Ephesians: Wives, Be Subject to Your Husbands
Ephesians 5:22-24; Galatians 3:26-29 - We have a mission to submit to the Lord and to obey what He has ordained
“Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body. But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything.”
Ephesians 5:22-24 NASB1995
I like the image that Steve requested from ChatGPT, of an older couple in the time of the Epistle to the Ephesians; they obviously love each other very much. The light in the background is suggestive of a cross.
A little confession - many years ago when I was not even in college yet, I became a rather strident feminist. I earned a degree in a subject that very few women at the time pursued (Electrical Engineering). When Steve and I got married 47 years ago in a conservative Lutheran church (the church that I belonged to for many years that later became ELCA) we had the usual counseling session with the pastors. I put my foot down on the Scripture that would be read and demanded that they avoid the usual Paulian admonishments about the role of women and their subservience to their husbands.
The day of the wedding came and we had a church full of our family and friends. The elder pastor at our church read the very verses that are the subject of my devotional today. My face probably got really red, but I decided not to say anything to the pastor afterwards. I was quite upset, however, as I didn’t accept this role at that time and it was one of the factors that led me into a wilderness journey away from God for a few years. We also made, as a couple, a seriously stupid and selfish decision to not have children because they would overseer with our pursuit of careers and fun; in my “golden” years this is one of the biggest regrets of my life as I will never know the joy of having grandchildren (much less what it would have been like to be a parent). The career was good, not great for me; I don’t know how I would have been as a mother, but I didn’t give myself that chance.
Now, today, I read these verses and believe that this is the God-ordained and proper order for a civil and moral society; radical feminism (IMHO) has done terrible damage to the institutions of marriage and the family. I really, really like this commentary from Enduring Word:
a. Wives: Paul addressed wives and their responsibility in the Christian marriage first. This isn’t because they are the bigger problem or because they need special attention. The reason is that the apostle was particularly concerned about this question of submission. That was the principle that he introduced in Ephesians 5:21. This aspect of submission has a particular application to wives in a Christian marriage.
i. The same logic continues on into Ephesians 6. Children are addressed before parents because Paul was primarily concerned about submission. Slaves are addressed before their masters because the apostle was primarily concerned about submission.
ii. There is no question that the apostle is continuing the thought from Ephesians 5:21, submitting to one another in the fear of God. In many of the best ancient Greek manuscripts, Ephesians 5:22 doesn’t even have the word submit. It simply reads wives, to your own husbands. The topic is submission and Paul focused on a particularly important realm of submission – the Christian marriage, from the wife unto the husband.
iii. It is as if Paul said this: “I commanded you to submit to one another in a very general way. Now, if you do it in a general way, how much more so should wives do it to their own husbands in this special relationship of marriage.”
b. Wives, submit: To submit means that you recognize someone has legitimate authority over you. It means you recognize that there is an order of authority, and that you are part of a unit, a team. You as an individual are not more important than the working of the unit or the team.
i. When we submit to God, we recognize God’s authority and act accordingly. When we submit to the police, we recognize the authority of the police and act accordingly. When we submit to our employer, we recognize the authority of our employer and act accordingly.
ii. Submission does not mean inferiority. As well, submission does not mean silence. Submission means “sub-mission.” There is a mission for the Christian marriage, and that mission is obeying and glorifying God. The wife says, “I’m going to put myself under that mission. That mission is more important than my individual desires. I’m not putting myself below my husband, I’m putting myself below the mission God has for our marriage, for my life.”
c. To your own husbands: This defines the sphere of a wife’s submission. The Bible never commands a general submission of women unto men in society. This order is commanded only in the spheres of the home and in the church. God has not commanded in His word that men have exclusive authority in the areas of politics, business, education, and so on.
d. As to the Lord: This is a crucial phrase. It colors everything else we understand about this passage. There have been two main wrong interpretations of this phrase, each favoring a certain position.
i. The wrong interpretation which favors the husband says that as to the Lord means that a wife should submit to her husband as if he were God himself. The idea is “you submit to God in absolutely everything without question, so you must submit to your husband in the same absolute way.” This interpretation believes that the words “as to the Lord” defines the extent of submission.
