Context
Thus far in Ephesians we’ve seen the depth and the beauty of Christian doctrine. The doctrine that makes known God’s amazing grace to us in and through His Son who loved us, lived for us, died for us, rose again and ascended on high in power to ever intercede for us. Jesus, the Son of God, has shown Himself victorious over sin, Satan, and death. And that same victorious power, the same Spirit, the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, dwells within us, empowering us to live for Him. And that’s what we’ve also been seeing in Ephesians.
We’ve seen the depth and the beauty of Christian doctrine, but we’ve also seen the importance and all encompassing nature of Christian duty. Christians are those who are united to Christ. We are in Christ and thus we are the bride of Christ and the body of Christ, and as such we are to live for the glory of Christ. We are to bring every area of life into joyful submission to the Lordship of Christ, starting in the church, then the home, and then the world. We want to seek to apply all of God’s Word to all of life in all the world for God’s glory, the good of God’s church, and the life of God’s world. And because we have the Holy Spirit within us, the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead to gospel-victory, we are empowered to do so. We can live out our identity in Christ by the power of the Spirit of Christ. And so far in Ephesians we’ve seen how to do that in the church, and last week we started looking at what that looks like in the home, and that’s what we’ll continue today. So look with me at Ephesians 6:1-9.
Ephesians 6:1-9
Starting in verse 1 Paul says, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.” So we’ve gone from husbands and wives, to the children. Paul is intentionally addressing each member of the household, and that’s because God generally deals with His people by household. Our households are to be Christian households, because our households are in covenant with the Lord. A covenant is a solemn bond that is sovereignly administered with attendant blessings and curses. And that’s how God deals with His people, via covenant. God deals covenantally with households because households are a microcosm of the church and the state—one is supposed to reflect and set the pattern for the others.
Going all the way back to Genesis 3:15, we see that God does not just deal with Adam and Eve, but with them and their whole household, promising blessings to their children who walk by faith in His promises. The same happened with Noah and his family. Out of all of humanity, only Noah found favor in God’s sight, and so God confirmed and reestablished the Adamic covenant with Noah. But, in God’s grace he saved Noah and his whole household from the flood, and extended His covenant promises to all of them. This is how it was with Abraham as well. In Genesis 17:7 God said, “I will confirm my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you.” To you and your household.
Notice the language of everlasting covenant… That same language was used with Noah as well. And God makes it clear that He’s not making a new covenant with Noah, but confirming the one He already made with Adam, which is what he’s doing with Abraham as well. And this is what the Reformed Church has always believed. God gives one grand Covenant of Grace that extends and reforms over many administrations. As we have seen preciously, “God’s Covenant is the free bond of union, communion, and love between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, into which God sovereignly and graciously brings believers and their children (households) to live with Him in mutual love and faithfulness” (John Barach). It’s an everlasting covenant that gets clearer, better, and more impactful as it goes on, all the way to the New Covenant in Christ. But the basic structure and outworking of God’s covenant with His people remains the same throughout history, and still today. God deals with households—believers and their children. Which is why in Genesis 18:19, God says of Abraham, “For I have chosen him, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing righteousness and justice, so that the LORD may bring to Abraham what he has promised him.”
When Paul says that children are to obey their parents in the Lord he’s using this same covenantal language and structure. As we’ll see, he’s calling them to keep the way of the LORD by doing righteousness and justice. And after all, God’s Word says that all who have faith—which are those who keep the way of the LORD—are children of Abraham (Galatians 3:7). We are partakers in God’s covenant promises to the patriarch, Abraham.
Some say that the New Covenant doesn’t have this same household structure to it, and that God has now removed children from the covenant and thus the covenant community, but that’s the opposite of how God’s covenant dealings work and advance in Scripture. As I said, from one covenant administration to another, the Covenant of Grace gets clearer, better, and more impactful as it goes on. It doesn’t put more people out, but brings more people in—people from every nation and generation. We see that even the New Covenant works this way, not only here in Ephesians, but in the book of Acts when we’re told that the promise is to us and to our children and to all who are far off (Acts 2:38-39). Which is why over half of the baptisms in the book of Acts are household baptisms. God lays claim to the whole household. So when the leader of the house is baptized he’s saying with Joshua, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:15).
So here Paul is speaking to covenant children in covenant households, which is what every Christian household is. As we’ll see in a moment, parents, especially fathers, are to bring their children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, in the very culture of Christ. And those children are meant to obey in the Lord. In fact, as they obey their parents they are in fact obeying the Lord, if their parents are leading them in a godly way. No doubt, just as a wife is to submit to her husband as to the Lord, and out of reverence for Christ, and therefore should never follow him into sin, but only in so far as his leadership leads her in paths of righteousness, so it is with children. Children are not to follow their parents into sin. But that is not the focus here. What’s being said here is that children need to keep from sinning by following their parents. They need to obey God by obeying their parents.
