The Christian Family by Bavinck Herman

Author:Bavinck, Herman [Bavinck, Herman]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Christian’s Library Press
Published: 2012-11-08T00:00:00+00:00

The Subjection of Husband and Wife to the Command of God

The human heart always opposes these admonitions of Holy Scripture. Especially at the present time we see powerful opposition against these ordinances of God. The husband refuses to honor the command to love, saying that he cannot love a wife who has so many faults as he sees in her. The wife refuses to be obedient to a husband who is so unreasonable in his demands and so tyrannical as she has come to know him. Both exert pressure for multiplying and easing the opportunities for divorce. The demand is sounded continually louder and stronger that open marriage and free love might be enjoyed, or at least that the laws for marriage might be radically changed. “We need to get rid of the idea that the wife must follow and obey her husband, and that divorce can occur only in special cases, particularly those mentioned.” Thousands upon thousands already live as though there existed no law regulating marriage. They live together in an open relationship with the man or woman of their desire; they hardly bother themselves about the command that the husband must love his own wife and the wife must obey her own husband; and they even lie to the judge, and the one charges the other or allows oneself to be charged with the crime of adultery in order to be able to get divorced and enter an impermissible relationship with someone else.

Now, we are not dealing here with the legislation of the state regarding marriage. Perhaps just like the Lord himself did among Israel, the lawmaker will need to take into some account the hardness of the human heart. Scripture is not a law code that lies ready to hand for the government. But this much is certain, that the same Scripture proceeds from an entirely different understanding and prescribes an entirely different pattern of conduct. It does not call the husband to continue down the path of his sinful appetites and passions, but to stop and turn back. If you do continue down that path, Scripture says, then you will bring about your own destruction; you will destroy your family, fracture the required nurturing, corrupt society, undermine the state; along that route lies no rest and no peace, but only death and judgment. Conversely, if you abandon this path and begin again to live according to God’s commandment, if the husband once again loves his wife and the wife is once again obedient to her husband, then unity and peace and love will return, then the marriage will be established, the family renewed, the wife restored in her honor, society reformed, the state reborn. From the family outward, blessing and prosperity will once again spread across all the nation.

One can reject this instruction of Scripture, but one thing cannot be contradicted, namely, if husbands and wives walked according to this rule, they would enjoy marriages and family life that would surpass every earthly association and community in beauty and radiance.

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