Complementary Sex
by Joe Leavell
Photo by Anna Shvets from Pexels
Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. (Ephesians 5:22)
Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. (Ephesians 5:25)
While most believers would understand that every command that God has given has the effect of blessing us with His good will and design, the concepts of these two verses have been particularly difficult for many. A significant number of couples have been heavily influenced by either the worldly culture of today, or by unbiblical traditions of years gone by, rather than viewing God’s design through the lens of the Gospel. In whatever case, a misalignment of what God intended in the functions of a husband and a wife can be the cause of tremendous struggle and much heartache for couples.
A Physical Representation
To help us understand His intention, God has given us a beautiful physical indicator within marriage of what a complementary relationship was designed to look like and how it is to function.
Sex.
Why sex?
Nowhere is a married couple’s understanding of their complementary union more profoundly demonstrated than in the marriage bed. In no other area of life is there a more profound and clear manifestation of the spirit of a wife’s trusting submission and the character of her husband’s loving leadership than through their most intimate of sexual bonds.
Intended for Blessing
Biologically, God designed our bodies to sexually function through complementary roles that reflect our marital roles. Without going into unnecessary detail, sexual union itself is only achieved through a wife’s intentional submission of her body to her husband’s loving care. When she does so, she physically opens herself up to the most vulnerable of positions where she is forced to trust that her husband will love her and care for her tenderly.
In turn, the loving husband sees her beauty and her satisfaction as his to cultivate and to nurture. While he could quickly find release, he dies to his own physical gratification so that he can delight in seeking her pleasure. His wife is no silent or apathetic partner in her physical submission, but they communicate and work together in their dance. She receives his loving leadership by reflecting his care back to him in a way he would never have experienced if he had only looked out for his own interests. These two complementary lovers learn from each other and experience what the Bible describes as “knowing” as the two become “one flesh.”
What a beautiful physical picture that God has given to us of how all of life was designed to function in marriage! What this looks like for each couple can be widely varied in practice. One common thread however is that our marital design is best reflected when a wife opens herself to his servant leadership where the husband can love and bless her, and she then can respond to him in kind.
From Complement to Insult
Biblically, God intended sex, not as a biological need where we seek something from the other person, but as a blessing and a gift that we give in love to our spouse as an act of worship to God, and as a reflection of the sacrifice of Christ in the Gospel.
“Sex always reflects who or what we are worshipping, whether God or something less”
Even though sex was given as a good gift, God’s design breaks down when we desire or lust to use our spouse for our own sexual purposes. When we see sex as something owed to us and not as a means of blessing, we have missed God’s design. This is not to say that physically desiring your spouse is sinful because your sexual drives are gifts from a good God. Yet the moment we begin to view our spouse as someone whose sexuality exists for our own selfish end, we have already begun to use them as an object for our own purposes rather than God’s.
Think for a moment of the many wives who have struggled with the command to submit to their husband but have misunderstood it to mean that they must accept being mistreated by their husbands as a result. Wives have found themselves submitting to a man who is simply using them sexually for their own self-gratifying ends. She continues to give up her body as much as she is able because she mistakenly has been led to believe that meeting his sexual demands is what God designed as complementary submission. She believes that the commands for conjugal rights for her husband means that she is to be available on demand to gratify his lusts whenever he chooses, or as much as she can stomach. Yet how much is enough to satisfy a lustful heart? About the same amount as the number of dollars it takes to satisfy a greedy heart. Lust is never satisfied.
To be perfectly clear, biblical submission never equals subjugation or capitulation to a husband’s lust. When a husband approaches his wife with the heart to use her for his own sexual outlet then he is sinning against her. He is not thinking of her conjugal rights - only his. She has the God-given responsibility to not enable his sin. God never designed marriage to be an outlet for lust.
It’s not Just Men
While this is an area that men particularly struggle in, they aren’t the only ones who can twist complementary sex into self-worship. Think of the husband who pours his life toward a wife who uses sex for her own purposes. There are many wives who use their sexuality as a tool to get what she wants. She sees that if she holds the power in the bedroom that she can manipulate him any time she pleases. She will use his sexual desires to train her husband to do her will. He will then see giving her conjugal rights as something to earn through behavior rather through God’s design for grace and love. In this way, she will find herself in a power struggle for dominance over her husband. Both spouses will be made to feel simply as if the struggle for leadership is a means to an end.
“Never does a selfish heart limit itself to the bedroom. A couple’s sex life merely reflects the rest of the relationship.”
How does this work? The sexually self-gratifying husband will often view his God-given helper as merely a tool to achieve his own life goal. She becomes almost an accessory to use for his purposes. The self-satisfying wife in turn will often view her God-given leader as an obstacle to overcome or as a tool to manipulate and control.
In any scenario, God’s design for complementary sexuality is destroyed whenever a heart is bent towards self rather than Christ. This means that to be sexually self-seeking is always a sin against the God who created marriage for His glory, not ours. The spiritual progression of sexual sin is to then move from misusing a spouse who cannot satisfy our lust for worship to seek another sinful source who will – pornography, adultery, or some form of sexual outlet that distorts God’s design. A selfish heart will merely use what God designed through creative artistry as a gift for the marriage bed and will turn it towards inventive sexual deviancy.
The Gospel Corrects the Picture
Christ followed God’s design perfectly where we fail. As a bridegroom, He lovingly laid aside His own pleasure to take on the form of a servant. He sacrificed Himself on the cross to save us and make us His own. When we trust Christ as our Savior, we submit to Jesus’ work on our behalf, vulnerably opening ourselves up to His relational work in our life. We then, in turn, reflect that love to Him in sanctification, so that one day He will present to Himself a bride pure and holy. Ultimately, our marriage to Jesus will be an eternal consummation of His love and care for us that transcends any earthly pleasure we can experience here. Sex was merely intended to give us a picture of that coming reality.
This is the reason the command for a wife’s submission is “as unto the Lord.” Her submission is intended to be a worshipful reflection of how she responds to Christ’s love. This is why the command to the husband directly calls him to reflect Jesus in how he loves his wife. His desire to lay down his life for her reveals his understanding of Christ’s love for him.
The beauty is that when the power of the Gospel enters a married couple’s bedroom, not only will their view of their roles in marriage be helped, but the sexual frustrations that they may have experienced as a result will be impacted as well. In this way, a husband and wife’s lovemaking, and indeed their entire marriage, becomes a reflection of the Gospel and an act of worship and gratitude to the Giver of good and perfect gifts.
When our hearts honor Christ and our spouse, Christians should generally grow to give their spouse the most meaningful satisfaction physically because theirs is not only a physical and emotional experience but also deeply spiritual.
Just the Beginning
There is a lot here to discuss and one article can only scratch the surface. If you and your spouse are experiencing sexual tensions in your relationship it is a good indication that it is only one manifestation of a deeper issue between you. Please reach out for help today!
For Further Study:
Sex and the Supremacy of Christ - by John Piper
Sex in a Broken World - by Paul Tripp
