HEADSHIP IN THE HOME
No man can be successful as the head of his home until he first makes Jesus Christ the true head of his own life. Jesus Christ gave us the perfect example by carefully maintaining His Father’s headship in His every word and deed. Remember, He said, “For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak. And I know that his commandment is life everlasting: whatsoever I speak therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I speak” (St. John 12:49-50). This is our perfect example for every man and woman. Our homes and our churches are suffering calamity because our culture has utterly forsaken true authority from God that is only known by submission.
The Holy Ghost is the author of all Scripture. When the Spirit spoke on this subject, He began by speaking to men because they hold the first line in obedience after Christ. “But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God” (I Corinthians 11:3).
When a Godly man genuinely humbles himself to walk and live in the sweet lordship of Jesus Christ, that man becomes a dynamo for the gospel. There are few women that will not submit to such a good man. His love for his woman will be so beautiful and tender that every crisis of authority will be quickly settled. Listen to the Spirit of God, “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it” (Ephesians 5:25). What an example to challenge a man to be His best. To love our wives like Jesus Christ loved His church is a powerful directive.
The world’s fallen culture is perfectly described in the Book of Revelation chapters two and three. The Spirit guided John in expressing what Jesus was saying to the church, “Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols” (Revelation 2:20). Our world is being quickly destroyed by the “Spirit of Jezebel.” There are several expressions of this unclean spirit gripping the world and the church.
– Effeminate (wimpy) men that act, dress, or live without masculine characteristics.
– Masculine women that have forsaken the beautiful life of feminine purity.
– A society that has no sense of the God-ordained differences between male and female.
– A younger generation that is so confused about their physical person and role that they are like lost sheep.
– A world that is literally moving toward a value stripped culture that hates the name of Jesus Christ and the authority of the Bible.
The sad results of the Spirit of Jezebel are witnessed everywhere. If there is a spirit or nature that our Creator hates above all else, it must be this spirit. The Spirit of Jezebel is a slap right in the face of Jehovah God. The creative distinction of man and woman was God’s masterful plan. A home that is built on the Biblical model is almost Heaven on earth. Anything else is dysfunctional and destructive. The vast majority of mentally crippled human lives come out of dysfunctional families.
God’s word describes the results of losing the proper role of fathers and mothers, “Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds. And I will kill her children with death; and all the churches shall know that I am he which searcheth the reins and hearts: and I will give unto every one of you according to your works” (Revelation 2:22-23). The Jezebel spirit is not satisfied just to affect the home; it casts the same shadow over the church.
The beautiful role of Biblical womanhood cannot be matched by the morally cheap styles and standards of the new women’s movement. Godly women have no desire to be set free by the new emerging churches, they are already free. Just like the man’s freedom is in his surrender to Christ, the woman’s freedom is in her surrender to man. From Christ’s freedom in the headship of His Father, the man and woman’s freedom is in the headship of Christ and the man.
If Jesus Christ had resisted the Father’s headship, Jesus Christ would have lost the entire plan of our salvation. At the same moment, His unfaltering commitment gave Him the authority to conquer hell and to defeat the guilt of sin and every action of Satan. A man’s surrender to Christ gives him the same authority over the devil that Jesus experienced. Even so, the woman that is under authority has the same power or authority that her husband possesses. A Godly man or woman in earnest prayer and under authority is one of Satan’s most feared enemies. No wonder Satan is invading our world with his dubious ideas of freedom and liberty from all of God’s Biblical standards and principles.
Biblical surrender to authority is true New Testament Christianity. “Free Grace” that describes the empty religion of today’s church is an unbiblical hybrid. The very word, “Believe” or “Believeth,” is a unique Biblical word. It means to “defer yourself, your mind and your will over to Christ.” It is the power of unfailing faith. When we believe unto surrender, we immediately become a new creature with Him. He stated, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father. And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it” (John 14:12-14).
