Sunday, September 6 · Vineyard Cincinnati Church
Relationships | Week 2: Marriage, Dating & Ephesians 5
Paul's instructions to husbands and wives in Ephesians 5 are read through verse 21, where mutual submission comes before any of the specific commands, so the passage calls both people to self-giving love rather than one person to power over another.
The passages
…subjecting yourselves to one another in the fear of Christ. Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the assembly, being himself the savior of the body. But as the assembly is subject to Christ, so let the wives also be to their own husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the assembly and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that he might present the assembly to himself gloriously, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without defect. Even so husbands also ought to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself. For no man ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, even as the Lord also does the assembly, because we are members of his body, of his flesh and bones. “For this cause a man will leave his father and mother and will be joined to his wife. Then the two will become one flesh.” This mystery is great, but I speak concerning Christ and the assembly. Nevertheless each of you must also love his own wife even as himself; and let the wife see that she respects her husband.
Ephesians 5:21–33
Be therefore imitators of God, as beloved children. Walk in love, even as Christ also loved us and gave himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling fragrance.
Ephesians 5:1–2
God said, “Let’s make man in our image, after our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” God created man in his own image. In God’s image he created him; male and female he created them.
Genesis 1:26–27
Go deeper
Why does Paul put the command to submit to one another before his separate words to wives and husbands?
Paul does not start with wives. He starts with everyone in the room, which means every command that follows is already sitting inside a shared posture. Without that first line, the passage reads as one person laying something down and another picking it up.
…subjecting yourselves to one another in the fear of Christ. Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the assembly, being himself the savior of the body. But as the assembly is subject to Christ, so let the wives also be to their own husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the assembly and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that he might present the assembly to himself gloriously, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without defect. Even so husbands also ought to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself. For no man ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, even as the Lord also does the assembly, because we are members of his body, of his flesh and bones. “For this cause a man will leave his father and mother and will be joined to his wife. Then the two will become one flesh.” This mystery is great, but I speak concerning Christ and the assembly. Nevertheless each of you must also love his own wife even as himself; and let the wife see that she respects her husband.
Ephesians 5:21–33
…doing nothing through rivalry or through conceit, but in humility, each counting others better than himself; each of you not just looking to his own things, but each of you also to the things of others. Have this in your mind, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, existing in the form of God, didn’t consider equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, yes, the death of the cross.
Philippians 2:3–8
Jesus summoned them and said to them, “You know that they who are recognized as rulers over the nations lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you, but whoever wants to become great among you shall be your servant. Whoever of you wants to become first among you shall be bondservant of all. For the Son of Man also came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Mark 10:42–45
What did Paul ask of husbands in a culture where the husband's authority was assumed rather than argued?
Paul spends far more words on husbands than on wives, and what he asks of them is not status but sacrifice. He hands them the picture of Christ giving himself up for a church that had done nothing to earn it. A man in that world would have heard his rights being taken away, not confirmed.
Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the assembly and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that he might present the assembly to himself gloriously, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without defect. Even so husbands also ought to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself. For no man ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, even as the Lord also does the assembly, because we are members of his body, of his flesh and bones. “For this cause a man will leave his father and mother and will be joined to his wife. Then the two will become one flesh.” This mystery is great, but I speak concerning Christ and the assembly. Nevertheless each of you must also love his own wife even as himself; and let the wife see that she respects her husband.
Ephesians 5:25–33
Be therefore imitators of God, as beloved children. Walk in love, even as Christ also loved us and gave himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling fragrance.
Ephesians 5:1–2
God said, “Let’s make man in our image, after our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” God created man in his own image. In God’s image he created him; male and female he created them.
Genesis 1:26–27
Why does Paul reach for the picture of Christ and the church to describe what a husband and wife are for each other?
Paul ends the passage by saying something larger is being shown, not just managed. A marriage becomes a small portrait of Christ's care for the people he gave himself up for. That is a high thing to be, and it is the reason the commands are as serious as they are.
“For this cause a man will leave his father and mother and will be joined to his wife. Then the two will become one flesh.” This mystery is great, but I speak concerning Christ and the assembly.
Ephesians 5:31–32
Be therefore imitators of God, as beloved children. Walk in love, even as Christ also loved us and gave himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling fragrance.
Ephesians 5:1–2
I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared like a bride adorned for her husband. I heard a loud voice out of heaven saying, “Behold, God’s dwelling is with people; and he will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.
Revelation 21:2–3