If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you."
John 15:10-14

I am convinced that Paul's letter to the Ephesians is almost entirely a commentary on John's account of Yeshua's Passover dialog. The passage above is the foundation for understanding Ephesians 5. If you don't understand Yeshua's relationship to his disciples and their relationships to each other, you also won't understand the relationships of believer to believer, husband to wife, or wife to husband.

The same Messiah who said, "love one another", said "You are my friends *if you do what I command you*. He serves those who follow him, even to the point of giving up his life, but he serves them from a position of power and authority over them.