Ephesians 5:22

‘Wives be in subjection 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 church, being himself the saviour of the body.'

From time immemorial the husband has been head of the family in all societies with rare exceptions. And this natural order is confirmed by Scripture on the grounds that man was first made and the woman was created for the man (1 Corinthians 11:9). Both are equal in God's eyes (Galatians 3:28) but the man takes precedence in the line of authority (1 Corinthians 11:3). So Paul says that just as Jesus, in the plan of salvation, subjected Himself to the Father even though He was co-equal and co-eternal, and the man subjects himself to Christ, so the woman is to subject herself to the man (1 Corinthians 11:3). It is the divine order and those who rebel against it rebel against God. Thus the wife in fact reveals her submission to the Lord by a proper submission to her husband.

However subjection is a voluntary state and does not mean being browbeaten. Each member of the church is to submit to the other (1 Corinthians 11:19), but not to be browbeaten, and Christ subjected Himself to God, with mutual ‘respect' being shown. So husbands are to love their wives as Christ loves the church (1 Corinthians 11:25), nurturing and caring for them and showing them proper respect, and the wives are to respect their headship. The whole relationship can only work properly when all parts are doing so.

‘As Christ is also the head of the church.' Here the headship of Christ over His church is likened to that of the husband over the wife. Christ is head over all things, but He is in a special way head over His people, and He watches over them, cares for them and seeks their responsive obedience and submission.

‘Being Himself the Saviour of the body.' Notice the careful wording. Not the head of the body but the Saviour of the body, for the body is made up of His people in union with Himself and He is revealing His Headship by being at work in saving them (see 1 Corinthians 11:25). The husband/wife analogy is suspended. He is elsewhere said to be ‘the Head of the body' (Colossians 3:18 but see Colossians 3:22) but there the idea is of His Headship rather than as differentiating between the head and the rest of the body (see Appendix below).

It should be noted that outside Revelation 19-21 and 2 Corinthians 11:2 Jesus Christ is never strictly said to be the husband or bridegroom of the church nor is the church said to be His wife or bride. While the illustrative idea is used it is never made specific. In 2 Corinthians 11:2 the idea is different from here. There Paul, acting as a father with a beloved daughter, espoused the church to one husband, to Jesus Christ, that he might ‘present them as a chaste virgin to Christ'. There the idea is that he has obtained from them a permanent commitment to Jesus Christ, so that they are betrothed to Him and will not go running off and being unfaithful to Him or misbehaving. The context is the possibility of being unfaithful by following false teachers. (A betrothed man could be described as a husband, and Mary, while only betrothed to Joseph, is described as a wife).

Here, however, in Ephesians the comparison is more of the wife to the husband and there is no suggestion of betrothal. Given that fact interpretation of the passage often tends to be more romantic than exact.