The headship of Jesus Christ is to His Father. The headship of man is to Jesus Christ and the headship of woman is to man. Anything contrary is ultimate disaster. This disaster is at its worst and progressed in the second, third, and later generations. It has aided in destroying every grand empire of human history. America is at this moment seeing the second and third generation of effeminate men. We are witnessing God’s judgment as stated, “I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments (Exodus 20:5b-6).
Jim
What an awe-isnpiring view of the family and its relation to God in His triune person! You translate so well the difficult passage of Paul that “the head of Christ is God” which some may see as a proof of His non-divinity but, as you show, describes His divinity and the perfect Trinity.
One question for your readers and yourself which may magnify even more this moving discussion: If the Son is subordinate to the Father in the divine procession, is the Spirit subordinate to both the Son and the Father or only to the Father? This question, in fact, actually divided the church in two during the Middle Ages as the Western church said that the Spirit “proceeds from both the Father and the Son” while the East (Orthodox) held that the Spirit proceeds from “the Father”.
I know that the Holy Spirit reveals the things of Christ but is He subordinate to both Christ and the Father or ultimately to the Father only? It’s a minor point but the East would not budge on it (not one iota) and felt it important to their understanding of the diving Person in Trinity. Thanks.
Ed Wood
Hello Pastor Joseph.
One of the glaring characteristics of the original Jezebel was her worship of Baal and the ability to coerce her husband King Ahab to condone and even support her idolatry and evil. The Bible’s view of these two is probably best summed up in 1 Kings 21:25 and Jezebel’s death was particularly gruesome (2 Kings 9:29-37) exactly as prophesied by Elijah.
Doing anything other than the way God would have it done is idolatry in its own right and always has consequences.
Now many in the modern church characterize Paul as being a misogynist. But one must remember that in his time a woman was essentially only “property” with virtually no legal rights at all (unfortunately a very common situation still in much of the present Muslim world). Paul said that a woman should submit to a man – but also that the man was required love his wife as he did himself (Ephesians 5:28-29).
In other words, I don’t think Paul was telling us a woman should be a “doormat” for an unworthy man any more than his admonition to obey the government (Romans 13:1-8) applied if it mandated things contrary to God, as was the case in
Acts 4:1-20.
Our churches have joined society in blurring the roles of men and women at its basic level – the family unit. So what we see inside and outside of the church doors is essentially the same thing.
This being the case, should we really be surprised at the rapid decline that we are seeing all around us today?
jaimie
Dear Pastor Chambers,
I come from a broken home and yes Pastor you are right, Satan does not spare a moment to come to steal, destroy and kill every family he can. My only hope was Jesus some nights, and despair on others, but Jesus promised to heal me if i relied on him, so i pray to him every day. The world is getting like a broken family in some ways. So we need to pray for their salvation too!
Is not the Son the Heir to the throne, there is no divine procession. The three give witness to one another, Father , Son snd Holy Ghost. The will of the Father be done on Earth as it is in Heaven. Jesus came to do the will of his Father, Our Heavenly Father. In the name Of Jesus we are with the Heavenly Father, adopted.
When we obey G-D he send us the Holy Ghost, as in Acts. Does he do our will Jim?
jaimie
Living for Him
This is a great article. It does leave an opening for a few questions for me though.
If the husband says he is a Christian, and the wife had not completely surrendered all of “self” to the Lord, is it not then the responsibility as the Head of the Household to humbly and lovingly help his wife through some of those issues?
And then, if the husband is not being loving toward his wife, but being demeaning and bitter and angry toward her, shutting her out emotionally, cutting her off from the children, finances etc….and she continues to be angry when confronted with his behavior and his accusations of not being “submissive” (in the doormat kind of way) and being a liar (even when he twists what she said and then accused her of lying)….is it then ok for the husband to ask that she leave the family home?
It is also my understanding of the role of a husband biblically, that if the husband and wife are seperated, that it is ultimately his responsibility to find out what went wrong in the marriage, and try to mend the issues and reconcile with his wife as quickly as possible so Satan will not get a foothold. And if the husband refuses to reconcile with her that he is out of the will of God, and his prayers will not be answered?
I would really appreciate your input.