Wives and Husbands | Ephesians 5:22-33 | 3/8/26

Um those last two sentences again are

are the important part. But let's go

ahead and if you have your Bibles, let's

read the passage together. Uh f

Ephesians 5:22.

Ephesians 5:22

Wives, submit your husbands as to the

Lord. For the husband is the head of the

wife, even as Christ is the head of the

church, his body, and he himself it

savior.

Now, as the church submits to Christ, so

also wives should submit in everything

to their husbands.

Husbands, love your wives as Christ

loved the church and gave himself up for

her, that he might sanctify her, having

cleansed her by the washing of water

with the word, so that he might present

the church to himself in splendor

without spot or wrinkle or any such

thing, that she might be holy and

without blemish.

In the same way, husbands should love

their wives as their own bodies. He who

loves his wife loves himself.

For no one ever hated his own flesh, but

nourishes it and cherishes it just as

Christ does the church

because we are members of his body.

Therefore, a man shall leave his father

and mother and shall and hold fast to

his wife and the two will become one

flesh.

This mystery is profound and I'm saying

that it refers to Christ in the church.

However, let each of you love his wife

as himself, and let the wife see that

she respects her husband.

So, here's the encapsulated main idea,

and that is that God has designed

marriage to reflect the beauty and the

glory of Christ and the church.

He's he's designed marriage to reflect

the beauty and glory of Christ and the

church. God invented

established I mean I maybe you don't

like the term invented but he created it

he started it he established marriage

from the beginning of time with distinct

roles for husbands to be the

sacrificially loving head and for wives

to be the willing submissive helper to

be a mirror reflecting the glory of

Christ in the church

and contrary to modern cultural ideas

that's not ugly.

In fact, it's very amazing and

beautiful.

It it is a beautiful living timeless

transcultural reflection of the

relationship of Christ in the church.

That's what he says here.

Now, it's important for us, I think, to

to see the context here um of the past,

how it fits into Ephesians as a whole. U

it's a continuation of Paul's statement

in verse 18. He says be filled with the

spirit and he says addressing one

another singing and making melody giving

thanks and submitting to one another.

And then here he says wives submit to

your own husbands.

You could even go back even further to

chapter 4 verse one to the command where

he says walk in love as Christ loved us

and gave himself up for us.

that's being pulled in. So, what we see

is that Paul's instructions here are

showing us how the universal principles

of being filled with the spirit and

walking in love are worked out in the

context of marriage.

if you like to write. Um, one other

thing that that we notice too, um,

kind of a highlevel view of the passage

is this whole relationship and how often

the relationship of Christ and the

church is used. And it's a comparative

as this, as this, as this. And if you

like to write in your Bibles or if you

have one of those journals, I encourage

you to circle these phrases. Verse 22,

as to the Lord.

Verse 23,

as Christ is the head of the church.

Verse 24, as Christ sub as the church

submits to Christ. Verse 25, as Christ

loved the church.

Verse 28, in the same way. In verse 29,

as Christ does the church. So there's a

lot of uh this theme of Christ and the

church is woven throughout the passage.

And it's important to know what is the

church that he's talking about here. And

that this may be uh super foundational

for some of you, but I'm new. I don't

know what you all know. So, I'm going to

go and talk about what it means, right?

And I'll I actually took it straight

from the philosophy of ministry again.

So, I know I'm right in line with where

we're at. And that's my goal. I I'm

fully supportive of that statement that

I read at the beginning. It's very uh

it's a a very powerful statement. But

the church is the calledout multitude of

believers from every tribe, language,

group, kindred group, and nation.

And the local church, us, is the earthly

expression of the body of Christ.

And that word commonly translated church

means it literally means called out

once. What? Called out once. And Jesus

promised to build his church. And that's

what he's been doing for the last two

centuries.

He's been calling out individuals from

light into darkness and gathering them

into local assemblies like this

to be built up by one another in the

faith. And that should sound familiar

because Ephesians is talks about that a

lot, right? It's also the pattern that

we see in the book of Acts

where people you read about it came to

faith. They believed the gospel. The

Holy Spirit was working powerfully. They

congregated together and Paul and others

would circle back and they would appoint

leaders, elders for them in those

churches and they would have a sustained

witness to to to testify of the of the

grace of God and the the gospel message

and the church would grow.

