Ephesians 5: 22-33
Introduction to the Passage
The book of Ephesians both celebrates the blessings of God’s grace and explains what that grace means for the church. Throughout the book, Paul reminds the church of the sacrificial love of Jesus and encourages believers to be imitators of God. In Ephesians 5:22-33, Paul uses the comparison of the marriage relationship with that of Christ and His church to give guidance to husbands, wives, and the church as the body of Christ, instructing them in living a Spirit-filled life. Repeatedly reminding his audience of the “cosmic scale of Christ’s reconciling work,” Paul’s letter continues to encourage believers today and challenge the church to seek the unity “that Christ purchased and that the Spirit produced.” The …show more content…
Author, Paul
As the author of one-fourth of the books of the New Testament, Paul is certainly one of the more important historical figures for the church. Paul, born Saul, is first introduced in the book of Acts at the stoning of the Christian, Stephen (Acts 7:55). Though Paul would go on to write many of the New Testament books and pastor many of the early Christian churches, his first appearances in the Bible showed him to be a zealous persecutor of Christians. After years of persecution of believers, Paul was dramatically converted during a supernatural encounter while traveling on the road to Damascus. Upon his encounter with “the risen Jesus… [Paul] became the outstanding missionary, theologian, and writer of the early church.” Shortly after his conversion, Paul began his new life of evangelism, undertaking missionary journeys throughout Cyprus, Galatia, Macedonia, Philippi, Thessalonica, and Ephesus (among other cities) before being arrested in 55AD. Around this time, presumably while awaiting trial, Paul wrote the letter now known as the book of Ephesians.
Historical Context
Understanding Ephesians requires an understanding of the audience Paul was writing to.
The Greco-Roman culture of the original recipients of Ephesians was based on the three defining ideas of honor/shame, patronage, and kinship. In such a culture, honor was the highest achievement. Furthermore, honor relied on proper submission to those of higher status and those in authority. Though modern culture, particularly that of America, relies on “the strength of our own ingenuities,” that of the Greco-Roman world relied on the idea of patronage, or “the mutual relationship that existed between unequals, in which each was understood to benefit the other.” Paul’s audience was used to the idea of a set hierarchy in society. Clearly defined roles and identifiable status were necessary for individuals to know “to whom they owed honor.” One such culturally defined role was that of the paterfamilias or the male as the head of the family and thereby the authority in the household.
Reading Ephesians, particularly this passage on husbands and wives, requires the knowledge that “the assumption of the passage is very decidedly that of the Roman villa; that is, the household of the elite, or privileged.” In such a household, the man was the master not only by social conventions but also by Roman law. Furthermore, in such a household “the idea that men and women might be equal partners in marriage simply did not exist.” Women were not of the same status as men. In such a society, wives were expected to obey their husband husbands were expected to rule over their homes. Paul’s instructions in Ephesians reflect these societal norms and examine the Spirit-led life within the common structures of the Greco-Roman culture.
Overview of Paul’s letter to the Church of Ephesus
While many of Paul’s letters were written as a response to specific circumstances within a congregation, there is not an easily identified occasion for the writing of Ephesians. It appears that Ephesians was written as a reminder of God’s blessings, as a challenge to seek a life worthy of the Spirit, and as a letter of general encouragement to the church. The book of Ephesians emphasizes “cosmic reconciliation in Christ” and urges believers to seek “unity in the church,” “a distinctive Christian ethic,” and “vigilance in spiritual warfare.” Simply put, Paul’s goal in this letter was to “shape a Christian identity” within a secular world.
Structure/Flow of Ephesians
Ephesians is structured as six chapters, the first three chapters of which focus on the Christian doctrine while the latter three focus on Christian duty. Paul first addresses the Spiritual blessings found in Christ (Eph. 1), and then reminds the church of the nature of their Salvation, by grace through faith, and asserts the need for oneness in Christ (Eph. 2). In the third chapter, Paul speaks of the mystery of the Gospel and prays for spiritual strength for believers before returning to the idea of unity in the church in chapter four. From there, Paul tells of the new life of those who follow Jesus and the importance of imitating Christ in everything, specifically addressing what this imitation looks like within relationships between husbands and wives, fathers and sons, and slaves and their masters (Eph. 4-6). The fourth and fifth chapters of Ephesians seek to “help believers live out their salvation” through explaining the importance of building up the community of the church and contrasting the sinful life of man with the godly life of the Spirit-led. The section this paper focuses on from Ephesians 5 specifically addresses the Spirit-led life of believers within the household. Leading directly from the previous verses on being filled with the Spirit (Eph. 5:15-21), Ephesians 5:22-33 illustrates the way in which the ideas of submission, love, and unity within marriage relate to submission, love and unity within the church as the body of Christ.
