Verse 1: Be ye therefore imitators of God, as beloved children;
This injunction follows on immediately from the foregoing: as God has forgiven you, says Paul, so should you forgive one another, and thus you will be imitators of God, as his dear children ought to be. Again, this echoes the Sermon on the Mount: “Ye therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48, where “perfect” may mean something like “all-embracing in your generosity”).
Verse 2: and walk in love, even as Christ also loved you, and gave himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for an odour of a sweet smell.
The distribution of the pronouns “you” and “us” is again rather uncertain (as in 4:32); for “Christ also loved you,” Papyrus 46 (probably rightly) reads “Christ also loved us”; and in the following clause, “gave himself up for us,” RV margin quotes the variant reading “you.” The self-sacrificing love of Christ, like the Father’s forgiving mercy, is an incentive and example for Christian behavior. In his death on the cross Christ offered up his life to God as a most acceptable and all-sufficient ransom on behalf of sinners (cf. Mark 10:45; Romans 3:24 f.), and his self-oblation is not infrequently described, as here, in the characteristic terminology of the Levitical law of sacrifice. The two terms for sacrifice are not technically differentiated here; where they are so differentiated, “offering” (Gk. prosphora) is a meal-offering or cereal-offering (Heb. minchah) and “sacrifice” (Gk. thysia) is a peace-offering (Heb. zebach). The expression “an odour of a sweet smell” occurs in a sacrificial context about forty times in the Pentateuch and four times in Ezekiel. In Philippians 4:18 Paul uses it to describe the gift which the Philippian Christians had sent him by the hand of Epaphroditus. It is pre-eminently by the imitation of God in Christ that the change from the old way of life to the new is to be manifested; the life in which this change has taken place becomes in its turn a fragrant offering to God, “a sweet savour of Christ” (2 Corinthians 2:15).
4. Old darkness and new light (5:3-21)
Verse 3: But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not even be named among you, as becometh saints;
Catalogs of vices were common form in the writings of pagan moralists and in Jewish polemic against paganism; they are found frequently in Paul’s epistles (cf. Romans 1:29 ff.; 1 Corinthians 5:11; 6:9 f.; Galatians 5:19 ff.; Colossians 3:5 ff.), but in Paul’s epistles they derive a special significance from the Christian context in which he sets them. Fornication and other forms of unclean living were certainly sins against which converts from paganism needed to be put on their guard, as is particularly evident from Paul’s Corinthian correspondence. We may think it strange to see covetousness so closely associated with these vices, but Paul is simply moving from outward manifestations of sin to their inner springs in the cravings of the heart. We may remember how our Lord similarly traces murder back to the angry thought, and adultery to the lustful glance (Matthew 5:21 ff.,27 ff.). Covetousness (Gk. pleonexia) has already been mentioned (Ephesians 4:19) as a feature of pagan behavior. Occasionally it has special reference to trespassing in the sexual sphere, as in 1 Thessalonians 4:6, where Paul enjoins that no one should “wrong his brother” – literally, “act covetously (Gk. pleonektein) against him” – by seeking illicit relations with one of the women in his family circle. But covetousness may assume a much more respectable form than this, and is all the more dangerous on that account. Together with the other sins mentioned, far from being practiced in the Christian circle, it should not even be mentioned in it. For Christians are the holy people of God, and such unholy things are unfitting for their minds to dwell upon or their tongues to name.
“The self-sacrificing love of Christ, like the Father’s forgiving mercy, is an incentive and example for Christian behavior.”
Verse 4: nor filthiness, nor foolish talking, or jesting, which are not befitting:
From the company which it keeps here, “filthiness” (Gk. aischrotes) is probably to be understood in the same sense as the “shameful speaking” (Gk. aischrologia) of Colossians 3:8. Ribaldry, buffoonery and flippancy are wholly incongruous on Christian lips. “A merry heart is a good medicine” (Proverbs 17:22), and Paul commends the speech that is “seasoned with salt” (Colossians 4:6); but coarse vulgarity is to be avoided, and still more so that “jesting” (Gk. eutrapelia) which Aristotle defines as “cultured insolence.” Above all, light and irreverent talk about sacred things is to be utterly reprobated.
but rather giving of thanks.
