Submission is the theme of this series of meditations from Ephesians 5:21-33, beginning with the concept, “… and be subject to one another in the fear of Christ.” A wife shows her submission by following her husband’s lead the way the church responds to Christ. The husband submits his natural tendency to live selfishly and instead exercises godly, sacrificial leadership to help his wife become all God created her to be. Both are submissive, though differently.

Paul now appeals to the creation narrative about the husband and wife becoming one flesh—this is a rationale for a man treating his wife as he would treat his own flesh (vss. 28-30). The idea that the two are one flesh profoundly captures the imagination. The two are one flesh, a sort of physically separate unity, as though one body co-existing in two spatial locations at the same time. Most picturesquely, at the time of conjugal relationships, the one flesh is a graphic reality, with the oneness being not just physical, but for a brief time an experience of intense emotional and sexual unity—a unity of the souls in a most sensuous, “earthly” sense. But the one flesh at that moment goes beyond the simply physical union to include a true union of two human beings.

What a beautiful experience and profound picture! And God has placed within the human being an inexplicable magnetism from the beginning to draw male and female together. Even the writer of Proverbs sees this as a mystery, “There are three things which are too wonderful for me, four which I do not understand: … the way of a man with a maid” (Prov 30:18-19).

Paul takes this mystery of the oneness of male and female in marriage and turns it around to apply to Christ and the Church (vs. 32). This is the greater mystery, which is the theme of the first part of the letter to the Ephesians. The one new entity called the Church (composed of both Jewish and Gentile believers) has been brought into unity with the head, namely Christ. So closely does the marriage relationship mirror the relationship of Christ and the Church, that the imagery goes both ways.

Paul finally summarizes the topic of marital relationships in verse 33. A man should love his wife as himself, and the wife should respect her husband!