Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary Ephesians 5:28

"Even so ought husbands also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his own wife loveth himself:" — Ephesians 5:28 (ASV)

Paul returns to his analogy and declares that just as Christ loves the church, so husbands ought to love their wives as being one flesh with themselves. Christ loves the church—not simply as if it were his body, but because it is in fact his body. Husbands therefore are to love their wives, not simply as they love their own bodies, but as being one body with themselves, as indeed they are. Lest the staggering implication of what he has affirmed should fail to register with his readers, Paul puts it in another way to avoid ambiguity. So intimate is the relationship between man and wife that they are fused into a single entity. For a man to love his wife is to love himself. She is not to be treated as a piece of property, as was the custom in Paul’s day. She is to be regarded as an extension of a man’s own personality and so part of himself.