Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - Marriage as Completion: Gender Roles, Part 1

Episode Date: September 18, 2023

Depending on the culture it’s sitting in, Christianity can either be considered radically liberal or horribly conservative. But Christianity isn’t to the left or to the right. In fact, if it’s true that Christianity doesn’t arise from the human spectrum of thought, but that it comes from above, then it’s natural that it doesn’t fit any particular ideology—and that every ideology is going to be suspicious of it.  In a series on marriage, we come now to the question of whether there’s any differentiation between the roles and obligations of a husband and wife in marriage. And the basic thesis in Ephesians 5 is that being male and being female are overlapping but distinguishable ways of being human.  I’d like to show that Ephesians 5 teaches us 3 things about gender roles: 1) there are roles, 2) why there are roles, and 3) what those roles are. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on September 29, 1991. Series: Marriage. Scripture: Ephesians 5:22-33. Today's podcast episode is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

Welcome to Gospel and Life. The power of marriage is that it is a reflection of the gospel. Today, Tim Keller explores how marriage can help us more deeply understand Christ's love for us, and how Christ's love for us can completely transform our marriages. We're looking tonight at a subject that many of you are going to say, why did you choose that subject? And it's just like the mountain climber. The same reason the mountain climber climbs the mountain, because it's there. Why are we choosing the subject we're choosing tonight?

Because it's there. Because the Bible is God's self-disclosure. It's the written word of God. And everything that is stated there, whether or not it happens to be controversial at this little point in time and space or not, we have to digest it, we have to understand it, and so tonight we're going to look again at this passage on marriage that we've been seeing for, this is the seventh week now, we're looking at Ephesians 5, verses 21 to

32, but tonight we're especially going to look at this major issue where it says, wives submit to your husbands, and husbands, you're the head of the wife. What does that mean? What does that mean? Finally, tonight we look at it. It's an immensely complicated subject, and we're going to look at it. So let's first of all read the passage, Ephesians 5, verses 21 to 32, and then we tackle. Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the church, his body,

of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares

for it just as Christ does the church, for we are members of his body. For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This is a profound mystery, but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you should also love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. This is God's word, but we're going to especially look tonight at verse 22. Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord, for the husband is head of the wife as Christ is head of the church. What does that mean? Now, there's a couple ways to put this. One of the husband is head of the wife as Christ is head of the church. What does that mean? Now, there's a couple ways to put this.

One of the ways is to ask the question that we are addressing in this verse is to say, is there any differentiation between the roles and obligations of a husband and wife in marriage? I think I mentioned last week that years ago, the marriage vows that were in the average church ceremony were different. Usually what the wife and the husband were asked to do were different. Different words were used. Today, of course, those vows are absolutely identical. The same words.

And yet every single place you come to in the Scripture, you see there's a differentiation. So the first question is, is there a differentiation? Is there an authority structure? What does it mean when it says, wives, submit to your husbands, when it says, husbands, you're head of the wife? Now, we tackle the issue because it's there, but you have to keep something in mind. Because all night, especially as we look at this thing, Christianity, depending on the

culture that it's sitting in, can be either radically liberal subversive or horribly fascist reactionary in its appearance. See, for example, in communist countries, the church has always been considered radically subversive. Why? Because it's subversive. The communist state is very conservative, and the church was something that it tried to deal with. It was subversive because the church has always questioned, or always, not just questioned, has always challenged the idea that the state

is the final arbiter of moral issues and values. The church has always said the state is not the final author and arbiter of moral values. It church has always said the state is not the final author and arbiter of moral values. It's God. And so in those countries where you have super conservative state governments and state, the church looks radically subversive. But in this country, for example, very often Christianity looks reactionary and conservative. You know why? Because in this country, the church is also challenging the idea that the individual is the final arbiter of moral values. The church has always said,

no, the individual feelings and conscience, nor the state. See, the church looks right-wing to the left and left-wing to the right. That's the way it is because, that's the way it ought to be, if Christianity is actual truth, if it's absolute truth, if it's revelation from God. You see, Christianity isn't to the left or to the right, it's from above. It doesn't arise out of the human spectrum, it settles down into the human spectrum of thought. And if it's true that it's from above, then it's natural that it doesn't actually fit any particular ideology,

