Charles Hodge on Ephesians 5:28

V. 28. So ought men to love their wives, as their own bodies. This does not mean that men ought to love their wives so as they love their own bodies; as though the particles so and as, οὕτως and ὡς, stood related to each other. Οὕτως, so, at the beginning of the verse, refers to the preceding representation. As Christ loves the church and gave himself for it, and as the church is his body, so, in like manner and agreeably to the analogous relation between them, husbands should love their wives as, i. e. as being, or because they are, their own bodies. Christ loves his church because it is his body. Husbands should love their wives because they are their bodies. Ὡς, as, before the latter member of the sentence is not comparative, but argumentative. It does not indicate the measure of the husband’s love, as though the meaning were, he should love his wife as much as he loves his own body. But it indicates the nature of the relation which is the ground of his love. He should love his wife, because she is his body.

How is this to be understood? In what sense does the apostle say that the wife is the body of the husband, or, in the following verse, that they are one flesh? It is plain—1. That this does not refer to any material identification. When Adam said of Eve, "This is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh," Gen. 2, 23, reference was no doubt had to her being formed out of his substance. But as these terms are used to express the relation of all wives to their husbands, they must have some other meaning than sameness of substance. 2. It is also plain that these terms are not to be understood in any sense inconsistent with the separate subsistence of husband and wife as distinct persons. The consciousness of the one is not the consciousness of the other. 3. It is further plain that the marriage relation is not essential to the completeness or perfection of our nature, in all states of its existence. It is to cease at the resurrection. In the future state men are to be, in this respect, like the angels of God, neither marrying nor given in marriage. 4. On the other hand the marriage union is not merely one of interests and feeling. Husbands and wives are in such. a sense one, that the husband is the complement of the wife and the wife of the husband. The marriage relation is necessary to the completeness of our nature and to its full development in the present state. Some indeed, as Paul, may attain a higher degree of perfection in celibacy than in marriage. But this arises from some peculiarity of character or circumstances. There are faculties and virtues, excellencies and feelings, which are latent until developed in the conjugal relation. The Romish doctrine, therefore, which degrades marriage as a state less holy than celibacy, is contrary to nature and the word of God. 5. Besides this oneness between husband and wife arising from the original constitution of their nature, rendering the one necessary as the completion of the other, there is doubtless a oneness of life involved in our Lord’s declaration, "They are no more twain, but one flesh," which no one can understand.

Such being the nature of marriage, it follows:—1. That it is a union for life between one man and one woman; and consequently that bigamy, polygamy, and voluntary divorce are all inconsistent with its nature. 2. That it must be entered into freely and cordially by the parties, i. e. with the conviction that the one is suited to the other, so that they may complement each other, and become one in the scriptural sense of those words. All coercion on the part of parents, therefore, is contrary to the nature of the relation; and all marriages of mere convenience are opposed to the design of the institution. 3. The State can neither make nor dissolve the marriage tie. It may enact laws regulating the mode in which it shall be solemnized and authenticated, and determining its civil effects. It may shield a wife from ill-usage from her husband, as it may remove a child from the custody of an incompetent or cruel parent. When the union is in fact dissolved by the operation of the divine law, the State may ascertain and declare the fact, and free the parties from the civil obligation of the contract. But it is impossible that the State should have authority to dissolve a union constituted by God, the duties and continuance of which are determined by his law. 4. According to the Scriptures, as interpreted by Protestant churches, nothing but the death of one of the parties, or adultery, or wilful desertion, can dissolve the marriage contract. When either of the last mentioned causes of dissolution is judicially ascertained and declared, the injured party is free to contract a new marriage.

It is of vital importance to the best interests of society that the true doctrine of marriage, as taught in this passage and in other portions of God’s word, should be known and regarded. The highest social duty of a husband is to love his wife; and a duty which he cannot neglect without entailing great injury on his own soul as well as misery on his household. The greatest social crime, next to murder, which any one can commit, is to seduce the affections of a wife from her husband, or of a husband from his wife. And one of the greatest evils which civil authorities can inflict on society, is the dissolution of the marriage contract (so far as it is a civil contract, for further the civil authority cannot go), on other than scriptural grounds. The same remark may be made in reference to all laws which tend to make those two whom God has pronounced one, by giving to the wife the right to carry on business, contract debts, hold property, sue and be sued, in her own name. This is attempting to correct one class of evils at the cost of incurring others a hundred-fold greater. The word of God is the only sure guide of legislative action as well as of individual conduct.

If, as the Scriptures teach, husband and wife are one, he that loveth his wife loveth himself, for she is himself. This is the language of God, originally recorded in Gen. 2, 24, and repeated by our Lord, Matt. 19, 4-6, who after citing the passage in Genesis, adds, "Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh." Calvin, in his comment on the passage in Matthew, says, Hoc autem axioma sumit Christus, Ab initio Deus marem adjunxit feminae, ut duo efficerent integrum hominem. Ergo qui uxorem repudiat, quasi dimidiam sui partem a seipso avellit. Hoc autem minime patitur natura, ut corpus suum quispiam discerpat. Neither God by the mouth of Moses, nor our Lord says simply that husband and wife ought to be, but that they are one. It is not a duty, but a fact which they announce. So also it is a fact which the apostle declares when he says, "He that loves his wife loves himself."