Ephesians 5

The household code begins with wives, because the general word has been “be subject” (5:21). The accent falls on a serious summons: yield to your own husband as to the Lord—unless God forbids. This is not a blank check for sin; it is responsive holiness, a sincere act of discipleship.

The pattern is the church’s glad yielding to Christ. Grace enables the wife to honor her husband as a living offering to the Lord. The command is not in doubt: she is addressed as a responsible saint who can actually obey.

Paul now treats particular callings. Wives are to be subject to their husbands in the same manner as to Christ—not that the authority is equal, but they cannot obey Christ without this household order.

The Reformed hear appointment before example: God has given a relation that resembles Christ’s headship of the church. The duty is not a human bargain; it is Christ’s own ordering of the home, for her good, under His saving rule.

“Head” names the husband as governor, guide, and guardian—not a title for self-will. Christ is Head of the assembly, being himself the savior of the body, and Himself its Savior from all sin and misery.

The analogy is meant to humble and to protect. If Christ’s headship is saving love, a husband’s headship must look like care. Arminians press the moral force: headship that will not save, guide, and guard has already left the pattern.

Two things are stated: God has given the husband authority, and a resemblance of that authority is found in Christ. “Savior of the body” applies most naturally to Christ, yet still with a view to the home: as Christ rules the church for her salvation, the wife’s good is the aim of this order.

Headship is not a private privilege. It is a copy, in a lesser key, of the Savior who actually keeps His body. The church lives because He is Head; the home is meant to feel that same protecting care.

As the assembly is subject to Christ, so wives to their husbands “in everything”—which is not contrary to any command of God. The limit is pastoral, not a loophole: no human head may overrule the Lord.

The church’s submission is the living picture: comprehensive, willing, directed to a Savior. Arminian readers hear an earnest call to this holiness in the home. Grace assists; the wife must still yield in the things that are lawful and good.

The church is actually subject to Christ; that fact is the type. Wives are to be to their own husbands after that example, even though no husband can claim to be Savior as Christ is.

“In everything” names the breadth of the order, not a license for harm. Christ’s rule of the church is saving; the husband’s corresponding place is for her advantage. The Reformed keep the analogy God-ward: the church’s subjection to Christ is what gives the household word its weight.

Here is the true model of conjugal affection. With this kind of love, this degree of it, and to this end, husbands are to love their wives. Christ “gave himself up for her”—self-gift, not self-assertion.

Arminians hear a call: husbands must actually love like this. Assisting grace makes cross-shaped love possible; it does not replace the duty. Headship without this self-giving is not Paul’s headship. The pattern is Christ’s love, and the husband is summoned to walk in it.

No ordinary love is asked. Husbands are honored to bear Christ’s image in the home; they ought to resemble Him in duty. He scrupled not to die for His church.

One fruit of that death they cannot copy: by it He redeemed her. Reformed readers linger over this verse. Christ’s love is effectual—He actually gave Himself up for the church He will make holy. Husbands imitate the manner of that love; they do not become saviors. The gospel, not male strength, is the source of the home’s life.

He gave Himself that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word. The word is the ordinary channel of blessing; the washing names baptism, where the outward sign and inward grace meet when they are truly received.

Cleansing is from the guilt and power of sin. Wesleyan Arminians hear holiness as the aim of the cross and as a life the church must walk in. The husband who would love “as Christ” seeks his wife’s actual purity and good—never her use—under the same word that washes the church.

To sanctify is to separate her to Himself. This is accomplished by the forgiveness of sins and the regeneration of the Spirit. Baptism is the outward pledge of that hidden washing; God employs the sign, yet it is God who washes, and the Spirit who makes the sign effectual.

The Reformed hear verses 25–27 as Christ’s own work: He does not merely offer a bath the church might refuse. He cleanses His bride. The word is the promise that gives the sign its meaning; without the Spirit the water is only water. Love that saves also makes holy.

The aim is a church presented to Himself in splendor—Wesley says even in this world—all glorious within, without spot of impurity from any sin, without wrinkle of decay.

Holiness is not a distant idea. Arminian readers take the purpose clause as an earnest call: the church is to be holy and without blemish, and husbands who copy Christ labor, under grace, for their wives’ flourishing. The gospel that washes also asks for a beautiful, unspotted life now.

Christ adorns His bride with holiness as a proof of His regard. He presents her to Himself—holy in the Lord’s eyes, not only in human view. Paul states the purpose of the cleansing, not a claim that perfection has already arrived.