ii. This is wrong. It is true that the wife owes the husband a great deal of respect. Peter sets this across when he praises Sarah, the wife of Abraham, as an example of a godly wife, when she called Abraham “Lord.” That doesn’t mean “Lord” in the sense of God, but “Lord” in the sense of “master.” That is a lot of respect. Yet still, it doesn’t go as far as to say, “You submit completely to God, so you must submit to your husband the same way.” Simply put, in no place does the Scripture say that a person should submit to another in that way. There are limits to the submission your employer can expect of you. There are limits to the submission the government can expect of you. There are limits to the submission parents can expect of children. In no place does the Scripture teach an unqualified, without exception, submission – except to God and God alone. To violate this is to commit the sin of idolatry.
iii. The wrong interpretation that favors the wife says that as to the Lord means “I’ll submit to him as long as he does what the Lord wants.” Then the wife often thinks it is her job to decide what the Lord wants. This interpretation thinks that as to the Lord defines the limit of submission.
iv. This is wrong. It is true that there are limits to a wife’s submission; but when the wife approaches as to the Lord in this way, it degenerates into a case of “I’ll submit to my husband when I agree with him. I’ll submit to him when he makes the right decisions and carries them out the right way. When he makes a wrong decision, he isn’t in the Lord, so I shouldn’t submit to him then.” That is not submission at all. Except for those who are plainly cantankerous and argumentative, everyone submits to others when they are in agreement. It is only when there is a disagreement that submission is tested.
e. As to the Lord does not define the extent of a wife’s submission or the limit of a wife’s submission. It defines the motive of a wife’s submission.
i. “It means: ‘Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands because it is a part of your duty to the Lord, because it is an expression of your submission to the Lord.’ Or, ‘Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands; do it in this way, do it as a part of your submission to the Lord.’ In other words, you are not doing it only for the husband, you are doing it primarily for the Lord Himself… You are doing it for Christ’s sake, you are doing it because you know that He exhorts you to do it, because it is well-pleasing in His sight that you should be doing it. It is part of your Christian behaviour, it is a part of your discipleship.” (Lloyd-Jones)
ii. “For the Lord’s sake who commanded it, so that ye cannot be subject to him without being subject to them.” (Clarke)
iii. As to the Lord means…
· A wife’s submission to her husband is part of her Christian life and obedience.
· When a wife doesn’t obey this word to submit to your own husband, as to the Lord, she isn’t only falling short as a wife. She is falling short as a follower of Jesus Christ.
· This is completely out of the realm of the wife’s nature or personality.
· This has nothing to do with a husband’s intelligence, giftedness, or capability. It has to do with honoring the Lord Jesus Christ.
· This has nothing to do with whether or not the husband is right on a particular issue. It has to do with Jesus being right.
· This means that a woman should take great care in how she chooses her husband. Instead of looking for an attractive man, instead of looking for a wealthy man, instead of looking for a romantic man, a woman should first look for a man she can respect. G. Campbell Morgan recalls the story of the older Christian woman who had never married, and she explained, “I never met a man who could master me.” She had the right idea.
· If you want to please Jesus, if you want to honor Him, then submit to your own husband as to the Lord.
iv. “There can be no more compelling motive for any action than this; and every Christian wife who is concerned above everything else to please the Lord Jesus Christ, will find no difficulty in this paragraph; indeed it will be her greatest delight to do what the Apostle tells us here.” (Lloyd-Jones)
Let’s unpack this:
Paul is continuing the thought from the previous passage that we as believers submit to each other in fear of the Lord. The relationship between husbands and wives is an example of that.
Submission means that we, as wives, have a role to play in the mission for glorifying and obeying God. This does not mean inferiority or silence. This mission for Him is the most important thing in our lives. Just like Jesus is the Son in the Trinity (He is equal to God but submits to God as the Father), wives are equal to their husbands but submit to them in that partnership. I didn’t experience the full aspects of this role, but can only do what I can now as we age together.