and every ideology is going to be deeply suspicious of it. So on the one hand, you have what Paul says about women who in many, many cultures, in many societies, is considered radically subversive, and certainly you know that. In many societies. When Paul, for example, Paul originally taught this divine teaching

about the roles of men and women into an Asian society, an Oriental society. That's what that area was. And of course, because of the very rigid understanding of the roles of men and women in those situations, the Christian truth was considered tremendously subversive. That's why when you go to 1 Corinthians 11, you see Paul saying to the women, when you pray and speak in church, make sure you wear a veil. He's talking to married women. Why? Well, see, in that time and place, when a woman was

married, she was completely veiled. You still see that in many oriental countries, in many eastern countries. She was completely veiled. That showed that she belonged totally to her husband. The idea of women participating in worship and in public worship like that, which was obviously the way in which things were done in the early church, was so radically subversive, that super conservative society, that Paul said, look women, just remember, you don't have to, but wear a veil. Why? Because the equality that the Christian gospel brings in the relationship between men and women is so radical that in some situations people might forget that though there's equality there, there still are distinctions.

There's still role relations between husband and wife. Make sure, Paul says to the women, that you wear your veil because that is a culturally appropriate signal to the world around that you have not thrown off your obligation to your husbands. That's how radical it was. And yet today, many people, especially in a place like New York, will read 1 Corinthians 11, 12, 13, 14,

and see what Paul says about women, and will say, this is incredible oppression. That's the way it ought to be. If it's really true that this is truth that doesn't arise out of one side of the spectrum or the next and if you come to the Bible saying really, is this left or right or sort of halfway in between, you'll always be disappointed

because it's not from down here, it's not from here or here or here, it's from there now, having said that what I'd like to show you is three basic things tonight. The fact is that the distinctive roles, well, the basic thesis is that being a male and being a female are overlapping but distinguishable ways of being human. They're not identical. Overlapping but distinguishable modes of being human. And therefore there are roles, there are distinct obligations and gifts and callings that belong to women and belong to men. Now I'd like to show you that here the passage teaches us really three things.

The what, pardon me, the that, the why, and the what. It teaches that there are roles, secondly it teaches why there are roles, and thirdly it teaches what those are roles. Secondly, it teaches why there are roles. And thirdly, it teaches what those roles are. The that, the why, and the what of sex roles, of gender roles. Now, first of all, let's just, let's realize that this text teaches, just by the very way in which it lays there, that there are distinctive roles for men and women in marriage. You see, it doesn't tell the wives to love their husbands. It tells them to respect their husbands. And it doesn't tell the husbands to respect their wives. It says to love your wives.

It tells the husbands to submit in verse 21 along with the wives, but then it tells the wives to submit in verse 22 all by themselves. So the husbands are asked to submit once, and the wives are asked to submit twice. There's no place where it says that the wife is supposed to be working for the perfection of the husband to present him before the throne, spotless and without blemish. Now, does this really mean that by the Bible, do we conclude therefore that the wives aren't supposed to love their husbands, just respect them? That wives are not supposed to work for their husband's perfection? Is that what it means? Of course it can't mean

that, because you see there's plenty of other places where those things are brought out again. Why is it, though, that Paul would lay out these different kinds of directions? And the only answer is because what men and women are good at and bad at is different. There's different emphases, there's different things that have to be emphasized for different ones because they have different gifts and they have different roles. It's a tough question. What are those roles? And I would like to just start, you know, under this first heading, say the Bible clearly teaches what those roles are, but lays down the most general kind of differentials between the two roles rather than a lot of of differentials between the two roles, rather than a lot of specific differentials between the two roles. Let me explain. First of all, to this question,

is there a difference in maleness and femaleness that extends beyond the physical into the soul? Is there a maleness that goes beyond your biology into your soul? Is there a femaleness that goes beyond your biology into your soul? Or put it another way, and let me be as stark, as graphic as possible. Is there some uniquely feminine way in which a wife needs to receive her husband emotionally and relationally as she receives them physically? Is there any... Is it possible that the physical act of sex has more ramifications than just the physical? On the other hand, let's put it this way, is there something uniquely masculine

so that a man needs to move out and toward his wife, emotionally and relationally, the way he moves out toward his wife physically? Is there a maleness that goes beyond simply the biological? Now, everybody intuitively knows that there is, and nobody wants to admit it in this culture at all. Because as soon as people start to define it, they feel like immediately that sticks people into stereotypical roles.