So the church is not a building and you

all know that. We don't even own

ability, which is nice. It's not a

man-made organization,

but a living body composed of living

people

united to Christ who is the head of the

body,

a living organism.

Now, with that definition in mind, we'll

look at the passage and I if you like

outlines, here's simple outline for you.

Uh, number one, instructions to wives,

verses 22- 24. Number two, instructions

to husbands, verses 25 to 31. Note,

there's a bigger chunk aimed at the men.

So guys, I'm going to be on you a little

bit. Okay.

Instructions to husbands, verses 25-31,

and then a profound mystery in verses 32

and 33. So, instructions to wives. And

here's something that maybe you want to

jot down. Wives reflect the beauty and

glory of Christ and the church as they

willingly submit to their husbands. This

idea of submission. Wives submit to your

own husbands as to the Lord. What does

that mean? Well, the word itself has a

sort of a military context meaning to

arrange troop divisions under the

command of a leader. Okay. Now, that

military analogy might might not sit

well with some depending on what image

conjures up in your mind. And um if the

image of of Sergeant Carter,

some of you are chuckling, how many of

you are under 30 and have ever heard of

Goomer Pile?

So, if that's the image, Sergeant Carter

and Goomemer Pile that comes to mind

when you think of military, you missed

it. It's not a good image. It's a it's

it's not good at all. If you haven't

heard of Goomemer Pile, go to the

internet. Hilarious stuff. Um, I grew up

watching Goomemer Pile, so I don't even

know if there's reruns anymore. Um, but

a better analogy would be from the more

modern Band of Brothers. And if you

watch that amazing portrayal of of uh

Major Dick Wyinners um in the series

Band of Brothers, he's described and I

did some internet search on him and and

he was described as a a humble man that

would not ask his men to do anything

that he wouldn't do. And they go on to

say his quiet yet commanding leadership

earned him immense respect from his men.

That's a better picture if you're going

to go with this sort of military

analogy. But the word also has

non-military uses. Um, uh, this is

straight from your Vines dictionary. A

voluntary attitude of giving in,

cooperating, assuming responsibility,

and carrying a burden.

Maybe another good analogy is from

sports. You think of a team captain

who's maybe not always the best player,

but he's earned the respect of his

players and they follow him.

or maybe for music,

uh, an orchestra, right? And you've got

the first chair who leads the section

and they follow him as he follows the

conductor. I don't know anything about

music and I could be misstating that,

but I don't know. Those are good

illustrations. Submission then

describes, and this is from Josh's

sermon last week, submission then

describes how we order ourselves in the

various spheres that we live in. And in

the sphere of marriage, the wife is to

order herself under the leadership of

her husband.

The context here limits her submission

to the marriage relationship. It's to

her own husband.

The passage doesn't specify what kind of

job or career or a wife should or

shouldn't have. It doesn't give

specifics like whether the wife should

drive the car or pay the bills or decide

where are you going to eat that night if

you're going out.

It doesn't specify that kind of stuff.

She is submit she is to submit to her

own husband as to the Lord. And as Paul

has previously noted, we submit to one

another out of the fear of Christ or the

reverence for Christ

in light of his authority, his power and

love demonstrated when he died on the

cross to redeem us from slavery to sin.

That's the motivation as to the Lord

in light of who he is and what he's done

for us.

similar meaning here, but it's a little

bit more directed. Uh, and I'll just

read there's a great this, you know,

when you're when when I prepare, I

always try to write things out and then

I'll I'll do like a manuscript and then

start checking commentaries and then the

commentaries always say it way better

than I could. So then I scratch out what

I wrote and I paste in what the

commentary says. So, here's a quote from

uh Constantine Campbell who wrote a

commentary that Josh recommended. I

think he used it. It's a great

commentary. And he writes it in regard

to this phrase as to the Lord. It

grounds a wife's voluntary self-yielding

in her devotion to Christ.

