Ephesians 5 KJV
Walk in Love and Light
Ephesians Chapter 5: Walk in Love and Light
This chapter explores themes of Marriage, The Church. The chapter's opening call to imitate God by walking in love directly echoes Leviticus 19:2's holiness command but reorients it christologically around sacrificial self-giving rather than ritual purity.
1e ye therefore followers of God, as dear children;
2 And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour.
3 But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints;
4 Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient: but rather giving of thanks.
5 For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.
6 Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience.
7 Be not ye therefore partakers with them.
8 For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light:
9 (For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth;)
10 Proving what is acceptable unto the Lord.
11 And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.
12 For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret.
13 But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light: for whatsoever doth make manifest is light.
14 Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.
15 See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise,
16 Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.
17 Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is.
18 And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit;
19 Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord;
20 Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ;
21 Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.
22 Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.
23 For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body.
24 Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.
25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;cf.
26 That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,cf.
27 That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.cf.
28 So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself.cf.
29 For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church:cf.
30 For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.cf.
31 For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.cf.
32 This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.cf.
33 Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband.
โ โ arrow keys to navigate chapters ยท spacebar to play/pause audio
Did You Know?
The chapter's opening call to imitate God by walking in love directly echoes Leviticus 19:2's holiness command but reorients it christologically around sacrificial self-giving rather than ritual purity.
Verse 14 quotes what scholars identify as an early Christian baptismal hymn, repurposing Isaiah 60:1 imagery to portray conversion as awakening from death to Christ's illuminating resurrection power.
The household code opens with mutual submission in verse 21 as the fruit of Spirit-filling, subverting Greco-Roman patriarchal norms by grounding all subsequent roles in reciprocal Christlike service.
The contrast between wine-induced excess and Spirit-filling in verse 18 targets Ephesian Dionysian cult practices, redirecting ecstatic communal experience toward orderly worship through psalms and thanksgiving.
By applying Genesis 2:24's 'one flesh' union typologically to Christ and the church, the passage presents marriage as a living reenactment of redemptive mystery rather than merely a social institution.
Commentary & Study Notes Jamieson-Fausset-Brown (1871) ยท Public Domain therefore โ seeing that "God in Christ forgave you" (Eph 4:32). followers โ Greek, "imitators" of God, in respect to "love" (Eph 5:2): God's essential character (1Jo 4:16). as dearโฆ
Classic verse-by-verse commentary on Ephesians 5 from Jamieson, Fausset & Brown (1871). Covers: Exhortations to love: and against carnal lusts and communications. Circumspection in walk: redeeming the time: being filled with the spirit: singing to the Lord with thankfulness: the wife's duty to the husband rests on that of the church to Christ.
- 1
- therefore โ seeing that "God in Christ forgave you" (Eph 4:32). followers โ Greek, "imitators" of God, in respect to "love" (Eph 5:2): God's essential character (1Jo 4:16). as dear children โ Greek, "as children beloved"; to which Eph 5:2 refers, "As Christ also loved us" (1Jo 4:19). "We are sons of men, when we do ill; sons of God, when we do well" [AUGUSTINE, on Psalm 52]; (compare Mt 5:44, 45, 48). Sonship infers an absolute necessity of imitation, it being vain to assume the title of son without any similitude of the Father [PEARSON].
- 2
- And โ in proof that you are so. walk in love โ resuming Eph 4:1, "walk worthy of the vocation." as Christ... loved us โ From the love of the Father he passes to the love of the Son, in whom God most endearingly manifests His love to us. given himself for us โ Greek, "given Himself up (namely, to death, Ga 2:20) for us," that is, in our behalf: not here vicarious substitution, though that is indirectly implied, "in our stead." The offerer, and the offering that He offered, were one and the same (Joh 15:13; Ro 5:8). offering and a sacrifice โ "Offering" expresses generally His presenting Himself to the Father, as the Representative undertaking the cause of the whole of our lost race (Ps 40:6-8), including His life of obedience; though not excluding His offering of His body for us (Heb 10:10). It is usually an unbloody offering, in the more limited sense. "Sacrifice" refers to His death for us exclusively. Christ is here, in reference to Ps 40:6 (quoted again in Heb 10:5), represented as the antitype of all the offerings of the law, whether the unbloody or bloody, eucharistical or propitiatory. for a sweet-smelling savour โ Greek, "for an odor of a sweet smell," that is, God is well pleased with the offering on the ground of its sweetness,and so is reconciled to us (Eph 1:6; Mt 3:17; 2Co 5:18, 19; Heb 10:6-17). The ointment compounded of principal spices, poured upon Aaron's head, answers to the variety of the graces by which He was enabled to "offer Himself a sacrifice for a sweet-smelling savor." Another type, or prophecy by figure, was "the sweet savor" ("savor of rest," Margin) which God smelled in Noah's sacrifice (Ge 8:21). Again, as what Christ is, believers also are (1Jo 4:17), and ministers are: Paul says (2Co 2:17) "we are unto God a sweet savor of Christ."
Read all 33 notes on Ephesians 5 โ