The Bible says there are roles, and yet, as I'm going to try to show you, they aren't stereotype roles. See, research is beginning to show us what the Bible has said all along, that there are some very general ways in which men and women have different callings. Different callings.

I found it very interesting to... When I was actually first in college in the late 60s, a lot of the research was already showing up the fact that there are intrinsic physiological, emotional, intellectual, cognitive differences, but nobody could really add up what that was. I remember taking a child psychology course, and every year they would get up and they would point out the fact

that, for example, little babies, boy babies, when they come up to an obstacle, they tend to want to push it over. Girl babies, when they get near an obstacle, go around it. Who teaches them that? Boy babies prefer lower complexity of stimuli. Girl babies prefer a higher complexity of stimuli. of stimuli. Girl babies prefer a higher complexity of stimuli. Here's one that, by the way, hey musicians, this is one I was looking at my old child's cycle. Do you know that at six months old, when girl babies hear jazz, their hearts get faster and boy babies just ignore it? Did you know that? You didn't know that. Honest, it's there. I can show you. It's a proven fact. See, when everybody said, well, what does that mean?

You know, Jonathan knows what it means, right? Is that how you got Lorraine? The jazz? So anyway, there were a number of various, there were a number of things that say, yeah, there's differences here. What are they? To me, the most interesting thing is to read what they call the second stage of feminism books. One of them, one of the first ones was by Carol Gilligan. Some of you have heard of it called In a Different Voice, written

in 1982. And in there, she did a tremendous amount of research to try to see, is it true, for example, when men and women have the same job like a bank president that they go about it differently? Or when men and women have the same job that is basically a housekeeper that they go about it differently? And she says, you know, it's true. And she said, this is the most interesting part of her book to me. She says, men see themselves, my research shows that men see themselves as maturing as they separate.

Women see themselves as maturing as they attach. Men see themselves as maturing as they attach. Men see themselves as maturing as they separate and become independent and make impact. Women see themselves as maturing as they attach themselves, as they invite one another into networks, as they become interdependent. Men, therefore, have the gift of independence. Women have the gift of interdependence. Now that fits in, as we're going to see, virtually perfectly with what the Scripture says. You don't need research to say,

well, gee, maybe the Bible's right. A Harvard sociologist said, that's not how it has to work. But the point is, the point is, you're going to see, when the Scripture talks about these differences, and the point is, the point is, what you're going to see when the scripture talks about these differences and the research says, yeah, there are different callings.

What are those different callings? Well, let's keep on going and we'll talk about it. But let me get to my second point. But first of all, let me remind you that a lot of conservative people and a lot of evangelical Christians say, yes, of course there's differences between men and women, and there's differences between the role of the husband and the wife. And here they are, and they make a long list of very stereotypical kinds of very specific lists of details. So, for example, they'll say, for example, because I'm a Christian, I believe the Bible, I uphold

the traditional family, a lot of people say. And I believe there is a difference between husband and wife. And I do believe there are different roles. For example, the husband should work and the wife should stay home with the children. Okay, where does it say that in the Bible? It doesn't say that in the Bible. Or the woman should be the one who's domestic. She should be the one who cooks.

Where does it say that in the Bible? The man should be in charge of the checkbook. Where does it say that in the Bible? Now, here's one of the problems. In the pre-industrial age, you didn't see the husband go out to make his money and the wife stay at home with the children. In the pre-industrial age, the husband and the wife both produced goods together. They worked together in whatever the job was of the family. They either farmed together, or they were tailors together, or they were shoemakers together. They both produced goods, and they both raised the children. And so in the industrial age, for the first time,

the man or somebody has to get up and leave the place of work and go off and make money. And so for a brief period of time, we get into the position where the husband leaves and the wife stays at home, does not produce goods, and does child-rearing. When you go to the Scripture, you'll see the Bible is truth.

It's written for all time and space. The Bible would never nail itself down to that kind of specific stereotypical ways of defining differences between masculinity and femininity. You can't do such a thing. Go to the book of Proverbs, chapter 31, where it talks about a woman of worth, and see what she does.

Here is a wonderful wife. She's into real estate. Any of you ever read Proverbs 31? She's into real estate. She does investments. She figures out this ship is going to, when this ship gets home, I'm going to fund this particular voyage.

