Ephesians 5:31-33
“One Out Of Two Ain’t Bad!”

One out of two ain’t bad! That’s a statement we can hear often, but context is everything in determining whether it’s true or false.

You know I like baseball (and thanks to a generous family in the church, my family and I were actually at the Sox game Friday night (they lost!). If you get one hit every two at-bats, you’d be a greater hitter than anyone in Major League history. But if you catch only one of every two balls that are hit to you, you’ll never play beyond Little League.

If you’re a chef and one out of every two recipe ideas turns out be a popular winner, you’ll likely be gainfully employed. But if only one out of every two meals is passable, you should probably look for other work.

If one out of every two of our business ideas was successful, we’d be living in the lap of luxury. But if only one out of two of our financial investments turns a profit, we’d likely end up out on the street.

So, one out of two ain’t bad—true or false?

The last two times we’ve been together, we’ve been talking about marriage from Eph.5. When we talk one-out-of-two there, what are we usually referring to? That’s right, divorce. But when we look at it another way, marriage is designed by God to make one out of two, speaking of a man and a woman who are married, Jesus Himself said in Mat.19:6, “They are no longer two but one flesh.”

Making one out of two in this sense is not bad at all!

When we read the Bible’s testimony on how marriage is supposed to work, and we’ll be looking into that a bit further this morning, we see that marriage should be a loving, joyous relationship—an illustration of the love between God and his people. Look at Adam and Eve in the garden. Look at the erotic yet satisfying images of the lovers in Song of Solomon.

Yet, I wonder, today, how many happy, fulfilling, godly, biblical marriages there are out there even among professing Christians? Let’s consider a hypothetical answer to that question using a sample of ten. Roughly fifty percent, five of every ten marriages, are eliminated right off the top; that is how many are said to end in divorce—even among Christians. But the real numbers may well be a bit less than that depending on how they’re counted. For our illustration here, let’s say just three out of ten end in divorce. 

How many out of ten are hanging on to their marriages from sheer determination to avoid divorce? Is it fair to guess two? That surely seems safe. 

How many have settled for relatively peaceful co-existence, but have long since given up on harmonious intimacy on the deepest levels? Could we say three? I suspect that would be an exceedingly conservative estimate. 

We’ve now eliminated eight out of ten—all ten with a fifty percent divorce rate—and we haven’t yet mentioned potentially the largest category among Christians: those couples who actually communicate reasonably well, enjoy marital intimacy periodically and in moderately compatible ways, and perhaps even read Scripture and pray together from time to time, but still have not grasped from study of the Word—not to mention applied—the principles and practices which Scripture identifies as characteristic of authentic marital oneness. 

How many first marriages result in a happy, biblical union? I believe we would have to increase our sample size well beyond ten before we would get a whole number—that means far less than one in ten. We need help! And Paul gives us just that in the passage before us today—his final words on the marriage relationship. The very practical instruction he offered in Eph.5:31-33 might best be understood by looking at it from three different vantage points.

Looking Back – 31

In v.31 Paul is quotes Gen.2:24 verbatim, the primary theme verse in all of Scripture on the topic of marriage. Foulkes (168) wrote, “This statement from the creation story is the most profound and fundamental statement in the whole of Scripture concerning God’s plan for marriage.”

But Gen.2:24 itself is set within a context. Gen.2:18-25 is actually a retelling of the creation of man and woman. Gen.1:26-28 captures the essential nature and purpose for the creation of human-kind. Genesis 1:26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” The emphasis seems to be on the unity or equality of male and female as image-bearers of God.

Clearly, they are to rule over creation on His behalf, and perhaps this is a significant part of what it means to be created in His image—that humans were given by Him the ability to represent Him or stand in for Him is certain specific ways.

Geoffrey Bromiley (1) suggests another facet of meaning. He wrote, “In some way that is not defined, this creation of man as male and female seems to stand in relation to creation in God’s image, which is also not defined. Possibly the existence of two distinct beings, man and woman, who are both generically man, reflects in a loose way God’s own being as three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who are all equally God.” 

Still, the man and woman, as a unit called man, were created in God’s image, together, to fulfill His purpose, together.

In addition to ruling, though, another part of the purpose was reproduction (28). They are not just supposed to subdue [the earth] and have dominion over all its flora and fauna; they’re supposed to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth, and subdue it and have dominion over it.

As the story unfolds, we recognize that this now is the introduction to some form of difference between the man and the woman—one that at very least facilitates reproduction; and the reality of that difference becomes the focus of the retelling of their creation in Gen.2.

By the time that we get to that retelling in v.18 we have heard nine times that creation is good. Seven of those came in c.1 following each day of creation (1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31). After the seventh, in fact, all was pronounced very good.

Two more times before V.18 in c.2, things were pronounced good: the fruit of the trees in the garden were good for food (9) and the gold in the land of Havilah was good (12). All was good!

V.18: Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone.” My wife claims special insight into the profound relevance and undeniable meaning of that statement.

In this innocent and pristine creation, there actually was something that was not good. The man had been created, but by some measure he was alone. Allen Ross (125) captures this well by saying that it means the man was not yet as God planned him to be.

