(Eph 5:22 ESV) 22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.
As Paul explains in Ephesians 5, the wife’s obligation to her husband does not mean the husband has no reciprocal obligation.
Rather, while Paul finds the role of wives in their prototype, Eve, he finds the role of husbands in their prototype Jesus as the husband of the church (and from the Old Testament, the Lord as husband of Israel).
(Eph 5:23 ESV) 23 For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior.
Paul immediately balances v. 22 by declaring the husband like Christ. We live in a world built on power structures and hierarchy, and so we read our experience and our fears into the text, but Paul is quite precise regarding what he means.
(Eph 5:24 ESV) 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.
Wives must submit to their husbands as the church submits to Christ. How, then, does the church submit to Christ? Well, in Ephesians, by being his body, by being in unity with him, by sitting on the throne of heaven with him, by imitating him, by following him, by seeking to be just like him in his service, submission, sacrifice, and suffering. By following him to our own crosses. By being crucified with him.
Did we forget that?? It’s not about power. It’s about becoming like Jesus with the help of the Spirit, the Helper. We submit to Jesus by becoming like Jesus in his submission.
Christ is like God. Husbands are like Christ. And the role of husbands is —
(Eph 5:25-27 ESV) 25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 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.
Really? Yes, the role of husbands is to give themselves up for their wives. It’s to present their brides to God as holy, with splendor received from God. “Present” is the language of sacrifice, and so we give our wives over to God. It’s not about control but surrender.
The sacrifice of Christ would have meant nothing had it not been voluntary. Our obedience to Christ must also be voluntary — desired not resented — because it’s not truly obedience unless it’s what we want. Just so, a wife’s submission cannot be compelled or it’s not truly submission. Submission must be desired because, just as we submit to Christ because he has submitted to us, the husband follows the example of Christ in submission.
(Eph 5:28-6:1 ESV) 28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, 30 because we are members of his body. 31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. 33 However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.
Notice how much more Paul has to say to husbands! They should treat wives “as their own bodies.” As “himself”! He should nourish his wife just as he nourishes himself. And he should cherish her just as he cherishes himself.
As commanded by Moses, he should “hold fast to his wife” and be in unity with her.
Paul seems to blush a bit in v. 32 when he compares the relationship of Christ and his church to the “one flesh” relationship of a husband and wife, but both are unity relationships.
Thus, the husband must love the wife as himself, and she must respect her husband. She is to be his suitable helper — a support and an encouragement, and he must not prefer himself to her.
Back to “head”
So is their a hierarchy? Well, not a worldly hierarchy built on worldly principles. It’s not about power or control. That’s just not the nature of the relationships that Paul is discussing. And when we read hierarchy into these relationships, we are ignoring many of the deepest teachings in scripture.
The scriptures point us toward unity, toward giving up of ourselves for others, toward becoming like God to become one with God — and this meaning that we, like God, do good for the just and the unjust. Nothing could be further from dominance, control, and compelling obedience by virtue of a power structure to which all must submit.
So am I entirely sure how to translate “head”? Well, no, but it’s the nature of figurative language that it doesn’t always translate so well — even when the message itself is fairly clear.
When David tells us that God makes us lie down in “green pastures,” I don’t have to be able to replace “green pastures” with something more literal to understand his point. His point is clear enough just from the image itself. Indeed, the reason we so often speak in metaphor is that the image often communicates the idea better than any effort at literalness.
If I’m your head, then you’re my body. And that makes us united and in relationship — so closely tied that we cannot go our separate ways. Indeed, if we don’t work together, we won’t work well at all. That much is very plain.
So “head” means “head.” Really. It’s a metaphor but a metaphor defined by the relationships of God, Christ, husbands, and wives.
The brains of the outfit
One last point before we go to the next verses. In the modern world, we understand that the human head contains the brain, which is where the thinking is done. We therefore tend to think of the “head” of an organization as the “brains” of the organization — where the important thoughts come from.
But in the ancient world, the brain was not understood this way. When Egyptians were mummified, their organs were carefully preserved for the afterlife, but the brain was sucked out of the skull and thrown away. (Imagine all these mummies in the Egyptian afterlife without brains!)
Bedale reminds us that the functions of the central nervous system were not known to the ancients, who held that we think with the midriff, the phrēn (JTS, n.s., v, 1954, pp. 211–215). The head was thus not the controlling factor (as GNB takes it with the translation ‘supreme over’); we must seek its significance elsewhere.
Leon Morris, 1 Corinthians: An Introduction and Commentary (Tyndale NTC 7; IVP/Accordance electronic ed. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1985), 149.