Now notice what Paul is assuming here. First he’s assuming that the children are in the room, that they are in church when these commands were being read and explained. Some people can’t imagine children being in covenant with God because they can’t imagine children even being in a worship service on Sunday. But Paul simply assumes they will be there because, from the youngest to the oldest, that’s where they belong. We come together with God’s people on the Lord’s Day to draw near to God together. So as Jesus said, “Let the little children come to [Him] and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 19:14).
The other thing Paul is assuming here is that these children are in the Lord, and thus under covenant obligations to the Lord. In order for them to be obedient to their parents they must obey the Lord. But in order for them to obey the Lord they must be obedient to their parents. Paul says this is right, as in this is righteous and just, and thus what is lawfully expected of them. In other words, it’s keeping the way of the LORD by doing righteousness and justice. It’s like what God’s Word says in Hosea 14:9, “Whoever is wise, let him understand these things; whoever is discerning, let him know them; for the ways of the LORD are right, and the upright walk in them, but transgressors stumble in them.” Paul is commanding the children of believers to do what is right, and thus walk in the ways of the Lord. And in so doing he assumes that they can. And this is because they are in the Lord. They are covenantally in Christ and are therefore to walk, to live righteously in Christ.
In verses 2 and 3 Paul says, “‘Honor your father and mother’ (this is the first commandment with a promise), ‘that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.’” Here he quotes the 5th Commandment, pointing out that this is the first commandment with a promise, that is a covenant promise. Covenants work in terms of blessings and curses. And though all the world is under God’s Moral Law, and is thus expected to obey it, and will generally prosper if they do (though the Law shows us our sin and need for Christ, it is a great blessing for all, and allows for human flourishing)… though that’s all true, only God’s people are able to embrace and uphold the Law within the Covenant of Grace. And thus only God’s people have the potential to receive genuine Covenant blessings; and that’s what’s ultimately being promised here. Not mere human flourishing, but gospel flourishing in the Covenant of Grace.
In the Old Covenant the land promised to Abraham and to Israel was a type that pointed to something much bigger and much better. Hebrews 11:8-10 tells us that, “By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.” And by that it doesn’t mean the earthly Jerusalem, but again, bigger and better. As Romans 4:13 says, the promise to Abraham and his offspring is that he would be heir of the world. Or as Matthew 5:5 says, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” And not merely the earth as it is, but a redeemed earth, even the new heavens and new earth. And that comes through covenantal faithfulness, or obedient faith, as Hebrews says. And that’s the call on children here, though it applies to us all.
Indeed, as the Heidelberg Catechism lays out in question and answer 104, “What is God’s will for you in the fifth commandment? That I honor, love, and be loyal to my father and mother and all those in authority over me; that I submit myself with proper obedience to all their good teaching and discipline; and also that I be patient with their failings—for through them God chooses to rule us.” And since every single one of us are under some sort of authority, even if we are no longer under the authority of our parents this commandment still applies to all of us. In line with God’s Word we all must submit to the authority over us in the church, in the home, and in the world. Which is exactly Paul’s point in all of this. And its not just for our general well being, but for covenant blessings.
Abraham and Israel weren’t promised simple general well being. That’s part of it. If we do things God’s way things will generally go well. Again, that’s true even for those who don’t know the Lord. But here we’re talking about covenant households, we’re talking about children in the Lord, which I would argue are all the children of believers who aren’t guilty of apostasy. And you know your children aren’t guilty of apostasy, not because they’ve had some sort of conversion experience that they have kept in line with, but because they are in submission to your leadership. As they obey you they are obeying the Lord. As children obey and honor their parents they are obeying and honoring the Lord. No doubt, we are justified by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. But what is faith but simple trust and obedience? And as a child being raised in a Christian home trusts and obeys their parents they are trusting and obeying the Lord. And that simple childlike faith will lead them to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God, if their parents are raising them in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. And that’s where Paul goes next.
In verse 4 Paul says, “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” Paul seems to focus on the father here, not because the mother is not involved… Indeed, as we all know, mothers play a crucial role in raising children. Paul focuses on the father primarily because the father is the head of the household. His wife is his helpmate, but he is to lead in faithfulness. And faithfulness here first means not provoking your children to anger. The idea is that fathers are not to irritate their children with unreasonable severity. Just as they should at all times, parents should exhibit the fruit of the Spirit in their parenting, especially fathers. As Joe Rigney talks about in his book, Leadership and Emotional Sabotage, we shouldn’t be thermometers who are controlled by the existing temperature in the room, but we should be thermostats that control the temperature in the room. Men, you must set the tone in your home. And that tone, your leadership, should not provoke to anger, but to worship. Our leadership should lead towards Jesus.
