English · KJV

Ephesians 5:29

“Christ and the Church: The Marriage Standard”Ephesians 5:22–33

King James Version
For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church:

Bible text: King James Version (1769 Blayney text) · Public domain

KJV (with Strong's)
For G1063 no man G3762 ever yet G4218 hated G3404 his own G1438 flesh G4561; but G235 nourisheth G1625 and G2532 cherisheth G2282 it G846, even as G2531 G2532 the Lord G2962 the church G1577:

Bible text: King James Version with Strong's numbers · Public domain

Berean Standard Bible
Indeed, no one ever hated his own body, but he nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church.

Bible text: Berean Standard Bible · Public domain

American Standard Version
for no man ever hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as Christ also the church;

Bible text: American Standard Version (1901) · Public domain

World English Bible Messianic
For no man ever hated his own flesh; but nourishes and cherishes it, even as the Lord also does the assembly;

Bible text: World English Bible, Messianic edition · Public domain

Geneva Bible (1599)
For no man euer yet hated his owne flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it, euen as the Lord doeth the Church.

Bible text: Geneva Bible (1599) · Public domain

Young's Literal Translation
for no one ever his own flesh did hate, but doth nourish and cherish it, as also the Lord--the assembly,

Bible text: Young's Literal Translation · Public domain

King James Version — Interlinear
18 Greek words
  1. οὐδεὶςoudeisno [one]G3762A-NSMAdjective Nominative Singular Masculine
  2. γάρgarforG1063CONJConjunction
  3. ποτεpoteat any timeG4218PRTParticle or Disjunctive
  4. τὴνtēntheG3588T-ASFDefinite article Accusative Singular Feminine
  5. ἑαυτοῦhe'autouhis ownG1438F-3GSMReflexive pronoun Genitive 3rd Singular Masculine
  6. σάρκαsarkafleshG4561N-ASFNoun Accusative Singular Feminine
  7. ἐμίσησενemisēsenhatedG3404V-AAI-3SVerb Aorist Active Indicative 3rd Singular
  8. ἀλλ᾽all᾽butG235CONJConjunction
  9. ἐκτρέφειektrepheihe nourishesG1625V-PAI-3SVerb Present Active Indicative 3rd Singular
  10. καὶkaiandG2532CONJConjunction
  11. θάλπειthalpeihe cherishesG2282V-PAI-3SVerb Present Active Indicative 3rd Singular
  12. αὐτὴνautēnitG846P-ASFPersonal pronoun Accusative Singular Feminine
  13. καθὼςkathōseven asG2531CONJConjunction
  14. καὶkaialso [does]G2532CONJConjunction
  15. ὁho[the]G3588T-NSMDefinite article Nominative Singular Masculine
  16. ΧριστὸςChristosChristG5547N-NSM-TNoun Nominative Singular Masculine Title
  17. τὴνtēntheG3588T-ASFDefinite article Accusative Singular Feminine
  18. ἐκκλησίανekklēsianchurchG1577N-ASFNoun Accusative Singular Feminine
English is a literal word-by-word gloss of the Greek, not the KJV's wording. Why?

This is the original text the KJV's translators worked from — each Greek word with its own literal English meaning in this verse, prepared by scholars at Tyndale House, Cambridge. The KJV translates whole sentences, not word by word, so its wording differs: one Greek word can become several English words, and the KJV may choose “charity” where the gloss reads “love”. Both are faithful — they answer different questions. For the KJV's own rendering, switch to the KJV text.

Words in [ ] are added by the English.

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In the KJVVerse 29,334 of 31,102 · 94.3%

Study this verse

Written with AI assistance. Always check it against Scripture.

This verse

Everyone feeds and tenderly cares for his own body, and that is how the Lord cares for the church and how a husband is to care for his wife.

“For no man ever yet hated his own flesh;”

gár gives the reason for verse 28. To hate (miséō) one’s own body (sárx) is against nature, and everyone knows it.

