INTRODUCTION:
We come now to the question of “what headship is not.” It is not enough for us to use the biblical words and phrases, we must know what they mean in Scripture.
THE TEXTS:
“Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:4-11).
OVERVIEW:
Each member of the body of Christ should not just consider his “own things,” but also the interests of others (v. 4). The mind that was in Christ Jesus should also be in us (v. 5). Jesus humbled Himself, not grasping after divine honors, precisely because this is what God is like (v. 6-7). In the form of a man, He obeyed to the point of death (v. 8). For this reason, God exalted Him far above the highest place (vv. 9-11).
WHAT GOD IS LIKE:
When we consider the three persons of the holy Trinity, we must not fall into the mistake of thinking that, out of the three of them, Jesus is the humble one. Jesus humbled Himself to the point of death, and the magnitude of this humbling is precisely what reveals who He is. We have earlier learned that the salvation that God is working into us is God Himself. God gives Himself in our salvation. Jesus humbles Himself to the Father because this reveals the Father. This is what the Father is like. This is what the Holy Spirit is like.
TWO TRINITARIAN HERESIES:
Not surprisingly, when men refuse to have the character of our triune God worked into them, they still become like the idol they worship (Ps. 115). If that idol is a mental construct of God that is not in line with Scripture, then that construct is a non-Trinitarian heresy. Interestingly, two of the most common Trinitarian heresies line up nicely with two of the most common marital approximations of those heresies.
The heresy of Arianism says that subordination must mean inequality. And since Jesus is clearly submissive to the Father, this must mean that He is not equal to the Father. This must mean that He is “like” the Father, not that He is “equal to” the Father. This is believed because it is simply assumed that submission means inferiority. To make this assumption is to fall into the Arian mistake.
The heresy of modalism assumes the same thing in an opposite way—that equality must mean that the subordination is only apparent, and not real. And so it is assumed that there is only one unitary God, and this one God manifests Himself in different ways, using differents “masks” to communicate with us. The shared assumption of both heresies is that trying to put submission and equality together is like trying to square the circle. But God reveals Himself to us—in Scripture—as triune. The three equal persons of the Trinity do not fight over glory, and genuine submission occurs within that Trinity. Those who fall into the marital counterparts to these heresies may use the biblical language of headship, but we must firmly reject both errors. This is what headship is not.
ARIAN HUSBANDS:
The Arian husband starts with subordination, with the doctrine of submission, and what he thinks it all means, and then interprets and drives his world accordingly. Because he knows that his wife is to submit to him (Eph. 5!) he concludes falsely that she occupies a lesser plane. He considers her to be his inferior—and whenever he is called up to defend this view he does not turn to passages that teach the woman’s inferiority (for there are none), but rather turns to passages that clearly teach the wife’s duty to render submission — and there are many of those. But what does a wife render to her husband that Christ did not render to the Father?
Another important point to make is that heretics can be either nice or mean. There are despotic husbands in the grip of this error, and they make a living hell for their wives. But the error does not go away just because you put a happy face on it. The heresy remains, and it is still destructive. How would this manifest itself? Through paternalism, condescending references to the “little woman,” and patting her on her silly little head. All this may not be malicious or despotic—but it is still wrong.
MODALIST HUSBANDS:
Feminism (including the evangelical lite versions) is a reaction to this kind of marital Arianism, but it lurches into the opposite error. Since men and women are equal, so the thinking goes, there must be no submission at all. There are different mechanisms for getting rid of the submission (assuming a unitary god with different faces is just one such technique). Turning marriage into a straightforward room-mate 50/50 situation is another. But in such a marriage there is no locus of responsibility. And because marriage is a creation design issue, the end result is that both the husband and wife are exasperated and frustrated—but given their theology on the subject, they don’t know why.
BACK TO THE WORD:
In our text, we are told that Jesus humbled Himself to God, and that He was like God. We are also told that we are to humble ourselves to one another, just as Jesus did. Because we are under His authority, we are therefore to model His humility. All Christians are to do this for one another. That being the case, how much more are husbands and wives to “have this mind which was also in Christ Jesus.” Because a wife is under her husband’s authority, she is to model his humility. Because a husband is in authority, he is to use that authority as the basis from which to sacrifice.
In doing this, the wife does not lose her equality with her husband—she establishes it. In doing this, the husband does not lose his authority with his wife—he establishes it.