This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
The first man recognized her as his own, and then left in order to hold.
Week 3 of 4
Bone of my bone
She is not your project. She is your own body.
For this cause a man will leave his father and mother, and will be joined to his wife.
Ephesians 5:31
Genesis is still in force. A man leaves, cleaves, and becomes one flesh. Paul quotes it in the middle of the marriage passage so a husband cannot treat his wife as a roommate with a ring. One flesh is not a slogan for the bedroom only. It is a shared life: her weariness is in your body, her fear is your business, her joy is not a rival to yours. The man who keeps a private world she is not allowed to enter has not left and cleaved.
Scripture
Formal study reading, written for this series
Formal study reading, written for this series
The two shall become one flesh. This mystery is great, and I am speaking about Christ and the church.
Marriage is real, and it is also a sign.
The husband should give his wife her rights, and likewise the wife her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.
One flesh ends private ownership of the body.
NASB, the Amplified, and the ESV open on Bible Hub. The Legacy Standard Bible opens on its own reader. Close, Expanded, and Easy on this page are original study readings. WEB is the World English Bible, public domain.
Leave, then cling
Leave is not cruelty to parents. It is the end of a divided loyalty. A husband who still runs his marriage by his mother’s anxiety, or by the approval of other men, has not left. Cleave is not control. Dabaq is the word for clinging, the way Ruth clung to Naomi, the way Israel was told to cling to the Lord. You hold her. You do not absorb her until she disappears.
Paul calls one flesh a great mystery because it signifies Christ and the church. That raises the stakes and lowers your pride. You are not the mystery’s author. You are a sign. A divided life — a hidden phone, a separate money, a contempt she is not allowed to name — lies about Christ.
In the house
Bring her into the decisions you have been making alone: money, time, the men you confide in, the habits after midnight. One flesh that stops at sex is a counterfeit.
First Corinthians 7 is a warning to the man who withholds affection as punishment, and to the man who takes without regard. Your body is not a weapon and not a vault.
Seven days
At the table
- 1What does your wife not know because you have kept a second life?
- 2Where are you still more loyal to another house than to hers?
- 3How does a man cling without swallowing?
- 4If your marriage is a sign of Christ and the church, what is it currently preaching?
Your note
Stays on this device. No account.
A prayer
Father, you made us one flesh before you made us impressive. Forgive the rooms I have kept locked. Join me to my wife in more than a name. Let this marriage tell the truth about Christ, who does not keep a secret people apart from his bride. Amen.