1990 November/December issue Part 2

Men, Women, and Biblical Equality. Part 2

   Most of what the MWBE’s advertisements say I think most Christians would accept. It is what they have chosen not to say that disturbs me deeply. The section on Community deals with the Holy Spirit's coming on both men and women; both have spiritual gifts. True enough, but were there not certain restrictions (for both men and women) placed on the use of these gifts? Is there no such thing as church order which manifests a church hierarchy?

   Why no mention of this? Hierarchy- that graduated splendour in cherubim, seraphim, archangels, angels, saints, apostles, prophets and martyrs have their divinely appointed places- is treated, in fact, as a bad word. Is not Christian marriage a mysterious representation of the ineffable love between Christ and His bride? Must we insist on “mutual submission,” as does MWBE?

   Years ago I hear Letha Scanzoni lead a seminar on “Egaliterian Marriage,” in which she used Ephesians 5:21 (“be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ”) as her proof text, omitting the following verses which spell out the specifics of that subjection (wives to husbands, children to parents, slaves to masters). During the discussion period I asked whether she saw any difference at all between a wife’s submission to her husband and his submission to his wife. The answer was no. “May I then reverse the nouns in the verses which follow?” Yes. So I began to read, “Husbands, be subject to your wives as to the church, for the wife is the head of the husband as the church is the head of Christ.” She stopped me. “Oh, you can’t carry the analogy that far.” Well? Can we drain the analogy of its mystery? Can we infer nothing but mutual submission? May the Lord give to us, men and women alike, his sublime indifference to secular categories, and His perfect willingness to be subject to the Father- a subordination which did not end with His earthly life, as 1 Corinthians 15:28, 29 (JBP) clearly shows: “When everything created has been obedient to God, then shall the Son acknowledge Himself subject to God the Father, who gave the Son power over all things. Thus, in the end, shall God be wholly and absolutely God.” Yes, we are to “fit in with each other,” as Phillips translates Ephesians 5:21. We are to sacrifice, give in, forbear, forgive. But is that all? Is there no special command to us wives? There is. “Wives, be subject to your husband’s as to the Lord” (Ephesians 5:22). Why is this verse in the Bible? Why does MWBE omit it?

   Well, they think it’s dangerous. Anything the Bible teaches can be dangerous, of course, if misconstructed, misunderstood, misapplied. It’s not our business to edit the Scriptures because they are often disobeyed. It is our business to obey, and to speak out for that obedience, no matter how we may may be reproached for so doing and no matter how difficult we women (none of us was born submissive!) find it to be.
 
   The word to husbands is far more difficult. They are to love their wives as much as Christ loves the church. This kind of love is radically sacrificial and radically cuts across a man’s nature (they were not born with any great desire to lay down their lives). Both husband and wife must be submissive and obedient to the will of God- he in loving, she in accepting his appointed headship. Jesus found His very meat in submission. It is the route to fulfilment and joy. To aim at a mere fifty-fifty accommodation of each other is a half-hearted way of pretending to obey. It is not the love of Christ and the church. It does not demand that kind of sacrifice.

Men, Women, and Biblical Equality. Part 1