Yesterday I received two polar opposite views of Ephesians 5:22 by email.  One was from “NN” who has responded here in the past.  He  is a complementarian who has commented on authority in marriage, one of a handful of complementarians who have been willing to give their views on women on this blog in a respectful manner.   In NN’s email he sent me a link to his view on submission in marriage which he says is not to be mutual.  In the other email my son Ryan gave me his conclusions after a time of researching on his own the issue of authority and submission in marriage in order to present a biblical answer to his pastor.  I am going to refer to both views in this article for us to consider.

NN suggested that my blog readers might be interested in his views that he has recently posted on his blog. NN wrote to me about the time period since he last corresponded on my blog back in December 2009:

Since then I have meant to write up a brief logical clearly addressing the question of hierarchy in the instructions of the apostles on the marital relationship.  Unfortunately it took until now for me to actually find the time.  Nonetheless – I thought you might be interested (and possibly even your readership given the torrent of comments in that last discussion).

NN’s premise is that submission in marriage is not mutual but my son’s conclusion is the polar opposite.  First of all here is Ryan’s finding.  His article starts with the thought that the understanding of “source” for the Greek word for head (kephale) in 1 Corinthians 11 can also fit in with Ephesians 5:22-25 when you consider the context.  Ryan’s main concern in his research is whether submission is mutual or relegated to wives alone.

Ryan’s research:

I think source fits well with the description in Eph 5:22-25 also.  As I was studying this, I noticed that the NASB showed “submit” as in “Wives, submit…” in italics, which means it wasn’t in the original.  I looked at the NET (New English Translation) notes and they highlighted that 3 MSS (manuscripts) don’t have “submit” after wives in v22.  These MSS are earlier than the others and are significant manuscripts, so this is likely the original reading.  Knowing that Paul tends to write run-on sentences (not to mention there were no ‘periods’ in the Greek), I wondered if the sentence might have been intended as an extension to v21.  Check this out:

“…(v21) and be subject to one another in awe of Christ, (v22) wives to your own husbands as to the Lord, (v23) for the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself the Saviour of the body.”

Doesn’t that make more sense?  Look how Paul is describing mutual submission to one another and then continuing to elaborate on how that should look in the marital relationship as a corrective to the cultural norms of the day.  We need to remember that the Epistles are often correcting specific things that are happening which sometimes we can only understand from the historical context — and this can make interpreting passages like this that much more involved.

We know that the culture was already quite pre-disposed to subduing the wife in marital relationships.  Women were meant to propagate the husband’s name and were treated more like property than equals.  What is the likely outcome of such subjection of the wife is a slave-master-like obedience.  Paul seems to actually be saying here that instead of obeying like a slave, the wife should submit to her husband in a more biblical manner, thus calling her out of her ‘pit’ so to speak.  The most revolutionary part of Paul’s words would be the fact that he says all are to submit to one another, and that most definitely includes husbands submitting to their wives!

And again, as we saw in 1 Cor 11, Paul elaborates the basis for the marital relationship, this time for the Ephesians as well: “for the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself the saviour of the body.”  In other words, because the husband is the source of the wife (just like Christ is the source of the church) and therefore she his equal, they should be mutually submitting to one another in love.  (The church is also treated as the equal of Christ in the sense that the new person will have a new body and will no longer sin).  This description is a refutation of the idea that the wife is a lower-class partner to the husband, or that there are more important people in the body than others (ie. jewish believers vs. gentile believers).  It is a proclamation of the equality of all! The source relationship is a powerful foundation for equality, not hierarchy!

Continuing… “[For] as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives [ought to be] to their husbands in everything” (v24).  The NASB has “But”, though this reads as a continuation of substantiation for Paul’s earlier statements.  Interestingly, the NASB adds “ought to be” (italics) which actually makes it sound like Paul is commanding the wives to submit and is not in line with how what he says is actually freeing them from cultural slave-master relationship.  In other words, in everything the wives should be willingly submissive out of love and not as a slave to a master!  Why would Paul be supporting what was already culturally in vogue?

And finally, v25: “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her…”  Does this mean that women don’t need to be sacrificial in their love for their husbands?  Of course not!  In fact, they are the ones sacrificing everything in first-century culture.  Even in our culture, the women usually have to manage the home as well as work and make meals, etc.  This is a corrective for the men who don’t participate in loving submission to their wives and families!

The conclusion is most certainly an equality in loving submission one to another in the whole body, and especially in marital relationships.  It is a corrective to the master-slave marital relationships which were typical in the first century.  The ‘new man’ should be one who treats his wife as his own flesh, as his equal, not as his inferior.

