A Word to the Wives

Jim ButlerColossians 3:18

Colossians 3:18 commands wives to submit to their own husbands as is fitting in the Lord — a command that cuts against the grain of contemporary culture and even the instincts of redeemed sinners. This sermon establishes that submission is not demeaning but reflects the eternal pattern of the Son's willing submission to the Father within the equal-in-essence Trinity, and that gospel redemption does not abolish role distinctions in the family but enables their proper functioning. The domestic application works through the lawful target, the universal scope, and the Christological motivation of the command, pressing wives to understand that submitting to their own husbands is primarily a religious duty rendered unto the Lord. The sermon closes by grounding the entire exhortation in the gospel: a wife's standing before God rests not on threads of her own submissive obedience but on the imputed righteousness of Christ, whose active and passive obedience constitute the only robe in which sinners stand justified.