Two, Yet One: What Marriage Was Designed to Reveal

In the last article, I testified that the woman who has found equilibrium no longer has to divide herself in order to live.

Her emotions do not war against principle. Vocation does not compete with motherhood, home with ministry, or marriage with identity. Even recreation does not require her to abandon usefulness.

Her life becomes one because the principle governing it is one.

But that raises a more difficult question.

What happens when God joins this woman—an individual with her own mind, personality, emotions, convictions, strengths and weaknesses—to another individual whom Scripture calls her husband?

How can two remain distinct and yet become one flesh?

Why would God design marriage this way?

I have found that the answer was before us all along.

We only had to look at what God made.

The Visible Was Meant to Teach Us the Invisible

God has never confined truth to words.

He has written object lessons into creation and ordinary life and then repeatedly directed our attention to them.

Christ spoke of a city set upon a hill, but He was teaching people about witness.

He spoke of a candle placed upon a candlestick rather than hidden under a bushel, but He was teaching what should happen when God’s light is entrusted to a person.

He spoke of seeds, soil, branches, fruit, bread, water, sheep, shepherds, houses and foundations.

We have spent so much time debating what husbands and wives may or may not do that we can overlook the object lesson God built into their very relationship.

Scripture tells us:

“For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church…”
— Ephesians 5:23, KJV

And after describing this relationship, Paul tells us what it signifies:

“This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.”
— Ephesians 5:32, KJV

And husband and wife, when the relationship functions according to God’s perfect design, become a physical testimony of Christ and His church.

So before deciding that headship must mean oppression, submission must mean inferiority, or individuality must require independence, perhaps we should first ask what kind of structure God actually made.

He called the husband the head.

What does a head do?

The Husband as Head — The Responsibility of the Mind

A head is not ornamental.

The brain receives and processes information. It reasons, remembers, interprets, anticipates, coordinates, regulates and directs. It continually receives information from within the body and from the environment surrounding it, considers what that information means and coordinates an appropriate response.

He must think, observe, listen, reason, anticipate, prepare.

He must make decisions when decisions are required.

And because he leads, he must be prepared to accept the consequences of the direction in which he leads his family.

Being head means being the person upon whom God has placed the burden of government.

There will be times when he has abundant information and times when he does not.

There will be times when a decision can wait and times when it cannot.

A man who wants the authority of headship without its burden has misunderstood the very thing he claims.

Headship is not privilege detached from consequence – It is stewardship.

And What of the Heart?

Scripture explicitly names the husband the head. It does not explicitly call the wife the heart.

But the body gives me an object lesson through which I have come to understand her complementary place.

Likewise, women are deeply emotional beings. We perceive relationally. We nurture. We receive. We respond. We carry. We multiply what has been entrusted to us and give it expression.

A seed entrusted to a woman’s body does not merely remain a seed.

She receives it, carries it, nourishes it and brings forth life.

The same principle extends far beyond pregnancy.

Knowledge can become wisdom in practice, when a husband’s sacrifice becomes tangible in her life.

This is why emotion was never a woman’s defect. But neither was emotion designed to govern.

As I have learned through the principles of order and synergy, without Christ our forte can become a curse. Man’s inclination toward logic can become cold, self-reliant and dominating. Woman’s emotional sensitivity can become unstable, reactive and sovereign.

The man must move beyond merely logical instinct toward reasoning governed by Logos.

The woman must move beyond merely emotional instinct toward emotion governed by Logos.

Then, neither sterile reason nor ungoverned feeling rules.

Different Functions Do Not Mean Different Worth

The brain does not become the heart, and the heart does not become the brain.

Their differences are necessary.

The brain exercises regulatory influence over bodily functions, including processes that affect the heart, while the heart performs the indispensable function of the circulation of life, that the brain cannot replace.

The heart is not degraded because it is not the brain, nor is the brain made more valuable because it directs.

Remove either, and the body dies.

This matters because society increasingly teaches that equality requires sameness.