Holiness is begun; so long as there is daily progress there cannot be perfection here. Yet the purpose does not hang in doubt. The Reformed read an effectual love: the same Christ who gave Himself will have a church without spot or wrinkle. Husbands take heart from a Bridegroom who finishes what He starts.

In the same way—as Christ loved—husbands are to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; Wesley adds that this is not a sin but an indisputable duty.

The one-flesh union makes neglect a kind of self-harm. The verse presses a plain moral summons: nourish what God has joined to you. Grace enables a husband to treat his wife’s good as his own; he remains responsible to do it.

Nature itself argues: every man loves himself; marriage makes the two one flesh; therefore the man who does not love his wife is a monster. Whoever considers seriously the design of marriage cannot but love his wife.

The Reformed tie this to Christ and the church so that the unity is sacred, not merely biological. Love of one’s own body is the creational floor; Christ’s love of His body is the ceiling. The husband is to live between those two facts.

No one hates his own flesh; he nourishes and cherishes it—feeds and clothes it, even as the Lord also does the assembly. The verbs are tender: daily care, not a single heroic gesture.

Christ’s ongoing kindness is the pattern. Arminians press the husband to the same ordinary holiness: provide, protect, warm. Enabling grace makes cherishing possible; the command still asks for hands and a heart.

A more powerful example could not be adduced. The strong affection a husband ought to cherish is exemplified by Christ, who actually nourishes and cherishes the church.

This is a remarkable word on the mysterious intercourse we have with Christ. He does not abandon His body. The church is fed because she belongs to Him. Husbands learn their craft by watching a Savior who keeps caring.

We are members of His body. The reason Christ nourishes the church is this close connection—as intimate, spiritually, as if we were flesh of His flesh and bone of His bone.

Union with Christ is the fountain of care, and of our answering love. Arminians take membership as a living bond entered by faith: those joined to Him are to live as His members, including in the home that images that bond.

This is no exaggeration, but the simple truth. Paul means more than that Christ shares our nature: by the Spirit He makes us a part of His body, so that from Him we derive our life.

The Reformed hear effectual union. We nourish what is ours; Christ nourishes what He has made His own. Membership is His doing before it is our feeling—and that is why the church is safe in His care.

Genesis 2:24 is quoted because of this intimate union: a man leaves father and mother and holds fast to his wife.

The leaving and holding fast are a calling. Marriage is not a lesser discipleship; it is a holy cleaving. What comes through is a duty to prefer this bond, under God, as the place where Christ’s self-giving love is meant to be practiced day by day.

As Eve was formed from Adam’s substance and was part of himself, so those who are true members of Christ share His life. The marriage word both binds husband and wife and discloses that higher union.

“One flesh” is God’s announcement, not a human contract. The Reformed keep both levels in view: the common law of marriage is no illusion, and it is so treated as to illustrate Christ and the church—without turning the home into a sacrament or emptying it into a mere metaphor.

This mystery is great, but Paul says it refers to Christ and the church. Marriage is not canceled; it is taken up into a greater story. The church is the bride; Christ is the Husband who loved her and gave Himself.

Wesleyan Arminians hear the mystery as something to live, not only to admire. If this is about Christ and the church, then love and respectful yielding in the home are holy responses to a gospel already given. The parable asks for actual holiness from both spouses.

No language can fully explain this union; the infinite power of the Spirit is at work. The great mystery is that Christ breathes into the church His own life and power. Paul speaks of Christ and the church—not of marriage as a seventh sacrament.

The Reformed rest here in wonder more than in analysis. Feel Christ living in us rather than mapping every inch of the bond. The household command is made in earnest, but the deeper thing is effectual union: the Bridegroom actually joined to His people.

After the height of the mystery, Paul returns to short precepts: each husband is to love his own wife even as himself; the wife is to see that she respects her husband.

The summary is pastoral and mutual in concern, even while the duties differ. Where love is missing, headship turns harsh; where respect is missing, yielding becomes grim. Classical Arminians take both lines as genuine, ongoing holiness—grace-enabled, still required, still patterned on Christ’s self-giving love.

Having opened the mystery, he closes with a brief of duties. Husbands are to love; wives to reverence—that fear which leads to willing subjection. Where reverence does not exist, there will be no willing subjection.

The Reformed hear instinct directed by the gospel: affection needs honor; governing needs love. Both rest on a Husband who has already given Himself and who actually sanctifies His church. The home is asked to look like that care.