“Our tongues were made to bless the Lord,” as Isaac Watts reminds us, and Christian tongues in particular have unbounded cause for engaging in this most worthy activity. Tongues which are habituated to the praise of God should not readily lend themselves to language which dishonors his name.
Verse 5: For this ye know of a surety, that no fornicator, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, which is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.
A solemn warning accompanies the apostle’s ban on impurity in deed, thought or word. The opening words of the verse may be taken either as indicative (so RV, as quoted above), or as imperative: “Be well assured of this” (Gk. iste ginoskontes, literally “know ye knowing”). No one who is guilty of the vicious practices mentioned has any share in the heavenly kingdom. Only the regenerate can enter the kingdom of God, and these practices bear witness to an unregenerate heart, whatever professions may be made to the contrary. The idea that Paul means that such people may be true Christians even so, but that their behavior will debar them from any part or lot in a future millenniaI reign of Christ, is totally unwarranted by the context and by New Testament teaching in general. In the similar passage in 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, it is abundantly clear that “the unrighteous” who, because of various specified vices, “shall not inherit the kingdom of God” are distinct from those who have been “washed, … sanctified, … justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God.” A covetous man, says Paul, is an idolater (cf. Colossians 3:5), because he sets his affections on earthly things and not on things above, and so puts some other object of desire in the central place which God alone should have in the human heart. The part which the commandment against covetousness played in Paul’s own spiritual experience (Romans 7:7 ff.) no doubt made him acutely aware of the special deadliness of this subtle sin.
The expression “the kingdom of Christ and God” does not denote two separate kingdoms, but one, the kingdom which is Christ’s and God’s. Paul perhaps uses the term “kingdom of Christ” for the present phase of the divine kingdom, when it is mediatorially administered by Christ, reserving the term “kingdom of God” for its future consummation in full glory. (Sometimes, however, he speaks of the “kingdom of God” with a more general reference.) The wording in our present passage implies that both phases are conjoined; neither here nor hereafter can there be any place for impenitent sinners in that kingdom which is “righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Romans 14:17).
Verse 6: Let no man deceive you with empty words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the sons of disobedience.
Some forms of Gnosticism in the second century and onwards, of which adumbrations can be traced even in the first century, held that such practices as the apostle here condemns were irrelevant to the spiritual life, because they had to do with the body whereas the spiritual life was concerned only with the soul. In addition, it is plain from some of Paul’s other letters that his converts in certain places were apt to be misled by the argument that freedom from the law implied freedom to sin – to sin in order that God’s grace might abound the more (cf. Romans 6:1). Paul characterizes all such sophistries as “empty words” – we may compare the “vain deceit” against which he warns the Colossians in Colossians 2:8. His readers must be on their guard against such specious talk, lest they be seduced by it. It is precisely this sort of behavior, he says, that brings down the wrath of God on the “sons of disobedience” (a description of the ungodly repeated from Ephesians 2:2). This is a theme which he elaborates especially in Romans 1:18 ff., where he shows the successive stages in which “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.” God has written his decree against such sins in the very constitution and conscience of men; how then can those who are peculiarly his people tolerate them in their personal and social life?
“The Eternal Word, agent of God in the first creation, is the very embodiment of heavenly light and shines in his incarnation as ‘the light of the world’ (John 8:12; 9:5), ‘the light which lighteth every man’ (John 1:9).”
Verse 7: Be not ye therefore partakers with them;
The Greek word rendered “partaker” (symmetochos) is one of Paul’s characteristic compounds with the prefix syn. In Ephesians 3:6, as we have seen, he uses it of Gentile believers who are joint-sharers with Jewish believers in the body of Christ; here, contrariwise, it is used of partnership in iniquity.
