Ephesians 5:28-33 | “A Union that Reveals a Mystery”

Symbols that Point to Something Bigger

Our culture is full of symbols that point to something bigger than the symbol itself.  The White House is more than a house.  It represents presidential power and authority.  The royal family in England, though a real family, is a symbol of English history and nobility and decorum.  Madison Avenue is just a street in New York City, but it’s a symbol of the advertising industry.  Hollywood is just a suburb of Los Angeles, but it points to an entire industry.  AT&T Stadium in Arlington is just a football stadium, but it’s the symbol of the most valuable sports franchise in the world: the Dallas Cowboys.  It’s also a symbol of despair and frustration for lifelong Cowboy fans!  Our culture is full of things that point to other things.  Symbols or signs or buildings or streets that point to realities much bigger than themselves. 

Human Marriage a Symbol of Divine Marriage

Did you know that marriage also pointed to something bigger than itself?  Marriage is a real thing – there are millions of them in the world.  But what if every marriage that has ever existed was designed by God to point beyond itself to something bigger than itself?

The section of Ephesians that we’ve been studying over the last few weeks tells us clearly that God created marriage to display the relationship between Christ and his church.  Marriage is intended by God to be a parable, an object lesson, of the way Jesus loves his bride, the church, and the way the church is called to love him.  Marriage is a temporary institution designed to reveal eternal realities.

This truth helps guard us, whether single or married, from idolizing or overly romanticizing marriage.  Yes, marriage is a beautiful gift from God.  But it’s not an end in itself.  It’s a means to an end.  God didn’t design marriage just for our sake.  He designed it ultimately for his sake, to reveal the glory of his love for his people. 

Overview of Ephesians 5:22-33

In Ephesians 5:22-33, Paul says that God designed marriage to reflect Jesus’ covenant-keeping and sacrificial love for the church and the church’s humble and joyful submission to Jesus’ leadership and authority.  In marriage, God wants the world to see Jesus’ posture toward his people and his people’s posture toward him.  This is the foundational truth under everything we learn about marriage in these verses.

We saw in verses 22-24 that wives should submit to their husbands in order to show the world how the church submits to Jesus.  In verses 25-27, we saw that husbands should love their wives like Jesus loved the church – sacrificially.  And that the goal of their sacrificial love is the promotion of their wife’s well-being, especially her spiritual well-being.

The last section of this passage, verses 28-33, shows us one more reason why husbands should love their wives.  The main point of this passage is that the union between husband and wife reveals the union between Christ and the church.  This passage says that husbands should love their wives as their own bodies because Christ loves the church as his own body, and that the union of Christ and the church is the basis for the union of husband and wife. 

A Profound Union

We can break this passage up into two sections: a profound union (vv. 28-30) and a profound mystery (vv. 31-33).  Verses 28-30 say that husbands should love their wives as their own bodies because Christ loves his own body.  Paul is further applying (“in the same way”) the call for husbands to love their wives sacrificially by telling to them to love their wives “as their own bodies.” 

Husbands are obligated to do this, they “should” or “ought” to love their wives as their own bodies.  Not doing this would be sin of neglect and call for repentance.  This call echoes one of the most well-known commands from the Old Testament: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev. 19:18).  Paul is applying this general commandment in a very direct way to husbands.  He’s saying that husbands should love their nearest and dearest neighbor, their wives. 

Oftentimes, we husbands are known as men who love people in the community, people in the church, and people at work, all the while neglecting to love our nearest neighbor, our wives.  This is the height of hypocrisy.  Loving everyone but the one we’ve entered into a covenant relationship with turns our marriage into a game of charades.  Our wives and our children see through this hypocrisy.  They know if we really love them or not.  And they’re deeply hurt when they see us loving our other neighbors more than we love them. 

Love Yourself

At the end of verse 28, Paul gives the reason why husbands should love their wives.  He says, “He who loves his wife loves himself.”  He’s alluding to Genesis 2:24 that he quotes in verse 31.  A husband and wife are “one flesh.”  In God’s sight, they’re seen as a single entity.  So the husband’s obligation to love his wife as his own body isn’t a call to love someone else as much as he loves himself.  It’s a call to love himself.  He’s “one flesh” with his wife, so if he fails to love her, he’s not loving himself. 

Husbands, we must understand the intimacy of the union we have with our wives.  I’m not just talking about sex.  In God’s sight, when we commit our lives to our wives through marriage, we become a single unit.  We aren’t two autonomous individuals living under the same roof, eating at the same table, watching the same shows.  We’re “one flesh.”  God has joined us together. 

Husbands, do you see your wife like this?  Or do you see her as a nice hood ornament or as dead weight in your life?  Husbands and wives, do you see your lives as inextricably bound together or do you see each other as a glorified roommate who helps you around the house and that you get to have sex with sometimes?  Do you see yourselves as a unit or as two people who have a lot in command and like hanging out together most of the time?  When husbands love their wives, they’re loving themselves because they’re “one flesh” with their wives.

