Eph 6:1–4 — The First Commandment with a Promise

In the last two weeks we have examined Paul’s directions to wives and to husbands in 5:22-33. We now come in our text this morning to his exhortation to children and to parents. Remember that this whole section, from 5:22 through 6:9 deals with the duties and responsibilities of those who are subject to various God-ordained authorities, whether wives, children, or slaves. This whole section was introduced back in 5:21, “submitting to one another in the fear of Christ.” This participial phrase was subordinate to the command in v. 18 to be filled with the Spirit. Therefore, as we submit to one another in terms of these various relationships, as those relationships are defined within the context of union with Christ, we are expressing the Spirit’s filling in our lives.

But submission is never easy. Therefore, Paul shows us how to submit. We are to regard the human authority figures that God has placed over us, whether it be a husband or a parent or a slave master, as if that person were Christ himself. We must obey that person, not because of their intrinsic worth, but by faith yielding submission and obedience as unto Christ himself.

Paul is certainly no egalitarian. He has a hierarchical view of human social relationships. But the amazing thing is that in spite of his strong emphasis on authority and submission, his teaching offers no excuse for domineering tyrants who would employ their authority to oppress the weak. Paul takes great pains to forestall such a misunderstanding of authority. And so he balances his exhortations by giving some directions to those who have been placed by God positions of authority. Just as the subordinate party must submit as unto Christ, so the one exercising authority must do so in the meekness and gentleness of Christ himself. Christ’s authority as head of the church is not something that he exercises for his own advantage. In the same way, husbands are to love their wives, nourish and cherish them, as Christ does the church. Fathers must not provoke their children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Masters must give up threatening, and treat their slaves fairly and justly.

By issuing these warnings, Paul recognizes that, after the fall, all human beings are prone to abuse their authority. Political liberalism, mesmerized by the utopian ideal of absolute equality, rejects all authority as inherently abusive. The world does not see that the problem is not authority itself, but the wrong uses of authority on the part of sinful men and women. In the garden, before the entrance of sin into the world, God had ordained the man to be the head of the woman, and both the man and the woman to have parental authority over their children. After the fall, these God-ordained authority structures have been marred and distorted by sin. Marital conflict enters into the marriage relationship, as the husband rules his wife harshly, and the wife desires to dominate her husband. Parents abuse their children, rather than caring for them; and children rebel against their parents.

Through the processes of redemption, however, these difficulties and abuses begin to be rectified. Paul addresses each of the various parties, whether those in authority or those in submission, as believers, as redeemed in Christ. To be sure, his exhortations reflect a realistic awareness of the potential, indeed the reality, of continuing sin even for Christian marriages and Christian parents, and so on. Yet, Paul is convinced that in Christ, these relationships have fundamentally changed. The Christian wife that struggles to submit to her husband, and the Christian husband who is failing to love his wife as Christ loved the church, have a tremendous advantage over those husbands and wives who are outside of Christ, in spite of their continued struggles with sin. For although they may seem to have many of the same problems as non-Christians, yet they have a totally new foundation for their marriage in Christ. By faith, the wife may submit to her husband as unto Christ. By faith, the husband may sacrificially love his wife, as Christ does his church. These relationships have been utterly transformed, objectively, in Christ. They have been caught up in the reality of the eschatological new creation. Old things have passed away, behold, all things have become new. The powers of the age to come, have intruded into their lives, by faith in Jesus Christ. And so by the powerful agency of Christ’s resurrection life, a healing process has been set in motion in our human relationships - a healing process that operates by faith, as we reckon the reality of our new creation status in Christ. By faith, we refuse to look upon ourselves or our relationships, as outside of Christ. By faith we regard our relationships as grounded in Christ, as established on a new foundation, as caught up in the great forward movement of redemptive history.

And so this morning we turn to Paul’s exhortation in 6:1-4 to children and to parents. We see that Paul applies the same Christ-centered principles when he says, “children, obey your parents in the Lord.” Paul is saying, “Children, you need to believe that you are in union with Christ, and that your union with Christ affects the way you respond to the authority of your parents.”

Having appealed to union with Christ, Paul then adds, “for this is right,” and then in verses 2-3 he quotes the fifth commandment, “honor your father and your mother, that it may be well with you and that you may live long in the land.” The quotation of the fifth commandment, along with the promise of long life, is given to explain why it is “right” to obey your parents in the Lord.

Now this creates an apparent conflict. In verse 1, he appeals to union with Christ. Then, in verses 2-3 he appeals to the Law, and specifically to the promise of long life in the land. It seems as if Paul gives to radically different, almost conflicting, reasons why children should obey their parents. On the one hand, they should obey because they are in Christ, because in Christ they already possess eternal life on the sole basis of God’s grace. On the other hand, though, they should obey, not only because the Law commands obedience, but because the Law offers long life on the basis of this obedience.

In order to resolve this apparent conflict, we must first understand how the fifth commandment functioned in its original context in the old covenant.