This is Paul’s point when he says that we should bring our children up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. The word discipline in the Greek is the word paideia, which can also be translated nurture or culture. So Paul is commanding Christian parents to raise their children in the culture and instruction or education of the Lord Jesus Christ. In other words, our children are to be raised in and with an all encompassing Christian education and lifestyle. And here again we see continuity from the Old Testament to the New, as Ephesians 6:4 is basically saying what Deuteronomy 6:4-9 says when we’re told to, “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”
All of Christ for all of life. All of God’s Word for all of life in all the world. That’s the call. Saturate your whole life with God’s Word. That’s what a Christian education is. And that’s what a Christian culture is. And that is what is to mark out the Christian household and Christian parenting. We are not merely to teach our kids some Christians things, but to give them a thorough Christian education, and to bring them up in the very culture of Christ. We are to teach them the ins and outs of all of God’s Word for all of life. And we aren’t just to teach them to know it, but to observe it… that is, to live in light of it and in obedience to Christ in every are of life for the glory of Christ.
All of Christ for all of life… that’s the culture of Christ that we are to teach and instill in our children. This primarily falls on the father, but all parents are called to this. And this is indeed the calling of the parents, not a children’s worker, not a youth leader, not a teacher, and not a pastor. Though all of these can help. But they are only a help. The main responsibility of educating and discipling children falls on the parents, though it does all tie back and flow from the church.
Christians are meant to experience and receive the culture of Christ in and through worship with Christ’s church. We draw near to God with God’s people, and in a sense have heaven opened up to us each Lord’s Day, and each Lord’s Day we pray that God’s will would be done, and that His Kingdom would come—His Christian culture would come, on earth as it is in heaven. And then we work to cultivate that culture in our homes and advance it out to the world. But that starts with our children. And that’s how it’s always been.
In Genesis God called Adam and his household to the original Cultural Mandate, meaning to be and do what humans created in God’s image were meant to be and do. They were to trust and obey, to tend and keep what is true, good, and beautiful, to be fruitful and multiply, and subdue the earth and have dominion over it. Essentially, through faith, family, and industry, they were to develop and cultivate culture that glorifies God and advance it throughout the earth. And though sin messed that up, now in Christ we can do this. And this is what we are called to do. We are to receive, cultivate, and develop culture that glorifies God through the ordinary means of grace, that is the reading, praying, preaching, teaching, singing, tasting, and seeing of God’s Word, in fellowship with the Saints, and by living every aspect of our lives intentionally for the glory of Christ, and spreading it to the ends of the earth, slowly but surely bringing every domain of human existence under joyful submission to the Lordship of Christ. We do that with God’s people in God’s church, and then we do the same in our homes with our children, seeking to bring all of life captive to Christ.
We can’t have a proper Christian culture without the church and the right worship of God. But as we come and participate in and benefit from the Lord’s Service, engaging in the liturgy each week, we are equipped and empowered to go and do likewise in our lives throughout the week, especially in our homes with our families. We provide our children with robust Christian educations, showing them how every subject is tied to and honors Christ because all truth is God’s Truth, and all of history is His story. As it has been said by many others, “There is no neutrality. It is Christ or chaos. But we are to seize the chaos and build for Christ. And that starts with robustly faithful Christian churches and homes. It starts with us. The Christian household is a covenant household. And if God blesses, Christian marriages should be fruitful and multiply, bringing up Christian children who walk in covenant faithfulness all their days. Again, God deals covenantally with households, and Christians therefore are to raise their children in covenant faithfulness to the Lord, in the paideia of the Lord.
This idea of covenant households is tied to the rest of our passage as well, but for time’s sake I’m only going to be able to give a brief overview. In verses 5-9 Paul says, “5 Bondservants, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ, 6 not by the way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, 7 rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to man, 8 knowing that whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether he is a bondservant or is free. 9 Masters, do the same to them, and stop your threatening, knowing that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and that there is no partiality with him.”
From Abraham’s time onward we see this idea of bondservant or slave in the Bible. Now, though the word bondservant is the word slave in Greek, we shouldn’t think about chattel slavery, or the British and American versions of slavery that we are used to hearing about. Though it was abused at times, slavery in the Bible was not based on ethnicity or skin color, but was voluntary or debt-induced, time-limited, and gave rights and protections to the slaves. The slaves were considered members of their master’s household, not like possessions, but like family members. Typically servants were in the position they were in because of some sort of hardship, and their masters were providing a way of help for them. That may be hard for us to imagine because most of us are so used to the horrors of slavery that happened in this country, but that isn’t what the Bible promotes. In fact, the Bible isn’t actually promoting or condoning slavery here, but providing a way for the gospel to destroy it.
