22–24 The call for the wife to obey her husband (and that is roughly what the verb ‘submit’ means in this context; cf. 1 Pet. 3:5–6) was virtually a universal convention of Paul’s world. But Paul reinforces the convention with the claim that the husband is the woman’s head, which in 1 Cor. 11 is based in the Genesis story of Adam and Eve. ‘Head’ means master (see on 1:22); contrary to widespread claims, the word never meant ‘source’ in biblical Greek. The appeal is then further supported (and transcends convention) by the analogy Paul develops between marriage and the relationship between Christ and the church, with the woman being asked to submit to the husband in the way the church submits to her head, Christ (i.e. responding to his love, joyfully, and out of heartfelt desire, not grudgingly or under compulsion).

25–29 The charge to husbands to love their wives is also well reflected in the better conventions of the day, but Paul gives it radical new content through the Christ-church analogy. Christ gave himself for the church in love, and lovingly perfects the church (washing her clean with the word) for the day he will be more fully united with her. (The reference in v 26 is not to baptism.) Paul does not think the analogy carries through in every detail but as Christ sees the church as now having become his own body, by commitment to marriage union, and does everything lovingly and for her good, so should the husband for his wife (28). He should recognize that in loving her he is loving himself; for she is joined with him as one flesh (28–29; cf. 31).

30–33 Paul was perfectly aware of the literal meaning of Gn. 2:24, but he saw the mystery of cosmic unity in Christ, and especially the union between Christ and his body, as in a sense prefigured in the marriage bond. For him there is a typological relationship between creation in unity with God and redemption into unity with God. That original unity was nowhere better focused than in Adam’s prefall union with Eve, and Paul holds that Christ’s union with the church is its redemptive counterpart. The parallel was not accidental: as Lincoln observes, ‘Christ had already been seen in Adamic terms in Eph. 1:22 …, and so a text that refers to Adam’s bodily union can now be claimed for Christ’s union with the Church’ (Lincoln, p. 382). But if Paul sees marriage as an illustration of the new-creation union, it must be noted that he also interprets marriage in the light of that Christ-church union—and thereby transforms the concept of the marriage relationship, and gives the world the highest ideal of marriage it knows.

Max Turner, “Ephesians,” in New Bible Commentary: 21st Century Edition, ed. D. A. Carson et al., 4th ed. (Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press, 1994), 1242.