Summary of Ephesians 5:1-20

They should imitate God, as His beloved children, and should walk in love even as Christ loved them and gave Himself up for them, an offering and victim to God, for a sweet odor.

No one should be able to say that there is any sexual looseness or uncleanness or greed among them. Holy ones should be free of these things. Obscenity and foolish talk and scurrility also should not be known among them, but instead, thanksgiving to God. For no sexually loose person or unclean person, or greedy one (which is worship of idols) will inherit the kingdom of Christ and God. May no one deceive them with empty words: on account of such things the anger of God comes upon unbelieving persons. So they should not share with them.

Once they were darkness, but now they are light in the Lord. So they should live like children of the light. The fruit of light is all goodness, righteousness and truth. They should try to find what is well-pleasing to the Lord, and not share in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead condemn such things. For what they do in secret, it is shameful even to talk about. For everything that is brought to light becomes visible, for what is visible is light. Hence it says: Awake you who sleep, and rise from the dead, and Christ will shine upon you.

So may they be careful how they live, not as unwise, but as wise, redeeming the time, for the days are evil. So he urges them not to be foolish but to be intelligent instead. And they should not be drunk with wine for in it is debauchery. Rather let them be filled with the Spirit, and speak to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and psalming in their hearts to the Lord, giving thanks always for everything to God the Father, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Comments on 5:1-29

Little needs to be said here, for the exhortations are rather general and easy to understand. When Paul says sexual looseness, etc., should not be mentioned among them, he does not mean they should not even speak of the subject. Rather, it means that no one should be able to charge them with these things.

When he says greed is worship of idols there are two possible meanings, for Greek pleonexia means wanting more and more -- it could be more of loose sex, or more of money.

Verse 14, with its little verses "awake you who sleep. . . ." is likely to be a fragment of an old hymn or perhaps a hymn used in baptismal liturgy. In the Eastern Church it was often said in the patristic age that to be baptized is to be illumined.

"Redeeming the time" is unclear. It could mean making the best use of everything now -- but since it says the days are evil, it more likely means make the best of a world in which the influence of the principles of Satan is so strong.

Wine, he says, leads to debauchery, for much drink loosens inhibitions. Hence the Romans called the god of wine liber (the word has the root of free). He wants them to be filled with the Spirit instead of wine, and to sing in the liturgy. He probably refers to charismatic manifestations, which were common in his day.

Summary of Ephesians 5:21-33

They should be subject to one another in the fear of Christ. Wives should subject themselves to their own husbands, as to the Lord, for the man is the head of the woman, just as Christ is the head of the Church. Christ is the savior of His body, which is the Church. But as the Church is subject to Christ, similarly, the wives should be subject to their husbands in all things.

Husbands must love their wives even as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for it, to sanctify it, cleansing it by the bath of water and the word, so He could present to Himself a glorious Church, without stain or wrinkle or anything else of the sort, so the Church might be holy and blameless. On the model of Christ, husbands should love their own wives, as they love their own bodies. For he who loves his own wife loves himself. No one ever hates his own flesh, but nourishes and warms it, as Christ does for His Church. For we are members of the body of Christ.

So a man will leave his parents and will cleave to his wife, and they will be two in one flesh. This is a great mystery; Paul speaks in reference to Christ and the Church. Therefore each one should love his wife as he loves himself. And let the wife respect her husband.

Comments on Ephesians 5:21-33

The opening verse, 21, sets the tone of being compliant with one another. After that Paul does state clearly the subordination of wives to husbands. On this please recall the very basic comments made on the parallel passage in Colossians (3:18-19).

Paul shows by the theological framework that he is not just affirming a social custom of the time: the relation of the wife to the husband is parallel to that of the Church to Christ. He adds that Christ is the savior of His body, the Church. It is difficult to press this part of the parallel, unless we would say that Christ wills that graces flow to the wife through the husband. But it is evident that often enough in practice it is the wife who, being more religious, must help to save the soul of the husband.

But in spite of this subjection, Paul insists on a total love and devotion of the husband to the wife, the kind Christ showed in literally giving Himself for His Church.

Christ willed to make the Church clean and holy by the bath and the word -- most commentators easily agree this refers to Baptism, even though the word bath, Greek loutron is not often used in Scripture for baptism. Yet the related verb louo is used for religious washings even in secular Greek. Commentators often point out that both Greeks and Jews had a ceremonial bath for the bride before being given to her husband. This may have helped suggest the image to Paul -- but no more than a suggestion.

Paul speaks of the Church being without stain or wrinkle or any defect. This is a system as system picture, the sort of thing we saw several times in Romans, especially in chapters 7 and 8: The Church as such cannot produce anything but holiness. This does not at all deny that members, even high authorities, in the Church may be anything but holy.

Husbands should love their wives as they do their own bodies: they are two in one flesh (Gen 2:24). And both are members of the body of Christ.

Paul speaks of a great mystery. Commentators ask if he means that marriage is a symbol of the union of Christ with the Church of if he refers instead directly to the union of Christ with the Church. Probably the latter. A mystery in Paul ordinarily means a truth long hidden, but gradually revealed. That would be true of the close union of Christ with the Church -- which can be compared to the marriage union, just as in the Old Testament (especially in Hosea) the relation of God and His people is compared to marriage. We could say that the marriage union foreshadowed the union of Christ with the Church.

Finally, after repeating that husbands should love their wives, Paul adds that the wife should "fear" (phobetai) her husband. This means merely respect, not fear in the usual sense of the word.