Ephesians 5:22-6:9 is often presented in sermons or in church retreats as a marriage seminar, a child-rearing seminar, or advice for serving under a bad boss, or how to be a good one.

The seminar approach to this section overlooks something that, once you see it, the section is never seen just as good advice about marriage. It becomes amazing teaching about the love of Christ and his personal life in the Body of Christ, the Church.

Wouldn’t it be odd for Paul to write this incredible letter about the work of Christ, the person of Christ, the power of the resurrection, the fullness of God, and much more, and to take almost a chapter to fall back to some seminar teaching about marriage, parenting, and submission to employers (masters), that, perhaps, he’d neglected to give the church(es) while he was in the area? He wouldn’t do that. His purpose in this section (5:22ff) is to tell us more about Christ. He is challenging us, helping us, and giving us practical examples of what we ought to do, from the family and from work relationships.

I don’t think 5:22 is a new paragraph, but a continuation of the previous paragraph. In the Greek text the word “submit” is left out in 5:22, because the principle of submission is so strongly stated in 5:21. Verse 22 needs verse 21 to make sense. Let’s keep them together. No new paragraph at Verse 22.

We know that Paul thinks in complex sentences and long paragraphs, so we need to follow his thinking down the long path. Christ is said to “shine on” the church ( back in 5:14), Christ is the Sun that rises on his Church – what a beautiful picture. Futhermore, the Church is to be “filled with the Spirit (5:18), and then the rejoicing Church is led into worship with “psalms and hymns and spiritual songs” (5:19). Then, and this is where our section begins, they are told to “submit to one another out of reverence for Christ” (5:21). The fear (Greek phobõ) of Christ is the reverence, awe, and respect that Christ has in and over the Church. His presence in the Church (the Body of Christ) is intimate and a strong connection, a bond that can’t be broken, like marriage perhaps. His love for the Church is redemptive and life-giving. This section, over and over, in this way then that way, it is repeatedly, and wonderfully about the love of Christ for his Church, his love for us who love him.

The principle that is carried into the practical instruction beginning in 5:22 is that Christ defines and directs every relationship we now have. The emphasis is not on marriage alone. It is about Christ as the core of our walk (life) with God and at the core of every relationship we have.

The instruction about marriage, considered as a marriage seminar, is meaningless if the teaching about marriage is separated from the person of Christ (who he is) and work of Christ (what he did and what he is doing in his people, the Church). Paul is building a case for Christ as the Lord of the Church.

Ephesians 5:21 — the principle of submission to one another out of reverence (fear) of Christ.

5:23, The church should submit to Christ as a wife submits to the husband she loves (there is no absolute or unconditional submission to human beings taught here). The principle of the church’s submission to Christ is illustrated by the wife following and submitting to her husband. The priniciple is that a submitting wife illustrates the way the submitting Church loves Christ. The church is not an example for every wife to submit to any husband. The comparison to Christ and the church falls apart completely at that point. But in the marriage seminars, that is clearly the message. They say that a wife should submit to her husband (any husband) because that is the way the church submits to Christ. But that is very different from showing by practical example that a wife’s submission illustrates the way the Church must obey Christ. To flip it back the other way doesn’t work. 5:22 doesn’t go on to explain the many ways the wife submits to her husband, it goes on to explain how Christ is the head of the Body of Christ and is himself its Savior. The primary principle is that the church shows how the wife submits, but even in the Greek text, AGAIN, the word “submit” is left out, and the word is implied from the phrase, “as the church submits to Christ. It continues, “so also wives in everything to their husbands” omitting the word “submit.”

The point is that the main focus for a Christian is Christ. That is essential and critical information for us. This section focuses on the relationship between Christ and his Church. The illustration, the analogy taken from marriage helps us to understand what submission should be, but the force of Paul’s teaching is for the Church to be in subjection to Christ.

The marriage relationship is impacted by Christ. As we are subject to Christ as the body of Christ, we can begin to understand real submission to one another, and to one another who are married. It isn’t that out of the marraige relationship that are taught about submission. It is that being in the Church of Jesus Christ that the Lord teaches us so much about submission — Christ’s submission to the will of his Father, his obedience unto death. His Lordship over the Church and his demand that we obey him if we love him – that is how we learn to submit in other relationships because we are members of a submitting-to-Christ Body. We learn about submission because we know Christ and see his life before the Father. And we learn to submit to him as Lord. Lordship demands our submission.

The marriage seminar is over (as great a need as there is for better marriages). This is a seminar about Jesus and his people. This is what we need today. Not a bunch of suggestions for relationships, but a relationship that is incredible, with God, by Jesus Christ. That’s what we need!

5:25, Husbands love your wives, as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her… ” The husband’s love for his wife is to reflect the love that Christ has for the Church. The illustration is not giving 50 ways to love your wife. It is setting Christ as the lover of the Church and the husband submits to the King of the Church and learns about love from the Lover of the Church.

The seminar on marriage would stop and tell the husband how he should love his wife. But a much bigger point is how greatly Christ loves his Church. Just reading through this section, notice who is mentioned again and again: it is the Lord, then Christ, followed by Savior, then Christ again, and again Christ, then he shifts over to “he” (Christ), and again he (Christ), back to Christ, and once more Christ. The emphasis, let’s say it again, is not on marriage. Marriage is an analogy, an illustration of the way Christ loves his people. When that is kept at the center of this passage, these verses become a song of praise to the King and Master of the Church to which we belong.

This is what Paul says about this very section in 5:32. If you are teaching the marriage seminar on this section, this verse doesn’t fit in very well, because you’ve been giving 8 ways to make your marriage better, and this passage is giving you great reasons to trust Christ and love him with all your heart. Paul gives his take on what he wrote in this section about Christ, in 5:32, “This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the Church.” The illustrations from marriage could get us off the central theme, maybe that’s why this section is almost always a marriage seminar. But it is is so much more.

Ok, I’ll admit there is much in the marriage relationship that is picked up on in the union between Christ and the Church. The Church is the Bride of Christ (Revelation 19:7). But the lesson for us HERE is that we are the Bride. Christ is the one who loves us. We are in submission to him. He is our Lord. Our loves and marriages find their meaning through the person and work of Christ. But Christ’s love is not helped by the wife who submits or by the husband who loves. Christ is the one these pictures are telling us about.

To let the text speak, OK, marriage is important. But it becomes much clearer how we love and care, how we submit and follow, when we have Christ at the center of our lives as part of the Body of Christ, the Church. Christ living in us, Christ filling us full of the fullness of God! The Church is the focus of the love of God. The focus, the center of his redemption. We receive the fullness of Christ to dwell in us (see Ephesians 3:19, “and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” (ESV), all these great principles not only make our marriages outstanding, they make our lives amazing and God-filled.

Paul was not lauding a good husband, he is extolling our glorious Savior for his amazing love for us who believe. John 17:22-23, “that they may be one,” Jesus said. He wanted our unity to be not merely about how great our kids are or how wonderful our marriages are (and those are great things to want), but that people have a significant connection with God by Jesus Christ. Something that is able to make a husband love better, and a wife to trust her wonderful husband more.

Ephesians 5:22ff is about Christ first and most. When we grasp that with our minds and hearts, and begin to live as the Body of Christ, our connection with Christ becomes stronger, and that connection changes everything.