Verse 8: for ye were once darkness, but are now light in the Lord:
The opposed themes of light and darkness are frequently used in the New Testament to denote the divine kingdom as against all that is contrary to it, especially in the Johannine and Pauline writings. The basic principle of this opposition is stated most succinctly in 1 John 1:5, “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” The calling forth of light from darkness in the creation narrative of Genesis 1:2 ff. is used as a picture of the expulsion of moral darkness by the inflowing of heavenly light (2 Corinthians 4:6). The Eternal Word, agent of God in the first creation, is the very embodiment of heavenly light and shines in his incarnation as “the light of the world” (John 8:12; 9:5), “the light which lighteth every man” (John 1:9). Evildoers hate and shun the light; “he that doeth the truth cometh to the light” (John 3:20 f.). In Colossians 1:13 Christians are said to have been rescued from the dominion of darkness and brought over into the realm where Christ reigns as king, the inheritance of light which is reserved for the people of God. So here, the Christians addressed are described as having formerly been not merely in darkness, but darkness itself, during their years of paganism; through faithunion with Christ, however, they have become light in him.
walk as children of light
“Children of light” (Gk. tekna photos), like the synonymous “sons of light” (hyioi photos) in Luke 16:8 and 1 Thessalonians 5:5, is an expression denoting those whose lives are characterized by divine light, since they are begotten of God and do his will. The expression has gained further currency in recent years from its use in Qumran literature (especially in the Rule of War, frequently entitled The War of the Sons of Light with the Sons of Darkness), but this need not indicate a direct relationship between the Qumran texts and the New Testament, since both bodies of literature shared a common background. To “walk as children of light” means to behave as Christians ought (cf. 1 Thessalonians 5:8; 1 John 1:6 f.).
Verse 9: (for the fruit of the light is in all goodness and righteousness and truth),
The “Received Text” reads “the fruit of the Spirit” (so AV), under the influence of Galatians 5:22; but, although it has the unusually strong support of Papyrus 46, it must be regarded as inferior to the reading “the fruit of the light.” This latter reading is confirmed not only by the weight of the evidence, but also by the context, in view both of the general theme of light in these verses and of the counterbalancing reference to “the unfruitful works of darkness” in verse 11. The fruit of the light is simply the manner of life produced in believers by the true light which dwells within them – a manner of life marked by “goodness and righteousness and truth.”
Verse 10: proving what is well-pleasing unto the Lord;
The verb translated “proving” is dokimazo, which may mean not only putting to the test but approving as good. We may “prove” what is well-pleasing to the Lord by putting it into practice, but we may also, by our practical experience of it, learn to approve the will of God, as being “good and acceptable and perfect” (Romans 12:2, where the same verb is used). This fuller meaning of the word is probably intended here.
Verse 11: and have no fellowship with the unfruitful work of darkness,
In Galatians 5:19-23 the “works of the flesh” are contrasted with the “fruit of the Spirit,” perhaps with the implication that the “flesh” – the old nature – is a dead thing whose manifestations cannot properly be described as “fruit.” If that is so, it is evidently the same idea that finds expression here; the works of darkness, the practices which characterized paganism, are “unfruitful” and sterile, issuing in death.
but rather even reprove them;
If the things which please God are to be approved, the things which displease him are naturally to be reprobated – exposed, censured and, if possible, corrected (Gk. elencho).
Verse 12: for the things which are done by them in secret it is a shame even to speak of.
The very mention of such vices is offensive to people who are morally sensitive, although their exposure, in accordance with the apostle’s injunction, may require such outspokenness as he himself uses, for example, in Romans 1:24-32.
Verse 13: But all things when they are reproved are made manifest by the light: for everything that is made manifest is light.
When these things are exposed (the verb elencho is used again) by being dragged out of the dingy corners where they lurk into the light of day, they are seen for what they are, in all their ugliness. But evidently along with the idea of exposure goes that of correction; when they are brought into the light such evils must wither and die. The light is, of course, the light of God. The statement that “everything that is made manifest (Gk. phaneroō) is light” implies that when a man abandons the darkness of sin and comes to the light, he enters that company of which Paul has just said: “ye were once darkness, but are now light in the Lord” (verse 8). The teaching is very similar to that of John 3:20 f.: “everyone that doeth ill hateth the light, and cometh not to the light, lest his works should be reproved (Gk. elencho); but he that doeth the truth cometh to the light, that his works may be made manifest (Gk. phaneroo), that they have been wrought in God.”
“Thanksgiving is properly rendered to God in the name of Christ, not only because he is the One through whom we approach God, but also because he himself constitutes our crowning subject for thanksgiving.”
