Leo Ranzolin, Jr.
Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord. Ephesians 5:22.
The abuse of women has a long history and many faces. Some statistics indicate that one in four women experience physical, sexual, emotional or psychological abuse in their relationships. Abuse can come in very subtle ways, for example, in the idea that women need to follow blindly their husbands. “My husband said it very eloquently one day,” one woman stated. “He said ‘I am the master and you are the servant. And when you understand that, we will get along fine.”1 And some men feel that Ephesians 5:22 provides the biblical sanction for such an attitude.
The problems with Ephesians 5:22 are the nature of the wife’s “submission” to her husband and that of the husband’s “headship” of his wife. What did Paul mean when he counseled wives to be subject to their husbands?
The overall theme of Ephesians – Ephesians 5:22 is part of a set of rules for Christian households (5:21–6:9) that is concerned with three sets of relationships: wives and husbands, children and parents, and slaves and masters. This set of household duties is itself part of a larger section (chapters 4-6) that consists of Paul’s pastoral exhortations to the Ephesians, which are themselves closely tied to the theological explanations of the first half of the epistle (chapters 1-3).
In the early parts of the letter, Paul asserts that humanity is captive to “the ruler of the authority of the air” (YLT) and so is alienated from God (2:1-3; cf. 6:10-20), as well as from one another (2:11-12). Christ’s triumph over the cosmic forces of darkness upon the cross (1:7; 2:13, 15-16) has brought this estrangement to an end, bringing about a harmony between God and human beings and establishing unity among believers (2:13-18).
As a result of Christ’s victory, Paul in Ephesians 4-6 entreats the community of believers to realize fully the “reconciled life.” Members of the “body of Christ” (1:22, 23; 2:16; 4:4, 12, 16; 5:23, 30) ought to yield completely to the mighty transforming work of the Spirit (2:22; 3:16; 4:23, 24, 30; 5:18) so that they might be a community “growing up in every way into him who is the head, Christ … in love” (4:15, 16). The Spirit works to effect what Christ’s reconciling work provided for – the creation of “a new humanity” comprised of both Jews and Gentiles (2:13-18); this is the body of Christ, the household of God (2:19), and a holy temple (2:21). This universal church is the chief focus of Ephesians, specifically because it reveals to humanity and to “the principalities and powers in the heavenly realms” (3:10) the fullness of God’s purposes in history to “re-unify” all of reality in Christ (1:10). The letter is thus characterized by the theme of unity, wherein members of the church are continually called upon “to make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (4:3) so that the church might make manifest, in part, the cosmic unity existing in Christ (1:10).
The husband and wife relationship – The instructions to husbands and wives (5:21-33) begin with a call for all believers to “submit to one another in the fear of Christ” (v. 21). Paul introduces the rules for Christian households with this principle of mutual submission, which he proceeds to explain. The mutual submission of believers is to be motivated by the “fear of Christ”; this phrase denotes a sense of reverential awe for one who is both Lord and Judge.
The husband and wife relationship is characterized by a distinct and important feature: Christ’s relationship to the church functions as the pattern for Paul’s treatment of the husband and wife relationship; the apostle repeatedly shifts between these two relationships before bringing them together in verses 31 and 32.
“Marriage, a union for life, is a symbol of the union between Christ and His church. The spirit that Christ manifests toward the church is the spirit that husband and wife are to manifest toward each other. Neither husband nor wife is to make a plea for rulership. The Lord has laid down the principle that is to guide in this matter. The husband is to cherish his wife as Christ cherishes the church. And the wife is to respect and love her husband. Both are to cultivate the spirit of kindness, being determined never to grieve or injure the other” (7T 46, 47).
Wives are first addressed with two exhortations to submit themselves to their husbands in everything (vv. 22-24). The rationale for the first exhortation is set forth: “the husband is the head of the wife as also Christ is the head of the church”2 (v. 23); the second, that “the church is subject to Christ” (v. 24). Applying the Christ-and-Church relationship to the husband-and-wife relationship suggests that the husband takes the role of Christ and the wife the role of the church. As Christ is the head of the church, so the husband is to be the head of the wife; and as the church submits to Christ, so the wife should submit to her husband.
The issue of submission – In the context of Paul’s message for husbands and wives, what does submission mean? The word hypotassein has the connotation of a subordinate, submissive role. It is used in Titus 2:9 and 1 Peter 2:18 for the submission of slaves to their masters. But in contrast to the slaves who are to be submissive to their masters whether their masters are good or bad (1 Pet 2:18), the wives are to submit “as to the Lord,” i.e., “as is fitting in the Lord” (Col 3:18). This submission excludes any servile obedience to the husband if his demands are not in harmony with the Lord’s will for the marriage.
God requires that the wife shall keep the fear and glory of God ever before her. Entire submission is to be made only to the Lord Jesus Christ, who has purchased her as His own child by the infinite price of His life. God has given her a conscience, which she cannot violate with impunity. Her individuality cannot be merged into that of her husband, for she is the purchase of Christ. It is a mistake to imagine that with blind devotion she is to do exactly as her husband says in all things, when she knows that in so doing, injury would be worked for her body and her spirit, which have been ransomed from the slavery of Satan (AH 116).
