Currently California is in the middle of a civil battle over the whether or not the civil authorities of the state of California should pretend to marry homosexuals and Lesbians. Now it is delusion of the highest and most perverse order to think that they can just change the nature of reality and creation by judicial decree. They can't, but you can't fight a culture war with no culture, and you can't fight false marriage without good marriage, you can't fight bad sex without good sex. You can't insist that they put off their perversion without having something for them to put on. And Paul explains that what we are to put on is a giving-yourself-awayness with your spouse, within the protections and blessings of a covenant union.
"Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children; And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savor. But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints;"
(Eph 5:1-3). We are supposed to follow after the way that God lives (v. 1). If we want to follow after God, if we want to know what God's life is like, so that we can follow after it, then we need to look at Jesus. And how did Jesus live? by giving himself away (v. 2). But how did he give himself away? He gave himself away, not in the way that you give yourself away in fornication and lust, but as a husband, within a covenant relationship (v.3).
After a discussion of the shamefulness of the perversion of the first century, he explains what it will look like to give yourself away:
Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church: For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband (Eph 5:22-33).
Paul explains that if we are to live like Jesus, giving ourselves away, but we aren't supposed to give our soul to just any random person on the street corner. We aren't supposed to give ourselves away in fornication, we are supposed to give ourselves away in covenant. You can refuse to do this two ways. You can act like a polytheist and sow your wild oats, give yourself to somebody that you are not married to, that is called fornication, or you can hold back from the person that you are married to and refuse to give yourself to them. You can hold back a portion of yourself and not give yourself wholly to your spouse, but husbands, if you aren't giving yourself wholly to your wife, remember, that you are giving yourself to her so that you can present her to yourself. If you are refusing to love her and feed her on your self, then it is you who will be dissatisfied. And wives, you aren't called to just submit your action to your husband, you are called to submit your self. You are called to live like Jesus and die to yourself so that your husband might live. It may sound dangerous, but if anyone ever told you that following Jesus was safe, they lied. Loving your spouse doesn't mean that you are called to make sacrifices for them. You aren't called to make sacrifices, you are called to be sacrifices. You are called to die to yourself for one another.
