Waching daily Jan 27 2019

Hello and welcome to part three of my Nagging Thoughts on "The Ultimate Meaning

of True Womanhood." I'm going to include a link to the original sermon in the

description of this video, so you can check it out for yourselves.

And I will also include a link to part 1 and part 2 of my critique of it, so you

can check that out as well. I very much appreciate your feedback:

good, bad or ugly. And because of content algorithms, we will get more people

involved in this discussion if you like, subscribe, share and comment. So please do

all of those things. And I do enjoy interacting with you and hearing what

you have to say. So on that note, let me kind of recap where I left off in the

last critique where I really tried to make the case that the gospel is simply

bigger than marriage. But also gender itself is also bigger than marriage.

Today I'm going to talk about the part of the sermon where he talks about how

womanhood specifically relates to the concept of marriage. So we are in

Ephesians 5, verses 22 through 24. And he makes this statement, "Marriage exists to

display the covenant-keeping love and grace that exists between Christ and the

church, which means that husband and wife, headship and Submission, are no more

interchangeable than Christ and the church are interchangeable." Okay, so when

we are focusing in on the blank check submission that a woman is to offer her

husband in Ephesians 5:24, what we have to do is, we have to completely throw out

substitutionary atonement and imputed righteousness because Christ and the

church are not interchangeable. Can you see where this is an issue? Let

me just provide a couple of verses where this notion that the church and Christ

are not interchangeable contradicts scripture. From 2nd Corinthians chapter 5,

verse 21, it says that God was made or treated to be sin itself and we are

God's righteousness. That's an absolute substitute and

interchange of the role of our perfect God creator with the sinful stubborn

stiff-necked, just sinful, Church. There's an absolute role reversal there, and

honestly, none of us can approach the throne of God unless that

interchangeability is a possibility. In John chapter 17, verses 21, it is talking

about us being one (in like, one flesh) with the triune God, just as the father

and son are. So they are so submitting to one another's headship, that they are

actually one flesh; they have become one. It's almost indistinguishable. John 17:22,

(the very next verse), it says that Jesus gave us his glory for that purpose -- so

that we can be made one with God Himself which is absolutely remarkable. So I have

a real problem with that statement because this is the crux of salvation, is

this ability to have this interchangeability between Christ and

the church. But he goes on, he makes this statement, "men take cues from Christ

as the head, women take their cues from church, called to admire and stand in

allegiance to Christ." Now, if we are going to say that we are admiring and standing

in allegiance to Christ, absolutely --100 percent agree with this statement. But

we're talking about marriage here, and we as believers can never admire and stand

in allegiance to sin. So when this Ephesians 5:24 is talking about

submitting to a husband in everything, it is not to include sin because we are

called to examine all things and hold fast to what is good. And we are called

to test the spirits and NOT submit to just everything. So yes, a woman is called

to submit to her husband, but that passages is assuming

that that husband is acting Christ-like! So that's a huge factor in Christian

marriage that gets glossed over quite a bit. But in any case, where he's really

going with this idea, is he's saying that women have a small vision of the worth

of womanhood because we're not finding it in Christ. And he's really clinging to

this Ephesians 5 description of our value, womanhood's value based on

marriage. So let me tell you, as a woman, why I cannot find my value in such an

analogy. Let's just take a look at a few verses where God Himself has described

his beloved. In Hosea, chapter one, she is an absolute prostitute who is just

hell-bent on being functionally married to everybody else except her husband. And

if we think that the modern church is any more faithful to our spiritual

husband than the spiritual giants that preceded us, we deceive ourselves because

we are all sinful. We have all gone astray like like sheep. So this is

not a flattering picture to be identified as the Bride of Christ or the

wife of God. Deuteronomy 7:7, God says that He did not choose His people

because they were impressive. In fact, they were the weakest or the least

impressive, the smallest in number. So there's no intrinsic power or something

to be impressed by. In other words, she's not naturally alluring. In Isaiah

48:8 it says that she is a born rebel. So God's wife is not naturally submissive

to God in all things a beautiful example and model for women to follow. Isaiah

64:6 says that all our righteous acts are repulsive to God. So there's really

no value even when you're doing right. Our motives are so selfish and and we

are just so sinful in our nature that it takes the blood of Christ to redeem us,

so that even if we are doing something good, we are covered in His blood. It is a

repulsive sight. In Revelation 2 through 3, it also talks about the seven churches.

And they're called largely to suffer and/or repent. So these are not models to

build up the value of a woman. Now I believe the reverse is possible, that we can

understand God better by looking at these flawed symbols like marriage and

like gender that point towards our God. But when we try to do the the reverse,

where we're trying to find value in the model itself, I think we do a lot of

damage there. So all this to say, women don't take their cues from the church.

Wives take our cues as much from Christ as husbands do. I'm gonna go back to this:

1 Peter chapter 2, verses 24 through 1 Peter chapter 3, verse 1. This is

very much describing exactly how a wife is to submit to her sinful husband. And

she's to tolerate being maligned, falsely accused and crucified by her husband in

order to fulfill her duty. And the inspiration there is Christ Himself. And

on that note, another thing that gets glossed over [is] when it talks about the husband

being Christ-like. I just want to point out when husbands are appealing to that,

the imagery that they tend to have is one of a superhero that is protecting an

innocent deserving person from the bullet of the evil person. So something

of like a scenario that you might see in the Garden of Eden, where you have the

devil (you know), coming to seduce Eve. And he's able to stand up and intercede for

her. But I want to say, what Christ did on the cross is not a picture of that at

all. And even God Himself did not intercede at that particular moment, but

He allowed us to make our own decision there, and we're paying the consequences

for it because of that. But when even the

husband is called to act Christ-like, it is that he also is allowing himself to

be crucified by his beloved. He [Christ] died for us while we were yet His enemies. He

didn't die for His sweet, beautiful submissive, obedient wife. He died while

we were yet His enemies. So both man and wife are to allow each other to crucify

one another, and by submitting to that, you are demonstrating love. I'll make the

case though, that if your spouse does do that to you, I don't think they love you.

And if they are willing to crucify you, there's a very good chance, in my

opinion, that they're probably married to a false god of some sort. There's some

sort of spiritual adultery and possibly even some very real physical adultery

going on and we should not be naive and gloss over that when there are problems

in marriage. Okay, so I'm kind of ranting here. I haven't even gotten into... I have a

whole other... I've only got through one page of my critiques on this passage

this week. And I have a whole other page and I'm going to save that for next week. So

I'm gonna continue the discussion about womanhood in marriage

next week. And then, the following week we will get to womanhood and singleness in

Christ. Okay, I hope you'll join me for each of those episodes.

I very much appreciate your time, and God bless!