"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'm convinced that Paul had Yeshua's Passover dialog in mind when he wrote his letter to the Ephesians. The passage above is the foundation for understanding Eph 5. If you don't understand Yeshua's relationship to his disciples and theirs 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 obey*. He serves his disciples, even to the point of death, but he serves with unquestioned power and authority over them.