Husbands love your wives – In Ephesians 5:25-32, Paul proceeds to explicate more fully the true nature of the husband’s headship. In two sections – verses 25-27 and verses 28-32 — the apostle exhorts husbands to love their wives. It is noteworthy that the major portion of the marriage code is concerned with the duties of the husband and that they are admonished not to rule, but to love, their wives.
In the first section (vv. 25-27), Christ’s self-giving love for the church functions as the basis for the appeal to husbands to love their wives; earlier in the chapter, Christ’s sacrificial love, preeminently demonstrated on the cross, provided the example for all believers to emulate (5:2). Christ’s love for the church is made manifest in His sanctifying work on her behalf; He desires to sanctify and cleanse the church of sin (v. 26) so that “he might present her to himself as a radiant church, without blemish or wrinkle or any such thing, but rather that she might be holy and unblemished” (v. 27). The far-reaching extent of Christ’s love for the church profoundly impacts the nature of the husband’s “headship” of his wife. While the husband is certainly not the agent of his wife’s holiness, he ought to walk in the very footsteps of Christ, nurturing and cherishing her, even willing to lay down his own life for her.
In the second section (vv. 28-32), Paul further elaborates on the husbands’ duty to love their wives. In light of Christ’s love for the church, the apostle entreats the husbands “to love their wives as their own bodies” (v. 28a). Just as husbands are naturally inclined to care for the needs of their own bodies, for “no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes it and cherishes it” (v. 29), so husbands ought naturally to demonstrate the love they have for their wives by caring for their needs. Such a course of action ought to be followed because “he who loves his own wife, loves himself” (v. 28b). Paul moves from this discussion of human relationships to a consideration of Christ’s intimate union with His “body,” the church (vv. 29c-32). Christ also nourishes and cherishes His body, of which all believers are members (vv. 29c, 30). Furthermore, He has a deep-seated union with His body, which is analogous to the “one flesh” union between husband and wife; this spiritual union of Christ and the church is nothing short of a “profound mystery” (vv. 31, 32).
“Paul ascribes to women a position of subordination in relation to their husbands (cf. 1 Peter 3:1–6). The ethics of Christian relationships within the family are clear when once it is seen that difference and subordination do not in any sense imply inferiority. The submission enjoined upon the wife is of the kind that can be given only between equals, not a servile obedience, but a voluntary submission in the respects in which the man was qualified by his Maker to be head (cf. Gen. 3:16)” (F. D. Nichol, ed., The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, 6:1036).
Paul concludes the marriage code by once again addressing husbands and wives (v. 33). The concluding focus upon the marriage relationship makes clear that the code’s fundamental purpose has been to outline the responsibilities involved in the husband/wife relationship through the analogous relationship of Christ with the church. In an exhortation that incorporates previous references concerning the obligations of the husband and wife, Paul declares, “Let each one of you so love his own wife as himself and let the wife fear the husband” (v. 33).
Conclusion – Andrew Lincoln aptly captures the essential meaning of this marriage code:
Although all is under the banner of mutual submission, the specific conduct required can be summed up for the wife as submitting to and fearing her husband’s loving headship and for the husband as treating his wife with the same care that he expends on himself and, even more, with the quality of love that would enable him to sacrifice his life for her. For both partners there is a Christological motivation which comes mainly through the analogy with Christ and the Church.3
For husbands and wives, it is the example of Christ’s sacrificial love that functions as the model for believers to emulate. Such a Christological motivation transforms the norms for Christian marriage and discloses a deep, well-considered theology of marriage. If a husband self-lessly loves his wife and willingly sacrifices himself and places her needs ahead of his own as Christ did for the church, questions of submission and headship will not be an issue as the husband actualizes Christ’s sacrificial love in his relationship with his wife. Interpreted in this light, marriage can be seen as an institution wherein the husband and wife, striving to follow Christ’s model of sacrificial love, mutually and lovingly submit to one another (Eph 5:21). Such a marriage displays a “one flesh” unity, demonstrating the kind of unity that is at the heart of God’s purposes to re-unify all of humankind and the cosmos (1:10).
“The wife is to respect and reverence her husband, and the husband is to love and cherish his wife” (AH 103).
1 Taryn Fitsik, “1 in 4 women experience abuse in relationships.” http://www.wten.com/Global/story.asp?S=11233097; accessed October 1, 2009.
2 The word kephale (head) does not signify source, prominence, or preeminence, but authority and leadership (Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and other Early Christian Literature, third edition [Chicago, IL: University of Chicago, 2000], 542).
3 Andrew T. Lincoln, Ephesians, Word Biblical Commentary 42 (Dallas, TX: Word Books, 1990), 389.
The library of Celsus in ancient Ephesus. Paul spent three years in Ephesus working for the Lord (Acts 20:31).