“but nourisheth and cherisheth it,”

ektréphō is to feed and bring to maturity, and thálpō is to warm and care for tenderly. Together they describe care that provides and comforts.

“even as the Lord the church:”

The Lord Jesus gives his ekklēsía, his assembled people, exactly this care, and he gives it now.

Passage studyEphesians 5:22–33

Marriage Patterned on Christ and the Church

Summary

Paul sets marriage beside the union of Christ and his church and lets each explain the other. Wives are to submit to their own husbands as to the Lord, as the church is subject to Christ. Husbands are to love their wives as Christ loved the church, who gave himself for her, washes her by his word, and will present her to himself glorious and without blemish. A husband is to care for his wife as he cares for his own body, because God made the two one flesh. Paul then says that this one-flesh union is a great mystery, and that it speaks of Christ and the church.

What Paul asks of wives

The verse just before this passage gives the rule for every believer: “Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God” (Ephesians 5:21). What follows for wives, husbands, children and servants applies that rule in the home. All of it belongs to the life Paul has been describing since he asked his readers to walk worthy of their calling (Ephesians 4:1), to walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself for us (Ephesians 5:2), and to walk as children of light (Ephesians 5:8).

Paul speaks to wives directly, as people who answer to the Lord for their own part. The word gynḗ means a woman or a wife, and here it is the married woman. The verb hypotássō is built from hypo, “under”, and tassō, “to arrange”, so it means to place under. It can be a soldier’s word, and when it is turned back on the one acting, as in “submit yourselves”, it speaks of a willing yielding to an order God has appointed. It is the verb of verse 21, where all believers do this for one another. The husband is “your own”, ídios, which simply means one’s own, so the command concerns a wife and the one man she married. Paul gives the same instruction to the Colossians (Colossians 3:18), and Peter speaks to wives and husbands in a similar way (1 Peter 3:1–7).

“As unto the Lord” is the phrase that governs everything else. kýrios means lord or master, and in the New Testament it is overwhelmingly the title of Jesus. A wife submits to her husband as part of her obedience to Christ, so Christ is both her reason and her boundary: her submission reaches as far as his will allows and stops there. Submitting is also the path Christ himself walked. He humbled himself and became obedient to the Father, even to the death of the cross (Philippians 2:5–8), so a wife who submits is in the company of her Lord, and her worth is as great as her husband’s.

Verse 24 gives the pattern: “as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.” The church yields to Christ willingly, trusting his wisdom and grateful for the love that gave itself for her. A wife’s submission is meant to look like that, a response of trust to a husband who is himself charged to love as Christ loves.

Does submission mean a wife has no voice?

Submission in this passage is the willing cooperation of a whole person, with her mind, her wisdom and her concerns, and a husband who leads well seeks them out and values them. It honours the husband’s place of leadership and helps him carry it responsibly, and it sits inside the mutual deference of verse 21. Silence, the surrender of her own judgment and the life of a doormat have no place in it.

Does “in every thing” include what is sinful or harmful?

“In every thing” describes a settled disposition of respect and cooperation across the whole of married life. The word pâs means all or every, and here it takes in every part of the marriage. A wife’s first allegiance is to Christ, and the apostles’ rule stands over every human authority: “We ought to obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29). So the phrase ends where a husband would demand sin or do harm, and the very next verse shows the kind of husband Paul has in view, one who loves his wife as Christ loved the church.

What it means that the husband is the head

Paul gives the reason for the command in verse 23: “the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church.” The word kephalḗ is the ordinary word for the head of a body. Used as a picture it speaks of the one who leads and has authority, and it also speaks of a source, since the head gives direction and life to the body. The “even as”, hōs, makes Christ’s headship the measure of the husband’s. Christ is head over all things to the church, which is his body (Ephesians 1:22–23, Colossians 1:18), and Paul speaks of headship again when he writes to Corinth (1 Corinthians 11:3).

