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Our apostle here propounds a farther argument to enforce this duty of love from husband to wife, taken from that near conjunction between them, showing that they are one flesh and one body, not in a natural, but in a relative sense; and accordingly a man should so love his wife even as himself. Doth a man love himself superlatively, cordially, tenderly, industriously, perseveringly? So ought he to love his wife. Will a man be out of love with himself, much less hate himself, though he be deformed, or by some accident maimed? In like manner ought not any natural defect, or accidental mischance, to cause a remission, much less a cessation, of the man's love unto his own wife; as it is an unnatural thing for a man to hate his own flesh personal, so his own flesh relational.
Again, a man is so far from hating his own flesh, that he nourisheth and cherisheth it with the utmost care and tenderness: in like manner ought to be kind to, and tender over, his civil-self, the wife of his bosom; in imitation likewise of Christ's example, who nourishes and cherishes his church, as being flesh of his own flesh, and bone of his own bone; that is, as near to one another by a mystical and spiritual union, as Adam and Eve were by a matrimonial union.
O stupendous privilege, for believers and Christ to be as one flesh! Husband and wife are not so near, as Christ and believers are to each other.