Ephesians 5:30Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

How is this so? He came from our nature, just as Eve is flesh from Adam’s flesh. He mentioned bones and flesh because these are chief in us, flesh and bones. One is, as it were, the foundation, the other the building.

That point is clear. But how is this other point so? As there is great closeness there, he says, so also here. What does “of His flesh” mean? It means truly from Him.

But how do we thereby become members of Christ? We do so because we have been born like Him. How are we of His flesh? You who partake of the Mysteries know this, for through them we are immediately formed after His pattern.

“Because we are members of His body.” That is, we have great kinship with Him.

“Of His flesh and of His bones.” For He came forth from our substance, as Eve did from Adam. As there was such great closeness there, so it is also with us.

From another side as well, we are of His flesh and of His bones, because as He was born of the Spirit without marital union, so we also are born in the font.

And because, having received the Mysteries, we are from that moment divinely created anew.

In short, he says that we have the highest closeness to Him. Visibly, He is a sharer with us in flesh and blood. Invisibly, He is the source of our spiritual regeneration, as Adam was the source of Eve’s creation.

Because we are His members, of His flesh and of His bones. Since we are members of the body of Christ, and Christ nourishes and warms the Church, we also nourish and warm our own flesh, which no one ever hated.

We are members of the body of Christ not by the nature of the eternal Godhead, but because He deemed you worthy to assume humanity (hominem). Although the very man assumed has the nature of our bodies, He does not have our origin.

For we are formed from human seed (coagulamur, that is, we are curdled or compacted), whereas He was born of the Holy Spirit.

For as Eve was created from Adam, so we are from Christ the Master. We are buried with Him and rise with Him in baptism. We eat His Body and drink His Blood. The Apostle also reminds us of what was said concerning the wife.

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 urged 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 covenants gave the Apostle a special reason for these exhortations.

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

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

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

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

If the wife is the husband’s body, she may rightly be called his flesh. To be an enemy of one’s own organism is madness. On the contrary, every man gives it the necessary food and protects it from harmful influences.

He nourishes and warms it, as Christ also acts toward the Church. He is for her the bread of life (Jn 6:48) and the good shepherd (Jn 10:11). He acts likewise toward her individual members.

All of them together have come from His flesh and bones.

We, all the faithful, are members of His body. We make up His body, the Church.

Each believer is begotten anew from Christ and enters into His body without being separated from Him.

“Of His flesh and of His bones” is a figurative expression for the fact that our Christian being is received from Christ.

St. Chrysostom says: “As the Son of God is of our nature, so we are of His essence. As He has us in Himself, so we have Him in ourselves.”

This is accomplished in Baptism and sustained by Communion. For “you have put on Christ” is not mere words, but an essential transformation according to the image of Christ and by reason of such union with Him.

Likewise, what is said of the communicant, “He abides in Me, and I in him,” is an essential reality.