The kind of head Christ is comes in the last clause: “he is the saviour of the body.” sōtḗr means a deliverer or preserver, and sōma is the body as a sound whole. Christ leads the church by saving her. He is the good shepherd who gives his life for the sheep (John 10:11) and the author of eternal salvation to all who obey him (Hebrews 5:9). A husband’s headship is patterned on that. It is a responsibility to lead by loving, protecting, providing for and nurturing his wife, in body and in spirit.

People ask whether “head” means that the husband is superior, or whether the verse hands men a licence to dominate. Headship here is a role and a responsibility given for the good of the marriage, held by a man whose wife is his equal in worth, and its only model is the Christ who laid down his life. A husband who rules harshly has left the pattern this verse sets.

How this differed from the households of Paul’s day

Among the Greeks, the Romans and the Jews of the first century, the household was ordered under the husband and father. In Roman custom the paterfamilias, the male head of the house, held authority over his wife, his children and his slaves, and a wife’s duties were prescribed for her. Paul writes into that world and changes it from within. He addresses wives directly as responsible believers. He places every relationship in the home under the mutual submission of verse 21. Then he gives the longest and heaviest charge to the one who held the power, commanding him to love with the self-giving love of Christ. This raised the standing of wives well above the customs of the time and gave marriage a meaning those customs lacked.

Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church

Paul turns to husbands with the word anḗr, a man, and here a married man. The command is agapáō, the love that chooses the good of the other and acts for it, the love God himself has shown (John 3:16). The form Paul uses, agapate, is a present imperative, which asks for a love that keeps going day after day. So this love is a commitment a husband acts on, whatever his feelings are on a given day and however his wife responds.

The standard is “even as Christ also loved the church.” kathṓs means “just as” or “even as”, so a husband’s love is to be like Christ’s in kind. Christ’s love “gave himself for it.” The verb paradídōmi means to surrender, to yield up or to entrust, and it speaks of Christ’s willing death. He gave himself up on the church’s behalf, for her salvation. A husband’s love cannot atone for anyone, since that work is Christ’s alone. What a husband takes from the cross is its direction: the one with the stronger position spends himself for the one he loves.

In daily life, giving himself means that a husband puts his wife’s good ahead of his own comfort, preferences and plans. It shows in serving her humbly, forgiving freely, listening well, giving his time and resources, protecting her, and helping her become all that God intends her to be. Few husbands are asked to die for their wives. Every husband is asked to die to himself for her sake, a little each day.

Are wives also to love their husbands?

Love is commanded of every believer toward every other (Romans 13:8), and Paul tells the older women to teach the younger women to love their husbands and children (Titus 2:3–5). The command to husbands here is pointed because the husband, as head, is the one charged to begin and to model this self-giving love, so that his wife can flourish in it and answer it. Paul gives husbands the same command in brief when he writes to the Colossians (Colossians 3:19).

What Christ’s love does for the church

Verses 26 and 27 leave husbands and wives for a moment and tell us why Christ gave himself. His love has a purpose for his bride, and Paul describes it with the picture of a wedding. In the ancient world a bride was bathed and adorned before she was presented to her groom, and readers who knew the law of Moses also knew its washings for those who would come near to God. Christ does for the church what no groom ever did: he himself makes his bride ready.

Sanctified and cleansed with the washing of water by the word

Two verbs state the purpose. hagiázō means to make holy or to consecrate, so Christ sets the church apart as his own, for God’s service. katharízō means to cleanse or purify, and here it is the removal of the defilement of sin. Scripture says elsewhere that he “loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood” (Revelation 1:5).

The cleansing comes “with the washing of water by the word.” loutrón is a bath or a washing, and the phrase recalls the bride’s bath before her wedding. “By the word” tells how the washing works. The small word en marks the means, and rhēma is a word or saying, something spoken. It is God’s word that cleanses: the gospel Christ preached and sent his apostles to teach (Matthew 28:19–20), the word of him who is himself the Word (John 1:1). Jesus told his disciples that they were clean through the word he had spoken to them (John 15:3), and he prayed for them, “Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth” (John 17:17).