Verse 14: Wherefore he saith, Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall shine upon thee.
The introductory formula (Gk. dio legei) is used in Ephesians 4:8 to introduce a biblical quotation. In the present instance, while the words which follow represent the general sense of a number of Old Testament passages (cf. Isaiah 26:19; 51:17; 52:1; 60:1; Malachi 4:2), they are not as they stand derived from any single Old Testament context. In Greek they form a metrical triplet, the rhythm of which can easily be reproduced in English, thus:
Awake, O thou that sleepest,
And from the dead arouse thee,
And Christ shall dawn upon thee.
It is significant that in the Hellenistic world this precise rhythm was specially associated with religious initiation-chants, and it has been suggested that Christians took the rhythm over for use in the act of Christian initiation, and that we have here a primitive baptismal hymn. Baptism symbolizes the convert’s emergence from the darkness of the tomb to the light of resurrection-life, and one of the names by which it came to be called in the Early Church was “enlightenment” (Gk. photismos), a designation possibly used as early as Hebrews 6:4; 10:32. This interpretation of Ephesians 5:14 cannot be demonstrated to be the true one, but it is more probable than any other. In that case, the impersonal “wherefore it saith” (cf. RSV, “Therefore it is said”) would be a preferable rendering to “wherefore he saith” of AV and RV.
The verb “shine” (Gk. epiphausko) is used of the rising of a heavenly body. In some texts the future epiphausei (“shall shine upon”) has been corrupted to epipsausei (“shall touch”), and in others the resultant “Christ shall touch thee” has been further changed so as to read “thou shalt touch Christ”; but such readings are poorly supported and in any case are alien intruders upon the figure of illumination.
Verse 15: Look therefore carefully how ye walk,
This order, in which “carefully” (Gk. akribos) precedes “how” (Gk. pos), is slightly better attested than that which in “how” precedes “carefully” (whence AV “see then that ye walk circumspectly,” where the adverb modifies “walk” instead of “look”). “Pay careful heed to your behavior,” says the apostle, resuming the injunction at the end of verse 8.
not as unwise, but as wise;
We may compare Colossians 4:5, “walk in wisdom toward them that are without.” Especially in view of the slanderous reports which circulated about Christian behavior, it was important that Christians should so conduct themselves that everyone might see how false these reports were. More generally, the apostle echoes his Master’s direction to his disciples to be “wise as serpents, and harmless as doves” (Matthew 10:16), as he also does in Romans 16:19 when he urges his readers to be “wise unto that which is good, and simple unto that which is evil.” (The same Greek adjective, akeraios, is rendered “harmless” in Matthew 10:16 and “simple” in Romans 16:19.)
Verse 16: redeeming the time, because the days are evil.
The Colossian Christians are urged to redeem the time with a special view to their witness among unbelieving neighbors (Colossians 4:5); here the injunction has more general regard to the duty of Christian prudence. The days were “evil”; persecution and distress threatened the churches throughout the Roman Empire; signs were not lacking of the impending fall of the Second Jewish Commonwealth, with all the incalculable implications which that might have for the Christian cause. The present opportunity for Christian life and work might not last much longer; Christians should therefore use it to the full while they could. The word translated “time” (Gk. kairos) denotes a critical epoch, a special opportunity, which may soon pass; “grasp it,” says the apostle, “buy it up for yourselves (Gk. exagorazomai) while it lasts.”
Verse 17: Wherefore be ye not foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.
Failure to appraise and utilize the passing opportunity would be disastrous folly. It is so in ordinary commercial and political affairs; it is not less so in the spiritual realm. The opportunities which come our way in Christian experience are opportunities for doing the will of God, but in order to do it we must understand what it is, and such understanding can only come by paying heed to his Word and applying it to the requirements of the day through the wisdom which his Spirit bestows. In fact, to “understand what the will of the Lord is” is little different from “proving what is well-pleasing unto the Lord” – the phrase which has been used above in verse 10.
