What is the context?
This passage follows the call to submit to one another out of reverence for Christ (5:21). Paul addresses wives and husbands, placing marriage within the life of a community learning to walk in Christ’s love.
Wives are told to submit to their own husbands, with the church’s relation to Christ providing the comparison. Husbands are told to love their wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her. Both sets of instructions belong to the same connected passage.
Paul describes Christ’s purpose as making His church holy and presenting her to Himself without stain or blemish. His care for the church gives the husband a pattern of nourishing and cherishing his wife as his own body.
Paul then quotes Genesis 2:24 about the two becoming one flesh. He connects that union with Christ and the church, before returning to the husband’s love and the wife’s respect. The passage moves between the marriage relationship and the saving love of Christ that gives it a pattern.
How is this passage commonly understood?
Christians commonly understand this passage as calling for faithful marriage shaped by Christ’s self-giving love. They differ over how the husband’s headship and the instruction to submit describe decision-making and responsibility within marriage.
The Southern Baptist Baptist Faith and Message, article XVIII, affirms the equal worth of husband and wife while giving them distinct responsibilities. The husband is called to loving leadership, provision and protection, and the wife to gracious submission to that servant leadership. This is the confession’s stated Baptist position, rather than a description of every Baptist congregation.
CBE International’s own statement, family point 11 and its applications, reads headship as self-giving service within mutual submission and responsibility, with leadership shared in the home. This represents a Christian equality reading found across several denominations, rather than one denomination’s official teaching.
In the Catholic apostolic letter Mulieris Dignitatem, paragraph 24, John Paul II emphasizes that the spouses’ submission is mutual, while the church’s submission to Christ is one-sided. He explains the husband’s headship through Christ’s giving of Himself. The accounts share an emphasis on love and dignity, while describing the responsibilities of the spouses differently.
On the washing in verse 26, Wesley’s note connects the water with baptism, joined with inward grace and the word. This is an interpretation of the phrase in context. The Greek word for water does not by itself settle every question about baptism or cleansing.
Where does this fit in God's plan?
The connection with God’s larger purpose is explicit: Paul quotes Genesis 2:24, then says that he is speaking about Christ and the church. The union described at the beginning of the Bible becomes a picture through which he explains Christ’s committed love for His people.
Revelation 19:6–9 looks forward to the marriage of the Lamb and the readiness of His bride. This gives a supported future connection to Christ preparing His church to be holy and without blemish. The picture directs hope toward His completed work.
The comparison has limits: the husband does not become his wife’s savior or replace Christ. The saving work belongs to Christ, whose self-giving love supplies the pattern for the care described here.
What is our position?
We don't have a position on this passage yet. When our study reaches a conclusion the text supports, it will appear here.