It's an expression of her Christian

commitment.

This grounding is countercultural and it

was in Paul's day hugely countercultural

because it is not related to any kind of

inferiority or her sex.

Greco Roman submission of a wife to a

husband was grounded in Aristotle's

wrong claim that men are superior to

women.

Thus, the wife must always submit to her

husband out of respect for the natural

order in which inferiors yield to the

superiors. That's the context that Paul

was writing this.

Paul, he says, in contrast, offers no

such hint of inferiority.

The wife ought to submit herself to her

husband because of her Christian

commitment, not because of any inh

inherent inferiority.

That's important. There's no superiority

in headship or inferiority in the

women's in women's submission. Those are

man-made ideas.

Someone dreamed that up that somehow

it's better to be the head.

It's not.

As the wife submits to her husband, she

fulfills the role that God arranged. And

it goes back to the beginning. Goes back

to Genesis. If you remember, it's worth

reading. Then when God created

everything, he saw one thing wasn't

good. And it wasn't good that the man

was alone. And he said, "I'll make her

make him a helper suitable for him, a

helper."

And then he, you know, created all the

animals, paraded them before Adam. Must

have been a long day. I don't know. Uh

and he must have been getting frustrated

and tired after seeing all these animals

and knowing, hey, there's nothing here

for me.

So God saw that it there wasn't a

suitable helper for him and then he

created Eve. And that word helper is is

an amazing word. It um is often used in

the Bible to describe God himself.

Psalm 33:20, Psalm 115:10, God is our

Psalms 33:20 Psalms 115:10

help.

And it's used in military context as

well to describe sort of reinforcements

coming to a battle. But what's cool is

Luke 27:17 uses the Greek counterpart

for that word helper. So there's a Greek

version of the Old Testament. And so we

can kind of see what some of these

Hebrew words look look like in Greek.

And Luke uses that word for helper in

Luke 20 27:17 when you remember the

story of Paul being shipped off to Rome

as a prisoner and the ship gets caught

in this huge storm and is being battered

and they all think they're going to die.

The ship it's kind of coming apart and

so what they do is they they get what

are called cables

to wrap the ship so that the boards

don't flex and that the ship doesn't

sink. The word for that supporting cable

is the same Greek word for help. It's

amazing.

Or helper. Helper.

And so to help someone should be seen as

bringing your strength to make up for

that which is lacking in your husband's

strength.

And that comes from a commentary page

173, but I didn't write down who it was.

So there you go.

My whole message is just a a string of

quotes and Bible verses with some

commentary in between.

Um

but in fulfilling her role as helper,

the wife brings her strength to the

marriage.

Oh, I know part of that I think was

Kathy Keller. You guys familiar with

Kathy Keller? Married to Tim Keller who

recently passed away. They wrote wrote a

book called the meaning of marriage and

she wrote the chapter on Ephesians 5 and

it's amazing. I'd encourage you to get

the book just for that chapter.

So I hope that this presents a good

image that we could like get rid of the

stereotypes,

you know, knock them over

uh and and I hope that you kind of

understand a little bit more about what

it means and doesn't mean for the wife

to submit to her husband

um in that regard. But the grounds for

submission is that verse 23 it begins

with a four which gives the grounds the

reason for the husband is the head of

the wife even as Christ is the head of

the church his body and he is himself

its savior. I'm not going to say a lot

about that but wives are to submit to

their husbands because the husband is

the head and at its foundational lever

it's level it means it it's it's the

analogy of a body. The head is the top

of the body. Um, it it I think the

primary emphasis here and the meaning

has to do with authority and leadership.

There's maybe a a nuance of sort of

source and that's the big theological

debate. You there's tons of articles

written on this word head and what does

Paul mean here? He's talking about

authority and leadership.

And the ultimate picture of this is

modeled by the relationship of Christ in

the church in verse 24.

As the church submits to Christ, so also

wives should submit in everything to

their husbands. The model of Christ in

the church is the ultimate model for

every other form of submission.

Specifically here with the wife to the

husband.

The church is shaped and directed by

Christ, the cornerstone.