When it gets back, I'll make a return on my investment. She's into real estate. She's into investments. She's into sewing. She's into child rearing. She's into everything. And from what we can tell, the husband was into everything with her.

So you see, to say, when the Bible talks about women submitting to their husbands when the bible talks about differential differences differences between husband and wife's role in the in the bible that means that the bible supports a traditional family i agree but what's the traditional family you can't say traditional family is the family from 1880 to 1960 you cannot take the bible and and wed it to one particular time in history. The Bible would never be so foolish. The Bible is truth, and therefore it has to be true for people in every time and space and place. Now, that means that the differences that are there are more subtle,

they're more profound, they're more nuanced, but they are there. But you're not going to find them in a little list. You're not going to say, well, what does it mean to be a wife? It means that I cook. It means that I do... No, you're not going to find it that way. It's more profound. The roles are there, but why are they there and what are they? Okay, secondly, why are there differences between wife and husband, and the answer is the order of creation. When Paul says, wives, submit to your husbands, for the husband is the head of the wife, whether you realize it or not,

he's actually pulling us back into Genesis because of this little important word, head. The Greek word head is just like our word authority. Just like it. The word authority has both a primal reference and a, you might say, an entomological reference and a usage reference. Originally, the word authority comes from the word author.

If I wrote a poem, if I'm the author of a poem, then I'm the authority. I can tell you what the poem's about. Why? Because I'm speaking out of my authorship. I am the source of the poem, and therefore I have authority. So you see, there's a primary meaning. The word authority means source,

and the secondary meaning means power, means influence, means sway. In the same way, this little Greek word head meaning means power, means influence, means sway. In the same way, this little Greek word head originally means source. It actually means the headwaters of a river. And when Paul says, Wives, submit to your husbands, for the husband is head of the church.

Pardon me, husband is head of the wife, as Christ is head of the church. He is referring to the fact of Genesis where Eve is taken out of Adam, where in a sense Adam is the headwaters of Eve. In the same way when it talks about the head and the body, there's a sense in which you see the head is here and the body grows out. The body is attached. The body from the head comes the brain and all the neurological system spreads out into the body. So the picture is very, very clear. Paul is saying, why submit to your husbands? Because of the way

things were set up at creation. Well, how were they set up at creation? This way. There are two things that you learn in the Genesis creation narratives in Genesis 1 and 2 and 3. Two things that are in those three passages, those three chapters, which are absolutely critical for you to understand what it means to be married. Paul is saying you can't understand the relationship between husband and wife in marriage unless you go back to creation. Here's what the two things are.

First of all, that the man and the woman were created, one to be a namer, the other to be a helper. The second thing is that husband and wife, pardon me, the man and woman's original nature was cursed. Their namership and their helpership was cursed. So they were created in a certain way, but because of sin, there's a certain kind of corruption. Those are the two things we've got to understand. They were created and they were corrupted in Genesis 1, 2, and 3. Follow me. When God comes to Adam and says, name the animals,

why was God doing that? Was God just had a bad day and he just, you know, was out of labels? He was creating the universe and he says, you know, what are these things? 1960. I don't know what to think. I don't know what to call them. So let me see if Adam's got some ideas. That's not the idea. It'd be silly. To name someone in the Bible was something more than slapping a label on it. To name someone meant that you were shaping, you were taking charge of that person, you were shaping their character and their purpose.

In the Old Testament, for example, when one king conquers another king, the victorious king renames, gives a new name to the defeated king. Why? Because, you see, naming is the exercise of a superior to an inferior. Parents name their children. Why? Not just because, well, that's my favorite soap opera character. I think I'll give the name to my child. But rather, if you look in the Bible,

you'll see that a name was a way in which the parent decided, this is the kind of child I want this child to be. I want this child to grow up like this. When God changes someone's nature, their name is changed. Saul to Paul, Abram to Abraham, and so on. You know how that works. Therefore, when God comes to Adam and says, I want you to name the animals, what he's saying is, I want you to bring order out of something wild. I want you to have an impact. I want you to shape them. I want you to take over. I want you to take charge of them. I want you to take charge of the world and take the disorder and take the formlessness and bring order to it and bring something orderly out of something wild. And that's what he created Adam to do. What did he create Eve to do? He created Eve to be a helper.