A common misunderstanding is that the first four commandments set forth our duty toward God, while the last six set forth our duty toward our neighbor. The fifth commandment is thus grouped with the commandments dealing with our duty toward our neighbor.

However, the Jewish rabbis argued that the fifth commandment really belongs with the first four commandments which deal with our duty toward God. They were on solid ground in taking this position, for two reasons.

The first reason is an important cross reference in Leviticus 19:3-4. Notice that the fifth commandment is followed by the fourth commandment and then by the second commandment. It seems fairly clear that according to Lev. 19, the fifth commandment belongs with the other commandments that deal with our duty toward God.

Second, there is the language of the fifth commandment itself. Notice that God did not command the Israelites, “obey your father and your mother.” That’s what we might have expected. Instead, God said, “honor your father and your mother.” God deliberately used a word that comes from the Hebrew word for glory. This is the same word that is used throughout the Bible when man is commanded to ascribe glory and honor to God. Therefore, the unexpected use of the word “honor” in the fifth commandment shows us that honoring our parents is the way we learn to honor God.

The fifth commandment was part of God’s covenantal pedagogy, his grand scheme for educating his people in the ways of his covenant. The bond between parents and children in the human family was a microcosm, a picture of the relationship between God and his people. The primary objective of the fifth commandment was to teach Israel how to honor and obey God, by beginning with the easier lesson of honoring and obeying one’s parents. If you can’t learn the simpler and easier lesson, when your parents are right there to punish you when you disobey or disrespect them, how will you ever learn the harder lesson of obedience to the unseen God who is in heaven?

This is why the fifth commandment is the first commandment with a promise annexed to it. “Honor your father and your mother, that it may be well with you and that you may live long in the land which the Lord your God is giving you.” The promise is annexed to that particular commandment, because the Israelite who obeys the commands of his parents is going to grow up to be an Israelite who obeys all of the commandments of God. And so by annexing the promise of long life to this one commandment, God was in effect annexing the promise to the faithful observance of the whole Law. If Israel is obedient, it will go well with Israel and Israel will live long in the land, will enjoy abundant rain, plenteous harvests, fertile flocks and herds - all the divine blessings conditioned upon faithful observance of the Law. On the other hand, if Israel becomes a wayward and rebellious sons, and despises God’s authority and goes and worships other gods, he will be cut off from the land and be sent into exile to suffer under God’s curse.

So this is how the fifth commandment functioned in its original context as part of the Mosaic Law. It was a covenant of works. Obedience was the basis of divine favor and blessing. Disobedience was the basis of divine judgment and curse. The fifth commandment stands out among the ten commandments because the relationship between Israelite parents and their children was a microcosm of the covenant relationship between God and his people, a covenant that was founded on the principle of works.

Now that we have a firm grasp of the fifth commandment as it originally functioned in Israel, we must consider the way in which Paul reinterprets the fifth commandment in light of union with Christ, and applies it to Christian children in the new covenant.

It might seem, at first glance, that he merely quotes the commandment, without any Christological reinterpretation. But notice that Paul does not appeal to the Law in and of itself, but to the Law as it has been fulfilled in Christ. “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.” The parent-child relationship is now grounded in union with Christ.

Many Reformed and evangelical commentators ignore this all-important phrase, “in the Lord,” and consequently they totally misinterpret Paul’s appeal to the promise of long life in the land (see v. 3). They interpret this promise literally as a general promise that obedient children are hereby promised an extended and prosperous life. For example, Shorter Catechism # 66 interprets “the reason annexed to the fifth commandment” as “a promise of long life and prosperity (as far as it shall serve for God’s glory and their own good) to all such as keep this commandment.”

Charles Hodge is typical of many commentators when he argues that by removing the concluding clause of the fifth commandment (“that your days may be prolonged in the land which the LORD your God gives you”), Paul universalizes the promise to all obedient children, not just those who happen to live in Tel Aviv. Hodge goes on to deal with the objection to this interpretation: “If it be asked whether obedient children are in fact thus distinguished by long life and prosperity? the answer is, that this, like all other such promises, is a revelation of a general purpose of God, and makes known what will be the usual course of his providence.”

Hodge appeals to Proverbs 10:4, which says, “The hand of the diligent makes rich.” Diligence, as a general rule, does secure riches, although there may be exceptions. By analogy, Hodge argues, obedient children, as a general rule, are prosperous and happy, although some obedient children may have a short life.

Whatever truth there may be in the observation that as a general rule obedient children live happier and more fulfilled lives, this cannot be what Paul has in mind, because it undercuts the specifically Christological orientation of the exhortation to Christian children (“children, obey your parents in the Lord”). If the promise is a generic statement like those found in the book of Proverbs, that obedient children tend to live longer and happier lives, then it holds for non-Christian children too in accordance with common grace. But this would then contradict Paul’s “in the Lord” qualification in verse 1.