Commentary
Verses 22-24: Submission in the Church and Marriage
Throughout Ephesians, Paul emphasizes the power of the Holy Spirit and the manifestation of the Spirit in the lives of believers.
Immediately preceding his words on wives and husbands, Paul implores his audience to “be filled with the Spirit” and, as a result, address one another in psalms and hymns, sing and make melody to the Lord, give thanks for everything, and, finally, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ (Eph. 5:18-21). Ephesians 5:21 both concludes the previous section of the letter and introduces the section on marriage: “Submit to one another out of reverence of Christ.” This verse is important because it sets up the attitude required for the following verses. When Paul calls for believers to submit to one another in Ephesians 5:21 he gives a clear reason for doing so - we are to submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. The word used here, reverence, could also be translated as “fear” from the Greek word phobos. In this context, the fear Paul speaks of “implies the disposition to obey and attend to one of higher authority.” When Paul says for wives to submit to their husbands in Ephesians 5:22, they are to do so “as to the Lord.” This modifying clause is not to characterize husbands as level to Christ, but rather to remind the audience why obeying the call for submission – or why obeying any biblical request – is necessary; Spirit-filled believers should seek obedience out of reverence for …show more content…
Christ.
The following two verses in this section continue to stress the idea of submission, now adding the church’s submission to Christ to the previously mentioned submission of wives to husbands. In Ephesians 5:23, Paul refers to husbands as the head of the wife and Christ as the head of the church. The headship of Christ has been mentioned twice previously in Ephesians: Ephesians 1:22 tells of God appointing Jesus as “head over all things to the church”; Ephesians 4:15 refers to Jesus as the head of the church therefore as the “source, organizing principle, and ultimate goal of the church’s life.” Christ is the leader and center of the church; moreover, Christ is “himself its Savior.” Paul’s gentle reminder of the incredible love and sacrifice of Jesus impresses on his audience that their entire lives are owed to Christ. Paul tells his audience that wives should submit to their husbands in the same manner that believers submit to Christ - willingly and out of love and a desire for reverent obedience.
Verses 25-28: Love in the Church and Marriage
In the following paragraph, Paul turns his directive from wives to husbands. Still using a comparison of Christ and the church to the marriage union, Ephesians 5:25-28 calls for husbands to love their wives. Ephesians 5:25 begins with a description of how husbands are to love their wives - “as Christ loved the church.” Paul then demonstrates the nature of Christ’s love for His church through Ephesians 5:27. Earlier in this chapter, Paul tells believers to “walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us” (Eph. 5:2). Here again, Paul recalls the sacrifice of Jesus for His church: “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” (Eph. 5:25) Paul continues, noting that the sacrifice of Jesus served to sanctify the church or “to render her holy.” The love which husbands show their wives, then, should imitate Christ’s love in that it is sacrificial, self-emptying, and out of a desire for holiness before God.
Furthermore, husbands are to “love their wives as their own bodies.” (Eph. 5:28) Paul has previously made a reference to the body in this section on marriage. In Ephesians 5:23 Jesus is called “the head of the church, his body. Just as Christ loves the church, his body, with “self-giving, other regarding love,” so should husbands love their wives.
Verses 29-32: Unity in the Church and Marriage
Paul’s conclusion to Ephesians 5:28 - “He who loves his wife loves himself” - introduces his next point: that man and wife are one flesh.
This union between husband and wives reflects back to the analogy of Christ and the church; just as Jesus cares for his body, the church, so should husbands. Paul tells his audience that Christ “nourishes and cherishes” the church (Eph. 5:29) and implies that this care of the church is “as natural, normal, and uncoerced as humans’ care for their own bodies.” Then, in Ephesians 5:30, Paul gives the reason why husbands should love their wives in this way - just as wives submit out of reverence for Christ as part of the Spirit-filled body of Christ (“as to the Lord” in Eph. 5:22), so should husbands love as “members of [Christ’s]
body.”
Paul justifies his assertion of husband and wives being of one body in recalling the command originally given in Genesis 2:24: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”(Eph. 5:31) Paul takes this instruction for unity a step further in Ephesians 5:32, offering an “additional Christological reflection.” Citing the mystery of “God’s cosmic reconciliation of all things,” Paul implies that the “union between husband and wife into one flesh displays and anticipate the union between Christ and the church.”
Verse 33: Concluding Instructions
The final verse of this section of Ephesians returns to the two requests Paul makes for marriage – that husbands love their wives and wives respect their husbands. Noting that Ephesians 5:22 originally called for wives to submit to their husbands, here Paul uses a different verb, to respect. The original Greek used here, phobētai, is similar to phobos from Ephesians 5:21 and describes the attitude owed to one’s superiors: respect, obedience, submission, and deference. This echoing of the main points from the passage emphasizes their importance to achieving a spirit-filled household.
