage and the women’s issue.

Blessings!