Chapter 5 keeps walking. Believers are to walk in love, walk as children of light, and walk circumspectly in evil days. Then the chapter arrives at the home. Paul’s words to husbands and wives are among the most debated in Scripture, but they cannot be understood apart from the picture he paints alongside them — Christ as the Bridegroom who gave Himself for His bride, the church. Two relationships are woven together through the passage, each explaining the other, until Paul says outright: “This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.”
A study in Ephesians 5 · Arthur Baldwin · StandUp4Jesus.Org · 23 min read
Walk In Love
“Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children; And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour.”
Ephesians 5:1-2
“Followers” translates a word from which we get “mimic” — be imitators of God, the way beloved children copy their father. And the pattern to imitate is the cross. Christ’s self-giving is described in the language of the sanctuary: an offering, a sacrifice, a “sweetsmelling savour,” echoing the offerings Leviticus again and again calls “a sweet savour unto the LORD.” That same self-giving love will be the model Paul holds up to husbands in verse 25.
“But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints; Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient: but rather giving of thanks. For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience. Be not ye therefore partakers with them.”
Ephesians 5:3-7
Love has a counterfeit, and Paul names it: the self-serving desire that uses others rather than giving to them. Sexual impurity and greed stand side by side, because both treat people and things as objects to be taken. Notice what Paul offers in place of coarse talk: “giving of thanks.” The opposite of cheapening God’s gifts is receiving them with gratitude.
Walk As Children Of Light
“For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light: (For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth;) Proving what is acceptable unto the Lord. And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret. But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light: for whatsoever doth make manifest is light. Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.”
Ephesians 5:8-14
Paul does not say the Ephesians were once in darkness; he says they were darkness — and now they are light. Conversion changes not just a person’s surroundings but their very nature. Light does two things in these verses: it produces fruit (“goodness and righteousness and truth”), and it exposes what hides in the dark. The chapter’s call closes with what may be a line from an early Christian hymn: “Awake thou that sleepest.”
Redeeming The Time
“See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, Redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is.”
Ephesians 5:15-17
“We are living in the most solemn period of this world’s history. The destiny of earth’s teeming multitudes is about to be decided. … We have not a moment to lose. Events of vital importance are taking place around us; we are on Satan’s enchanted ground. Sleep not, sentinels of God; the foe is lurking near, ready at any moment, should you become lax and drowsy, to spring upon you and make you his prey.”
Ellen G. White · The Great Controversy, p. 601
“Circumspectly” means carefully, looking around at every step. “Redeeming the time” is a marketplace phrase: buying up the opportunity while it is still available, the way a merchant seizes a bargain before it is gone. This study’s source applies Paul’s “Awake thou that sleepest” and “redeeming the time” directly to the last generation, standing on “Satan’s enchanted ground” where drowsiness is the greatest danger.
“And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit; Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ;”
Ephesians 5:18-20
“Not through the excitement or oblivion produced by unnatural or unhealthful stimulants; not through indulgence of the lower appetites or passions, is to be found true healing or refreshment for the body or the soul.”
Ellen G. White · The Ministry of Healing, p. 246
Paul sets two kinds of “filling” against each other. Wine takes control of a person and leads to “excess” — a word meaning waste, a life poured out for nothing. The Spirit also takes control, but what He produces is singing, thankfulness, and, in the very next verse, a humble willingness to put others first.
Submitting Yourselves One To Another
“Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.”
Ephesians 5:21
This verse is the hinge of everything that follows. It is still part of the description of a Spirit-filled life, and it applies to every believer: all are to place themselves under one another “in the fear of God.” In the oldest Greek manuscripts, verse 22 does not even have a verb of its own. It reads literally, “wives, to your own husbands, as unto the Lord,” borrowing “submitting” from verse 21. What Paul says to wives is one application of what he has just said to everyone. And what he is about to say to husbands asks even more.
“Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.”
Ephesians 5:22-24
Every phrase ties the marriage back to Christ and the church. A wife’s submission is offered “as unto the Lord” — freely, as part of her own devotion to Christ, not extracted by her husband. And a husband’s headship is measured by Christ’s: the Head who is also “the saviour of the body,” who leads by protecting, providing, and in the end dying for the one He leads.
“In later times Paul the apostle, writing to the Ephesian Christians, declares that the Lord has constituted the husband the head of the wife, to be her protector, the house-band, binding the members of the family together, even as Christ is the head of the church and the Saviour of the mystical body.”
Ellen G. White · Thoughts From the Mount of Blessing, p. 64
“House-band” is an old play on the word “husband”: the one who binds the household together. This study’s source is equally clear about what headship is not.