Believers differ on how far the water here is the water of baptism. Some hold that Paul has baptism in view, and Paul does speak elsewhere of “the washing of regeneration” (Titus 3:5). Others hold that the water is a picture of the cleansing the gospel works in the heart, of which baptism is the outward sign. On either reading the verse places the cleansing power in the word of God, heard and believed.

A glorious church, holy and without blemish

The goal is “that he might present it to himself a glorious church.” Christ is both the one who presents the bride and the one who receives her, so her beauty is entirely his work. éndoxos, “glorious”, is formed from en and doxa and means “in glory”, splendid and honoured, a splendour the church has from him.

Paul then says what she will be free of. A “spot”, spílos, is a stain, and it stands for the defilement of sin. A “wrinkle”, rhytis, is the mark of age and wear. “Or any such thing” sweeps in every other flaw. In place of these she will be “holy”, hagios, set apart for God, and “without blemish”, ámōmos, a word formed from mōmos, “blemish”, with a negative in front. It is the language of the sacrifices, where an animal had to be without blemish to be accepted (Leviticus 1:3). Christ’s work makes his church wholly acceptable to God. He bore the wounds that heal us (Isaiah 53:5), and he is able to keep his people from falling and to present them faultless before his glory with great joy (Jude 1:24). Paul uses the same picture when he speaks of presenting believers holy in God’s sight (Colossians 1:22) and of presenting the church to Christ as a pure virgin (2 Corinthians 11:2).

Is the church already without spot or wrinkle?

The verse describes the church as she will be when Christ presents her to himself at his return. Believers are already set apart in Christ from the day they come to him, and the work of becoming like him goes on through the whole of life. The spotless church is the promised end of that work, when sin and all its effects are finally gone, and the certainty of it rests on Christ, who has undertaken to finish what his death began. John saw that day as a city “prepared as a bride adorned for her husband” (Revelation 21:2), the bride who is the Lamb’s wife (Revelation 21:9).

Loving a wife as one’s own body

Verse 28 brings the pattern down to something every man already knows. “So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies.” The verb opheílō, “ought”, is the word for a debt or a duty, so this is an obligation. The measure is the care a man gives his own sōma, his body, which he feeds, protects and keeps well without having to be told. “He that loveth his wife loveth himself,” because husband and wife are one. Her flourishing is his, and to neglect or harm her is to harm himself.

People ask whether this means a husband should neglect his own needs. The verse takes a man’s natural care for himself as its measure, so that care is assumed and then extended to his wife. Because the two are one, their good can hardly be separated, and caring for her is part of caring for himself.

How a man treats his own flesh, and how the Lord treats the church

Verse 29 opens with gár, “for”, which gives the reason for what has just been said. “No man ever yet hated his own flesh.” sárx here is simply the body, and miséō means to hate or detest. Paul appeals to what everyone knows to be true of himself: a man looks after his body.

Two verbs describe that care. ektréphō, “nourisheth”, means to feed and bring up to maturity, and Paul uses it for the bringing up of children (Ephesians 6:4). It is care that provides everything needed for life and growth. thálpō, “cherisheth”, means to warm, as a bird broods over her young, and Paul uses it for a nursing mother’s tenderness toward her children (1 Thessalonians 2:7). It is care that comforts, protects and shows affection. A husband is to give his wife both, so that he provides for her growth and also makes her life warm and safe.

Then comes the pattern again: “even as the Lord the church.” kathṓs links the two once more, the kýrios is the Lord Jesus, and ekklēsía, “church”, means an assembly or congregation, here the whole company of those who belong to him. His love for her is a present, continuing care as well as a past sacrifice. He leads his people beside the still waters (Psalm 23:2), and he makes intercession for them (Romans 8:34).

We are members of his body

Verse 30 says why the Lord cares for the church as a man cares for his own body: “For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.” The opening word, hóti, means “because”. A mélos is a limb or part of a body, so every believer is a living part of Christ’s body, joined to the Head and needed by the whole. Paul teaches this at length elsewhere: “Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular” (1 Corinthians 12:27), one body with many members (Romans 12:4–5), into which we were all baptized by one Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:13). Our very bodies are members of Christ (1 Corinthians 6:15).

