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Message Summary
In the final message of a series on gospel-centered relationships, Pastor Phillip Santillan turns to Ephesians 5:22–33. Looking to a romantic partner to complete us, he argues, reveals a desire to get something out of marriage, to be a consumer. Phil compares it to his loyalty to REI, which lasts until he finds the gear cheaper elsewhere. Approach marriage that way, and you stay committed only as long as it brings you value.
Scripture, he teaches, presents marriage as a covenant, a forever promise; in Malachi 2, God rejects Judah’s worship because they broke faith with the wife of their marriage covenant. A contract rests on compromise: you do your part and I’ll do mine. A covenant rests on sacrifice, giving fully because of the giver’s character, just as 1 John 4 defines love by the lover. Phil is not telling anyone to stay in a terrible marriage marked by abuse, adultery or abandonment. But in twenty years of walking with couples, he has seen God do incredible things when both embraced marriage as a covenant and chose forgiveness and restoration.
Paul writes the passage after calling a divided church to mutual submission. Phil acknowledges that words like submit and obey can trigger those who have seen them misused, and asks listeners to consider that the God who loves them created marriage. He playfully pokes at both the complementarian reading, which sees God-given gender roles here, and the egalitarian reading, which sees Paul applying mutual submission to his own culture, noting that each can claim as many verses and scholars as the other. So he asks what the passage reveals about God, and draws one point: God wants to use marriage to display his relationship with the church.
Paul is speaking to wives here, Phil stresses, so a husband eager for his wife to submit more is out of line; just as Phil once badly misread a brief remark from his wife, husbands will misunderstand what Paul tells wives. He invites wives to ask where they struggle to show Christlike submission and respect, and how honoring their husbands could show they are becoming like Jesus, not proving themselves right. Wives, in turn, are not invited into Paul’s words to husbands: love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her. Remembering how Jesus humbled himself to die a criminal’s death, Phil asks husbands whether they speak to their wives in ways they would not tolerate, jump to conclusions or withhold grace, admitting he preaches this to himself.
He envisions covenant marriages that rest on the faithfulness of the covenant maker, not the other’s performance: wives growing in submission and respect not because women should be submissive but because their goal is to become like Jesus and join his mission, and husbands asking whether each decision helps their wives love Jesus more. Marriage does not complete us, Phil concludes, since in Christ we are complete. It complements us, and lived as a covenant, it may help the world see the church as God intended.