It rests on Christ, the foundation, and

is the hands and feet of Christ,

fulfilling joyfully his purposes in

preaching the message of good news. The

church relies completely on Christ. As

the church joyfully and willingly

submits to Christ, the head, we

experience his power and love and

protection.

And as his bride, we look forward to the

day when we will be united with him.

Christ is not the conqueror

but the savior.

In other words,

we submit to him as the savior, not the

one who has conquered us. He's conquered

sin and death and he's saved us.

He's won us.

The church has been one to Christ. So

Christ so he we willingly submit to him.

We acknowledge his right to rule and we

acknowledge his overwhelming love.

The phrase in everything I think verse

24 he says wives as the church submits

to Christ so also you you should submit

your in everything to your husbands.

That needs to be balanced out and

qualified by the phrase as to the Lord.

That's important in everything includes

only what Christ himself would ask of

any believer.

Submission then is not the wife cowering

under the authoritarian rule of a

dictator-like husband.

And sup and submission to her husband

does not supersede her obedience to

Christ.

It is governed by it.

The wife is to submit to Christ first as

head, then to her husband out of love

and obedience to Christ. And in doing

that, wives, you'll reflect the beauty

and the glory of Christ in the church.

But that doesn't happen in a vacuum,

does it?

Instructions to husbands are to love

as Christ loved. And the weight of the

passage is toward husbands.

Husbands will reflect the beauty and

glory of Christ in the church as they

sacrificially love their wives.

And he says, "Husbands, verse 25, love

your wives as Christ loved the church

and gave himself for her."

And that stands out that there's two

commands in this passage. In in the in

the actual Greek, there's really only

two commands, and they're both the

command of love, present imperatives,

and we see those in verse 25 and then at

the end of the passage as well. It's

prominent.

How a husband

loves or doesn't love his wife will

dictate whether her submission is a joy

or a burden.

And we know it can be a burden. 1

Timothy 3 talks about wives submitting

to their husbands even if they're

disobedient to the word. And it's in the

context of the sufferings of Christ.

Right? So how you love your wife can

make it a joy or a burden for her.

It's the kind of love that God has

toward Jesus.

It's the love that motivated him to send

Jesus to die to redeem us from sin. And

it's described in first Corinthians,

interesting, with verbs.

Love is patient and kind. Love does not

envy or boast. It is not arrogant or

rude. It does not insist on its own way.

It is not irritable and resentful. Ow.

It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but

rejoices with the truth.

Love bears all things. believes all

things, hopes all things, endures all

things, love never ends. How much more?

That's what we're supposed to do with

each other. How much more, husbands,

should that be toward your wife?

It's often described as the love of

choice, and that's true, but we can't

settle for that. It's not enough. If

you're going to love the way that Christ

loved, it needs to be more than that.

And if you're going to love the way that

Jesus loved and that we're called to

love, you got to become like Jesus.

If you're not becoming like Jesus, you

won't ever be able to do this.

And you won't become like Jesus if

you're not close to Jesus. And you know

what I'm going to say? If you're not

close to Jesus, then you need to

probably be reading the Bible more.

That's kind of a maybe an overly

simplistic answer, but if you're

struggling to love your wife, you need

to get into the word more. You need to

draw close to Jesus. Doesn't matter how

or when you do it, but if we're going to

grow in Christlikkeness, if we're going

to have our minds transformed

from being self-centered to being other

centered, we got to be in the word.

The renewing of our minds. Find the time

that works for you when your mind is

sharpest and your heart is open. For me,

it has to be the first thing in the

morning because and it's not because I'm

super disciplined. It's because I'm

super distracted and it doesn't take

long for me to go way south. Carnal, not

carl, carnal, right? In the flesh. It it

just happens throughout the day. And if

I don't get in the word, it happens very

soon. And I encourage you um find a way,

you know, um maybe you're not much of a

reader. You know, we got radios in cars

these days,

you know, and the beauty is that your

phone can connect to your radio now. And

there's apps on the phone and you could

go to, you know, put on praise music

that's God- centered and Bible centered

or listen to the Bible on there's no

cassettes in there, but back in the day

it was a cassette, right? So there's

really, and again, I want to be gentle

but firm at the same time. There's no

reason for us not to be in the word. You

know, we just have so much. And that's

the only way we're going to love our

wives the way that Christ loved the

church.

