A View of Marriage for the Church

Ephesians 5:21-33

Ephesians 5:21-33 spells out the relationship between Christ and the Church by paralleling it to husband and wife. C.H. Spurgeon summed this idea up by saying “the true Christian is to be such a husband as Christ was to His Church” (Spurgeon 161). While Spurgeon gives a brief summary of the text there is far more to the text than he captures. Wycliffe Bible Commentary describes this passage as “an expression of God's ideal for marriage.” This passage plainly tells Christian wives to submit to their husbands, and it tells Christian husbands to love their wives. It is broken into three sections verses 22-25 address a wives submission to her husband and the Churches submission to God. The next 5 verses discuss a husband’s role in the marriage and Christ’s role in the Church. The last 3 verses a summation and tying together of the ideas of the section.

21

This is verse illustrates that reverence and fear of Christ should be the reason we are submitting to each other. Wycliffe Bible Commentary describes this as “a reverence toward him that makes one afraid of displeasing him.” It is a universal submission; it does not mandate that wives should submit to husbands, or women to men, it merely commands us to submit to each other. If we are submitting to each other than it is God’s path we will follow because we will not be focused on our own means. The one another in this verse may however only be to men. Later in verse 33 Paul refers to “each individual among you,” and tells them to love their wives. From this it could be concluded that this verse is a male-to-male concept and does not include females.

22

Verse 22 simply calls wives to submit or be subject to their husbands as they are to the Lord. Paul again uses a parallelism here to show how this should be done. It first establishes that a wife should be submissive to the Lord, which means that she must be a Christian woman. The Paul parallels submission to the husband to submission to the Lord. Submission to the Lord while simple is at the same time difficult. Paul is building on the idea of submission that Jesus stated in Mark 8:34, where Jesus calls Christians to “deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” It’s this idea of Biblical self-denial and following that Paul is applying to the wife. Richard Foster equated this idea of submission with the freedom to “lay down the terrible burden of always needing to get our own way” (Foster 111). Since Mark has clearly shown what submission is Paul took this example and connected it with the marriage relationship so that Christian wives could know how to submit to their husbands.

23

Christ leads the church, because it is his church to lead and his to control. The head is the conveyer of emotions, and most obviously the head controls the bodies direction and management. However, without the body the head is useless. An arm hand cannot pick up a glass without the head to tell it to; likewise the head can’t pick up a glass without the arm to do it. The head and the body must work together, but the body will always be in submission to the head, a hand cannot act on it’s own it must submit and follow the head. Like the church submits to Christ following his leading and commands. In this same manner the Husband should be the head of the wife. He should hold his head in a manor that conveys the proper emotion and he should lead his wife in a manner worthy of the Glory of God. The Husband cannot function properly apart from his wife, and the wife cannot function apart from the husband, like the Body of Christ cannot function without Christ and Christ cannot function without the body. Christ became the Savior of the Church by laying his life down for our sins so that we may have eternal life. A husband should be prepared in the same manner to make necessary sacrifices to give his wife the life that she deserves.

24

This verse comes as a conclusion to the previous two verses. It ties together the idea of the church submitting to Christ and the wife submitting to the husband. Paul adds the qualifier “in everything,” according to Barne’s Notes this means “in everything which is not contrary to the will of God.” The church should submit to Christ in everything it should deny it self, follow Christ and glorify God in everything that it does. The wife should also submit to Christ and then to her husband. Because Paul tells wives to submit as the church submits to Christ this means, deny her self, and following her husband, doing things that honor him.

25

Husbands receive a stern command in this verse, to “love your wives.” Paul goes on to qualify this statement by comparing it to Christ’s love for the Church. Christ loved the church so much that he gave his life up for it. This idea of Christ giving himself up for the church is tied into the idea of Christ being the savior of the Church in verse 23. Love is defined in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 and it is this type of love that Paul is commanding Husbands to show their wives. Husbands are to show their wives an amount of love that would lead for the husband to give himself up for her. The Zondervan Study Bible says, “to give oneself up for the beloved is a more extreme expression of devotion than a wife is called on to make” (Zondervan 1726). This also shows the amount of love a husband should have for his wife. When the husband is giving himself up for his wife he is submitting to her as she is to him and now they are both able to work in unity and be focused on God and not on their own desires. They are both able to pick up the cross and deny their burden of always getting their own way.

