New Family Order

KEY VERSE: “Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear [reverence] of God.” —Ephesians 5:21

SELECTED SCRIPTURE: Ephesians 5:21; 6:4

NO HOME LIFE can be more beautiful than one in which the Spirit of the Lord prevails. The First Commandment given by God through Moses sets the proper pattern for such a home: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.” When the members of a family thus love the Lord supremely—more than even life itself—there is no room for selfishness to exercise its blighting influence.

Moses insisted that this first love for God should be more than a motto hanging on the wall. “These words shall be in thine heart; and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house. … And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes.”—Deut. 6:6-8

In other words, the importance of putting God first in the affections was to be kept prominently before every Israelitish family continually. Moses knew that in this was the secret of family peace and joy, as well as national security. The whole nation of Israel was as one large family, the prosperity of which depended upon obedience to God’s Law. Moses knew that if the individual families of the nation loved God supremely and were therefore obedient to him, the entire nation would be the same. It was because the people did not obey Moses’ injunction that they lost God’s favor.

Paul’s lesson in Ephesians concerning family relationships pertains also to two kinds of families. He admonishes husbands, wives, parents, and children—our natural families—and at the same time reminds us of our responsibility as members of the spiritual family of God.

He speaks of submitting ourselves one to another “in the fear of God.” As members of God’s family we cannot live unto ourselves, in the sense of always having things ‘our way’ in the church or in our cooperative ministry. Paul applies the same principle in admonishing Christian wives to submit to their own husbands “as unto the Lord.” This is in keeping with our being subject to Christ, who is the Head of the church, even as the husband is the head of the wife. But this does not authorize a domineering attitude on the part of a husband, for Paul continues, “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it.”

Paul speaks of the Scriptural truth that when a man and woman are joined in marriage they become “one flesh.” “This,” he says, “is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.” This oneness of Christ and his church as members of the same body has indeed been a ‘great mystery’, so great that only those specially called by God have been able to comprehend it.

But to these it is a glorious reality, for they know that all the wonderful Messianic promises of peace and blessing for the world of mankind must await fulfillment until this ‘body’ is complete. The Christ [Messiah] is not one member, but many, Paul explains. (I Cor. 12:12) Failure to recognize this fact has led to all sorts of error in thought and practice; among them the false idea that God has been trying to convert the world during the present age. In reality he has merely been selecting from the world those who are to be members of the Christ company, members of his ‘body’.

Paul addressed the opening verses of the 6th chapter to the “children” of the consecrated. He felt a responsibility of admonishing them to a proper respect for their parents. “Fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.” Children ‘provoked to wrath’ might not be interested in what their parents try to teach them concerning the Lord.

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