Now, the trouble with this word helper, oh, it's done so much damage. The English word helper is a bad way to translate this word. Because when we think of helper, usually we think of weakness. You know, daddy's little helper. What's daddy's little helper? A helper is somebody who says, well, look, honey,

you can't really make this doghouse that we're working on here. I'm building a doghouse. Well, honey, you can't make the doghouse, but you can help me. You can go get the nails. You can get the hammer. See, that's what we think the word help means. No way. Biblically, the word help is an extremely sophisticated term. First of all, the word help is almost always used of God in the Bible. God is our help and our strength and our refuge in a time of trouble. Marriage is one of the most significant human relationships there is, but is also one of the most difficult and misunderstood. In The Meaning of Marriage, Tim and Kathy Keller offer biblical wisdom and insight that will help you understand God's

vision for marriage. Whether you're single, considering marriage, or someone who's been married a long time, The Meaning of Marriage will help you face the complexities of commitment with the wisdom of God. The Meaning of Marriage is our thank you for your gift to help Gospel in Life share the love of Christ with people all over the world. So request your copy today at gospelinlife.com slash give. That's gospelinlife.com slash give. When Eve was created to be Adam's helper, a helper is someone who's got power and resources

that the helpee does not have. And therefore, when Eve was created as Adam's helper, that absolutely implies deficiencies in Adam that Eve does not have. It implies a power and resources that Eve has got that Adam doesn't have, clearly. Because you see, the word help means you can't help somebody unless you have something they don't. For example, supposedly I can help my son with his algebra. Why? Because supposedly I know more about algebra than he does. That's why I can help.

Suppose I never took algebra. I can't help him. Don't you see? That's the biblical sense of the word help. I've got to have something he doesn't have. But there's another side to the word help, and this got to have something he doesn't have, but there's another side to the word help, and this is the secret to what femininity is. If I know more about algebra than my son, I can help him, but there's two ways in which I can use that power. I can use it by bringing myself under him to enable him, to bring him along, to empower him, so he is brought to the place where he can do it himself. Or I can replace him. You see, I can help him with my power or I can replace

him. I can do it for him. If I do it for him, I'm not helping him. I'm using my power but not in a helpful way. Helping is a specific use of power. It's putting yourself underneath somebody else and in a sense running your power through that person. It's an enabling. It's an empowering. So helping, the word help implies that on the one hand Eve has resources Adam doesn't have and it also implies that Eve has a gift, a way of using that power, which is enabling and ennobling and empowering. Now, this interesting, important word, helper, then, proves something, I think. It proves...

Now, I have to be very careful, and this will give me about three minutes to walk a tightrope. And this is very important, because I'm going to come back to the idea of giftedness. Just as Carol Gilligan said, who is not by any means coming from an evangelical Christian position, she says men see themselves maturing as they separate. They have the gift of independence and they want impact. Women have the gift of interdependence. They see themselves maturing as they attach. They want networking. They want to be interdependent, and they want to shape

people that way. And therefore, we can say is a man looks to be completed by powerfully subduing the world through work. A woman looks to be completed by receiving and becoming part of an interdependent network. You see that in this, not just in what the research says, you don't just see that in the second stage feminism books. Now, of course, you know, the place where I would part here is that most of the second stage feminism books say this is the difference between men and women, and women are better. And here's what I want to ask you. Let me ask you, if here's a person who's got the gift of independence,

the gift of separation, the gift of moving out without a team and just doing it, and here's a person who's got a gift of consensus building and moving people together and moving people into a team, let me ask you, which of those things always works? Which of

those things is always the wise way to go? Which of those things always is what is called for by the situation? The answer is neither. The answer is both. When we talk about the helpership of women, does that mean that men are never supposed to nurture? When we talk about the desire for impact of men, does that mean that women never are supposed to nurture? When we talk about the desire for impact of men, does that mean that women are never supposed to achieve? No. What makes you masculine or feminine is not what you do, but why you do it. The men nurture in order to have impact. The women achieve in order to nurture.

It's there, it's very fundamental, it's deep, and it's part of what it means to be masculine and feminine. The only way you find it is in creation. It does not mean that women don't name animals. It doesn't mean that men aren't supposed to help their wives. But what it does mean is that there's

gift. Now here's where you have to walk this rope. Can anybody remember when we talked about spiritual gifts? I know it was about we've been in the book of Ephesians for something like 18 years now, so it's a long time. But listen, every spiritual gift is also a duty. When the Bible says some people have the gift of evangelism, that means that some people are especially good at it, but every Christian is supposed to witness, right? When the Bible says some people have the gift of teaching, that means that some people are good at it, but everybody's supposed to communicate the Word.

