In Paul’s explanation of how marriage portrays the Gospel he quotes Genesis 2:24. In the Genesis 2 narrative, God created man and all other living things and yet man was still alone. There was no other part of creation that fit with man. So God took a part of man, created woman, and brought the woman to the man. Adam responded in v23, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman because she was taken out of man.” In other words, Adam said, “She fits. She is perfect for me because she is from me.” There existed between Adam and Eve unity at a very deep level. The two separate persons were actually from one and the same flesh.

Now comes v24 and Adam is no longer speaking. God is now speaking by the Spirit through Moses and He lays down a universal paradigm of marriage. God establishes and defines marriage right here. “Therefore (meaning, according to what just happened) a man shall leave his father and his mother (marriage involves a radical separation, notice Adam doesn’t have parents!, the man comes out from his family to become head of a new family) and hold fast to his wife (marriage involves a radical joining, something brand new has now been formed), and they shall become one flesh (meaning that what was true of Adam and Eve will be true of every man and woman who is joined together in marriage, the two will be one at the deepest level of their relationship, a radical union of the two).

Nowhere is this union better pictured or experienced than in the consummation of the marriage. In fact to join sexually with someone outside of marriage is a sinful distortion and misunderstanding of this union that is only meant for marriage (1 Cor 6:16). It is in the consummation of marriage where emotions run together deeply, where man and woman are joined physically, and where compatibility is distinctly evident. But, the radical union of two becoming one is not just what occurs in the marriage bed; it runs much, much deeper. The marriage bed is simply where it is pictured and experienced most vividly.

The point of all of this is that in marriage there exists a radical, very deep unification that can only be described as two becoming one. God has instituted marriage in such a way that something very supernatural, something far beyond our means and often far beyond our thinking occurs when a husband and a wife are married. AND, there’s a reason for that!

First, as Paul writes, the radical union of the two becoming one flesh in marriage is meant to visually portray that radical union that takes place between the believer and Christ, the church and Christ. The two becoming one in marriage is a mystery, that is, something that must be revealed to us by God. The inseparable, spiritual, eternal union of believer and Christ is also a mystery that must be revealed to us. And furthermore that the union of marriage finds its deepest meaning in existing to portray the union of Christ and His church is also a mystery that must be revealed to us. I believe this is what Paul means when he says in Eph 5:32, “This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.”

Second, Paul also applies the teaching of Genesis 2:24 to the husbands role of portraying Christ in the marriage by loving his wife in the same way that Christ loves the church. He writes in vv28-30, “In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of His body.” That last phrase indicates how we are to understand what Paul means here.

He is not saying that husbands should love their wives in the second greatest commandment way of loving your neighbor as yourself. No, he is saying husbands should love their wives in an even more profound way than that! Husbands should love their wives as being part of their very own being to such a degree that wives are their husbands own body! The two have become one!

Husbands are to love their own wives in a way that expresses the radical union of the two just as Christ loves us because we are members of His body. That’s why Paul can say to love your wife is to love your own self; she is your own self! She is you and you are her; the two are one.