To help wives understand their responsibility to their husbands, Paul uses the church as the model, when he writes in Ephesians 5:24:

Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.

Wives are to be subject to their own husbands in every thing as the church is subject unto Christ. Wives are to look to the church for an example of subjection.  They are to be subject unto their husbands in everything, because the church is subject to Christ in everything.  Is this the position of the church today, that the church is subject to Christ in everything?

First, the church is subject to Christ.  The relationship of the church to Christ is subjection. What would a wife learn from looking at a church?  Would it be subjection?

The name “Christ” is the title of the Messiah.  He is the descendant of David, who will rule over the world.  He is that King.  In the present, He rules through the church in the midst of His enemies (Psalm 110).  John presents salvation as believing that Jesus is the Christ.  If Jesus is the Christ, believers subject themselves to Him.  That is believing in Him.

Ephesians 5:24 assumes the church subjects to Christ, so that a wife can have the church as an example.  Regenerate church membership assumes that the church subjects itself to Christ.  Yet, today churches today do not subject themselves to Christ.  Is this because the membership is unconverted?

If a woman is to look to the church for an example of subjection, how can she do that when churches aren’t subject?  Perhaps you have a woman, who is subject to her husband.  Should the church not look to the woman as an example of subjection unto Christ?  This is not the scriptural teaching though.  God says the woman looks to the church.  This assumes lordship.  No one in a church is someone who hasn’t received Jesus as Lord.

Second, as an example to the woman, the church is subject to Christ in everything.  If the church is subject to Christ in everything, it must know everything.  If it is subject to Christ in everything, then it is not subject only in the so-called essentials.  If the church can pick what is most important and subject in that only, then the woman can do that too.  She can interpret what is essential from her husband and only subject in that.

Third, if the world has a role reversal, the church must stand responsible for that as well.  The woman has the church to look to as her example. Church to woman in the teaching is greater to lesser.  The church has the greater responsibility, because it is the example, not the woman to the church. Churches can’t expect their own women to be subjecting themselves to their husbands, when the church itself doesn’t expect full subjection to Christ.