Paradise Regained

Paradise Regained

(Galatians 3:26-28; Ephesians 5:21-33)

Yearly Theme:  “Patience is…”

Series Title:  “Love and Marriage”

September 25^th, 2022

Something to think about:

As we conclude our series today on Love and Marriage, we come to – what I would like to call – the Capstone message.  This message is meant to not only wrap up this series, but is intended to clarify once and for all the solution to the problem of sin that so very long ago caused relationships, specifically the husband-and-wife relationship, to become disjointed/broken.  In order to do this in the brief moments we have this morning, I want us to look at two passages of Scripture from two of Paul’s letters in the New Testament.  Though we cannot deal exhaustively with all of Paul’s writings about men and women respectively, we will do our best to navigate through a couple of the more quoted passages from Galatians and Ephesians as they relate to men/women and the ordinance of marriage.

Let’s take a look:

Galatians 3:26-28 (NLT),

²⁶ For you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus. ²⁷ And all who have been united with Christ in baptism have put on Christ, like putting on new clothes. ²⁸ There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. ²⁹ And now that you belong to Christ, you are the true children of Abraham. You are his heirs, and God’s promise to Abraham belongs to you.

So, let’s hold our place on this passage and look at the next reference from Paul’s letter to the Ephesian Church:

Ephesians 5:21-33 (NLT),

²¹ And further, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

²² For wives, this means submit to your husbands as to the Lord. ²³ For a husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of his body, the church. ²⁴ As the church submits to Christ, so you wives should submit to your husbands in everything.

²⁵ For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her ²⁶ to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God’s word. ²⁷ He did this to present her to himself as a glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish. Instead, she will be holy and without fault. ²⁸ In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as they love their own bodies. For a man who loves his wife actually shows love for himself. ²⁹ No one hates his own body but feeds and cares for it, just as Christ cares for the church. ³⁰ And we are members of his body.

³¹ As the Scriptures say, “A man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.” ³² This is a great mystery, but it is an illustration of the way Christ and the church are one. ³³ So again I say, each man must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

Here’s the takeaway this morning:

Key Point:  “In Christ, GOD brought redemption and restoration back to creation by offering Himself as the perfect sacrifice for sin, thus providing a solution to the brokenness that exists in relationships.”

How did Jesus accomplish this, and what were the specific results of Jesus’ accomplishments?  Let’s consider the following:

•  .

Galatians 3:28 (NLT),  There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus.

•  .

Ephesians 5:21 (NLT),  And further, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

•  and  : two sides of the same coin.

Ephesians 5:22-24,  ²² For wives, this means submit to your husbands as to the Lord.  ²³ For a husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church.  He is the Savior of his body, the church.  ²⁴ As the church submits to Christ, so you wives should submit to your husbands in everything.

Something to take home:

Pastor and author Stephen P. Beck recalls a time when he was driving down a small country road and to a one-lane bridge.  He writes,

“In front of the bridge was a ‘YIELD’ sign.  Seeing no oncoming cars, I continued across the bridge and to my destination.  On my way back, I came to the same one-lane bridge, now from the other direction.  To my surprise, I saw another ‘YIELD’ sign posted.  Curious, I thought, ‘I'm sure there was one posted on the other side.’  When I reached the other side of the bridge I looked back. Sure enough, yield signs had been placed at both ends of the bridge.  Drivers from both directions were requested to give right of way.  It was a reasonable and gracious way of preventing a head-on collision.  When we are commanded in the church and in our marriages to ‘submit to one another’ (Ephesians 5:21) it is simply a reasonable and gracious command to let the other have the right of way and avoid interpersonal head-on collisions.”

Christian husbands and Christian wives are meant to yield to one another.  This is just one of the ways Jesus’ death corrected the effects of sin within the world.  This mutual submission, and seeing each other as equal partners in this journey together called marriage is the way GOD intended from the beginning of time; not one having authority over the other, but both equally working together magnifying the image of GOD through their very relationship.  Just as all persons within the GOD-head/Trinity, yield to one another willingly and never as a hierarchical chain of command, so too husbands and wives are to submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Key Point:  “In Christ, GOD brought redemption and restoration back to creation by offering Himself as the perfect sacrifice for sin, thus providing a solution to the brokenness that exists in relationships.”