“Of his flesh, and of his bones” takes us back to Eden. When God brought Eve to Adam, he said, “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh” (Genesis 2:23), words for the closest kinship there is. The “of” renders ek, “from” or “out of”, and sárx and ostéon are the flesh and the bones of a real body. Paul takes Adam’s words about Eve and uses them of Christ and us. The Son of God took our flesh (John 1:14), and his people draw their life from him as branches do from the vine (John 15:5). The union is as close and as lasting as that of the first husband and wife, and it is the reason Christ’s care for the church is care for his own.

It also shapes how believers treat each other. In one body, “whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it” (1 Corinthians 12:26), so to nourish and cherish a fellow believer is to care for what belongs to Christ.

What these verses say to those who are unmarried

These verses are written about marriage, and they also hold good things for every believer. Each of us has a body to care for, and it is the temple of the Holy Ghost (1 Corinthians 6:19–20). Each of us, married or single, is part of the church that the Lord nourishes and cherishes. And the same tender care is to mark the way believers treat one another (Romans 12:10).

One flesh: the foundation in Genesis

In verse 31 Paul quotes God’s own account of the first marriage: “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” (Genesis 2:24). By going back to creation he grounds marriage in what God designed when he made us male and female (Genesis 1:27–28), which is older and firmer than any custom or contract. Jesus appeals to the same words when he is asked about marriage and divorce (Matthew 19:4–6).

The “man” of the quotation is ánthrōpos, the general word for a human being, here the man who marries. To “leave” is kataleípō, to leave behind. A man’s first human loyalty has been to his father and mother, and at marriage it passes to his wife, and a new household begins. To be “joined” is proskolláō, formed from kolláō, “to glue”, so it means to be glued or to adhere to someone. It speaks of a bond that is firm, close and meant to last.

“One flesh”, mía sárx, is the result. It includes the union of bodies, and Paul uses the same words that way elsewhere (1 Corinthians 6:16), and it reaches further, to a shared life and a shared identity. Husband and wife become a new unit in body, heart, spirit and law, with their resources, decisions and purpose held in common.

Does leaving father and mother mean cutting ties with them?

Leaving is a reordering of loyalties. A husband and wife set up their own household, make their decisions together, and put each other first among all their human ties. The command to honour father and mother stands for life, and Paul repeats it only a few verses later (Ephesians 6:2–3). Parents are still loved and honoured, from within a marriage that now comes first.

The great mystery: Christ and the church

Having quoted Genesis, Paul says, “This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.” In Paul’s letters a mystḗrion is a secret that was once hidden in God’s plan and has now been made known by him. His readers in Ephesus knew of religions that guarded secret rites, and Paul uses the word for a truth God has opened and published in the gospel.

The mystery is the one-flesh union he has just quoted. From the beginning, when God joined the first man and woman, he had in view a greater union, that of his Son with a redeemed people. “I speak”, légō, is Paul telling us plainly what his subject has been all along, and the “but”, dé, turns our eyes from marriage to what marriage shows. The ekklēsía is the whole assembly of those united to Christ by faith, the bride for whom he gave himself.

So the pattern of Genesis is fulfilled in him. The Word was made flesh and came to us, he gave himself for the church to make her holy, and he holds her to himself as his own body. The story ends with a wedding: “the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready” (Revelation 19:7–9). Every Christian marriage is meant to be a small, living picture of that union, the husband’s self-giving love showing Christ’s, and the wife’s trusting respect showing the church’s.

One charge for each husband and each wife

Verse 33 turns back from the mystery to the home with plḗn, “nevertheless”. Great as the mystery is, each husband and wife still has a plain duty. “Every one of you in particular” piles up three small Greek words, heîs, hékastos and katá, to say “each one of you, one by one”. The charge is personal. Each spouse is to do his or her own part, whatever the other is doing.