The book of Ephesians both celebrates the blessings of God’s grace and explains what that grace means for the church. Throughout the book, Paul reminds the church of the sacrificial love of Jesus and encourages believers to be imitators of God. In Ephesians 5:22-33, Paul uses the comparison of the marriage relationship with that of Christ and His church to give guidance to husbands, wives, and the church as the body of Christ, instructing them in living a Spirit-filled life. Repeatedly reminding his audience of the “cosmic scale of Christ’s reconciling work,” Paul’s letter continues to encourage believers today and challenge the church to seek the unity “that Christ purchased and that the Spirit produced.” The …show more content…
Author, Paul
As the author of one-fourth of the books of the New Testament, Paul is certainly one of the more important historical figures for the church. Paul, born Saul, is first introduced in the book of Acts at the stoning of the Christian, Stephen (Acts 7:55). Though Paul would go on to write many of the New Testament books and pastor many of the early Christian churches, his first appearances in the Bible showed him to be a zealous persecutor of Christians. After years of persecution of believers, Paul was dramatically converted during a supernatural encounter while traveling on the road to Damascus. Upon his encounter with “the risen Jesus… [Paul] became the outstanding missionary, theologian, and writer of the early church.” Shortly after his conversion, Paul began his new life of evangelism, undertaking missionary journeys throughout Cyprus, Galatia, Macedonia, Philippi, Thessalonica, and Ephesus (among other cities) before being arrested in 55AD. Around this time, presumably while awaiting trial, Paul wrote the letter now known as the book of Ephesians.
Historical Context
Understanding Ephesians requires an understanding of the audience Paul was writing to.
The Greco-Roman culture of the original recipients of Ephesians was based on the three defining ideas of honor/shame, patronage, and kinship. In such a culture, honor was the highest achievement. Furthermore, honor relied on proper submission to those of higher status and those in authority. Though modern culture, particularly that of America, relies on “the strength of our own ingenuities,” that of the Greco-Roman world relied on the idea of patronage, or “the mutual relationship that existed between unequals, in which each was understood to benefit the other.” Paul’s audience was used to the idea of a set hierarchy in society. Clearly defined roles and identifiable status were necessary for individuals to know “to whom they owed honor.” One such culturally defined role was that of the paterfamilias or the male as the head of the family and thereby the authority in the household.
Reading Ephesians, particularly this passage on husbands and wives, requires the knowledge that “the assumption of the passage is very decidedly that of the Roman villa; that is, the household of the elite, or privileged.” In such a household, the man was the master not only by social conventions but also by Roman law. Furthermore, in such a household “the idea that men and women might be equal partners in marriage simply did not exist.” Women were not of the same status as men. In such a society, wives were expected to obey their husband husbands were expected to rule over their homes. Paul’s instructions in Ephesians reflect these societal norms and examine the Spirit-led life within the common structures of the Greco-Roman culture.
Overview of Paul’s letter to the Church of Ephesus
While many of Paul’s letters were written as a response to specific circumstances within a congregation, there is not an easily identified occasion for the writing of Ephesians. It appears that Ephesians was written as a reminder of God’s blessings, as a challenge to seek a life worthy of the Spirit, and as a letter of general encouragement to the church. The book of Ephesians emphasizes “cosmic reconciliation in Christ” and urges believers to seek “unity in the church,” “a distinctive Christian ethic,” and “vigilance in spiritual warfare.” Simply put, Paul’s goal in this letter was to “shape a Christian identity” within a secular world.
Structure/Flow of Ephesians
Ephesians is structured as six chapters, the first three chapters of which focus on the Christian doctrine while the latter three focus on Christian duty. Paul first addresses the Spiritual blessings found in Christ (Eph. 1), and then reminds the church of the nature of their Salvation, by grace through faith, and asserts the need for oneness in Christ (Eph. 2). In the third chapter, Paul speaks of the mystery of the Gospel and prays for spiritual strength for believers before returning to the idea of unity in the church in chapter four. From there, Paul tells of the new life of those who follow Jesus and the importance of imitating Christ in everything, specifically addressing what this imitation looks like within relationships between husbands and wives, fathers and sons, and slaves and their masters (Eph. 4-6). The fourth and fifth chapters of Ephesians seek to “help believers live out their salvation” through explaining the importance of building up the community of the church and contrasting the sinful life of man with the godly life of the Spirit-led. The section this paper focuses on from Ephesians 5 specifically addresses the Spirit-led life of believers within the household. Leading directly from the previous verses on being filled with the Spirit (Eph. 5:15-21), Ephesians 5:22-33 illustrates the way in which the ideas of submission, love, and unity within marriage relate to submission, love and unity within the church as the body of Christ.
