The Religious A priori

Neither Male Nor Female:

Headship and Submission:

(Ephesians 5:22-28)
part III

25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, 26 so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless. 28 So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; 29 for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, 30 because we are members of His body. 31 FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND SHALL BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH. 32 This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church. 33 Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife even as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband.

The Analogy


The whole point of talking about "headship" between husband and wife, in this passage, is to set up the analogy between husband as head of wife/Christ as head of Church. But what we are to learn from this is not that the husband is the absolute monarch in his home, but rather, the servant kind of loving protective headship that relates to the meaning of the term as source of life. The reason for making the analogy is to set up the sacraficial apsects of Christ's actions, not to liken Christ's authority over the chruch to that of a husband over his wife. The analogy is not taken to the extent of a compelte paraell. There are ways in which Christ/Chruch are like Husband/Wife, but not in every way. Paul makes this clear when he breaks off the diatribe and states "but I'm speaking of Christ and the chruch," (32). The problem is, Paul is so wrapped up in his theological abstraction that he runs off into the theology so fast its hard to tell where the husband/wife relationship ends, and the part that is just of Christ/Chruch beins.For this reason it is easy to run the two together and make it seem that the parlells are total. Obviously, they are not total or he wouldn't state clearly, "I'm speaking of Christ and the chruch." Another factor that compounds the problem is that he still likens the two relationships, although he clearly doesnt' intend for us to draw the parallel that far. He goes on talking about the man leaving his paretns and cleaving to the wife, when he breaks off.

Paul mixes the parallel in with the bit that is not parallel, but it may be possible to disentangle them. below I will indicate in gold the bits that I think are parallels between Christ/Chruch and husband/wife, and the bits that are not will be left white:

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, 26 so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless. 28 So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; 29 for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, 30 because we are members of His body. 31 FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND SHALL BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH. 32 This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church. 33 Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife even as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband.


Paul is likening the marital relationship to that of Christ/Chruch in one aspect only, that of the sacraficial love. He draws no symetry between the eternal or redemptive aspects. One can clerify this mess by following the line of reasoning:

(1) He clearly says "husbands love wives as Chrsit loved chruch."

(2) Washing with the word and presenting without spot or wrenckle is said to presenting the church.

(3) he goes back from that to husbands and wives, with the phrase "so as" which indicates he's returning to the analogy; but the point of return is "love their oown bodies." No where is there a link drawn between any eternal, metaphysical, or repemptive work of Christ. It is only the sacraficial love that is being contrasted. (4) Reference to beng members of his Body is to Christ/ church

(5) leave parents and cleave to wife is of husband and wife


The "for this reason" in v31 skips a beat, it is not about what has just been said, being of his body, but what has been said before that, about nourishing one's own flesh. That connects the cleaving, the "one flesh" concept which runs back into the analogy.

Christ/Chruch	(1) Sanctify her (2)Cleanse her (3) Wash with word (4) present to Fahter without spot or wrenckle (5)we are all part of his body.
both: C/C & H/W	(1) Husbands are to love wife and give himself up for her as Christ did for the chruch; (2)Love her as a man loves his own body; (3)Leave Father and Mother and become one felsh.

Biblical scholars have echoed the view that the authority aspect cannot be extended from Christ/Chruch to husband/wife:

Wesley Center Online:

Wesley Center for Applied Theology 2002
MALE HEADSHIP IN PAUL'S THOUGHT by Fred D. Layman

There is no question but that the relationship between Christ and the church involves lordship and submission in the New Testament. But the question still remains: is that the thrust Paul intended here in his use of the idea of headship? I think not. The fact is that Christ's headship and Christ's lordship are two different, though related, ideas for Paul. Paul's metaphorical use of the word kephale corresponds to a like use of the word rosh in the Old Testament, both meaning the "beginning," "source," or "ground" of something.38 In Colossians 1:15-20, for instance, Christ was the beginning of the natural creation (v. 16), which has its origin and ground in Him and achieves its final destiny in relation to Him (v. 17). He has a relationship of priority and sustainer to the creation (v. 18). He was also the beginning of the church and was the first-born of the new order. He is thus pre-eminent in the original creation and in the new creation (v. 18). The new creation has its origin and ground in Him (v.18). He has this role as a divine being (v. 19, cf. 2:9). God intends to reconcile all things in Him (v. 20) Because He is the source and ground of all creation, He is also the source of all rule and authority (2:10). Ephesians contains a comparable set of ideas. Ephesians 1:21f. parallels Colossians 1:18-20 in its emphasis on Christ's headship in the new creation, a headship that extends to all things and is above all rule, authority, power, and dominion. Ephesians 4:15f. and Colossians 2:19 emphasize the unity which exists between Christ and the church. He is the origin and ground of the church and directs its growth to Himself. The church is edified through His gifts and He is its eschatological orientation (Eph. 4:11-16). None of this can be attained however apart from faith; for this reason the relation of the body to the head is always that of obedient submission. All of this is said without any identification of Christ's headship and His lordship. The two ideas are drawn together in the Ephesians passage where the Lord Jesus Christ (vs.2f.,15,17; cf. Col.2:10) is exalted above all rule, authority, power, and dominion (v. 21), but they are not the same. Christ's headship speaks of Him as the beginning, origin, and ground of all being. His lordship speaks of His governing rule in the creation. Thus His lordship in the creation is the result of His headship, but the two ideas are not synonymous. When we look again at the Ephesians 5:21-33 passage, it becomes obvious that Paul did not incorporate all that belongs to Christ's headship when he paralleled it with the husband's headship. He did not affirm that "the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church" (v. 32) and leave it open-ended for his readers to fill in the specifics. Given the proclivity for fallen man to put himself in the place of God, Paul was very aware as he wrote of how his motif could be misused for sinful purposes. He was very careful therefore to circumscribe and limit his meaning.

Layman footnotes the following sources:

38Bedale, "The Meaning of Kephale" pp. 298f., n. 41; Heinrich Schlier, "Kephale, " in Gerhard Kittel and Gerhard Friedrich, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1964-), 3:679-81; Scroggs, Paul and the Eschatological Woman, pp. 298f., n. 41; Ridderbos, Paul an Outline, pp. 381f.

The realitive and cultural nature of Paul's use of "headship" can be seen in v33 which basically sums up the whole teaching:


33 Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife even as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband.

As stated previously, "respect" is the closest thing to a definition of "submit" that Paul gives in this passage. Moreover, the translation here, NAS is just palin wrong. Instead of ways the wife "must see to it that" she respects, it really uses the Greek 'ina (rough breathing proncounced "hina"). This terms means "so that," "in order that," "becasue of." Even a first year Greek student could see that it is marking the whole thing as a recipracle relationship. The husband must love his wife so that she will respect him. The reciprocity grounds the relationship in pracitical advice, rather than metaphysical hierarchy or spritiual command, it also means that there is some form of submission on the husband's part as well. In other words, to love one's wife as one's own body would require submission at some point along the way.


Summary:


The "headship" and "sumission" of Epheaisans 5 is rooted in the culture of Paul's day. He does not lay down universal principels or a metaphysical hieararchy with the man over the woman. Rather, he re-values the values of Roman family life in order to re-affirm the value of marriage in a situation where he is faced with Gnostic disvalue of marriage. The thoughts expressed about headship are culturally rooted, but he illustrates the love and mututal submission inherent in the "one flesh" relationship by likening that relationship to the self sacrafice and devotion that Chist has for his chuch. At the same time, he stops short of extended Christ's Lordship to the husband over the wife. Rather, the giving and caring of the husband is a two way street which invovles mutual submission as a matter of course.

The Religious A priori