The husband is to “love his wife even as himself.” The verb is agapáō again, as in verses 25 and 28, and heautoû is the plain word for “himself”. Her well-being and growth are to matter to him as much as his own.

The wife is to “reverence her husband.” The “and” is dé, joining her duty to his, and the KJV’s “see that” renders hína, a small word that here introduces what she is to do. The verb is phobéō, the usual word for “fear”, and in this place it means deep respect and honour for her anḗr, her husband, for his person and for the role God has given him. It is the kind of fear Scripture means when it calls the fear of the LORD the beginning of wisdom (Proverbs 9:10) and of knowledge (Proverbs 1:7), an honouring regard and never a cowering dread.

The two commands differ because they fit together. A husband’s love makes respect easy to give, and a wife’s respect lets love do its work, and together they make a home that is safe for both.

The marriage every believer belongs to

This passage gives husbands and wives a calling that reaches far past getting along. A marriage lived this way tells the truth about the gospel: that Christ loved first, gave himself, and holds his people as his own, and that the church answers him gladly. A husband has in the cross a standard he will be growing toward all his life, and he has in Christ the source of the love he is commanded to give. A wife has in the church’s trust of Christ a picture of what her respect is, and in “as unto the Lord” the assurance that her service is seen and received by him.

It gives every believer, married or single, a place in the greater marriage. If you belong to Christ, you are part of the bride he gave himself for. He is washing you by his word, he feeds and warms you as a man cares for his own body, and he has pledged to present his church to himself without one stain left on her. Our holiness is his work from beginning to end, and it is safe in his hands.

And it shows us who the Lord is. He is a head who saves, a bridegroom who makes his bride ready at his own cost, and a husband to his people who has never neglected his own flesh. All his authority is exercised in love, and the day is coming when the church will see him and the wedding will begin.

Last revised

Public-domain commentary

Matthew Henry

From his Commentary on the Whole Bible. Henry wrote on whole passages, and this entry covers Ephesians 5:21–33.

1662–1714 · 13 verses
Passage under commentEphesians 5:21–33

Here the apostle begins his exhortation to the discharge of relative duties. As a general foundation for these duties, he lays down that rule Ephesians 5:21. There is a mutual submission that Christians owe one to another, condescending to bear one another's burdens: not advancing themselves above others, nor domineering over one another and giving laws to one another. Paul was an example of this truly Christian temper, for he became all things to all men. We must be of a yielding and of a submissive spirit, and ready to all the duties of the respective places and stations that God has allotted to us in the world. In the fear of God, that is, so far as is consistent with the fear of God, for his sake, and out of conscience towards him, and that hereby we may give proof that we truly fear him. Where there is this mutual condescension and submission, the duties of all relations will be the better performed. From Ephesians 5:22 to the end he speaks of the duties of husbands and wives; and he speaks of these in a Christian manner, setting the church as an example of the wife's subjection, and Christ as an example of love in husbands.

I.The duty prescribed to wives is submission to their husbands in the Lord (Ephesians 5:22), which submission includes the honouring and obeying of them, and that from a principle of love to them. They must do this in compliance with God's authority, who has commanded it, which is doing it as unto the Lord; or it may be understood by way of similitude and likeness, so that the sense may be, "as, being devoted to God, you submit yourselves unto him." From the former sense we may learn that by a conscientious discharge of the duties we owe to our fellow-creatures we obey and please God himself; and, from the latter, that God not only requires and insists on those duties which immediately respect himself, but such as respect our neighbours too. The apostle assigns the reason of this submission from wives: For the husband is the head of the wife, Ephesians 5:23. The metaphor is taken from the head in the natural body, which, being the seat of reason, of wisdom, and of knowledge, and the fountain of sense and motion, is more excellent than the rest of the body. God has given the man the pre-eminence and a right to direct and govern by creation, and in that original law of the relation, Thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. Whatever there is of uneasiness in this, it is an effect of sin coming into the world. Generally, too, the man has (what he ought to have) a superiority in wisdom and knowledge. He is therefore the head, even as Christ is the head of the church. There is a resemblance of Christ's authority over the church in that superiority and headship which God has appointed to the husband. The apostle adds, and he is the Saviour of the body. Christ's authority is exercised over the church for the saving of her from evil, and the supplying of her with every thing good for her. In like manner should the husband be employed for the protection and comfort of his spouse; and therefore she should the more cheerfully submit herself unto him. So it follows, Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ (Ephesians 5:24), with cheerfulness, with fidelity, with humility, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing - in every thing to which their authority justly extends itself, in every thing lawful and consistent with duty to God.

