Charles Ellicott Commentary Ephesians 5:24

"But as the church is subject to Christ, so [let] the wives also [be] to their husbands in everything." — Ephesians 5:24 (ASV)

And he is the saviour of the body. Therefore ... — The words “and” and “is” are wrongly inserted, and the word “therefore” is absolutely an error, evading the difficulty of the passage. It should be, He Himself being the Saviour of the Body. But ... This clause, in which the words “He Himself” are emphatic, notes (as if in order to guard against too literal interpretation of the comparison) that “Christ” (and He alone) is not only Head, but “Saviour of the Body,” i.e., “of His body the Church,” not only teaching and ruling it, but by His unity infusing into it the new life of justification and sanctification. Here no husband can be like Him, and therefore none can claim the absolute dependence of faith which is His by right. Accordingly St. Paul adds the word “But.” Though “this is so,” yet “still let the wives,” etc.

As the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. — The subjection of the Church to Christ is a free subjection, arising from faith in His absolute wisdom and goodness, and from love for His unspeakable love. Hence we gather:

1. that the subordination of the wife is not that of the slave, by compulsion and fear, but one which arises from and preserves freedom;
2. that it can exist, or at any rate can endure, only on condition of superior wisdom and goodness and love in the husband;
3. that while it is like the higher subordination in kind, it cannot be equally perfect in degree—while it is real “in everything,” it can be absolute in nothing.

The antitype is, as usual, greater than the type.