Verse 18: And be not drunken with wine, wherein is riot,
The first clause is a quotation from the Septuagint of Proverbs 23:30. Over-indulgence in wine was a common enough vice in the world of the New Testament, to judge from the repeated warnings against it scattered throughout the apostolic writings. Drunkenness is one of “the works of the flesh” listed in Galatians 5:19-21, and excludes one from inheritance in the kingdom of God (cf. 1 Corinthians 6:10). It leads to other forms of profligacy – the “riotous living” of the prodigal son (Luke 15:13) – and in particular it makes it impossible to exercise the prudent recognition and exploitation of fleeting opportunity which the present context enjoins.
but be filled with the Spirit;
The effects of being filled with the Spirit were mockingly misinterpreted on the day of Pentecost as being the result of new wine (Acts 2:13); but neither there nor here is it to be inferred that the Spirit is a substance with which man’s personality can be filled just as his body can be filled with wine. Paul does not say, “Become full of the Spirit” but (literally), “Be filled in Spirit”; and if we wish to know what he means by the phrase “in Spirit,” we may consider its occurrence in three other places in this epistle (Ephesians 2:22; 3:5; 6:18), where the personal operation of the Holy Spirit is in view. Instead of seeking such satisfaction as some expect to find through wine-bibbing, he means, let your fullness be that which the Holy Spirit produces. Some of the symptoms of this spiritual fullness are mentioned in the following verses.
“It is easier to pay lip-service to the duty of mutual submission than to practice it, but when it is undertaken in a spirit of reverence for Christ it can be achieved.”
Verse 19: speaking one to another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord;
Praise such as is described here both glorifies God and edifies man. “Speaking one to another” corresponds to the fuller phrase “teaching and admonishing one another” in Colossians 3:16. If we are to distinguish between the three kinds of musical composition, “psalms” may refer to the Old Testament Psalter, which has provided a perennial source of Christian praise from the earliest times; “hymns” may denote Christian canticles such as have been recognized in several places in the New Testament (including verse 14 above); “spiritual songs” may be unpremeditated words sung “in the Spirit,” voicing praise and holy aspirations. We have evidence from various writers of the way in which early Christians “spoke one to another” in sacred song. Pliny, when Roman governor of Bithynia in AD 112, was told how the Christians of his province were in the habit of meeting on a fixed day before dawn and “reciting a hymn antiphonally to Christ as God.” Towards the end of the same century Tertullian, writing in North Africa, describes the Christian love-feast at which “each is invited to sing to God in the presence of the others from what he knows of the holy scripture or from his own heart.”
The verb translated “making melody” (Gk. psallo) means originally plucking the strings of a lyre or similar instrument, but this etymological sense is probably not intended here; we may take it in the sense of singing psalms which it has in 1 Corinthians 14:15 and James 5:13. (It is, in fact, the word from which “psalm” is derived.) The context in which it occurs in 1 Corinthians 14:15, “I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also,” chimes in well with the apostle’s insistence here, that such melody, to be acceptable to the Lord, must spring from the heart. We may also compare Colossians 3:16, “singing with grace in your hearts unto God,” where “grace” (Gk. charis) means thanksgiving. Nothing yields worthy praise more spontaneously than a thankful heart. So the apostle continues:
Verse 20: giving thanks always for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father;
This might seem a counsel of perfection, did we not know full well that Paul himself had learned to do this very thing, even in the most unpropitious circumstances. The man who, with his companion, sang hymns to God at midnight in the cramping discomfort of the Philippian stocks has a right to recommend the same attitude of heart to others. Thanksgiving is properly rendered to God in the name of Christ, not only because he is the One through whom we approach God, but also because he himself constitutes our crowning subject for thanksgiving. It is when we appreciate the grace of God in not sparing his own Son, but giving him up for us all, that we can best appreciate God’s further grace in freely giving us all things with him (Romans 8:32). And it is when we learn by experience that, to those who love him, God makes all things work together for good (Romans 8:28), that we can wholeheartedly give him thanks “always for all things.” Those who have learned this lesson will be able not only to give thanks to God through Christ but to fulfill the even more comprehensive injunction of the parallel passage in Colossians 3:17: “And whatsoever ye do, in word or in deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”
Verse 21: subjecting yourselves one to another in the fear of Christ.
