The Bride of Christ

Have you ever heard of the church called “The Bride of Christ”?

One of the most famous passages in the Bible where we get this language from is in Ephesians 5, where Paul uses the human example of husbands and wives, and the appropriate love for each other, and submission to each other, to talk about the church.

“And further, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. For wives, this means submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For a husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of his body, the church. As the church submits to Christ, so you wives should submit to your husbands in everything. For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God's word. He did this to present her to himself as a glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish. Instead, she will be holy and without fault. In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as they love their own bodies. For a man who loves his wife actually shows love for himself. No one hates his own body but feeds and cares for it, just as Christ cares for the church. And we are members of his body.” Ephesians 5:21-30

Submission is a hard word for us when it comes to marriage, but the most overlooked thing about this teaching in Ephesians is that Paul says he’s not really talking about marriage, he is talking about the church.

As the Church of Jesus, the highest calling in our lives is to submit to Christ as the head, the one who leads us, by laying down his life for us.

When we get this perspective right, all other lesser forms of submission that are discussed in Ephesians like marriage or societal relationship become secondary because we have first lived out our true calling, to submit to Christ as his bride.

We can’t be the church God has designed for us to be until we first learn to submit to Him, and to each other. If we figure out this lesson first, then rest of His commandments will start to become second nature.