Ephesians

Ephesians 5:22—6:9 — Mutual Submission

We have just seen that the key to resolving conflict between Christians is to “submit to one another out of reverence for Christ” (Ephesians 5:21). Now Paul applies this key principle to the specific relationships between husbands and wives, between parents and children, and between employers and employees.

Counsel to Wives

There is probably no relationship in life that carries a greater potential for conflict than the marriage relationship. Paul begins with counsel for wives in Ephesians 5:22-24. It is important to remember that this is an application of the general principle in Ephesians 5:21. Submission is mutual. The husband is to subject himself to the wife as much as the wife is to the husband. There are different ways we subject ourselves to each other in marriage, because the roles of husband and wife are different. The apostle will now go on to spell out for us what this means for husbands and wives in specific terms.

Addressing wives, Paul uses the same word he used in Ephesians 5:21: Submit. This is a word that raises the hackles of many, especially in this era of feminist politics. It sounds to the modern ear as if Paul is telling women, “Stay in your subservient place. Accept your inferiority. You must be resolved to a role as slave to your master-husband.” That is not at all the thought that Paul has in mind. A more accurate sense of the word submit would be “voluntarily place yourself under the authority of’ or “willingly adapt and adjust yourself to the authority of.” The apostle is saying to the wife, in effect, “Adapt yourself to your own husband; adjust to him.”

This is the fulfillment of the initial word of the Creator to the woman when He said that she was to be “a helper suitable for [the man]” (Genesis 2:18). The wife is not to be her husband’s rival or his slave. She is to be his partner, equal but loyal, and they are to work together. The husband has a leadership role, but that in no way diminishes the worth of the wife. He is incomplete without her, and it is in this partnership role with the husband that she finds fulfillment and completion.

The apostle Paul immediately links his practical command for submission to a biblical rationale for that command: “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior” (Ephesians 5:22-23). The key phrase here is “as to the Lord.” The wife is subject to her husband not because her husband is such a wonderful human being, but because she has a prior and primary relationship to her Lord. The phrase “as to the Lord” does not mean that the wife is to worship her husband as though he were the Lord. It means she is to yield to her husband in order to please her Lord, Jesus Christ.

A Christian woman once asked me, “Does Ephesians 5:22-23 mean that my submission to my husband is a gauge of the degree to which I am submitted to Christ?” Yes, I told her, it is exactly that. The submission of a wife to her husband in the proper areas of his authority is precisely the gauge of her submission to Christ.

“Well, then,” she replied, “I can’t say to my husband, ‘I’ve submitted myself to you, now you have to do such-and-such for me.’ Nor can I say to God, ‘I’ve submitted myself to my husband, so You have to produce certain results.’ No, if I submit to my husband as unto the Lord, I shouldn’t care what the results are—that’s up to God.”

She got it! That’s the full intent of Paul’s word to wives in this section of Ephesians. He wants wives to understand that a woman is never more free to be herself than when she is joyfully, willingly submissive to her husband’s authority. It is all a matter of headship, and headship means authority and leadership. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 11:3, “Now I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.”