And when we talk about women having a giftedness of using their power in a way that enables, when we talk about the gift of interdependence and the man having the gift of independence, we do not mean, therefore, the woman's never supposed to be independent or the man's never supposed to be interdependent. We're talking about gifts and duties. We're talking about things that you're especially good at. And the reason why the Bible says when the husband and wife come together, they complete each other. Why? Because

there's a dark side to your gift. If you're an evangelist type, if you're the kind of person to just, your gift is to win new people into the faith. Your gift is not to build them up and train them and disciple them. The dark side of your gift is you're new people into the faith. Your gift is not to build them up and train them and disciple them. The dark side of your gift is you're always going to tend to be imbalanced. And you're going to need somebody around who says, wait a minute, wait a minute, you're getting all these people in doors, what are we doing to help them? And if you're the kind of person that has a gift for training and discipling,

you've got a dark side to your gift, there tends to be an imbalance. You need an evangelist to complete you. And you need an evangelist to teach you how to evangelize when you do it, even though that's not your gift, there tends to be an imbalance. You need an evangelist to complete you. And you need an evangelist to teach you how to evangelize when you do it, even though that's not your gift. In the same way, the gift of independence, the masculine gift of independence always has a tendency to become autonomy and tyranny. And the female gift of interdependence always has a tendency to become dependence,

and that leads us to the second basic truth. We said in the book of Genesis, the first basic truth to remember is that men and women are created differently. The second basic truth is they're both corrupted. They both, under the influence of sin, have gone bad, because in Genesis 3, after Adam and Eve rebel against God,

God comes down and says, you will sweat and work in the dust of the ground, and thorns and thistles will come up. He says that to Adam, and he says to Eve, you will have pain and childbearing, and your desire will be for your husband, but he will rule over you. Now, if you want confirmation of this fundamental difference

between husbands and wives, between men and women, here it is. When God curses humanity, he curses different aspects. When he curses Adam, he curses his work. He says your need and your desire to have an impact on the world, to be independent, to achieve, to have impact,

is going to become an idol. It's going to become too important to you, and you will always be frustrated because it will never give you what you want. And he turns to the wife. What does he curse there? He curses her relationships. He says, you will want your husband desperately, but your husband will rule over you. And right there, we have got such an important teaching. The teaching is that the wife's interdependent gift under the influence of sin will trip her up. She will become a dependent person. She will want to be taken care of. And the

husband, whose independent gift is now under the influence of sin, instead of being an independent person, he will be a tyrant and he will rule over and master her. And that's why what's so intriguing to me is when the feminist literature says, here's the macho man, here's the Marlboro man, here's the cowboy, here's the Rambo,

here's the guy that's really giving us the problems, here's the guy who abuses women, if not physically, then in other ways. And over here, here's the Cinderella. Here's the princess complex. Here's the teen queen prom dream. Here's the woman that wants someone to just take care of her. Here's somebody who just wants to be on the arm of somebody who's big and rich and who can just take care of her

and let her nurture away and not have to stand on her own. And the feminists are right, you see, because in Genesis 3 it says that is what's going to happen. When masculinity and femininity goes bad, the independence becomes tyranny and autonomy. The interdependence becomes dependence and masochism. Now, unless you understand these two things,

the traditionalist people, the people that are always stressing the fact that, yes, husbands need to rule over their wives, they need to take charge, they're forgetting the curse. They're forgetting the fact that the Bible teaches that men will tend to oppress women and women will tend to want it.

Or at least make it easy for them. Not to want it, but to make it easy for them. There will be a tendency that the sins of the men and the women will tend to feed on one another. And unless there's proper safeguards, unless we're very careful about that, we're overlooking a clear teaching of the Scripture. Listen, women, those of you who are in the workplace, especially in male-dominated fields,

look what's happening to you. What's happening to you is you are, you're in a place where all the rules are masculine. People don't work in teams, right? You get out there, you watch your back, you're independent, you're cutthroat. It's a masculine approach to professionalism. You stuff your feelings, you don't worry about that.