26

This verse describes what it means for Christ to give himself up for the church and the husband to give himself up for his wife. When a husband gives himself up for his wife it makes her holy or it makes her sacred. The second half draws a parallel between marriage and baptism; the husband is cleansing his wife through a use of the Word, which Paul symbolizes as water. Husbands are to keep their wives spiritually clean and pure by use of the word like one becomes physically clean and pure by using water or the use of water to make one spiritually new in baptism husbands are to continue spiritually cleaning their wives. In this same manner Christ is continually cleaning and washing the church with water.

27

The reason for the spiritual cleaning is revealed in this verse, so husbands can present their wives “without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish.” This is how Christ wishes to present his church to himself. He wants to present the church with glory to himself; he wants to see his church in its splendor like a groom wants to see his bride on their wedding night.

28

Verses 28-30 like verse 24 sums up this section. It states clearly that wives are to be loved as a husband loves his own body. This idea is drawing on Genesis 2:24 where a husband leaves his wife and they become one flesh. Adam Clarke's Commentary connects this passage to how “God made man male and female, and the woman was taken out of his side.” This idea shows that in fact since women was made from man she is part of man’s flesh not just by marriage. If a husband is one flesh with his wife then he must love his wife as he loves his own flesh because she is one flesh with him

29

If a husband does not love his wife then he does not love his own flesh. Verse 29 makes it clear that “no one ever hated his own flesh,” begging the question why would a husband hate his wife? The rest of verse 29 goes on to share what Christ does for his body and what husbands should do with their wives since they are parts of their body. Husbands are to sustain and love their wives and their bodies as Christ has sustained and loved his church and body.

30

Verse 30 clearly states that we are members of Christ’s body. Because we are members of Christ’s body we are to love each other and live in proper submission. Wesley describes this idea as “Are members [the church] - Are as intimately united to Christ, in a spiritual sense, as if we were literally "flesh of his flesh, and bone of his bone."” This expands the idea that husband and wife are intimately united with each other since they are one flesh.

31

Verse 31 is a quote from Genesis 2:24. It’s meaning is simple for the point of nourishing and cherishing their wives husbands are to leave their parents. Husbands are starting a new family and becoming a single flesh with their wives. Their main family goal is now to cherish and nourish their wife whom they love.

32

The union of husband and wife has been up until the point of Paul’s written a mystery because the Church had not yet been established. Paul reveals here that the union of husband and wife has always been what Christ and the Church were to be and vice versa. It was not until Christ came and the church was established that Christians were able to understand the mystery of union and marriage.

33

Paul sums up verses 22-32 here with the simple command to each husband and each wife. The command to husbands “is to love his own wife even as himself.” This is drawing on verse 28, where husband and wife are of one body. The command to wives is to “respect her husband,” again this verse draws on the idea of submission from verses 22-24.

Conclusion

Ephesians 5:21-33 reveal that there has been a mysterious structure for marriage, that was to parallel the structure of Christ and the church. Paul is writes this passage in hopes to reveal this mystery so the believers can better understand how Christ and the Church should operate. The believers would have been familiar with marriage and the structure of the marriage relationship but would not have understood the function of Christ within the Church. By paralleling the structure of the marriage relationship Paul was giving each believer a better understanding of Christ and his church but at the same time it was giving believers a blue print for marriage and spelling out the actions of husbands and wives. This reflection of the church can be brought further down to show marriage should reflect the reverence, we have for Christ, Christ’s saving grace, and the love and respect that Christians should have for each other. If Christian marriages contain these elements they will be a more accurate reflection of Christ thus becoming a witness to the world, like the church is a witness.

Works Cited

Adam Clarke's Commentary, Electronic Database. Copyright (c) 1996 by Biblesoft

Barnes' Notes, Electronic Database. Copyright (c) 1997 by Biblesoft

Luther, Martin. Luther’s Small Catechism with Explanation. Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1991.

John Wesley's Explanatory Notes on the Whole Bible

Spurgeon, C.H.. Morning and Evening Devotions. Virginia: Old-Time Gospel Hour, undated.

The Wycliffe Bible Commentary, Electronic Database. Copyright (c) 1962 by Moody Press