The present section of the epistle comes to an end with a general exhortation to mutual deference and service, which finds particular application in the following verses to the various relations within the Christian household. From the ethical sections of the New Testament epistles it has been inferred that in the earliest days of Christianity a fairly uniform body of teaching about Christian behavior was communicated to the infant churches. The steady increase in the number of Gentile converts made it desirable that they should learn the rudiments of Christian ethics in a readily assimilated form. The teaching which was imparted to them was in essence the teaching of Christ himself, classified in groups of injunctions each of which was introduced by a sort of catchword. We have already met the catchwords “put off” and “put on” (Ephesians 4:22,24); “subjecting yourselves” is another. It is easier to pay lip-service to the duty of mutual submission than to practice it, but when it is undertaken in a spirit of reverence for Christ it can be achieved. When Peter enjoins this same attitude, he does so in words which recall Christ’s own example in girding himself with a towel to perform a lowly service for his disciples: “Yea, all of you gird yourselves with humility, to serve one another” (1 Peter 5:5; cf. John 13:4 f.).
5. The Christian household (5:22–6:9)
The graces which ought to flourish in the Christian fellowship might be expected to find a specially congenial environment in the Christian household. Here pre-eminently should mutual consideration and deference be shown, between husbands and wives, between parents and children, between masters and servants. Codes of domestic behavior were common form among the Gentile moralists of the day, and it is interesting to compare them with the instructions given about family life in the New Testament. From the way in which this kind of instruction recurs in various New Testament writings (cf. Colossians 3:18–4:1; 1 Timothy 3:4 f.,12; 5:14; 6:1 f.; Titus 2:1-10; 1 Peter 2.13–3:7), it has been inferred that it regularly formed part of a fairly well defined body of practical teaching imparted to Christian converts. Many of the mutual family duties inculcated in these New Testament passages can be parallelled in contemporary non-Christian literature, but the New Testament raises the whole situation on to a higher level by relating each of these duties to the Christian faith. Obedience and submission on the one part, like love and care on the other part, are enjoined for Christ’s sake.
“Christ’s intention was to have the church as his own possession, the community of his holy people, set apart fot himself.”
5a Wives and husbands (5:22-33)
Verse 22: Wives, be in subjection unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.
In verse 22 the words “be in subjection” are italicized in the text because they are absent from the Greek; they have to be supplied from verse 21, “subjecting yourselves one to another in the fear of Christ.” The deference which wives are to show to their husbands is a particular aspect of that submission which all Christians have been urged to show to one another. Other moralists insisted that the subordination of wives to their husbands was right because it was part of the natural order of things; Paul inculcates it as a Christian duty. The phrase “as unto the Lord” does not mean that they should yield to their husbands the same deference as they would yield to Christ himself, but that deference to their husbands is a duty which they owe to the Lord. It is not that women are inferior to men, or that wives are inferior to their husbands, either naturally or spiritually. But Paul recognizes a divinely ordained hierarchy in the order of creation, and in this order the wife has a place next after her husband. When she recognizes and accepts this subordinate place, he means, she does so “as unto the Lord,” acknowledging his ordinance.
Verse 23: 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.
Paul had already stated in 1 Corinthians 11:3 that “the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.” Thus he establishes the hierarchy ascending from woman through man through Christ to God. Here he recasts this conception in the light of the teaching given already in this epistle about Christ as the head of the Church. If the head of the woman is the man, and the head of the Church is Christ, then an analogy can be drawn between a wife’s relation to her husband and the Church’s relation to Christ. The Church owes obedience to Christ; so, too, does a wife to her husband. As Christ is the deliverer and defender of the Church which is his body, so (the implication seems to be) the husband is the protector of his wife, who (according to the Genesis narrative) is “one flesh” with him.
Verse 24: But as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives also be to their husbands in everything.
Paul might have gone on to develop the significance of Christ’s being “the saviour of the body,” but he comes back to the subject with which he is dealing – the wife’s duty of submission or deference. Here the verb “be in subjection” is expressed, and not left to be understood as in verse 22. The wife’s special deference to her husband takes its character from the special relationship which binds husband and wife together – a relationship which Paul illuminates by presenting it as analogous to that supernatural relationship in which the Church is bound to Christ. But if he places the duties of wives on such a lofty plane, he rates the obligations of husbands no lower.
