Albert Barnes Commentary Ephesians 5:32

"This mystery is great: but I speak in regard of Christ and of the church." — Ephesians 5:32 (ASV)

This is a great mystery. The Latin Vulgate translates this as sacramentum hoc magnum est—"this is a great sacrament"—and this is the proof, I suppose, and the only proof brought forward by Roman Catholics, that marriage is a sacrament. But the original here conveys no such idea. The word mystery—musthrion—means something which is concealed, hidden, previously unknown; something into which one must be initiated or instructed before one can understand it. It does not mean that it is incomprehensible when it is disclosed, but that until now it has been kept secret. When disclosed, it may be as intelligible as any other truth. See the notes on Ephesians 1:9 for an explanation of the word mystery.

Here it means, simply, that there was much about the union of the Redeemer with his people resembling the marriage connection, which was not obvious, except to those who were instructed; which was obscure to those who were not initiated; which they did not understand who had not been taught.

It does not mean that no one could understand it, but that it pertained to the class of truths into which it was necessary for one to be initiated in order to comprehend them. The truth that was so great a mystery was that the eternal Son of God should form such a union with men; that he should take them into a connection with himself, implying all ardor of attachment, and a strength of affection, superior even to that which exists in the marriage relation.

This was a great and profound truth, to understand which it was necessary to receive instruction. No one would have understood it without a revelation; no one understands it now except those who are taught of God.

But I speak concerning Christ and the Church. This, it seems to me, is an explicit disclaimer of any intention to be understood as affirming that the marriage contract was designed to be a type of the union of the Redeemer and his people. The apostle says expressly that his remarks do not refer to marriage at all when he speaks of the mystery.

They refer solely to the union of the Redeemer and his people. How strange and unwarranted, therefore, are all the comments of commentators on this passage designed to explain marriage as a mysterious type of the union of Christ and the church! If people would allow the apostle to speak for himself, and not force on him sentiments which he expressly disclaims, the world would be saved from such insipid allegories as Macknight and others have derived from this passage.

The Bible is a book of sense; and the time will come, it is hoped, when, freed from all such allegorizing expositions, it will commend itself to the good sense of mankind. Marriage is an important, a holy, a noble, a pure institution, altogether worthy of God; but it does not follow from this that marriage was designed to be a type of the union between Christ and the church, and it is certain that the apostle Paul meant to teach no such thing.