In that situation, what's happening though is because it's not a Christian context and because it's not a context in which there's this covenant of love, like in the marriage where two people are committed to one another, in that situation you'll find that you're continually being pressed out of your femininity, but not in a way that's loving and not in a way that's constructive. You're being pulled away and say, don't be dependent, don't be a Cinderella, but you're not being pulled away in a loving way. The fact is that women and men in marriage are supposed

to learn to submit to one another. And in marriage, the husband's supposed to have a loving authority. And in marriage, the wife's supposed to exercise her helpership. Why? Because the husband's independence will become tyranny unless the helpership of the wife pulls him back, unless he's continually being pressed to see what it really means to really be a man, which is not to be a tyrant, but to be independent, unless she pulls him back. In the same way, the wife will have a tendency to move toward dependence unless the husband, in his strength, pulls her back. There needs to be a completion.

The traditionalists forget the fact that we've been cursed. They forget the fact that men tend to dominate women, and therefore they have a tendency to just push the old traditional understanding. The Bible does not support the old Victorian approach to women being owned by their husbands. But on the other hand, the modernists forget the fact, the egalitarians forget the fact,

that there is a distinction between masculine and feminine, and there it is. It's very deep. It's all the way down. Now look, there's more that we're going to cover next week. What I need to do is just press you this far. I'll press you this far. Marriage, I said for a couple weeks, is friendship. But now you see it's a lot more than friendship.

Because no matter how deeply two men or two women grow into friendship. In other words, two women becoming dear friends, two men becoming dear friends. Whether that is a completely platonic thing or even an erotic thing, the Bible teaches that a man cannot complete a man and a woman cannot complete a woman.

Not in this fundamental way. What happens is when you get married and you are continually finding that you are relating to someone of the other sex, of the other gender, you're continually brought up against this very odd mystery. The mystery is this. On the one hand, this is a person who is utterly unlike you, utterly different, thinks differently, operates differently,

and in some cases is frustrating, in many cases is scary, and sometimes it's just downright incomprehensible. But on the other hand, at a deeper, deeper level, I'm finding who I really am. This is my other half. This is my completion. This is me. When the Bible is saying that it goes a lot deeper

there's a mystery to the otherness of gender one more thing well then what is submission and I just need to summarize it because next week we can get back and lay these things out in a much more detailed way what then is submission? it's this

it's tie-breaking authority you see if a husband and wife wife are friends, and the Bible says, as iron sharpens iron, friend sharpens friend, it is a complete misunderstanding. It's a traditionalist distortion of headship and submission to say that the wife is the submitter and the husband's the head. That means the husband gets his way. The husband makes the decisions in the family. That's ridiculous. Because if friends, see, if marriage is the ultimate friendship and iron sharpens iron is friend sharpens friend, if in good friendships you've got this clash, you've got this consensus building, if you've got this debating going on,

then in marriage there's also got to be this equality, this contention, this sharpening each other. How else are you going to be grabbing each other and pulling each other away from the dark side of your gifts? You've got to have the right to do that. And therefore, most all the time, the way a husband and a wife make decisions, especially since the Bible says it's Jesus Christ, you see, died for the church, therefore the husband would never, ever, ever have the right just simply to use his authority simply to please himself, ever. So what you do is you're sitting there trying to figure out what's best, but what happens when you can't agree? What happens when you cannot agree?

Well, the egalitarian marriage people say, well, you just don't make the decision if you can't agree. That doesn't always work. What if you can't agree on where to put your kids in school? Public or private, or this private or that private school? What if you can't agree and you've got to put them somewhere? How do you break the tie? The Bible's answer is, let the husband do it. Why? The Bible says this, when you let the husband

initiate, when the wife defers, you're getting in touch with something deep inside you. You're getting in touch with your masculinity and your femininity. You're getting in touch with something very deep, something very real. It glorifies God, and it's in accord with your particular modality of humanity. It will not necessarily fit what you've been taught to believe in your English courses in college. It will not necessarily fit even your feelings, but you will find it actually fits the reality of who you are. When the Bible talks about,

let the husband lead in the final analysis, let him have tie-breaking authority, which formally is not something that is used very often. In my own marriage, I say you can count on two hands how many times that's actually happened. The formal exercise of authority. But what the Bible is actually saying is at this point, in this place where you let the husband initiate, saying is, at this point, in this place,

where you let the husband initiate, where you let the wife defer, you will find that you're getting in touch with something very deep inside yourself. And what you're actually doing is you're becoming more masculine and more feminine and together more complete and more restored into the image of God.