And he loves the church. He loves the

church.

He loves his body with a faithful,

steadfast love. He'll never abandon or

forsake the church. Think about the

course of history and all the the

messups of the church.

And yet, you know, here we are.

It's been ugly at times for the church.

But you know what? Jesus has not

abandoned the church. We're still

gathering together, still practicing the

essentials of church, still waiting for

him to return.

We're still here because he's faithful

in his love for us. It's a miracle that

we even exist. And it's only because

Jesus loves the church

with a faithful and steadfast love and a

sacrificial love. Husbands, love your

wives sacrificially as Jesus loved the

church and gave himself for her.

He took on humanity knowing that it

would that he would make the ultimate

sacrifice.

And he calls us to do the same. not

we're already human, but give our lives.

And you know, it's easy for us to say,

"Ah, I' I'd die for my wife because, you

know, it's not going to happen, right?

We, you know, it's easy to say, "Oh,

yeah, if there was a burglar in here,

I'd take him out for my wife."

You're not going to have to do that. But

you know what? Are you going to live for

her every day?

And you young guys that have kids, you

know, it's been a while for us, but

simple things like, you know what, are

you going to change the diaper

or take the kids out away so your wife

can have some time alone?

You know, are you going to do it? You

know, she asks you to do something, are

you going to do it without complaining?

[sighs]

It's horrible. I sometimes I feel like

I'm still 12.

Oh,

but there's, you know, Jesus died for

us, but he also lived for us. And, you

know, just look at how he treated the

knuckleheads that he hung out with. I

mean, it was, you know, look at look at

the disciples and look at how he loved

on tax collectors like Matthew and

Zakius or the Samaritan woman or the the

Apostle Paul, you know, how he was so

kind to knock him off his horse when he

was going the wrong way.

He's the model for how we love and lead

and give ourselves for our wives.

He loved even when we were at our worst,

weak and ungodly.

God shows his love for us and that while

we were still sinners, Christ died for

us.

He gave himself that he might not leave

us where we're at, but change us. Verse

26, that he might sanctify her, having

cleansed her by the washing of water

with the word, so that he might present

the church to himself in splendor

without spot or wrinkle or any such

thing, that she might be holy

and without blemish. He gave himself to

the church to set her apart for himself.

And that's us. That's what he did. He's

called us and he's set us apart. He's

renewing and transforming us through the

word. We're becoming what he's already

determined we're going to be, and we're

going to do it together as a body.

That's kind of an interesting thought.

Every true believer will one day stand

before God spotless and blameless. He

loves the church, his body. And

husbands, we're to love our wives the

same way and give ourselves for her. And

then uh verse 28 kind of a he he gives

another sort of foundation or reason for

why we should love our wives

in the same way husbands should love

your wives as your own bodies. That's

interesting. He who loves him is his he

loves his wife loves himself. Well, the

reality of life is that we all love

ourselves to a certain degree that we

care for ourselves.

It's normal human behavior. If that's

not the case, something's might be

wrong, right? We don't look at that as

normal. [clears throat]

All of you

slept last night, one hour less than

normal, but you slept some, some of you

are sleep better than others, but you

slept. You probably ate something this

morning and you're going to eat at lunch

again. And you may have even exercised

last week or throughout the week. And we

so the point is we generally care for

our bodies because our person is

inseparable from our body. It's who we

are.

There's a connection. It doesn't mean

that we necessarily like what we look at

in the mirror every day. Of course not.

It doesn't mean um

you know we it sorry. It it means that

that we care for ourselves in the sense

that it's in our best interest

to care for ourselves

to care for our bodies. And the same

reality is true for the husband and the

wife. And that's been the case since the

beginning.

And you know what happened after God saw

that there was not a suitable helper? He

created the woman. He caused a deep

sleep, a deep sleep to fall upon the

man.

