Ephesians 5:28Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

What does this mean? It means that he passes to the most persuasive and strongest example. More than that, he turns to an example closer and clearer, and to a new reason. The former did not seem entirely necessary. So, lest someone say, “He was Christ, He was God, and He gave Himself,” the Apostle proves the same thing in another way, saying, “So ought.” Therefore this is not a favor, but a debt.

“So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies.” He now points to this not as a more important and more necessary example, for clearly Christ’s relation to the Church is much greater than this example.

Rather, he gives it as one nearer and more ready to hand. That is, so that no one might say, “He was God and gave Himself,” he shows us this necessity in another way.

“They ought,” he says, “to love.” This is not an act of mercy, but a duty and necessity, because the wife is your body.

Therefore he introduced the example of Christ not only to show that one must love, but also that one must order her well.

“For that she might be,” he says, “holy and without blemish.” But he set forth the example of the body only with respect to love.

“He who loves his wife loves himself.” Everyone, he says, applies intense and most careful concern to his own body. So you also should act toward your wife.

The Church is set before women as an example, and Christ before men. Paul also exhorts husbands on a lower basis, namely, on the basis of their own body, and not only on the higher basis, that is, by speaking of the Lord.

“So husbands also ought to love their own wives as their own bodies.” In the book of Genesis it is said in Adam’s person: “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” (Gen 2:23).

Therefore the same thing is affirmed in the Gospel by the Lord’s words: “He who made them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave father and mother and cleave to his wife, and the two shall be one flesh’” (Mt 19:4-5).

Thus wives must be cared for as one’s own bodies, since husband and wife constitute one flesh.

But no one loves his body dishonorably, or himself because of bodily union (coitus). Rather, he warms and nourishes the body as the vessel of his soul, lest, by breaking the vessel, he spill and scatter what is contained in it.

Therefore we too must have the same love for our spouses, and care for them as for our own body.

“As their own bodies.” Love for one’s wife is founded on spiritual harmony and mutual completion, which are expressed in the close bodily bond existing between spouses. Children become the fruit of such love. Husbands are therefore moved to love their wives as their own bodies, and the fruit of such love is a perfect soul.

Third, they must express their love in care for the wife as for their own body: “to nourish and cherish her, as the Lord does the Church, because we are members of His body. Of His flesh and of His bones.” By this, among other things, the Apostle reminds all husbands of the biblical foundation for their love for their wives. For the wife “was taken from the body of her husband,” “flesh of his flesh and bone of his bones” (Gen 2:23).

As obedience is chiefly enjoined upon wives, so love is chiefly commanded by the Apostle to husbands.

Perhaps the tyranny of pagan husbands and the looseness of women not bound by marriage contracts gave the Apostle a special occasion for these admonitions.

But one may also think that obedience preserved in the fear of God will itself awaken love in wives, who have a natural inclination toward their husbands (Gen 3:16).

“The wife must above all preserve obedience to her husband, because the wife’s attempt to take dominance disrupts family peace. The husband must above all love his wife, because selfishness on his part makes family prosperity and sweetness impossible” (Bishop Theophan).

Such also must be the husband’s love for his wife. It must reach the point of sacrifice itself, but only in cases where such sacrifice can bring the wife true salvation.

Husbands must love their wives all the more because wives constitute their body, a necessary part of their being and personality: “He who loves his own wife loves himself.”

And if the wife is the husband’s body, she may rightly be called his flesh. But to be an enemy of one’s own organism is madness.

On the contrary, every man provides it with necessary food and protects it from harmful influences, nourishing and warming it.

He sets forth a new, stronger, and clearer motive for love. What had been said before might not have been clearly understood and might have seemed distant.

He therefore speaks as though saying: perhaps what has been said is not so clear to you. I shall speak more directly and more closely: love your wives as your own bodies.

For indeed they are your bodies. In loving them, you do not turn toward something outside yourself, but toward yourself. In loving your wives, you love yourselves.