Verse 25: Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself up for it;
The wife’s submission to her husband has as its correlative his duty to love her – with a love which is much more than natural affection or attraction, involving his active and unceasing and self-sacrificing concern for her well-being. The Church’s obedience to Christ, which is the wife’s model for her duty to her husband, may fall short of what it should be; there are no shortcomings about the love of Christ for his Church, which is here prescribed as the model for the Christian husband’s love for his wife. By setting this highest of standards for the husband’s treatment of his wife, Paul goes to the limit in safeguarding the wife’s dignity and welfare. For the love of Christ is a self-giving love: he gave himself up for his Church, and the natural inference is that there is no sacrifice, not even the sacrifice of his life, which a husband should not be prepared to make, if necessary, for his wife.
Verse 26: that he might sanctify it, having cleansed it by the washing of water with the word,
Having stated that Christ gave himself up for the sake of his Church, the apostle goes on to elaborate the purpose of this self-sacrifice, in language which for the time being leaves the husband-wife relationship far behind, and indeed out of sight. Christ’s intention was to have the Church as his own possession, the community of his holy people, set apart for himself. But to this end the Church must be cleansed; the defilement which had previously adhered to its members must be washed away. This cleansing he himself has effected, by means of the “washing with water, accompanied by a spoken word” (for so we may paraphrase the expression here used). This washing with water, accompanied by a spoken word, can scarcely be anything other than baptism; this is what the language would most naturally have conveyed to the original readers. Many Protestant commentators have strenuously resisted this exegesis, mainly because it seems to lend itself too easily to a perverted doctrine of “baptismal regeneration” – that is the idea that the external application of water, accompanied by the appropriate words, is sufficient to bring about regeneration.
To this perversion, needless to say, the New Testament gives no countenance; regeneration is an inward change wrought by the Holy Spirit, and the cleansing of which Paul speaks is likewise an inward experience; but the regeneration and the cleansing alike are symbolized and signified in baptism. The “washing of water” is the same washing as is called the “washing of regeneration” in Titus 3:5. (The alternative rendering “laver,” proposed by RV margin in both places, is not to be preferred.) The “word” which accompanies the washing is an utterance, a spoken word (Gk. rhema) – either the word which is spoken over the person being baptized, pronouncing the Holy Name upon him (cf. Matthew 28:19; Acts 2:38; 8:16, etc.), or (more probably) the word spoken by him, in which he confesses his faith and invokes the Lord. So Paul himself was commanded by Ananias: “arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on his name” (Acts 22:16). In our present passage the noun rhema is preceded by the preposition en (“in”), which should, perhaps, be regarded here as having “comitative” force; hence the suggested rendering, “accompanied by a spoken word.”
“To treat one’s wife as a slave or chattel does as much damage to a man’s own personality as to hers.”
Verse 27: that he might present the church to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.
The Church, viewed here in the light of her Lord’s purpose, is the Church in perfected glory. The Church as it is seen in our actual experience at the present time falls far short of this ideal; spots and wrinkles are abundantly in evidence. C.S. Lewis’s demon, Screwtape, draws a contrast between the Church as she is seen “spread out through all time and space and rooted in eternity, terrible as an army with banners,” and the Church as people meet it in ordinary life; and suggests that the anticlimax of the contrast can be used to weaken a new convert’s faith and zeal. But the contrast can work in the opposite way and help us to glorify the grace of God; when we look at the church members we know – better still, when we look at ourselves as we are – and then consider what Christ has already done with such unpromising material, and what he is yet going to make of it, the wonder of his redeeming purpose may well call forth our worship and stimulate us to live lives more worthy of the calling with which he has called us. The day on which he will present the glorified Church to himself is, of course, the day of his own advent in glory, when his people are to be glorified with him. This, as Paul has told us at the beginning of the epistle, was what God had in view when he chose his people in Christ before the world’s foundation (Ephesians 1:14).
Verse 28: Even so ought husbands also to love their own wives as their own bodies.
