Unless God Thinks You Wronged Her

Introduction

So just about a week ago, the guys at Canon Press took a snippet of mine from the “Sin of Empathy” episode of Man Rampant, put it into a meme, and posted it on Facebook. They did this, out where everybody could see it. When I checked this morning, there were 333 comments, many of them pretty indignant. To be fair, there were plenty of other comments in the what-the-heck vein, wondering what could possibly be wrong with a sentiment like that.

Now for those Christians who have a biblical world and life view, the sentiment expressed there is on a par with “never claim that these two oranges over here and those two oranges over there would together constitute four oranges, unless they actually do.” And other outrages and enormities.

Notice that I referred to Christians with a biblical world and life view, thereby clearly implying that the indignant responders must not have a biblical worldview. This is exactly correct—they do not. I want to explore for a few moments why they plainly do not.

What Goes Without Saying, But Was Still Said

When God thinks that a man owes his wife an apology, and needs to seek her forgiveness, such a man is under an absolute obligation to do so. She shouldn’t have to ask for it. His friends shouldn’t have to come and confront him about it. When God believes that a husband was in the wrong, what this means is that—follow me closely here—he was in the wrong. And when he is in the wrong, he should own it, fully, completely, entirely, and without any excuses. He should model for his family what owning up to something in true humility looks like.

And yet, for many women today, that is not good enough. If you doubt what I say, go have a look at those comments I referred to earlier.

Here is the biblical standard. The universe is governed by an immutable and holy God, who is in His character and attributes the only ultimate standard of holiness. So that we might know how to worship Him, and how to respond to Him, He has revealed how His character translates into this fallen world by giving us His law, and He has also demonstrated how that law is to be embraced and lived out perfectly by giving us His Son. Scripture is our written standard, and Christ is our incarnate standard.

This is a standard that covers all contingencies. Absolutely nothing is left out. When a man and a wife have had a conflict over something, there are only two possibilities. It is either the case that God thinks he should go apologize for what he did, or—and again, follow me closely here—God doesn’t think that.

Now suppose for the sake of discussion that God doesn’t think that. If God doesn’t think that, then why should the husband think that?

And yet there are still plenty of women around who think that this is not good enough. There is many a queen bee in many a hive what doesn’t go along with all this, and surely she and her feelings should be consulted in the matter, no?

No.

What we are talking about here is lordship and authority, and claims to lordship and authority. What is being implicitly assumed in this idolatrous scenario is that a man’s conscience is bound by the authority of God Most High, right alongside the feelings of the Wife Most High.

Do Not Get Distracted

Someone is going to say (and I opened the comments on this post, by the way) that I am being calloused and insensitive and piggish and arrogant, and why? Because the writer has a sister whose husband used to beat her up. Because her next door neighbor has a husband who is addicted to porn. Because her husband has a bad temper, and everybody in the household has to walk on eggs all the time. Because she knows a man who . . .

But notice that in all these instances, the Scriptures would clearly state that such husbands are in deep sin, and that they should repent and amend their lives, and restore their families if they can. In such scenarios, would God think that the husband had wronged his wife? Absolutely, yes.

So why is it offensive to say that a husband who doesn’t beat his wife, who doesn’t use porn, who doesn’t have a bad temper . . . shouldn’t act like he is one of those who does?

And the answer is found in the modern heresy of identity politics, because that is the toxic root underneath all of this. Husbands are guilty because they are members of a guilty and oppressive class. Many of them have compounded their crimes by also being white. And some of them have even shown, from time to time, a heterosexual interest in their wives, which is also deemed mighty offensive.

But whenever a wife wants her feelings to share the throne with God’s Word, it is just a matter of time before her feelings will have to reign supreme there, and God’s Word will be entirely set aside by her feelings. There will come a moment when what Scripture teaches won’t matter to her at all. She will set aside the Word of God for the sake of her tradition (Mark 7:9). Many of the women in these discussions are already there. Their rage and spite against God’s design for marriage is already in manifest evidence.

The Supposed Expedient Lie

But let’s address the men for a moment. There are many men who are good providers, they are faithful to their wives, they are not subject to fits of rage, and so on. In those respects, they are good husbands. But they are guilty of a very grievous sin—they are liars. They lie to their wives, routinely, and as a matter of policy.

They do not lie to their wives about their mistress across town. They do not lie to their wives about their abuse of the credit cards. They do not lie to their wives about losing their temper with the kids. No, nothing like that. But they do lie to their wives about the emotional thermostat of household. She has tyrannical control of everything through her feelings and her feelings are deemed automatically authoritative. If God doesn’t think he owes an apology, and she feels like he does . . . does he apologize?

The men who go along with this kind of thing are men who are trying to build a good marriage (or perhaps save a poor one) by means of lying to their wives. The problem is that you cannot actually do either. If you keep the peace by apologizing simply in order to keep peace, and without reference to whether any genuine wrong was done, you don’t have a good marriage. You have a charade.

And if you believe that you can avert divorce by capitulating (yet again), and catering to her feelings, because the alternative would entail standing up to her, then you are sinning. You can’t really save your marriage by sinning against your marriage. You can’t be rescued from drowning by staying on the bottom of the pool.

And God does think a guilty husband should put that right. It is a genuine wrong. But the problem is that if he really repented, and if he really put it right, it would be simply a matter of days, or perhaps hours, before his wife found out that he had repented. And that would be troublesome.