Ladies, as I finished the sermon in second service on Sunday, I realized I spent little to no time on the phrase, "as to the Lord," which occurs in Ephesians 5:22. This was not an intentional oversight, but a need to create some time. I assumed a blog post on the phrase might help and would be necessary - so here it is!

 

"As to the Lord," is used by Paul rarely and similar phrases are used by him later in Ephesians (see 6:5). The concept is this - we are submissive to our Savior ***in response to what He has done for us.*** That is a huge factor in all of these verses. We are not in the business of forcing or coercing obedience through guilt, shame or other factors! We are all serving our Savior because of what He has done for us. Now, as we serve Him and give ourselves up to Him, we "submit to our husbands" and husbands love their wives "as Christ loved the church." Paul adds "as to the Lord" for the ladies, not as a blanket statement (ie. Obey your husband in everything, like you do Christ), but rather, "as your husband leads you to do Christ's will, submit to him." If your husband begins to expect or contort the will of God and expect you to still obey him in fulfillment of this passage - you have the right to obey Christ first, then your husband.

 

Here's an extreme example: if your husband came home from work and asked you to murder his boss and said "the Bible says to submit," you have no obligation to fulfill this request. What he is asking is outside of God's will, thus you obey your Savior first and always first. There are far less extreme examples, but I hope this makes the point. So, we must read God's word and know what it says to discern God's will (Eph 1:3-10). He must be honored far above and over our husband. May God grant us revived marriages that are obeying this passage!