The perfect case is, here's a person who wants to plant a church in New York and he's married to a person who doesn't want to. Listen, here's how it goes. He says to her, hey, look, I want to go, you don't want to go. If you don't want to go, I'm not going to force you. Of course not. So we won't go. And she turns around and says, wait a minute. You just let me break the tie.

What's the use of you being the man anyway here? If you see God calling you into the wild, if you see God calling you out to do something wild, look, I don't like to take risks. I don't like doing that. It's bothering my nesting instinct. But if God's calling you to do that, for gosh sakes, be a man.

Break the tie. Is that wimpy? That's helping. Because you see, at that point, the husband and the wife are submitting to a role that they didn't really want. The husband doesn't really want to take the responsibility. But the wife is actually pressing him in a wimpy way? No. You see, to be a helper takes a terrific amount of strength. She presses him into the most masculine thing he's ever done. And on the other hand, by her deferring to me

and saying, I will support you no matter what and I won't say I told you so no matter what happens. She's doing the most feminine kind of keeping her strength and her power under me and enabling me with it. And dear friends, you come to find out who you really are. We know people.

Listen, we know tons of people who for years were homosexual, but who are now in Christian heterosexual marriages. We even know one guy who was two weeks from a sex change operation having lived as a woman for two years in Washington, D.C. They'll tell you the same thing. That when you actually begin to submit

to what the Scripture says, the fundamental differences are between husband and wife. It's not oppressive by any means. Oh, no. The husband cannot demand headship. He can only earn it. And the wife can give it. And when that happens, you get in touch

with a fundamental difference between maleness and femaleness in you that only submission to the rule book of the designer will help you discover. Now, next week we come back because I know it raises a lot of issues and the time's up. The issues are, I'm single. Does this mean I can't get completed? And the answer is, you know, unfortunately, if we're sub-men and sub-women, and marriage is for sinners, and the trouble is that between, marriage between sinners, as good as it is, it's nowhere near as good as it's supposed to be, or as good as it ought to be. And the sanctification differential between being married and being single, according to Scripture, is a trade-off. God calls you into marriage,

that's the way God wants you to grow into completeness. If God doesn't want you right now to be married, listen, men, Jesus is the helper. The helper. Listen, women, Jesus is the head. You see, he is the paragon of both masculinity and femininity. He is so masculine, he makes us men feminine in relationship to him. That's why he's the head, and we're the church, and we're the bride. And there's another place where it says, Jesus Christ says,

can a mother forget the baby that sucks at her breast? She may forget, but I will not forget thee. And what God is saying is, I am so nurturant, I am such a helper, that I even make you women look masculine in comparison to me. You want to be completed? Ultimately, come to me. You want to know what it means to be a man? Look at me. You want to know what it means to be a woman? Look at me. I'm more of a man and more of a woman than you are, is what God says. Look at me.

I'm more of a man and more of a woman than you are, is what God says. And therefore, regardless of where you are, come to me and I can complete you. Come to me and I can complete you. If you're being called into marriage, stop being scared of it. If you're not being called into marriage,

stop wanting it so badly. Because you see, it's God that provides the sanctification. It's God that provides the restoration of unity. It's God that provides the completion. We're going to finish up on this next week. I'm going to pray, but then, when we sing this final little hymn, O Lord, you're beautiful, your face is all I seek,

and when your eyes are on this child, your grace abounds to me, that's the completion of which even the best marriages are only a dim hint. Let's bow in prayer. Our Father, we ask now that you would help us to see

this complicated and yet wonderful and mysterious subject is again nothing but a beautiful parable, a beautiful picture of the way in which you complete us. Father, we thank you that your son is our husband, and we thank you that even the best marriages are just dim hints of the joy and the rapture of being one with your son. We pray, Lord, that everyone here will be more equipped to understand the glories of their salvation

because they begin to understand that you've called us to be men and women as well as people under God. We thank you for this teaching, and we pray, O Lord, complete us now as we lift our souls to you. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. Thanks for listening to today's teaching from Dr. Keller. If you were encouraged by this podcast, we invite you to consider becoming a Gospel and Life monthly partner.

Your partnership helps more people access resources like this podcast. Just visit gospelandlife.com slash partner to learn more. This month's sermons were recorded in 1991. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel and Life podcast were preached from 1989 to 2017, while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.