Washing Our Wives In the Word?????
Feb 10
Ephesians says this
25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.
I want to discuss this verse and hopefully clear up some really bad interpretations of this text.
Jesus is Doing and Did This
First things first. NOWHERE does the bible say husbands are to wash their wives with the word (more on word in a few). Jesus is the subject in this text and He is performing (sanctifying) and has performed (cleansed) the church. Husbands are to do no such thing to their wives. As a matter of fact to put it more bluntly a husband CAN NOT sanctify nor cleanse his wife. Often times this is used in conjunction or for support of a husbands leadership in the home on biblical matters, but I am sorry, this isn’t in the context of this section of scripture. Maybe we can find it elsewhere but we can’t find it here. Husbands posess no sanctifying power nor any cleansing power. Only Christ can cleanse and sanctify and this is in particular relation to salvation. Christ has taken His bride and cleansed her and set her apart by His work on the cross. Husbands posses no such power.
Word Doesn’t Equal Bible
The next problem in this text is that “word” in this text (nor in most of the “bible”) doesn’t mean bible! We already have a faulty foundation to begin with, in the fact that husbands are superimposed on the text, the next and even more fundamental problem is that the word bible is superimposed on the word “rhema”. This is downright horrible exegesis. The problem is that this substitution doesn’t just happen here, it happens in many interpretations and whenever we see “word” we automatically substitute that with bible and the fundamental rule of interpretation is that it can’t mean to us what it didn’t mean to them (unless of course the authors of what we call the NT gives us a little more light on something).
The Practical Outworking of This
The practical outworking of this is where I have the biggest problem, though I do think interpreting this text this way is bad, what is worse is how it is flushed out in families. Today this means, I have to go lead a bible study with my wife and this is fulfilling my duty of “washing her in the word”. So man are leading family worship times (I am not against this) and making their wives sit and listen through it (she must be submissive right and he must wash her right) and if not then some pastor/leader is telling them that they are not fulfilling their duty as a Christian husband when the entire premise is misguided at best or even heinously deceptive at worse. That means that a believing husband and wife are pushed under some phony legality that doesn’t even exist and they find themselves convicted over something that isn’t even instruction!
Some Final Thoughts
Here is what I am not saying. I am not saying that a husband shouldn’t study the bible with his family. I am not against family worship time and I am not saying that to do either is sin. What I am saying is that there is no biblical requirement to do such a thing in this portion of scripture. I would go even further to reject the notion that a husband is the “prophet, priest and king” of his home. The bible says no such thing. A husband is not to have the spiritual vision for the family. If your wife is a believer she is just as much a prophet and priest as you are and if your children are believers so are they. I do believe that Fathers are to instruct their children; however, nowhere does the bible say that husbands are to do this for their wives. If you run back to the Old Covenant there may be some passages that allude to this (Deut 6:4-9) but I think the New Covenant priesthood usurps such text today.
I do believe that family “worship” is good. But family worship includes, serving together, loving others together, surrendering our rights to one another and shining the light of the gospel to others, in addition to studying the bible (though the bible itself never says studying the bible is worship). We have to be careful in what we teach others and what we call others to do. Some men may not even be qualified and the wife may be the more gifted teacher. This has nothing to do with leadership it has everything to do with giftedness. Maybe she has a greater understanding of the bible and may be more equipped to teach it. I have heard some preachers say “if your wife is more biblically equipped than you that is a problem”. That is horrible people! This isn’t some competition this is a union and to even let something slip out of your mouth like that is destructive.
Let Christ do the washing and we do the loving. Anything beyond that using this text is just plain wrong.
Amen and amen.
What is interesting is that when people take these verses out of context the way you have pointed out, it shows a super bias towards a certain predetermined outcome and application…the reason Is ay that is that even if someone does not take the time to look up the proper meaning of the word in the Greek, it is still crystal clear from the context that the washing was something that Christ has done, not the husband…even if they miss the past tense of the verse and get the meaning of the word wrong and they erroneously thought word =bible, it would still read as something Christ had or is doing not the husband! Its scripture twisting at the worst to attempt to effect a certain unbiblical position, practice and understanding of the text.
But you are exactly right it is something that Christ has already accomplished and word in the instance does not mean bible.
You are correct Hutch. Even with a casual reading of the text you will quickly see that whatever this action is Christ is doing it. I didn’t get into the latter part where Paul says “however” near the end of this paragraph.
I’ve got you when you explain what this text is NOT saying, is there a part where you can share what it IS saying in terms of how does a husband love his wife like Christ loved the church?
Yep.
“In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. ”
I think it is found in this verse. Just like we love and take care of our own bodies we are to love and take care of our wives because we have been spiritually joined as “one flesh”.
A husband washing his wife with the water of the word is indeed playing an active role in her growing…as does fellowship with anyone who believes and walks according to the purposes of God (vs the traditions of men). The good fruit coming from my husbands life encourages and gives LIFE to his faith, and thus waters my faith, inspiring me to grow and walk in what Christ has taught should be the way WE should go…walking TOGETHER in understanding, that his prayers might not be hindered.
The entire letter of Ephesians tells us how to live more holy and Christ-like… God uses our spouses for a LOT of sanctifying… Don’t confuse justified with sanctified… Christ fully justified a Christian on the day they were saved–(past tense)… We continue to be sanctified until the day of Christ… sanctification is an ongoing process… Slow traffic… and ill-tempered checkout clerk… Something breaking… children… spouses… computers… pets… the list of things and people God uses for our sanctification is endless…
Nor does “washing of the word” indicate a classroom like structure where the husband lecture’s to the wife… Hubby and I are trying to figure out how to make this work in our marriage… We’ve come to the conclusion that he will be a horrible teacher and I will be a horrible student, but we have grace and that is sufficient in even this issue… I do think there is some responsibility for him to keep her growing with daily study together… as Dehydrated said…
grace and peace
I really like your article because of its focus on Christ’s work in our life and mentions are duel responsibility to minister to each other as fellow believers! As wive’s we can rely/focus too much on our perceived husband’s role, and cripple not only our own growth, but the growth of our husband, and I would then assume, negatively affect the growth of our children. Thank you for your article.
For wives out there, Family Life Today has just aired a few radio broadcasts on a wife’s role in her husband’s spiritual growth, and it taught me a lot (week of June 12, 2011).
I had a tough time reading this. I didnt see anything that was edifying or encouraging; mostly a tearing down of faulty beliefs (and I agree that there are alot of faulty beliefs out there).
Maybe more encouraging words as to how this applies to a marraige? How the text plays out within a relationship? A praxis perhaps?
The context of the passage is in the midst of instruction to believers; hence, a more rounded message from you about practical spiritual instruction as to how a husband is towrap up your message greatly.
Peace
Thank you for writing this! I’ll keep this short since I feel I’d just be echoing Heather. We each have our own personal relationship with Christ. If we are looking to our husband to fill us, we will become dehydrated. Our husbands are human and will fail us. God can and will use them to help us grow, but our focus should never be on them to help us grow. grace and peace =)
I agree Christine
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Sorry you felt that way Zack, didn’t mean to come off combative brother!