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Eph_5:28. Οὕτως ] To refer this, with Meier and Baumgarten-Crusius, as also de Wette is disposed to do, to the following ὡς (Estius likewise would have it so understood, unless οὕτως καὶ οἱ ἄνδρες ὀφείλουσιν be read; which, however, is really to be read, see the critical remarks), might, doubtless, be admissible in itself (see on 1Co_4:1), but is here quite out of place; because οὕτως would then have an undue emphasis, and the declaration would stand without any inner connection with that which precedes. It relates to what is said from καθὼς καὶ ὁ Χριστός , Eph_5:25 onwards to Eph_5:27, and is equivalent to: in accordance with this relation, in keeping with this holy love of Christ for the church. Comp. Fritzsche, ad Rom. I. p. 39; Herm. ad Viger. p. 793. We may add that Zanchius, who is followed by Estius and Harless,[280] is in error in saying, “digressus non nihil ad mysterium, nunc ad institutum redit.” There was no digression in what precedes, but a delineation of the love of Christ serving as an example for the husbands.
ὡς τὰ ἑαυτῶν σώματα ] not: like their own bodies,[281] but: as their own bodies. For Christ loved the church not like His body, but as His body, which the church is and He its head, Eph_5:23. So is also the husband head of the wife, and he is to love the wife as his body—which conception, however, does not present the Gnostic notion of the πλῆρωμα . (Baur), but, on the contrary, comp. 1Co_11:3. Schoettgen, Rosenmüller, Flatt, Meier, and others make ὡς τὰ ἑαυτ . σώματα mean nothing more than: like themselves; but this is in itself quite arbitrary and without support from linguistic usage, and also utterly inappropriate to the example of Christ, since we certainly cannot say of Christ that He loved the church like Himself! In the Rabbinical passages, too, as Sanhedr. f. 76, Ephesians 2 : “qui uxorem amat ut corpus suum,” etc., this ut corpus suum is to be taken literally, and that in accordance with the mode of regarding man and wife as one flesh. We may add that Paul does not by means of ὡς τ . ἑαυτ . σώμ . pass over into another figure, or even to another view of the subject (Rückert), but already, in the preceding description of the love of Christ to the church, his conception has been that Christ loves the church, His bride, as His body, which conception he now first, in the application, definitely indicates, and in Eph_5:29-31 more particularly elucidates.
ὁ ἀγαπῶν τὴν ἑαυτοῦ γυναῖκα ἑαυτὸν ἀγαπᾷ ] From the duty of loving their own wives ὡς τὰ ἑαυτῶν σώματα , results—inasmuch as in fact according to this the wife belongs essentially to the proper self of the husband as such—the proposition of conjugal ethics, that the love of one’s own wife is love of oneself. This proposition Paul lays down, in order to treat it more in detail, Eph_5:29-32, and finally repeat it in the form of a direct precept in Eph_5:33.
[280] Who thinks that Paul is only resuming the simple injunction of ver. 25, with the expansion ὡς τὰ ἑαυτῶν σώματα . Certainly the main point of the precept, ver. 28, lies in those words; hut this whole precept is by means of οὕτως grounded on what is said from καθὼς κ . ὁ Χρ ., ver. 25, onward.
[281] Meier; comp. also Grotius, who here brings in the entirely heterogeneous comparison: “Sicuti corpus est instrumentum animi, ita uxor est instrumentum viri ad res domesticas, ad quaerendos liberos.”