II.The duty of husbands (on the other hand), is to love their wives (Ephesians 5:25); for without this they would abuse their superiority and headship, and, wherever this prevails as it ought to do, it will infer the other duties of the relation, it being a special and peculiar affection that is required in her behalf. The love of Christ to the church is proposed as an example of this, which love of his is a sincere, a pure, an ardent, and constant affection, and that notwithstanding the imperfections and failures that she is guilty of. The greatness of his love to the church appeared in his giving himself unto the death for it. Observe, As the church's subjection to Christ is proposed as an exemplar to wives, so the love of Christ to his church is proposed as a pattern to husbands; and while such exemplars are offered to both, and so much is required of each, neither has reason to complain of the divine injunctions. The love which God requires from the husband in behalf of his wife will make amends for the subjection which he demands from her to her husband; and the prescribed subjection of the wife will be an abundant return for that love of the husband which God has made her due. The apostle, having mentioned Christ's love to the church, enlarges upon it, assigning the reason why he gave himself for it, namely, that he might sanctify it in this world, and glorify it in the next: That he might sanctify and cleanse it, with the washing of water by the word (Ephesians 5:26) - that he might endue all his members with a principle of holiness, and deliver them from the guilt, the pollution, and the dominion of sin. The instrumental means whereby this is affected are the instituted sacraments, particularly the washing of baptism and the preaching and reception of the gospel. And that he might present it to himself, etc., Ephesians 5:27. Dr. Lightfoot thinks the apostle alludes here to the Jews' extraordinary carefulness in their washings for purification. They were careful that there should be no wrinkle to keep the flesh from the water, and no spot nor dirt which was not thoroughly washed. Others understand him as alluding to a garment come newly out of the fuller's hand, purged from spots, stretched from wrinkles, the former newly contracted, the latter by long time and custom. That he might present it to himself - that he might perfectly unite it to himself in the great day, a glorious church, perfect in knowledge and in holiness, not having spot, nor wrinkle, nor any such thing, nothing of deformity or defilement remaining, but being entirely amiable and pleasing in his eye, holy and without blemish, free from the least remains of sin. The church in general, and particular believers, will not be without spot or wrinkle till they come to glory. From this and the former verse together we may take notice that the glorifying of the church is intended in the sanctifying of it: and that those, and those only, who are sanctified now, will be glorified hereafter. - So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies, etc., Ephesians 5:28. The wife being made one with her husband (not in a natural, but in a civil and in a relative sense), this is an argument why he should love her with as cordial and as ardent an affection as that which he loves himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh, Ephesians 5:29 - (no man in his right senses ever hated himself, however deformed, or whatever his imperfections might be); so far from it that he nourishes and cherishes it; he uses himself with a great deal of care and tenderness, and is industrious to supply himself with every thing convenient or good for him, with food and clothing, etc. Even as the Lord the church: that is, as the Lord nourishes and cherishes the church, which he furnishes with all things that he sees needful or good for her, with whatever conduces to her everlasting happiness and welfare. The apostle adds, For we are members of his body, of his flesh and of his bones, Ephesians 5:30. He assigns this as a reason why Christ nourishes and cherishes his church - because all who belong to it are members of his body, that is, of his mystical body. Or, we are members out of his body: all the grace and glory which the church has are from Christ, as Eve was taken out of the man. But, as one observes, it being the manner of the sacred writings to express a complex body by the enumeration of its several parts, as the heaven and earth for the world, evening and morning for the natural day, so here, by body, flesh, and bones, we are to understand himself, the meaning of the verse being that we are members of Christ. - For this cause (because they are one, as Christ and his church are one) shall a man leave his father and mother; the apostle refers to the words of Adam, when Eve was given to him for a meet help, Genesis 2:24. We are not to understand by this that a man's obligation to other relations is cancelled upon his marriage, but only that this relation is to be preferred to all others, there being a nearer union between these two than between any others, that the man must rather leave any of those than his wife. - And they two shall be one flesh, that is, by virtue of the matrimonial bond. This is a great mystery, Ephesians 5:32. Those words of Adam, just mentioned by the apostle, are spoken literally of marriage; but they have also a hidden mystical sense in them, relating to the union between Christ and his church, of which the conjugal union between Adam and the mother of us all was a type: though not instituted or appointed by God to signify this, yet it was a kind of natural type, as having a resemblance to it: I speak concerning Christ and the church.

