St. Paul mentions submission as required, in a sense, from all Christians towards all others--'submitting yourselves one to another.' But it is plain that in any community, and most of all in a Christian community where order is a divine principle, some will be specially 'under authority': and accordingly St. Paul applies his general maxim to three classes in particular--wives towards their husbands, children towards their parents, slaves towards their masters. But in making these applications of the law of obedience, he enlarges his subject by including the counter-balancing principle of the duty of self-sacrificing love on the part of those in authority; so that he treats not one side of the relation only but both. {212} A. HUSBANDS AND WIVES. (V. 22-33.) [Sidenote: _Husbands and wives_] Wives are to be subordinate to their husbands as to the Lord. Just as the divine fatherhood is the ground of all lower fatherhood, so the authority of the one great Head is the ground in all lower headships, and each in its place is to be accepted as the shadow of His. Thus the husband's headship over his wife is the shadow of Christ's headship over the church, and that explains of what sort the husband's authority should be. For Christ's rule is a rule for the advantage of the ruled. He rules the church as Himself its saviour or deliverer from bondage, and the word 'saviour' is full of associations of self-sacrificing love. So must it be with a Christian husband. But Christ is not merely a head to the church. He too is a husband. This idea of God as the husband of His people--an idea which expressed both His choice of them, His love for them, and His jealous claim upon them--is familiar in the Old Testament. 'Thy Maker is thy husband.' 'I am a husband unto you, saith the Lord[1].' And it is probable, as Dr. Cheyne suggests, 'that the so-called Song of Solomon was admitted into the canon {213} on the ground that the bride of the poem symbolized the chosen people[2].' But in a Christian sense the idea gains a fresh meaning. 'We that are joined unto the Lord are of one spirit' with Him[3]. We are the 'members of his body'; and, as drawing our life from His manhood, we may be even said to be, like Eve from Adam, 'of his flesh and of his bones[4].' Christ then is, in this richness of meaning, the husband of the church.