Reflecting God's Image In Our Marriages

Reflecting God’s Image In Our Marriages
Scot Caley, Lead Minister

From the beginning, God intended marriage to reflect His image.  He could have organized society only way He wanted.  He chose marriage to be the representation of His nature. 

Genesis 1:27 So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

But what does that mean?  Created in the image of God?  Books have been written and entire theologies created around that topic.  Let’s look at three things in marriage over the next three articles that reveal God’s identity.

- Designed for Equality

Men and women were equally created in God’s image.  There has never been in the Bible any idea of superiority or inequality.  Both bear the stamp of God’s image.  The biblical teaching of a wife’s submission to her husband had no aspect of inequality to it, nor is the image of man’s masculinity considered inferior to women’s femininity.  For years there was an insinuation in our society that females were inferior, which is probably the reason that so many women hated the idea of submission.  More recently there has been an insinuated disdain for masculinity that has caused men to pull back on the leadership responsibilities and to defer to their wives, which has caused frustration for both of them. 

The problem is that any concept of inferiority is not biblical. 

Galatians 3:28  There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

But what about where the bible says that the husband is the head of the wife?

Ephesians 5:23  For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior.

Some husbands sometimes see only the first part of that verse and forget the second part.  But let’s see how this head operated.

John 13:3-5  Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so, he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist.  After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.

Do you see how Jesus exemplifies authority?  God-given authority results in servanthood.  Jesus is the head, but he is also the Savior of the church.  Think of all that Jesus did to save us. 

Left heaven

Walked the earth

Knew hunger, thirst, ridicule, pain,

Died on the cross

Rose again

Returning for His Bride

That’s what Godly masculinity looks like.  It is not expressed in the carnal ways of our conditioning and it does not express itself in lording over your wife.

Ephesians 5:25  Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.  Now a lot of wives love that last part.  He loves the church and gives Himself up for her.  However, your husband’s servanthood is not a license to manipulate. 

Ephesians 5:22  Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord.

There are no second-class citizens in the Trinity, yet the Trinity is at the same time leading and submitting to one another. 

In that first perfect match, husband and wife naturally treated each other with the dignity and appreciation of equals.  They neither begrudged nor despised the differences between them.  They celebrated the differences in each other.  They also gloried in their intimacy, drinking deeply at the fountain of fellowship with God and oneness with each other.  They had no regret of being fully what God had designed them to be, Adam the initiator, and Eve the responder as they carried out God’s plan.  While this image has been damaged by sin, it can still be redeemed through Jesus Christ.

                                                                                             Until the nets are full, Scot