“Neither the husband nor the wife should merge his or her individuality in that of the other. Each has a personal relation to God. … Neither the husband nor the wife should attempt to exercise over the other an arbitrary control. Do not try to compel each other to yield to your wishes. You cannot do this and retain each other’s love. Be kind, patient, and forbearing, considerate, and courteous.”
Ellen G. White · The Ministry of Healing, p. 361
From the very beginning the relationship was meant to be one of partnership, not domination. The account of Eve’s creation says so in its very imagery.
“Eve was created from a rib taken from the side of Adam, signifying that she was not to control him as the head, nor to be trampled under his feet as an inferior, but to stand by his side as an equal, to be loved and protected by him.”
Ellen G. White · Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 46
Even As Christ Also Loved The Church
“Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;”
Ephesians 5:25
Paul gives wives three verses; he gives husbands nearly all the rest of the chapter. And the standard he sets for them is staggering. Not “love your wives as much as they deserve,” or even “as much as you love yourselves” — though that comes later — but “even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it.” The husband’s model is the cross. His headship is a call to lay down his life, not to lay down the law.
And here the picture of the church as Christ’s bride comes fully into view. It runs through all of Scripture: God as the husband of His people in the prophets (Isaiah 54:5; Hosea 2:19), Christ as the Bridegroom in the Gospels (Matthew 9:15; John 3:29), Paul espousing the Corinthians “to one husband” as “a chaste virgin to Christ” (2 Corinthians 11:2), and the bride made ready for “the marriage of the Lamb” in Revelation (19:7).
“Christ honored the marriage relation by making it also a symbol of the union between Him and His redeemed ones. He Himself is the Bridegroom; the bride is the church, of which, as His chosen one, He says, ‘Thou art all fair, My love; there is no spot in thee.’”
Ellen G. White · The Ministry of Healing, p. 356
“That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.”
Ephesians 5:26-27
Paul describes Christ’s love for His bride in three stages. In the past, He “gave himself for it” at the cross. In the present, He is sanctifying and cleansing it “with the washing of water by the word” — an echo of the bridal bath that prepared a bride for her wedding day, carried out now through the living word of God. And in the future, He will “present it to himself,” like a bridegroom receiving his bride at the wedding.
Notice the closing words: “holy and without blemish.” They are the very words of chapter 1, where God “hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love” (1:4) — the same Greek phrase in both places. The purpose God set before creation is the purpose Christ completes when He presents His bride. The whole letter is held between those two verses.
“By the wedding garment in the parable is represented the pure, spotless character which Christ’s true followers will possess. To the church it is given ‘that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white,’ ‘not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing.’ … It is the righteousness of Christ, His own unblemished character, that through faith is imparted to all who receive Him as their personal Saviour.”
Ellen G. White · Christ’s Object Lessons, p. 310
The bride’s spotless dress is not something she sews for herself. It is Christ’s own righteousness, given to her through faith. Yet it is also a character truly formed in her by His cleansing work, and this study’s source places that final preparation at the very end of time.
“While the investigative judgment is going forward in heaven, while the sins of penitent believers are being removed from the sanctuary, there is to be a special work of purification, of putting away of sin, among God’s people upon earth. … Then the church which our Lord at His coming is to receive to Himself will be a ‘glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing.’”
Ellen G. White · The Great Controversy, p. 425
“So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church: For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.”
Ephesians 5:28-30
“Nourisheth and cherisheth” are nursery words — feeding and keeping warm, the way a mother tends a child. That is how Christ cares for His church, and how a husband is to care for his wife. The phrase “of his flesh, and of his bones” reaches straight back to Eden, where Adam said of Eve, “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh” (Genesis 2:23).
This Is A Great Mystery
“For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband.”
Ephesians 5:31-33
Paul quotes Genesis 2:24, the words spoken over the first marriage in Eden, and then reveals what they were pointing to all along. Marriage was never only a human arrangement. From the beginning it was designed as a living picture of something greater — Christ leaving His Father’s side, joining Himself to His bride, and becoming one with her. The “mystery” is not that marriage is obscure, but that God hid in the first wedding a preview of the last.
“Marriage, a union for life, is a symbol of the union between Christ and His church. The spirit that Christ manifests toward the church is the spirit that husband and wife are to manifest toward each other.”
Ellen G. White · Testimonies for the Church, vol. 7, p. 46
So the two relationships in this chapter explain each other. A Christian marriage is meant to show the world, in miniature, how Christ loves His church and how the church responds to Him — self-giving love on one side, glad and trusting response on the other, and each partner seeking the other’s good before their own. And every believer, married or not, belongs to the greater marriage: the bride Christ gave Himself for, is cleansing now, and will soon present to Himself, holy and without blemish.