Don’t Hate Your Own Body

Paul develops this thought some more in verse 29.  “No one ever hated his own flesh.”  Normally, people don’t hurt themselves.  There are people who engage in self-mutilation or self-harm.  But people generally don’t act this way.  People tend to regard their bodies as important and take care of them accordingly. 

Husbands who are not loving their wives are similar to those who “self-harm.”  They’re literally hurting themselves.  Just think, is a marriage where the husband isn’t loving his wife going to be full of life and joy and peace?  A husband who is oppressive or always negative or reactionary toward his wife is hurting himself.  He’s not being the kind of leader that God calls him to be.  This is why Paul says in Colossians 3:19, “Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them.”  No matter how much money he makes, how many nice things he buys her, how many trips he takes her on, a husband who leads his wife harshly and is overbearing toward her is not loving her.  He’s not helping himself, he’s actually hurting himself. 

Nourish and Cherish Your Wife

Instead of hating his body, a husband should “nourish and cherish it” (“feed and care for it,” NIV).  Just as we do everything we can to take care of our bodies, we should do everything we can to take care of our wives.  We should nourish her, feed her with good food.  This doesn’t mean take her to nice restaurants, though you should do that too.  In verse 26, Paul said that Jesus washed his bride with the word in order to promote her welfare.  Husbands, likewise, should be “washing” their wives with the word of God.  Husbands should find ways to read and talk about Scripture with their wives.  Here’s the easiest way to start doing this: on the way home from church ask your wife, “What did you learn from the sermon today?”  Then talk through what we studied together.  Nourish her with Scripture and she’ll grow and flourish. 

Husbands should also “cherish” their wife.  This word is full of affection.  As one scholar says, “This is emotionally evocative language of nurturing care to communicate what it means to love one’s wife.”  Paul uses the same word in 1 Thessalonians 2:7 when he speaks of his love for that church: “We were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children.”  Husbands should be as tender and gentle and caring and affectionate toward their wives as a mother is toward a baby she’s nursing. 

Husbands, do you treat your wife like this?  Are you too rough with her?  Do you scold her, speak down to her, criticize her for everything, poke fun at her, or make fun of her?  Do you show her affection without expecting sex in return?  Are you aware of what’s going on in her heart and life?  Do you assume she’s okay because she’s a strong person?  When was the last time you asked her how she’s doing, how she’s really doing?  If you don’t listen to your wife, God may stop listening to you.  “Husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered” (1 Pet. 3:7).

The end of verse 29 says that husbands should love their wives like this because this is how Jesus loves the church.  Husbands should love their bodies, their wives, because Jesus loves his body, his wife.  Despite all her imperfections Jesus nourishes and cherishes his bride the church.  He tenderly cares for his body.  He doesn’t treat her how she deserves to be treated.  Psalm 103:10, “He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities.”  He gives her the opposite of what she deserves.  He gives her grace, patience, love, acceptance, forgiveness, wisdom, help, guidance, and strength.  He listens to her.  He doesn’t speak down to her.  He doesn’t expect her to perform well before he’ll be happy with her.  He delights in her simply because she’s his bride.  May each husband follow Christ’s example in tenderly caring for his wife.

Union with Christ

The husband-wife relationship is a profound union, as they’re “one flesh” in a mysterious way.  But verse 30 points us to an even more profound union.  “We (the church) are members of Jesus’ body.”  Believers in Christ are so intimately joined to Christ that Paul says that we have become a part of him.  When we repent of our sin and put our trust in Jesus, we’re incorporated into Christ and become part of his spiritual body.  Paul says it like this in 1 Corinthians 6:17, “He who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.” 

Paul uses the imagery of a body to express the solidarity that believers have with Christ.  Christian husbands have experienced the love and care of Jesus because they’re part of Jesus’ body.  Jesus takes good care of his body.  Husbands, therefore, should treat their body, their wife, in the same way they’ve been treated by Jesus. 

This doctrine of the believer’s union with Christ has profound implications.  It means that our sins belong to Christ.  Our lives belong to Christ.  When he died, we were “crucified with him” (Rom. 6:6).  We were buried with Christ, raised with Christ, even taken up to heaven with Christ (Eph. 2:6).  When Christ returned to heaven and was seated at the right hand of God, we also are seated there with him (Eph. 1:3, Col. 3:3).  We’ve been given Christ’s righteousness and share in his inheritance.  Being a member of Jesus’ body is the highest honor in the universe.  Not having union with him is the most devastating tragedy.  Are you united to Christ through faith?

Members of One Another

The New Testament also makes it clear that all who’re in union with Christ are also related to one another in his body.  Romans 12:5, “We, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.”  So when “one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together” (1 Cor. 12:26).  Theologian Wayne Grudem says, “In this body of Christ old hostilities disappear, sinful divisions among people are broken down, and worldly criteria of status no longer apply.” 