God’s creation says otherwise.

Difference does not determine worth, and function does not determine human value.

God did not create two identical beings and then arbitrarily appoint one above the other.

He made male and female with complementary strengths and functions and then did something extraordinary:

He declared that the twain were to become one flesh.

Justice and peace – Harmony.

Obedience and sacrifice – Faithfulness.

Truth and mercy – Righteousness.

Order and synergy – Love.

Male and female – child.

The Child — One Flesh Made Visible

Perhaps nowhere is this more physically evident than in a child.

A child is not half a person from the mother and half a person from the father.

The child is one person.

Mother and father each contribute genetic material to that one life. Some traits may be dominant and others recessive, but dominance does not make one parent’s contribution more important than the other’s.

Remove the mother’s contribution, or the father’s, and you do not preserve two independent halves.

You destroy the living whole.

Yet the contributions remain distinguishable.

Two became one without either being erased.

The child makes visible what marriage itself was designed to express:

Two persons. One body.

Neither parent becomes the other. Neither becomes unnecessary. Neither contribution is discarded because another trait appears dominant.

Life emerges from union.

This also helps me understand why both father and mother matter so deeply in raising children.

A child needs to see what his or her own sex can look like under God, but also needs close, healthy exposure to the opposite sex.

A girl should not have to discover men for the first time through courtship, nor a boy women through attraction.

Within a wholesome home, children are educated in both.

They learn not only who they may become, but how the opposite sex should be understood and treated.

The home therefore becomes their first school of human relationship.

One Flesh Does Not Erase Individuality

But becoming one flesh does not mean that I cease to exist.

I do not lose my mind, personality, influence or convictions because I have a husband.

I still ask questions. I still think. I still answer to God.

My husband cannot believe for me, repent for me, surrender my heart to God for me, or replace my conscience.

I remain an individual soul before my Creator.

But I have learned that individuality and independence are not the same thing.

A single woman is rightly independent of other men; no covenant has joined her to them as one flesh.

But marriage establishes a covenant before God in which both husband and wife move toward interdependence.

That is to desire the benefits of marriage while resisting its framework and function.

The wife must never be swallowed up in her husband. She was not designed to be passive, thoughtless or voiceless.

But neither can preserving her identity become justification for refusing oneness.

So I had to confront a different question:

How do I remain fully the woman God made me while genuinely becoming one with my husband?

I found the answer in something women have increasingly grown to dread:

Submission.

Why I Submit

Individuality means that I, of my own free will, choose to follow God according to what He has revealed to me through the instruments He has appointed, and exercise the influence He has entrusted to me according to the convictions He has laid upon my heart.

When God gives me an instruction, no one else can obey it for me.

As an individual soul before Him, I must willingly choose to carry out what He has asked because I love Him and desire to serve Him.

Individuality therefore preserves my personal responsibility before God; it does not require independence from the order through which God may choose to lead me.

And Scripture does not obscure God’s instruction to women who are called to marriage:

I do not submit because I am intellectually incapable, possess no will, or because my husband’s humanity is worth more than mine.

Nor do I submit because a man overpowered me.

I submit because my God asked me to.

That makes submission itself an exercise of my free will.

I love God, and I desire to serve Him with all my heart, soul, mind and strength.

Therefore, if the God I love establishes an order for my marriage, obedience to that order is not the destruction of my freedom.

It is one of the ways I freely offer that freedom back to Him.

Scripture also says that women are:

“To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.”
— Titus 2:5, KJV

If God tells me to submit and obey, then refusal is not merely a disagreement between my husband and me.

I would be rebelling against the Order God has established – His perfect design.

But God did not place this enormous requirement upon the woman and give the man unrestricted authority in exchange.

Far from it.

Authority Carries Accountability

Numbers 30 contains an object lesson that helped me understand this.

Within the law concerning vows, a husband could hear a vow made by his wife and allow it to stand or disallow it.

