Understanding Paul's Quotation of Genesis 2:24 in Ephesians 5
In today’s edition of Canonical Mondays, we’re going to consider Paul’s statement in Ephesians 5:31-32, which interprets Genesis 2:24 as being about Jesus and His bride, the Church.
Let’s jump right into Ephesians 5:28-32:
25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, 26 so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless. 28 So husbands also ought to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; 29 for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, 30 because we are parts of His body. 31 For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. 32 This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church.
Some Observations:
In this paragraph from Ephesians, we see the explicit analogy of husband and wife with Christ and the Church. Christ is the husband; the church is the wife (bride).
You’ll also notice the connection here in Ephesians with Adam and his wife in the garden: a man is to love his wife as his own body, for one does not hate his own flesh. Just as Eve was literally made from Adam’s body—his flesh—men are called to love their wives with the same imagery!
Yet here, human marriages are not being encouraged to follow the marriage of Adam and Eve. Instead, they are to be modeled after Jesus and the church. Men are to love their wives like Christ loves His wife.
Adam failed in the garden, but Jesus is the better Adam; He gave himself up for her (in her place; E5:25). And Christ nourishes and cherishes His bride, since the church are members (parts) of His body.
We’ll also note the same flow here as Genesis 2. In Genesis 2, the man (Adam) notices that the woman (Eve) is made from his body (Flesh of my flesh! Bone of my bones!). Adam’s poetic exclamation is followed by this editorial explanation: for this reason, a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.
This flow of ideas is seen here in Ephesians: the church – Christ’s bride – is explicitly said to be parts of Christ’s body. Followed by the quotation of the same verse. For this reason…
But to go further than the observable textual parallels between Genesis 2 and Ephesians 5, Paul explicitly says that this “mystery is great,” but then immediately clarifies that he is explicitly interpreting Genesis 2:24 as being about Christ and the church.
Connecting Genesis 2:24 and Ephesians 5
Now, I don’t know about you, but when I was studying this, I was tracking with the flesh and the body parts of Adam and Eve, and now that imagery is being used for husbands and wives, and is analogous to the relationship of Christ and the Church.
But what seemed to be a non-sequitur to me was Genesis 2:24 being quoted right after that imagery and analogy.
What does a man leaving his father and mother have to do with Christ and the church?
That’s our question to be answered in this week’s (and next week’s) post. We will discover how Paul came to this seemingly astonishing conclusion. It wasn’t apostolic privilege he had to reinterpret Scripture for his own New Testament conclusions. He does in fact have precedence for discussing Christ – that is, the Messiah – leaving his father to find a wife.
Importantly, what we’ve been trying to prove through this Canonical Mondays series, or any of the blogs dealing with Canonical Bible study, is that we can discover answers to our questions, and we can understand seemingly strange allusions or seemingly disconnected statements in Scripture.
So, let’s get to it!
We’ll take a brief journey through the Pentateuch to show that Jesus, the Messiah, is expected to do what Genesis 2:24 states and foreshadows.
Patterns are prophecy.
The Old Testament figures and their lives are repeated over and over through the Pentateuch and beyond so that the reader of the whole Bible expects a Messiah to arrive, and for Him to follow the patterns of His forefathers, and then succeed in all the ways that they failed.
Paul read his Bible like that. He read it canonically. He didn’t have some mysterious apostolic privilege for interpreting. Paul knew that the Christ would fulfill Genesis 2:24 because all the forefathers followed that pattern – leaving the father and mother and cleaving to a wife.
And, what is stated in Genesis 2:24 doesn’t get neglected until the Ephesians 5 interpretation. There is a long line of God’s men – failed Messiahs – that leave their father and mother and find a wife that ultimately prepare us for the Man of God, the Son of God, the real Messiah, who leaves his Father and finds a wife.
Genesis 24: Isaac
We read that Isaac’s father Abraham is getting old and wants his son to find a wife. So, he gets his head servant to go off to Abraham’s people – because Isaac needs the right kind of wife. (Just like God made a specific, corresponding partner for Adam). Isaac can’t marry one of the Canaanite women that they were living around.
Subsequently, the servant is sent off back to Abraham’s family, his people, and he finds a very beautiful woman at a well. They go back to her family and tell the story about needing to find a wife for Isaac, and they have dinner, and then Rebekah leaves with the servant and comes to Isaac, and they get married.
This is the transition in the story of Abraham, where now Abraham basically gets out of the picture – he dies – and now Isaac inherits the blessing and he and his wife start the next chapter and have children of their own.
Genesis 28-29: Jacob
Isaac and Rebekah’s son, Jacob, has a very similar story. His parents don’t want him to marry from the Canaanite women (like his brother did), so they send him off to the peoples of his family line to find a wife. Along the way, he falls asleep and God makes a covenant with him – in very similar fashion to both Adam and Abraham.
But the order of events is specifically parallel to Adam here in that 1st) the narrative describes the need to find a wife and 2nd) a divine sleep that occurs before that wife is found (cf Gen. 2:21).
Afterward, Jacob arrives to the land of his family, his people, and finds a very beautiful woman at a well. He, as you know, marries both Rachel and her sister Leah in that land, and Leah starts bearing him sons. Proving that Jacob has indeed inherited to the blessing of both Isaac and Abraham.
Sum Up
What we’ve seen very briefly with both Isaac and Jacob, is that pattern predicted in Genesis 2:24.
There is a leaving of the parents to find a wife for the son. She is found in a spot that’s characterized both by family and water (like the garden).
He finds a wife, they have children, and this moves the Old Testament forward from one chosen man of God to the next.
There are many ways that this line of men resemble one another and perpetuate the story. This pattern is prophetic. God’s man, all these potential Messiahs, will leave his father and mother to find a suitable wife.
This is not only true of God’s men Isaac and Jacob. Other marriage stories in the narratives follow this pattern and connect the canonical reader from Genesis 2 to Jesus. For example there’s Joseph, Moses, Boaz & Ruth, and David.
Then, that canonical reader, after following the patterns of finding a wife for the son through to the end of the Old Testament, are now anticipating the coming of the prophet, priest and king – THE Messiah. And that Messiah is also characterized as one who will be shown to be like a Son that leaves His Father to find a bride.
Stay tuned! Next week, we’ll see that Christ Jesus is clearly shown to follow the footsteps of His forefathers and so fulfills Genesis 2:24, which thereby gives credibility to Paul’s interpretation of Genesis in Ephesians 5.
Author: Mary Busby
Mary has an MA in Professional Counseling (Liberty University), a BA in Linguistics (University of Florida), and is currently studying for a Master’s certificate in Biblical Hebrew.