Being a Christian, being united to Christ, by definition means that you’re in a new binding relationship with other Christians.  The body of Christ is made up of all those who’ve been united to Christ through faith in Christ.  Being a member of his body in heaven is evidenced by being a member of his body on earth.  Therefore, joining a local church is perhaps the most Christian thing you can do.  Joining a church is a tangible, visible, and obvious way of showing that you are in fact a Christian, a member of Jesus’ body.  Not joining a church and just floating around between churches doesn’t mean you’re not a Christian.  But it might mean that you’re not a healthy Christian.  It’d be like part removing a part of your body and expecting it to live and function on its own.  Not only can it not function on its own, your whole body would experience pain and loss because one of its members wasn’t attached.  If you’re united to Christ, it’s imperative that you also unite to Christ’s church. 

A Profound Mystery

The union between Jesus and his church is a model for how a husband should love his wife.  In the next few verses, Paul goes one step further and says that that the union between Jesus and the church is the reason why God created marriage.  In marriage, God reveals a profound mystery, namely, the mystery of Jesus’ covenant love for the church (vv. 31-33).

As Paul finishes his teaching on marriage, he quotes the most important verse in the Old Testament concerning God’s plan for marriage, Genesis 2:24, in verse 31.  The last part of the verse is what Paul is zeroing in on, “the two shall become one flesh.” 

Then Paul says in verse 32 that this “profound mystery” is “referring to Christ and the church.”  He’s saying that Genesis 2:24 refers directly to the union of Jesus and his bride the church.  The spiritual union between Christ and the church was prefigured by the physical union of husband and wife.  As one theologian says, “Paul’s argument does not move from human marriage to Christ and his church; rather, Christ and the church in a loving relationship is the paradigm for the Christian husband and wife.”

In other words, Paul says that Moses’ words in Genesis 2:24 tell us that marriage was designed by God from the beginning to be a parable or picture of the relationship between Jesus and the church.  When God was planning what marriage would be like, he planned it to be an earthly picture of a heavenly reality.  When Paul wanted to teach the Ephesians about marriage, he didn’t hunt around for a helpful analogy and decide to use Jesus’ union with the church as a teaching illustration.  Paul is saying that “when God designed the original marriage He already had Christ and the church in mind.” 

The “mystery” of the gospel is revealed in marriage.  Marriage is meant to reveal in miniature the beauty of Jesus’ love for his bride.  It’s meant to reveal Christ the sacrificial head loving his submissive bride the church.  Human marriage is meant to reveal divine marriage.  Earthly marriage reveals the mystery of a heavenly marriage.

Don’t Preach False Gospels

Many marriages of course don’t reveal what they’re supposed to reveal.  Marriages preach false gospels when the husband doesn’t love the wife sacrificially and treats her harshly or neglects her or fails to care for her.  Or when wives rise up in pride and try to lead their husbands and don’t honor and submit to their husbands as their head. 

One reason why adultery and divorce is so devastating is because they preach a false gospel.  When a husband or wife cheats on their spouse, they’re not accurately portraying Jesus’ faithfulness to his church and the church’s faithfulness to Jesus.  When marriages end in divorce, it shows people that Jesus’ relationship with his church is conditional and subject to end when one or both parties want out.

On a related note, when believers date or marry unbelievers, it shows the world that Jesus unites himself to people who don’t trust in him.  This also preaches a false gospel.  Paul is clear about this, “Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers.  For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness?  Or what fellowship has light with darkness?  What accord has Christ with Belial?  Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever?” (2 Cor. 6:14-15)  Christians should only marry those who’re “in the Lord” (1 Cor. 7:39).  The most important thing about the person you want to date is if they have a real and growing faith in the Lord Jesus.  Everything else is negotiable.  That they love and follow Jesus is not.

This also means that couples shouldn’t live together before they’re married.  Jesus only committed himself to those who committed themselves to him.  We must not preach a false gospel by living in a “one flesh” relationship with no meaningful or lawful commitment.  The “one flesh” relationship of marriage is reserved for those who’ve entered into a covenant relationship.

There’s grace for those who’ve been divorced or cohabitated.  There’s grace for those who preach a false gospel by taking sexual things from someone who isn’t their spouse.  But they must repent.  Listen to how Rosaria Butterfield says this in her book The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert.  She says, “What good Christians don’t realize is that sexual sin is not recreational sex gone overboard.  Sexual sin is predatory.  It won’t be ‘healed’ by redeeming the context or the genders.  Sexual sin must simply be killed…healing to the sexual sinner, is death: nothing more and nothing less.”  She goes on to say that we’re naïve to think that marriage will stop our sexual sin.  She says, “I know why over fifty percent of Christian marriages end in divorce: because Christians act as though marriage redeems sin.  Marriage does not redeem sin.  Only Jesus himself can do that.”  Sexual sin compromises the message that our marriages, or future marriages preach.  We must, therefore, put it to death.

Is Your View of Marriage High Enough?

Marriage is a union that reveals a mystery.  God designed marriage to reveal the profound mystery of his profound love for his people.  Marriage exists for the display of the glory and love of God in the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Married people, what is your marriage preaching?  What does your relationship say about Jesus and his church?  Single people, do you see marriage as a means to the end of loneliness, sexual fulfillment, companionship, or child bearing?  Or do you see marriage as a means to the end of declaring the gospel of Jesus Christ?  Is our view of marriage high enough?