The Parallel Relationship
For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Saviour. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Ephesians 5:23,24 (NIV)
Women in many cultures have been exploited; children have often been suppressed and squashed, and workers have been unjustly treated, not to mention the appalling injustices and barbarities of slavery and the slave trade. The church has often acquiesced to the status quo and so helped perpetuate some forms of human oppression, instead of being the vanguard of those seeking social justice. But nothing in Paul’s instruction is inconsistent with the true liberation of human beings from exploitation and oppression. It was Jesus Christ who treated women with honour in an age when they were despised. It was Jesus Christ who beckoned children to Himself despite His own disciples’ objections in a period of history when unwanted babies were consigned to the local rubbish dump and children abandoned in the forum for anybody to pick up and rear for slavery or prostitution. It was Jesus Christ who dignified manual labour by working as a carpenter and fulfilled the role of a slave when He washed the disciples’ feet.
In the light of the teaching of Jesus and the apostles we need to confirm three truths
the dignity of womenhood, childhood and servanthood
the equality before God of all human beings, irrespective of race, rank, class, culture, sex or age, because all are made in His image
the unity of all believers, as fellow members of God’s family and of Christ’s body
Codes of household duties were familiar to the Greeks from Aristotle on and became a familiar part of Christian instruction (cf. Colossians 3:18-4;1; 1 Peter 2:18-3:7). Paul begins with the basic relationship in the home – between husbands and wives. Throughout this section husbands and wives are reminded of their duties and not their rights. Husbands and wives are equal before Christ (Galatians 3:28). There is no difference in worth between the two. But for the order of the family there must be leadership and the responsibility of leadership ordinarily fell on the husband and father. While in Colossians 3:18 wives are told to be subject to their husbands ‘as is fitting in the Lord’ the phrase in 5:22 ‘as to the Lord’ (of a wife’s submission to her husband) has a different force. The ‘Lord’ is Christ and not the husband and the implication is that a Christian wife’s submission to her husband is one aspect of her obedience to the Lord.
‘For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body’ (5:23). Husband and wife are to see their relationship as following the patterns of the relationship between Christ and His Church. There is Old Testament background to this in the way the prophets regarded God as husband to His people, entering into marriage covenant with them, and loving them faithfully, even when, because of their idolatry, they were like an unfaithful wife who had committed adultery (Isaiah 54:1-8; 62:4,5; Jeremiah 3:6-14; Ezekiel 16; 23; Hosea 1-3). There has been much discussion about the biblical meaning of ‘head’ as ‘source’ rather than ‘leader.’ ‘Head’ as ‘source’ is the obvious meaning in 4:15,16 but the term is generally better understood in terms of ‘leader’ (1:22; Colossians 1:18; 2:10). Paul adds ‘of which he is the Saviour’ (5:23). He might be wanting to parallel the sacrificial concern of Christ for His church with the need for the husband to have a loving and sacrificial concern for his wife.
‘Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything’ (5:24). In the context and culture of his day, Paul wanted every Christian wife to make the responsibility of marriage and family higher than any independent aspirations. Following the parallel, as the church wholeheartedly devotes herself to Christ, so the wife is called on to wholeheartedly maintain a submissive heart to her husband (who in turn is to be the loving leader who sacrifices for her welfare).
… for the husband provides leadership for the wife, just as Christ provides leadership for the church, as the Saviour and Reviver of the body. In the same way the church is devoted to Christ, let the wives be devoted to their husbands in everything Ephesians 5:23,24 (The Passion Translation)