By commanding children to obey in the Lord, Paul is describing the kind of behavior that befits those whose existence is grounded in Christ. He is not inculcating abstract moral principles that apply to all children, whether they are children of believers or unbelievers. Each of the three relationships in the immediate context is marked by language that establishes the duties contemplated on the ground of union with Christ: “wives be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord” (5:22); “children, obey your parents in the Lord” (6:1); “slaves, be obedient to your masters … as to Christ … as slaves of Christ … as to the Lord” (6:5-7). Thus, it would be utterly inappropriate to find Paul suddenly reverting to a common grace ethic in his discussion of the parent-child relationship.

So, then, what are we to make of Paul’s appeal to the promise of long life in the land? If it is not to be taken literally as Charles Hodge and the Shorter Catechism take it, what are we to do with this? If we have been paying attention to what Paul has been saying in this letter to the Ephesians, we will have already been alerted to the fact that for Paul the literal land of Canaan that God gave to Israel was a type and a shadow that pointed beyond itself to the ultimate spiritual blessings that the elect possess in Christ.

1:3 - Paul’s doxology of praise for “every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places” echoes Gen. 12:1-3. This is the passage where God first promises Abraham the inheritance in the land of Canaan - except Paul interprets the Abrahamic blessing as a type that is now fulfilled in Christ, the antitype. This is why Paul says that we have been blessed with “every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.”

1:11, 14, 18 - In Christ we have “obtained an inheritance.”

2:12 and 3:6 - Gentile God-fearers in the old covenant were “strangers and aliens,” dwellers in the land, but non-inheritors. Now in Christ, we are “fellow heirs” of the promise in Christ.

5:5 - The inheritance is defined here as having a share in “the kingdom of Christ and God.”

Hodge would have us believe that the same apostle who has consistently interpreted the land spiritually in terms of the believer’s inheritance in Christ throughout Ephesians 1-5, suddenly reverts to a literal interpretation of the land in Ephesians 6. Paul’s direct quotation of the Law, with its language of living long in the land, must not throw us off. He uses this old covenant language, not in its literal earthly meaning, but in terms of its ultimate significance. He properly sees in the promise of long life in the land a reference to the ultimate spiritual blessings guaranteed to the elect in the new covenant.

Now what is interesting is that Paul applies this promise not in a general way to all believers, although that would certainly have been legitimate, but specifically to the children of Christian parents. In effect Paul is saying that children who obey their parents in the Lord will be given eternal life in heaven.

Now this raises a serious problem. Even if we translate the typological language of long life in the land as a reference to eternal life in heaven, we are still confronted with the fact that Paul seems to be placing Christian children under the works-principle of the old covenant. He seems to be teaching that by keeping the fifth commandment, that is, by performing the works of the Law, Christian children will inherit eternal life. How can Paul tell Christian children that if they obey their parents they will go to heaven, without contradicting his own teaching that salvation is not by works but by grace?

To answer this question, notice how Paul transforms the fifth commandment from a work of the Law into an act of faith. He does this in his exhortation to fathers in verse 4: “Fathers, bring your children up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” The phrase “of the Lord” ought not to be interpreted as “the instruction about the Lord.” Instead, it is the instruction that the Lord Jesus himself is giving. “The Lord is seen as the ultimate instructor who works through the father … the father mediates the Lord’s instruction” (Best). Children who submit in faith to parental instruction, receiving it as the covenant nurture and instruction of Christ himself, are saving their souls and will live eternally in heaven. The obedience that Paul has in mind is not obedience to every command a parent might issue - “Johnny, go clean up your room!” - but obedience in the sense of an overall attitude of responsiveness to the covenant nurture and instruction of the parents. Such an attitude of trust and faith in the parents, is the seed out of which saving faith in Christ himself will grow. Just as Israelite children obeyed the commands of their parents, and by this were led step by step to the higher obedience to God and his commandments, so children in the new covenant are led step by step from faith in their parents to the higher faith of trust in Christ himself.

Children, this text is a great encouragement to you. God has placed you under the authority of your Christian father or mother for your own good and for your salvation. Submit to their authority gladly. You may not understand everything that they do. Sometimes you wonder if they are being fair. Sometimes your mom and dad do provoke you to anger, the very thing Paul warns them about in verse 4. And so it is not easy to obey willingly and gladly. But remember, when you honor and respect their authority, you are doing so in faith that Christ himself is using your parents, sinful though they are, as the instrument of his own saving grace in your life. And so when you obey your mother and father with this trusting attitude, entrusting yourself to their care and authority as unto Christ himself, remember the promise: if you honor your father and your mother, it will go well with you and you will live forever in the land called heaven.

Parents, this text is a great encouragement to you. The salvation of your children is something that you long for. You desire that they would be fellow heirs with you of the grace of God in Christ. According to the apostle Paul, that desire of your heart is not a mere wish. It is a desire that Christ himself promises to fulfill, and he is using you as the instrument by which he will fulfill it. As you faithfully instruct your children in the truths of the Gospel, as you discipline them and teach them to be obedient children, it is Christ himself who is at work in your instruction and in your discipline. He is present and active to make your feeble parenting skills effective unto the salvation of their souls. By faith, lay hold of this amazing truth revealed in the text.