If he disallowed it when he heard it, Scripture says:

“…the LORD shall forgive her.”
— Numbers 30:8, KJV

But if he heard it, allowed it to stand and later made it void, Scripture says:

God did not give the husband authority and remove consequence from its exercise.

The wife remains accountable to God for her obedience, and the husband for his stewardship of the authority entrusted to him.

This helps me understand how God can ask a woman to submit without making her insignificant.

The one appointed to lead is not merely empowered.

He is answerable.

And Scripture places an even greater weight upon him.

The Man She Follows Is Commanded to Die for Her

“Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it.”
— Ephesians 5:25, KJV

Therein is God’s equity.

The wife is commanded to submit as unto the Lord.

The husband is commanded to love as Christ loved the church.

And Christ gave Himself.

Biblical headship therefore cannot mean constructing the household around a man’s comfort while everyone else serves him.

His model is Calvary.

Protective rather than possessive.
Purposeful rather than arbitrary.
Patient rather than tyrannical.

God did not create identical responsibilities.

He created equitable ones.

The woman relinquishes independent government when she voluntarily enters the order of marriage God established.

The man relinquishes selfish government, because the authority entrusted to him must be exercised according to the character of Christ.

Both lose self. Both surrender to God.

And this is why it becomes grievously wrong for a husband to demand that his wife represent the Church while he refuses to represent Christ.

He Must Also Wash

Christ’s responsibility toward His Church does not end at sacrifice.

Scripture continues:

“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…”
— Ephesians 5:26–27, KJV

This can feel intrusive in a culture that treats spirituality as something strictly between the individual and God.

He does not become God. He cannot repent, believe, or answer for me, nor does he replace the Holy Spirit or pronounce God’s final verdict over my salvation.

There remains an inward relationship between my soul and God into which no human being may enter as mediator.

But neither can I use that truth to build a spiritual life from which my husband is deliberately excluded.

We are one body.

Transparency therefore matters.

But transparency does not mean reporting every unfinished thought the moment it appears.

Some feelings are still being understood. Some experiences are not yet clear enough to communicate faithfully. Speaking too early can create confusion when I do not yet understand what I am trying to explain.

In those moments, I pray:

That is not secrecy.

It is stewardship of communication.

I do not need to tell my husband everything immediately.

But I should not deliberately withhold what he needs to know for us to walk faithfully as one.

And I trust the Holy Spirit to impress upon me the difference.

Submission Is Not Blindness

My husband does not replace God, and neither do I replace God for him. Each soul still belongs to Christ.

But marriage means that what God is doing in either of us affects the life we share.

So, figuratively, my husband must be at the table of my conversation with God, and I at his.

God is not divided.

This is why submission should not be blind.

I asked questions, watched, listened and learned my husband’s mind. He, in turn, had to communicate and explain how he believed God was leading him.

Over time, trust matured through knowledge and understanding.

I remember what we have discussed, observed and prayed about, and most importantly, the God to whom we have both surrendered.

If the course is not contrary to God, I do not need to oppose it simply because I might have chosen differently.

That is not the disappearance of my mind.

It is trust matured through knowledge and exercised through faith.

Ultimately, my confidence rests not in my husband’s infallibility, but in God.

Husband Must First Become Christ

It goes without saying, but it must be said:

The spiritual condition of the husband matters enormously.

“But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ…”
— 1 Corinthians 11:3, KJV

A man who desires a wife is not merely asking a woman to love him. He is asking to become the head of a body that will include her.

That is stewardship.

His decisions may affect her home, children, resources, safety, development, ministry and daily life. He therefore desperately needs to know his own Head.

He needs conversion: to pray before deciding, listen before acting, distinguish conviction from impulse, accept correction, admit error, bear consequences, sacrifice preference, communicate patiently and think beyond himself.

Above all, he must learn to love sacrificially.

A husband does not become head so that somebody will finally have to do what he says.

He becomes head so that someone God loves can safely follow where God leads through him.

To be continued…

by Daniek Newby (Director – Ministry Identity & Visibility, Call to Reason Ministries)