Wives don’t submit to their husbands as though he were God and we don’t submit only for as long as we think he is doing the “right thing”. There are extents and limits to this submission and it is, in reality, a motive for submission because it pleases the Lord.
Ray Stedman has these wise words from one of his sermons, as quoted in Precept Austin:
In saying this, the apostle is dealing with the basic remedy for all the conflicts in our day. Paul will apply this principle as he discusses the relationship of husbands to wives, which brings in the whole realm of marriage and divorce and the problems that arise there. Then he will take up the matter of children and parents, which brings in the whole issue of juvenile delinquency, causes and what can be done about it. Then he will take up the issue of management and labor. In each case, the remedy is always the same: “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.”
If we have any desire at all to be part of a solution to the issues surrounding us today, we must do so out of an understanding of what God has revealed about the heart of the problem. We must go back to the cause of all human strife. There is no one who has not at some time asked the question, “How can I get the greatest satisfaction out of life? How can I get the maximum expression of my potential? How can I fulfill myself?” It is not wrong to ask these questions because God has put these urges within us, but it is gravely wrong to ask them in this way.
When we ask the questions this way, we are asking as though we were the only person in the world, as though we were responsible for our own self-development. Sooner or later, in my attempts to develop myself and to gain satisfaction, I find myself on a collision course with someone else who is attempting the same thing. I find that my efforts to satisfy myself are continually sabotaged by others who are trying to achieve satisfaction in the same way. I insist on my rights, and others insist on their rights, and so we become obstacles to each other.
But Paul changes the whole pattern for Christians by introducing two radical factors that alter the whole situation. First, the Christian must never forget that in every relationship of life, another person is present: It is not merely a problem of what I want versus what you want. In every relationship, the apostle reminds us, a third Person is present--the Lord Jesus Christ.
That brings us to the second matter. When I am at odds with another person, to see that Christ is there too is to make me aware immediately of what He has taught me. It is only when I forget myself and devote myself to another’s fulfillment that I will find my own heart running over with grace and satisfaction. This is one of the fundamental mysteries of life, and it is confirmed to us every day. Those who try desperately to satisfy themselves are the ones who end up hollow inside. Our Lord put it this way: “For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it” (Matthew 16:25).
It becomes, then, a question of priority. You cannot have your rights by insisting upon them. You can have them only when you seek to give others their rights. Do you dare to try this radical principle right where you live?
Father; I thank You for a word that searches me and cuts deep and lays bare and hides nothing. I know that in this sweet surgery of Holy Spirit there is healing, forgiveness, cleansing. and restoration. (Ephesians 5:21 The Cure For Conflict)
Boy, would this world be different if we stopped insisting on our rights but actively worked to give others their rights! Satisfying only ourselves leads to emptiness, envy and unhappiness. We should also always remember that Christ is in the midst of our relationships with another people.
The church is subject to Christ and wives are subject to their husbands in everything, according to the last part of this passage. Everything? Does this mean that a wife must suffer abuse or obey when her husband commands her to sin or sit quietly by when her husband commits adultery? Once again, I think Enduring Word has excellent commentary that answers these questions and more about the order of submission:
Therefore: We see in this passage three reasons for a wife’s submission to her husband:
· It is part of her obedience to Jesus (as to the Lord).
· It is appropriate to the order of creation (the husband is the head of the wife).
· It is appropriate because of the model of the relationship between Jesus and the Church (as also Christ is head of the church… as the church is subject to Christ).
i. The first reason is compelling enough, but in itself it doesn’t close the issue. If all we had was as to the Lord, it might be fair enough to ask, “Aren’t men to live as to the Lord also? Shouldn’t men submit to their wives in obedience to Jesus in the same way?” Then you wouldn’t have a real “head” of the home. This is the goal in some marriages. “No one is really in charge. We’re equal partners. I’ll submit to you sometimes and you submit to me other times. We’ll just let Jesus be our head and work out each situation as it comes along and see who will submit to whom.”
ii. To say it simply, that isn’t a Biblical marriage relationship. It ignores the essential order of creation, and it ignores the model of the relationship between Jesus and the Church. This leads us to carefully notice something in general about submission. The principle of submission is presented in many different ways in the New Testament.