After this, the apostle concludes this part of his discourse with a brief summary of the duty of husbands and wives, Ephesians 5:33. "Nevertheless (though there be such a secret mystical sense, yet the plain literal sense concerns you) let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself, with such a sincere, peculiar, singular, and prevailing affection as that is which he bears to himself. And the wife see that she reverence her husband." Reverence consists of love and esteem, which produce a care to please, and of fear, which awakens a caution lest just offence be given. That the wife thus reverence her husband is the will of God and the law of the relation.

Historical interpretation

Two Centuries of Reception

6 surviving comments on this verse. Each one is dated, so this reads as a timeline rather than a list.

6 quotes · AD 215–407
Ante-NicenePost-Nicene
200300400

Select a marker to jump to its quote. Markers stagger vertically where authors wrote within a few decades of each other.

Pseudo-AugustineSourceQUESTIONS ON THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS 127.31
The purpose of God cannot be undone, nor can anyone make a better provision than God already has. God made the body. No workman loves another’s work better than his own. Hence the apostle says “no one hates his own flesh.”
d. AD 215Clement of AlexandriaAnte-NiceneSourceThe Stromata Book 4
Wherefore also in the Epistle to the Ephesians it is written, "Subjecting yourselves one to another in the fear of God. Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is the head of the Church; and He is the Saviour of the body. Husbands, love your wives, as also Christ loved the Church. So also ought men to love their wives as their own bodies: he that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh."
d. AD 220TertullianAnte-NiceneSourceAGAINST MARCION 5.18.9
“No one,” he says, “hates his own flesh”—excepting only Marcion, obviously—“but he nourishes and cherishes it, as Christ does the church.” But you [Marcion] are the only one who hates it, since you deprive it of resurrection. So you also hate the church. But Christ loved the flesh, as seen in his love for the church. The point is that as no man hates his own flesh so he does not hate his own wife but indeed acts to preserve, honor and crown her.
d. AD 220TertullianAnte-NiceneSourceAgainst Marcion Book V
How much honour is given to the flesh in the name of the church! "No man," says the apostle, "ever yet hated his own flesh" (except, of course, Marcion alone), "but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord doth the Church." But you are the only man that hates his flesh, for you rob it of its resurrection.
d. AD 398Didymus the BlindPost-NiceneSourceON ZECHARIAH 1.169
When the apostle asks “whoever hated his own flesh?” what is meant by flesh? Flesh is to be taken care of, “nourished and fostered.” Flesh here refers to the body yoked to the rational soul, as is clear [from the previous verse].
d. AD 407John ChrysostomPost-NiceneSourceHomily on Ephesians 20
"For no man ever hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it."

That is, tends it with exceeding care. And how is she his flesh? Hearken; "This now is bone of my bones," saith Adam, "and flesh of my flesh." For she is made of matter taken from us. And not only so, but also, "they shall be," saith God, "one flesh."

"Even as Christ also the Church." Here he returns to the former example.
Source: Quotations drawn from early Church Fathers and historical Christian theologians (AD 100–1500). Some quotes address the surrounding passage context rather than this verse alone.

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