Commentary
Verses 22-24: Submission in the Church and Marriage
Throughout Ephesians, Paul emphasizes the power of the Holy Spirit and the manifestation of the Spirit in the lives of believers.
Immediately preceding his words on wives and husbands, Paul implores his audience to “be filled with the Spirit” and, as a result, address one another in psalms and hymns, sing and make melody to the Lord, give thanks for everything, and, finally, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ (Eph. 5:18-21). Ephesians 5:21 both concludes the previous section of the letter and introduces the section on marriage: “Submit to one another out of reverence of Christ.” This verse is important because it sets up the attitude required for the following verses. When Paul calls for believers to submit to one another in Ephesians 5:21 he gives a clear reason for doing so - we are to submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. The word used here, reverence, could also be translated as “fear” from the Greek word phobos. In this context, the fear Paul speaks of “implies the disposition to obey and attend to one of higher authority.” When Paul says for wives to submit to their husbands in Ephesians 5:22, they are to do so “as to the Lord.” This modifying clause is not to characterize husbands as level to Christ, but rather to remind the audience why obeying the call for submission – or why obeying any biblical request – is necessary; Spirit-filled believers should seek obedience out of reverence for …show more content…
Christ.
The following two verses in this section continue to stress the idea of submission, now adding the church’s submission to Christ to the previously mentioned submission of wives to husbands. In Ephesians 5:23, Paul refers to husbands as the head of the wife and Christ as the head of the church. The headship of Christ has been mentioned twice previously in Ephesians: Ephesians 1:22 tells of God appointing Jesus as “head over all things to the church”; Ephesians 4:15 refers to Jesus as the head of the church therefore as the “source, organizing principle, and ultimate goal of the church’s life.” Christ is the leader and center of the church; moreover, Christ is “himself its Savior.” Paul’s gentle reminder of the incredible love and sacrifice of Jesus impresses on his audience that their entire lives are owed to Christ. Paul tells his audience that wives should submit to their husbands in the same manner that believers submit to Christ - willingly and out of love and a desire for reverent obedience.
Verses 25-28: Love in the Church and Marriage
In the following paragraph, Paul turns his directive from wives to husbands. Still using a comparison of Christ and the church to the marriage union, Ephesians 5:25-28 calls for husbands to love their wives. Ephesians 5:25 begins with a description of how husbands are to love their wives - “as Christ loved the church.” Paul then demonstrates the nature of Christ’s love for His church through Ephesians 5:27. Earlier in this chapter, Paul tells believers to “walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us” (Eph. 5:2). Here again, Paul recalls the sacrifice of Jesus for His church: “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” (Eph. 5:25) Paul continues, noting that the sacrifice of Jesus served to sanctify the church or “to render her holy.” The love which husbands show their wives, then, should imitate Christ’s love in that it is sacrificial, self-emptying, and out of a desire for holiness before God.
Furthermore, husbands are to “love their wives as their own bodies.” (Eph. 5:28) Paul has previously made a reference to the body in this section on marriage. In Ephesians 5:23 Jesus is called “the head of the church, his body. Just as Christ loves the church, his body, with “self-giving, other regarding love,” so should husbands love their wives.
Verses 29-32: Unity in the Church and Marriage
Paul’s conclusion to Ephesians 5:28 - “He who loves his wife loves himself” - introduces his next point: that man and wife are one flesh.
This union between husband and wives reflects back to the analogy of Christ and the church; just as Jesus cares for his body, the church, so should husbands. Paul tells his audience that Christ “nourishes and cherishes” the church (Eph. 5:29) and implies that this care of the church is “as natural, normal, and uncoerced as humans’ care for their own bodies.” Then, in Ephesians 5:30, Paul gives the reason why husbands should love their wives in this way - just as wives submit out of reverence for Christ as part of the Spirit-filled body of Christ (“as to the Lord” in Eph. 5:22), so should husbands love as “members of [Christ’s]
body.”
Paul justifies his assertion of husband and wives being of one body in recalling the command originally given in Genesis 2:24: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”(Eph. 5:31) Paul takes this instruction for unity a step further in Ephesians 5:32, offering an “additional Christological reflection.” Citing the mystery of “God’s cosmic reconciliation of all things,” Paul implies that the “union between husband and wife into one flesh displays and anticipate the union between Christ and the church.”
Verse 33: Concluding Instructions
The final verse of this section of Ephesians returns to the two requests Paul makes for marriage – that husbands love their wives and wives respect their husbands. Noting that Ephesians 5:22 originally called for wives to submit to their husbands, here Paul uses a different verb, to respect. The original Greek used here, phobētai, is similar to phobos from Ephesians 5:21 and describes the attitude owed to one’s superiors: respect, obedience, submission, and deference. This echoing of the main points from the passage emphasizes their importance to achieving a spirit-filled household.