Others Minded - Wives

Ephesians 5:22-24

1. The Context

The end of 5:20 - "giving thanks at all times for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God even the Father". New paragraph really begins with verse 21 which sets the stage for the following passage: "submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God, wives to your own husbands in the Lord." In many mss. "submit" in v. 22 is absent implying its being supplied by copyists from verse 21.

In the first instance, then, ὑποτάσσοµαι (hupotassomai) does not mean so much “to obey”—though this may result from self-subordination—or to do the will of someone but rather “to lose or surrender one’s own rights or will.” TDNT

ὑπακούω (hupakouō), obey, is used for children and servants in Eph_6:1 Eph_6:5, Col_3:20; obedience to God or his chosen emissaries, also the obedience a slave owes his master.

That is, the submission is to be a voluntary response to God’s will in giving up one’s independent rights to other believers in general and to ordained authority in particular—in this case the wife’s own husband. MacArthur

There is a sense in which the context demands mutual submission of husband and wife to each other.

She willingly makes herself subject to the one she possesses as her own husband (cf. 1 Cor. 7:3-4). Husbands and wives are to have a mutual possessiveness as well as a mutual submissiveness. They belong to each other in an absolute equality. The husband no more possesses his wife than she possesses him. He has no superiority and she no inferiority, any more than one who has the gift of teaching is superior to one with the gift of helps. MacArthur
Paul's instruction is diametrically opposed to the message of the culture - closing the gender gap, the glass ceiling, be all you want to be, etc. Yet it is exactly in line with the creation order, reflecting conditions prior to the Fall. And the "battle of the sexes" is exactly the natural conclusion of the curse.

When God told Eve "your desire will be for your husband", he didn't mean physical need; they already had that. The nature of the desire is apparent in the follow-on contrasting phrase - her desire is countered by his rule (0r domination): "you will want to control your husband, but he will dominate you." NET And in the second phrase are the seeds of the opposing side in the battle; his attitude toward domination is influenced by her desire and his sinful nature with its tendencies to abuse authority.

Side note: desire, תּשׁוּקה, (teshûqâh) is found twice in Genesis in close proximity, really within the immediate context of the Fall; here in Gen_3:16 and again in Gen_4:7 where Cain is warned by God of the dangers of sin crouching at the door.

Paul really is still in the mode of putting off & putting on. Both husbands and wives are to put off their natural tendencies and desires regarding relationships and put on those things that are pleasing to God.

The wife is to put off her tendency to grasp at authority over her husband and desire for that position. In its place she is to willingly surrender her "civil rights" under the authority of her husband and fill her God-ordained and designed complementary role.

The husband is to put off his tendency to abuse his position of authority and the desire for satisfaction he receives from it. In its place he is to exercise his authority in a way that serves his wife and meets her needs for provision and protection.

This sort of behavior on the part of husbands and wives is so contrary to sinful nature, obviously a change of nature must occur if the marriage relationship is to come close to the standard outlined here. Obviously mankind falls on a spectrum, but this is so upside-down to "normal" thinking we can never get there on our own.

2. The Wife

A. The way of submission v.22

parallel: Col_3:18-25

The translation then is—“as it should be in the Lord.” This obligation of submission commenced with their union to the Lord, sprang out of it, and had not yet been fully discharged. It is therefore not a duty which had only newly devolved upon them, but its propriety reached back to the point of their conversion. Their union with the Lord not only expounded the obligation, but also enforced it. Though the general strain of these exhortations be the same as in the Epistle to the Ephesians, there is usually some specific difference. In the other epistle he says, “wives, be obedient to your own husbands as to the Lord ,” where w" points out the nature, and not simply, as Ellicott thinks, the aspect of the obedience enjoined. The spirit of the obedience is referred to in Ephesians, and the becomingness of that spirit in the clause before us. Eadie on Colossians 3

The spirit of submission is to be that of willing acquiescence as one would give to the Lord. Charles Hodge says "her obedience to her husband is to be regarded as part of her obedience to the Lord". It is like the difference between "where do you work" and "for whom do you work". Even though the husband doesn't always do it right or sometimes even close to right, the wife's submission is ultimately to the Lord.

B. The why of submission v.23a

The basic reason Paul gives for why wives are to occupy this role in relation to their husband is that God has ordained and designed it that way. In establishing this principle he goes back to the creation order - the woman was created for the man, not the other way round. See 1Co_11:8-9 Even before the Fall, God had established a certain order in which the husband was the head of the wife.

Remember - it is a distinction of roles, not importance or status or worth. Remember, also, that the husband is superior in his role to anyone else attempting to fill his role or to his attempting to fill another role for which he was not designed or intended; the same is true of the wife in her roles as well.

To follow the physical comparison Paul makes, the husband is the head and the wife is the body. In that combination the head makes the decisions and the body follows. Transfer - the husband is the leader, the wife the follower; to the extent that the wife does not follow the lead of her husband, the marital/family relationship fails to conform to the Biblically-mandated model.
A physical body that does not respond to the direction of the head is crippled, paralyzed, or spastic. Likewise, a wife who does not properly respond to the direction of her husband manifests a serious spiritual dysfunction. On the other hand, a wife who willingly and lovingly responds to her husband’s leadership as to the Lord is an honor to her Lord, her husband, her family, her church, and herself. She is also a beautiful testimony to the Lord before in view of the world around her. MacArthur

Two-headed turtle - zigzag travel path.

C. The how of submission v.23b-24

The model Paul gives us is two-fold, both with Christ at the center: first, his relationship with his people as the head of the church and, second, his relationship with his Father as the Savior of his people. As Paul fleshes out the expected attitudes of wives and husbands, he refers back repeatedly to the model.

Paul expects wives to submit to their husbands since the husband fills a comparable role/position with the wife as Christ does with the church. As the church is subject to Christ and his leadership, so the wife. As the church honors Christ, his person, his role relationship, his authority, so the wife.

Paul expects wives to honor God by serving their husbands/families in a similar way to how Christ honored God by serving the church as her Savior. Absolute acquiescence to the Father's will on behalf of others, in order to serve others. Now there's a limit to how far the comparison can go; but... serving husband and family represents obedience to God just as Christ's service to the church in his humiliation demonstrated obedience/fulfillment of the law and obedience to God.

If Christ is the model and obedience to God is the ultimate goal, the "all things" in which a wife is to be submissive to her husband are qualified and limited - she is to submit in all things in the marriage relationship that are lawful and pleasing to God. Similar requirement as for civil disobedience. Proper submission within the context of a marriage also means having a right attitude toward and relationship with men other than the husband.