Paul now reverts to the married relationship. To Christian readers in the western world today he may appear to be rubbing in the husband’s duty of love to his wife with unnecessary and repetitive emphasis; we may be disposed to think that this is one of the lessons which nature itself teaches us. But that is not so; some acquaintance with the pagan world of New Testament times, or with many areas of human life today, will show us how necessary this insistence was, and still is; and it may suggest that if we are inclined to take this lesson for granted, that is the measure of the effectiveness of the apostle’s teaching on the subject in those places where the gospel has been most influential. Paul does not overdo the analogy and speak of the wife as her husband’s body, as the Church is Christ’s body; but the Old Testament teaching that husband and wife are “one flesh,” which he quotes below, is sufficient justification for his ruling that a husband should love his wife as his own body.
He that loveth his own wife loveth himself:
Properly speaking there is no altruism in a man’s love of his wife (or family); from the biblical point of view his wife (like his family) is an extension of his own personality. To treat one’s wife as a slave or a chattel does as much damage to a man’s own personality as to hers.
Verse 29: for no man ever hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it,
Asceticism for asceticism’s sake – that “severity to the body” which is mentioned with disapproval in Colossians 2:23 – is unnatural, and plays no part in New Testament Christianity. The self-discipline described by Paul in 1 Corinthians 9:27 and elsewhere comes into quite a different category. The second great commandment, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Leviticus 19:18), implies that self-injury is as improper as it is unnatural. And if one’s neighbour is to be so loved (in the meaning given to the commandment by our Lord in the parable of the good Samaritan), how much more one’s wife! The care which a man bestows upon his body as a matter of course, in feeding and clothing it and generally looking after its health and comfort, should equally be bestowed upon his wife.
“Everything that the church requires for her sustenance and well-being she receives as a gift from her exalted Lord.”
even as Christ also the church;
Everything that the Church requires for her sustenance and well-being she receives as a gift from her exalted Lord (cf. Ephesians 4:7 ff.).
Verse 30: because we are members of his body.
As those who are one with him, part of him, incorporated into him, the people of Christ are the objects of his special care. The AV, following the “Received Text” and the later manuscripts and versions, adds: “of his flesh, and of his bones” – an echo of Genesis 2:23, where Adam greets Eve as “bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh.” The addition, while not original, is quite in keeping with the argument of the passage, especially as the apostle goes on immediately to quote Genesis 2:24.
Verse 31: For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the twain shall become one flesh.
Our Lord quotes these words in Mark 10:7 f. to show that marriage is a lifelong union; Paul quotes them here to show the vital unity into which the marriage bond brings husband and wife. The Massoretic text of the Hebrew simply says “they shall be one flesh”; the expression “the twain” comes from the Septuagint, but it may very well have been found in a variant and earlier form of the Hebrew text.
Verse 32: This mystery is great: but I speak in regard of Christ and of the church.
That is to say, the words of Genesis 2:24 enshrine a greater truth than that which lies on the surface – a truth which Paul indicates without developing it in the present passage. “But I for my part,” he adds – referring to the special revelation committed to him concerning the Church as the body of Christ – “am applying it to Christ and to the Church.” In other words, “I am treating the man as symbolic of Christ and the woman as symbolic of the Church.”
Verse 33: Nevertheless do ye also severally love each one his own wife even as himself;
For the present, however, the practical lesson is what matters: each husband must treat his wife no worse than he would treat himself; her welfare is indissolubly bound up with his own.
and let the wife see that she fear her husband.
“Fear,” of course, in the sense of reverence or respect; the RV here has not made an improvement by departing from the AV wording: “and the wife see that she reverence her husband.” (It need hardly be said that if the wife is to reverence her husband, he has an obligation to deserve her reverence.) Similarly in 1 Peter 3:1-6 Christian wives are urged to show the same deference to their husbands as was shown by the “holy women” of Old Testament days, like Sarah, whose daughters they would prove themselves to be if they persisted in welldoing and were not “put in fear by any terror.” The Greek verb rendered “put in fear” in 1 Peter 3:6 is the same (phobeomai) as is rendered “fear” (RV) or “reverence” (AV) in Ephesians 5:33; but is clearly used in two widely differing senses in the two places.