~End of article submitted by Ryan Schatz

NN’s views are opposite of Ryan’s in that NN believes that the submission of wives is the same as the master-slave relationship.  NN writes on his blog:

The Egalitarian argument runs along the lines of: “Eph 5:21 tells christians to ‘and be subject to one another in the fear of Christ.’ But this is the same word used when it tells wives to “be subject” to their husbands. Since “be subject to one another” means that the husband is also “subject” to the wife, Paul’s later instruction specifically to the wives cannot indicate any sort of hierarchy in the marital relationship.” However, as discussed previously, the instruction here given is the same as that given to servants toward their masters and citizens toward the ruling authorities – it is quite clear that this instruction does imply submission to authority.

There are several problems with NN’s view.  The first is that he fails to document that the earliest manuscripts do not have the verb “submit” in verse 22. Instead the submission for wives must refer back to verse 21 which lists Christian submission as mutual.  In fact that grammar in verse 21 (one another) is reciprocal.

reciprocal — A pronoun that denotes reciprocity; that is, it indicates an interchange between two or more groups. (Glossary of Morpho-Syntactic Database Terminology)

The next thing that NN misses is that Paul’s reference to submission is at the end of a list of things that are the practical outworking of being filled with the Spirit which is the topic from Ephesians 5:18 and on.  Submission then is a work of the Spirit in our lives and the application is to one another.  NN continues:

But now we move on to the instruction which Paul gives to wives and husbands and note that the apostle makes a distinction in the command given. Specifically Paul tells the wife to “be subject to the husband” but does not tell the husband to “be subject to the wife.”

Paul doesn’t need to list the second half of mutual submission because verse 21 specifically and with reciprocity lists submission as a one another practice that follows the outworking of the Holy Spirit’s filling.  Husbands are expected to see that as Spirit-filled Christians they are to live a life of submission to one another just as surely as any other member of the body of Christ must live out their faith. Husbands are never listed as exempted from the Spirit-filled life that is to be lived out through submission.

So why is it important for Paul to list women who are part of the culturally disadvantaged class included as a special note for submission?  NN sees this as a clear sign that wives are under their husband’s authority.  In his second recent article NN writes:

Paul gives instruction that wives are to “hupotassoe” their husbands in Eph 5:22, Col 3:18 & Titus 2:5. Just after this last passage, in Titus 3:1, Paul again instructs his audience to “hupatassoe” the governing authorities. Similarly, just before his instruction to wives, Peter uses this same term to describe the relationship of believers to “ordinances of men” and of servants toward their masters.

There is a huge problem with NN’s reasoning. While it can be documented that the cultural system of that day mandated autocratic and all-inclusive authority to the husband over every area of his wife’s life, there is no mandate ever given by God for the husband to exercise such an authority over his wife.  Remember that in the beginning God made both the man and the woman as rulers of this world. He did not give either of them the right to take authority over and subdue each other. So while the worldly system has gone off on a tangent of lordship-authority as a male right, there is no God-given authority for the husband to subdue his wife nor is there a God-given extension of authority that has listed in the Scripture the husband’s extent of power, rights or lordship over the personhood of his wife.  If such an authority is culturally mandated and not God-given then she too is a free man as a son of God, free indeed from the worldly system that dominates and subdues humans.

So what NN fails to list is that there is a turn-about regarding the worldly system when believers are transferred from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light.  While the early Christians used to be bound under a system of authority that took away their freedom of choice as the earthly rulers subdued them, took dominion over them and subjected them underneath their authority, in Christ they had become true free men who were no longer bound by forced subjugation.  This freedom extended to slaves and women who were by virtue of their position in Christ now equal as God’s sons and thus fully free.  Paul refers to this when he writes to his fellow Christian Philemon who is a slave owner of a runaway slave named Onesimus.  Paul pleads with Philemon to embrace Onesimus no longer as a slave, but as a brother in Christ.

Philemon 15–16 (NASB)

15 For perhaps he was for this reason separated from you for a while, that you would have him back forever,

16 no longer as a slave, but more than a slave, a beloved brother, especially to me, but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord.

NN writes:

The relevant definition of this English word “submit: to yield oneself to the power or authority of another.” This word appears throughout the New Testament and is common in other writings of the time. While several arguments are advanced in egalitarian thought as to how we should understand this word, we are discussing its specific use in the Epistles of Paul & Peter, and we can quite directly observe their use of this word in other circumstances which make immediately apparent what they mean in the use of this word.

This cannot be the meaning of submission in the Epistles since Paul specifically defined submission as reciprocal. If submission in Ephesians 5:21 were to mean to yield oneself to the power or authority of another then each one would have a power or authority over everyone else. The thought of you submitting to my authority and me submitting to your authority becomes nonsense in the passage.

Let’s look at Ephesians 5 one more time in context:

Ephesians 5:1–2 (NASB)

1 Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children;

2 and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.

Habakkuk 1:7 (NASB)…Their justice and authority originate with themselves.