Male Oppression

The Bible, which is my ultimate authority because it is God speaking through His servants to all of mankind, says that women are to submit to their husbands. Did you know that it is pleasant to submit to a man? It is--when the man treats me as the co-heir that I am, when he treats me as his equal. 
 

However, there exist men who treat women as inferiors. They make degrading remarks about us. They say that women are useless or that they can't do anything right. There is a constant stream of negative remarks toward us and women in general. Then, when they need something, they use us to get their way. We become a piece of their property with which they can do as they wish. 

We women who fear God know that we are to submit to our husbands and brothers because the Lord commands it. So what can we do to correct a situation in which the man forgets the order of the hierarchy? For no authority is given except by God, and whatever authority is given to us is only because we are under the authority of someone greater. 

"But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of a woman, and God is the head of Christ." 

1 Corinthians 11:3

Men who treat women as inferiors look down on us because they forget to look upwards at the authority of Jesus over them. They are rebelling against God when they mistreat those who are under their authority.

So what can a woman do if she is under the authority of such a man? For it is poison to the soul to have to endure this oppression. You really have to put to death your own flesh and cling super tightly to Jesus in these situations. The Bible tells us that even when we are being mistreated, we are still required by God to do what is right, to live up to His standard on our part, even when others are undeserving of it.

 

In the same way, you wives, be submissive to your own husbands so that even if any of them are disobedient to the word, they may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives, as they observe your chaste and respectful behavior.

1 Peter 3:1,2

It is painful to try to live up to God's standard. It means that we must continue to endure the emotional abuse. It feels so unjust. Their poison raises bile in the breast and burns away at our insides.

But God is really concerned about our negative emotions. They grieve the Holy Spirit. We know this because the verse that speaks of grieving the HS in us is in the context of negative emotions and actions. 

Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Ephesians 4:29-31

May God give us the strength to quench these negative emotions, to deflect the fiery darts of negativity that the enemy shoots at us (though he be our husband or brother!). May He give us strength to look to Him and have our worth in Him. Though it kill me, may I serve the Lord.

 

Justification

Gravity holds me to the earth and keeps order between living things and the structures of the earth. The atmosphere guards my head from the wrath of destructive rays that try to invade from space to kill our fragile flesh. The planets are strung together in circles that are spaced specifically to prevent collision. Our earth revolves so that one side of the earth is not in perpetual darkness, ensuring the death of all things on that side. The sun awakens to give nourishment to the plants and animals that will be my food in the tomorrows to come, if they will come. Plants and animals are programmed to reproduce so that we will never run out of food. Trees are created with the mechanisms needed to create oxygen, which happens to be exactly the gas we need in order to breathe. Today I have awakened to life. My heart beats and circulates blood, nutrients, oxygen. My brain is in control of my systems, which function as they should. I have a family which protects me, loves me, provides for me. I have a home. I have clothing. I have a car and a job, which gives me the means to buy necessities and to afford pleasure. My family has land on which we grow our own food. We have time in which we function and have our being. 

That is the common grace of God.

God in His generosity has given me all these things for my good. He did not have to do it.

After all that He has set up for me, I in my perversity have rejected Him, rebelled against Him, spit in His face with my sins. And now I have been caught. I am brought into the court room of holy justice.

I stand before God, the great and good, holy and exacting Judge. He is not a God who is separate from the sentence He gives, leaving it in the hands of others to enforce the sentence given; He Himself executes the verdict. 

I have sinned. God has been patient with me. He has suffered the disgust, the vulgarity, the obscenity of my ungrateful rebellion against Him--Him who has permitted me to open my eyes today, Him who has not cut me off from the land of the living in accordance with the multitude of my trespasses against Him. He has suffered, and suffered long, to see me in my whoring, in my lust for the eyes, attention, love, esteem of people who give only in their own interest. He, who has in His generosity given me free favor, who has given me this common grace of life, is holding me accountable. 

Under the weight of my conscience and the great crippling terror of punishment, I promise the Judge that I never will sin again, if He will only give me life in misery instead of death. But no, sin is like debt: even if from this moment on I could somehow, some way stop myself from falling short of the standard of perfection, I still would have to pay for the entire cost of my accumulated transgressions. Debt doesn’t just disappear; someone still has to pay for it and the wages of sin is death. I tremble violently at the thought that now justice has caught up with me and I will have to pay with my life for every dark thought and action of wrong that I have committed. No excuses are accepted. No circumstances, no environmental shortcomings can share the blame. I have to pay because it was I who chose to act below the standard in all instances. 

I fall to my knees with a sickness in my stomach that rips me apart inside. I know that death is certain and there is no way out. I cry out in fear because now I have fallen into the hands of a great and holy God who is angry with the wicked every day, a God who is a consuming fire. I have no chance.

And then I hear a voice: “I will pay her debt.”

It is the Son of God. He, blameless One, who has never known sin, who alone is worthy to be in the presence of holiness, will take the punishment for my sin. He says He will die in my stead.

No!  It isn’t fair! You don’t deserve to die. It’s my sin, I must pay for it myself.

But Jesus went to the Judge and the Judge accepted this deed. Though it pained Him beyond measure to do so, God poured out all of His wrath on His own innocent Son. The wrath that was to fall on my head, the weight of darkness that was supposed to crush me, and the separation from the One on whom my existence depends—Jesus took on Himself.

And He left for me His record of sinlessness. He has taken my entire record upon Himself and has given me a new record, a clean record—His record. Now God the Judge looks at me as He looks at His Son—as blameless. This is justification. This is the work done by Jesus on the cross and in His resurrection.

I am not justified and given a new clean record so that I can dirty it up again. I am given a clean record so that I can be accepted by God in order to now build His kingdom on earth. Because now I do not have to try to work off my sin-debt, I am free to build up wealth for my future inheritance in heaven. I even now make investments by taking dominion of every area of my life and every area in my sphere of influence. I work to bring them into conformity with God’s design.

I no longer owe Him for my debt. He has forgiven me my debt. Out of gratitude now I work to build up His cause. I am no longer my own. He owns me now.

1.       Jesus took my sin and gave me His clean record.

2.       I no longer have to work to be in good legal standing with God.

3.       Now I work to build up God’s kingdom.