· Jesus submitted to His parents (Luke 2:51).
· Demons submitted to the disciples (Luke 10:17).
· Citizens should submit to government authority (Romans 13:1 and 5, Titus 3:1, 1 Peter 2:13).
· The universe will submit to Jesus (1 Corinthians 15:27 and Ephesians 1:22).
· Unseen spiritual beings submit to Jesus (1 Peter 3:22).
· Christians should submit to church leaders (1 Corinthians 16:15-16 and Hebrews 13:17).
· Wives should submit to husbands (Colossians 3:18, Titus 2:5, 1 Peter 3:5, Ephesians 5:22-24).
· The church should submit to Jesus (Ephesians 5:24).
· Servants should submit to masters (Titus 2:9 and 1 Peter 2:18).
· Christians should submit to God (Hebrews 12:9 and James 4:7).
iii. We notice that none of these relations are reversed. For example, masters are never told to submit to servants, Jesus is never told to submit to the church, and so forth. The consistent use of the idea of submission in the Scriptures illustrates basically a “one-way” submission according to how God has arranged the order of authority.
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g. To their own husbands in everything: Paul says that the wife should be subject to her husband in everything. Does he really mean everything? This needs to be understood in the same way we understand submission in other spheres. For example, when Paul says in Romans 13 that the Christian must submit to the state, we understand there are exceptions. So, what are the exceptions to everything?
i. When the husband asks or expects the wife to sin, she is free from her obligation to submit. This applies in a place of clearly Biblical sin – such as signing a fraudulent tax return. It also applies in matters of true Christian conscience. But we must be very careful to distinguish between true Christian conscience and mere opinion. Yet the wife does not have to submit to a request to commit sin.
ii. When the husband is medically incapacitated or insane, she is free from her obligation to submit. A wife does not have to submit to the requests a husband makes when he is insane or medically incapacitated.
iii. When the husband is physically abusive and endangers the safety of the wife or children, the wife is free from her obligation to submit. She does not have to submit to his violence.
iv. When the husband breaks the marriage bond by adultery. Obviously, a wife does not have to submit to her husband’s adultery, and just accept it. The Bible says she has the right to “come out from under his rank” in such cases. “If the husband has been guilty of adultery the wife is no longer bound to give him obedience in everything. She can divorce him, she is allowed to do so by the Scripture. She is entitled to do so because adultery breaks the unity, breaks the relationship. They are now separate and no longer one. He has broken the unity, he has gone out of it. So we must not interpret this Scripture as teaching that the wife is irrevocably, inevitably bound to an adulterous husband for the rest of her life. She may choose to be – that is for her to decide. All I am saying is, that this Scripture does not command it.” (Lloyd-Jones)
Because of the passages that follow that identify the responsibilities of the husband, it is clear that these behaviors would violate those responsibilities.
I’ll end this with the marvelous words that Paul wrote in Galatians (I added the emphasis in bold):
“For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise.”
Galatians 3:26-29 NASB1995
As will be noted in my next devotional for Ephesians 5:25-30, the husband has an even bigger responsibility for his wife.
Heaven on Wheels Daily Prayer:
Dear Lord - I have abjectly repented of my disobedience to Your word and will and I humbly submit to You and to my husband for the remainder of my days. Amen.
Citations and Credits:
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. www.Lockman.org.
Precept Austin was accessed on 06/09/2026 to review commentary for Ephesians 5:22-24. Links to the source documents are provided where appropriate.
Commentary from Enduring Word is used with written permission and without any alteration. ©1996-present The Enduring Word Bible Commentary by David Guzik – enduringword.com. Within the Enduring Word commentary:
Clarke, Adam The New Testament with A Commentary and Critical Notes, Volume II (New York: Eaton & Mains, 1831)
Lloyd Jones, D. Martyn: God’s Ultimate Purpose (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1980)
Lloyd Jones, D. Martyn: Life in the Spirit, In Marriage, Home & Work (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1975)
Lloyd Jones, D. Martyn: The Christian Soldier (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1977)
Lloyd Jones, D. Martyn: The Christian Warfare (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1981)