As slaves embrace all of Christ for all of life, embracing and advancing a culture of Christ in covenant faithfulness to Christ, they will do what Paul calls them to here. They will be able to obey their earthly masters with fear and trembling, that is, with honor, respect, and reverence. And because of Christ they will do so with a sincere heart, that is, with honesty and generosity from the core of their being, because they are serving their masters as though they are serving Christ, who loved them and gave Himself up for them. In other words, they are to serve as the best slaves they can, not because that’s what their masters deserve, or because slavery is ok, but because they are slaves to Christ, who are to do His will from the heart, knowing that covenant faithfulness leads to covenant blessings.
And this is the reality for all of us in whatever position we are in. Regardless of our position or vocation, Christ is our Master. We are all slaves of Christ, and He shows no favoritism. His standard is the same for all of us. We must walk in obedience to His Law and gospel. We must walk in obedience to the His covenant. We must live all of life in service to Him. We must bring every area of life into joyful submission to the Lordship of Christ. But when a slave serves this way, and when a master serves this way, they realize they are brothers on equal ground at the foot of the cross. Slavery becomes subverted and abolished through submission. With enough time and sanctification, gospel-transformation leads to the abolishment of slavery.
While it may be right and good to bring someone into your household to help them out, it isn’t right and good to lord it over them. But it also isn’t right and good for people to take advantage of others. We must all work hard for whomever we work for, knowing that we ultimately work for Jesus in all things. And biblically servants were to be seen as members of the household, which meant the leader of the household cared for them and took responsibility for them. In our modern legal language, it was as if they were taken on as a dependent in the home, or adopted into the family; which meant they too were a part of the Christian covenant household, and were thus to live up to that reality. And this is what Paul is calling for here—for the whole Christian household to embrace and live up to their covenant responsibility in Christ.
Conclusion
What God is calling us to here is to embrace our calling in Christ in every area of life. Particularly these verses focus on the home, but the implications go beyond that. So let me close with some practical applications for our every day lives.
First, we must embrace and live out proper obedience to authority. Children, you must honor and obey your parents. You must respect them and obey them because this is obedience to God. And parents, you must obey God and lead your children in covenant faithfulness. If you are a Christian your household is in covenant with God—it is a covenant household, therefore you are to live and lead in covenant faithfulness.
This covenant reality applies to everyone in a Christian home. The covenant is a greater reality than a bloodline. Adopted children and even servants were brought in to this, and were therefore to live up to this reality. So for those of you who have adopted children, and you children who have been adopted, all of this still applies. And if any of you are wealthy enough to have live-in servants, or sharecroppers or something like that, this all applies as well. Every dependent and member of a household is a part of the covenant household, and is therefore to walk in covenant faithfulness. But perhaps the more relevant way for us to apply God’s Word to servants here is to think in terms of employees and employers.
Just as servants should obey their masters, so employees should obey their employers. This means serving with sincerity and respect, regardless of what you do. Every lawful endeavor and vocation should be embraced and employed as service to Christ first and foremost. We should all have a Christian work ethic, doing everything as to the Lord, and as a part of our Christian witness. But even if you are the employer, you must realize that you too have a boss, and His name is Jesus. So live like it, lead like it, and work like it. And as the larger context of this passage and the 5th Commandment teaches us, we must all be in submission to the authority over us, especially that of the church. We must be in submission to Christ, which means being in submission to the body of Christ—our brothers and sisters in Christ, and to the leadership Christ has ordained in and over His church. There is no such thing as a lone ranger Christian. The Christian life is a community project, which means we must be joined to and therefore in submission to a local church.
The church is central to our lives because it sets the pattern for our lives. We receive and experience the culture of Christ in the church, and then we take it and cultivate it in our homes. Which means husbands are to lead and love like Christ, and wives are to submit and respect like the church. And together as parents they are to bring their children up in the culture of Christ, which means an all of life encompassing Christian education, and thus a life marked by covenantal faithfulness. Parents, don’t provoke your children to anger, but to faithfulness. Don’t be controlled by them and their attitude, but by Christ and God’s Word. Be a thermostat, not a thermometer. Provide a robust Christian education for your children through home school or a Christian school. And for those of you who don’t have children, or who are now empty-nesters, help the rest of us do this. Teach, disciple, serve, pray, and give to help us start Christian schools and homeschool co-ops, and to just point us in the right direction with our children.
Ultimately the takeaway for all of us here is all of Christ for all of life. We are to be about the work of cultivating and advancing culture. Through faith, family, and industry, we are to develop and cultivate culture that glorifies God and advance it throughout the earth. And we do this ultimately by seeking to apply all of God’s Word to all of life in all the world. So may we not forget how firm a foundation we have in God’s Word. From Genesis to Revelation we are given all of Christ for all of life. God has graciously laid out and established His Covenant of Grace in His Word with His people, calling us to say and live out, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” So may we give ourselves to doing just that until the knowledge of the glory of the Lord covers the earth as the waters cover the sea. Amen.