And while he slept, he took one of his

ribs and closed up its place with flesh.

And the rib that the Lord God had taken

from the man, he made into a woman and

brought her to the man. Then the man

said, "This at last is now bone of my

bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall

be called woman because she was taken

out of man." And here's the verse that

Paul quotes here. Verse 24. Therefore, a

man shall leave

his father and his mother and hold fast

to his wife, and they shall become one

flesh. Way back in Genesis, right?

Husbands and wives are one flesh.

So, as a husband pours life and love

into his wife, he's doing it for

himself.

And it makes sense that Paul would go

back to this passage to bolster his

argument that the husband

and wife are one flesh and that he he

should love his wife as he loves himself

because God designed it from the

beginning that the husband and wife

should be joined together, not losing

their individual identities but at the

same time becoming one flesh.

And Paul says this is a profound mystery

in verse 32.

God designed marriage to be a reflection

of Christ in the church. Verse 32, this

is a profound mystery, but it's not just

about husband and wives. And it gets a

little confusing here, but I say this,

I'm saying this that it refers to Christ

and the church. Now, mysteries, Paul

talks a lot about them. Mysteries are

things that were hidden in the past, but

now revealed

through his ministry. His ministry was

all about that. We've seen it in

Ephesians 3,

the mystery of the church. And here in

Ephesians 5:32, he says that the union

Ephesians 5:32

of Christ and the church is a profound

or a great mystery.

But it's confusing as to where he's

going with it because what is he talking

about? I thought we were talking about

husbands and wives.

Which is it? And which is the great

mystery?

Well, it's both.

In a sense, Christ and the church and

marriage, husband and wife, are so

interwoven

in Paul's mind that the the that our

marriages should be considered mirrors

of the relationship of Christ in the

church, husbands and wives.

And so I think that's equally profound

that God designed marriage to be a

picture or a reflection of the one body

union between Christ and the church.

And so I mean think about that at

creation.

You know God work he was working from a

clean canvas when he created. Remember

it said he created out of nothing. And

when he designed invented marriage, he

could have done it any way he wanted to.

But he created man and woman.

And he was very purposeful in how he

design in his design. He set up marriage

with one man, one woman, joined as one

flesh and assigned unique roles to

mirror and reflect the great mystery of

Christ in the church. The church didn't

even exist yet.

I that's kind of interesting and there's

there's probably some deeper

implications of that. I mean did God

when he was doing marriage when he was

creating Eve

think of the church

look down the corridors of time to one

day when he would send Jesus to die for

our sins and begin calling out that was

God thinking that in his mind?

I think so. And I think that's Paul's

whole point and that's why he digresses

and he he does catch himself, right? He

catches himself and he realizes that

he's digressed. Verse 33, nevertheless,

let each one of you love his wife as

himself and let the wife see to it that

she respects her husband.

And the there's good question. Why did

he say respect for the for the wife

instead of submit? And I'm not sure, but

I'll read from a commentary because

commentaries are my friend.

Uh I'm I'm really not sure, but this

makes sense. Uh again, Campbell says,

"Respect is a wider category than

submission

since it can be expressed when

submission is not appropriate." So in

those cases like in 1 Peter 3, the wife

who's with a disobed the husband who's

disobedient to the word and she

shouldn't submit to his wrong leadership

leading her away from Christ possibly

she should respect it.

I don't know. That's good enough for me.

Um

but these are heavy things and they

represent God's perfect ideal. Right?

And we're not going to live these things

out perfectly. None of us will.

But God's mercy and his grace are great

towards us

as we strive to live these things out.

And I'll just read my big idea again.

God has beautifully designed marriage to

reflect the beauty and glory of Christ

in the church. So, husbands, love your

wives as Christ loved the church. and

wives, submit your husbands. Submit to

your husbands as the church submits to

Christ.

And we need grace in that, don't we? I

know I do. Um, we've been on a journey

in our marriage for a long time, 37

years,

still figuring this out. And we've gone,

you know, I mean, I've been swayed over

the past, you know, as to my degree of

convictions regarding these things. It's

been a mistake, but God's gracious.

God's gracious.