God continued his statement (18): I will make him a helper fit for him. Initially this might sound like a mild description. But remember that this helper had to be capable of assisting in all the responsibilities assigned in c.1. OT commentator H. C. Leupold (130) wrote, “If a man is to achieve his objectives in life, he needs the help of his mate in every way, from the propagating of his kind down through the scale of his varied activities.”

Further, it is God Himself Who is usually the one described as helper in the balance of the OT (Exo.18:4; Deu.33:7; 1Sa.7:12; Psa.20:2; 46:1). Ross (126) wrote, “The word essentially describes one who provides what is lacking in the man, who can do what the man alone cannot do.” It’s no trite description. 

Add in fit or suitable, though, and even more insight emerges. It is matching help; agreeing to him—his counterpart; that actually gets closer. The word actually means opposite, or according to his opposite. Leupold (130) wrote, “She is the kind of help man needs, agreeing with him mentally, physically, spiritually.” Keil and Delitzsch (86) add, “The woman is to the man ‘a helping being, in which, as soon as he sees it, he may recognize himself’.” And Ross (126) summarized, “[This] means that the woman would share the man’s nature; that is whatever the man received at creation, she too would have.”

That is what God intended to make when He made woman: a helper who was like the man, only different—and where different, she would be the perfect complement to him. Her nature was according to his opposite.

So, God set about to make this being…. But the first thing the text records then is a parade of all the animals in front of Adam for him to name them! This was a demonstration of this authority over them. But a more significant impression is also made. In this paradise of a garden, and in unhindered fellowship with God, it is highly unlikely that Adam sensed anything that was not good. He needed to be prepared to appreciate what God had given him when he gave the woman. So, he was assigned by God to observe and consider the qualities of each animal sufficiently enough to give them a name! 

That’s no small task, is it? Parents, you know that. If you’re like Jean and me, we discuss names we like during the days before our children are born, but we were never entirely sure which name was best until we were holding that new little one in our arms. Then one name suited. It fit. Why? I can’t tell you exactly—especially these days when names are less likely to capture character than they did in ancient times. 

Back in the garden, though, there was nothing that was haphazard. And the names of the animals did capture their essential nature. And it quite likely took some significant time for observation and consideration to name them well.

However, v.20b, there was no matching helper for Adam in the lot. So, once his assignment was complete Adam was prepared for what God did next—regardless of whether he knew it was coming. God put him to sleep, v.21—to sleep…. You see, ladies, there’s biblical precedent for this activity among men at significant moments! We’re not told whether there was a Lazy Boy recliner there in the garden, but perhaps…. 

No, this is a sacred moment: God put him to sleep. Then He took a glob of tissue from his side, perhaps a rib, and closed the place up with flesh. And from that rib He formed the woman; He built the woman (22)—and He brought her to the man.

Adam was, well, overwhelmed! Different commentators have characterized his response as a jubilant welcome or a cry of joy or joyous astonishment. He was perhaps shocked and evidently also quite pleased. 

The best interpretation I’ve ever seen of this was given by an actor, Max McLean. He became a Christian after he became an actor, and he thought for a while that he would need to leave the stage, so he went to seminary to prepare to preach. But God had called him to the stage. Now he commits long passages of Scripture to memory and performs them as dramatic monologue in regular theatres across the country and beyond. He also records the Scripture. His is the voice on my iPod as I listen to passages of Scripture. He’s recorded the NIV and the ESV and perhaps others.

Max knows the original languages and thus he knows how to communicate the English. As he recited Gen.2 one Sunday at Moody Church, he brought more light to the meaning of this passage than any commentary I have read, and he did so without going beyond the words of the English translation.

I am no actor, but it went something like this (21-23)….

It is at this point, then, that the timeless commentary on marriage from the pen of Moses was given by God. 24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. Adam wasn’t speaking here; he had not mother and father to leave. This is a statement from God on the nature and purpose of marriage.

Among other things marriage is: A God-designed relationship between one man and one woman. It is a committed and life-long relationship that is more properly basic to human experience than is even the parent child relationship. Think of that. A mother carries an unborn child within her body for nine months before it is born. She nurses that child from her own breast until it is mature enough to eat on its own. Mother and father love and teach and discipline that child through every stage of its life up to responsible adulthood. But when they hand their child off in marriage, even perhaps to a total stranger, God’s Word says that this new relationship is more fundamental to the human experience than was the old!

That is the nature of marriage—more foundational even than parenthood! Two become one—as much as that is possible between two human beings—not bad, huh! 

Looking back at the passage that stands behind Eph.5:31, that’s a bit of what we see.

Looking In – 32 

Buy Looking In I mean looking into Paul’s usage of this passage here in Eph. He gives us a bit of that in v.32, but he’s not entirely easy to follow. Usually we understand him to be saying that v.31—Gen.2:24, most likely the specific reference to one flesh—is a profound mystery, but Christ and the church is the long-awaited clarification of that mystery. And perhaps there is some truth to that. But it is more likely Paul’s intention to allow vv.28-30 to set the context for his quoting of Gen.2:24 in v.31. 

Husbands ought to love their wives as Christ loved the church, who is His body. Husbands, then, v.28, ought to love their wives as their own bodies. We know how naturally and easily and tenderly we take care for our own bodies (29). Christ does the same with the church (30) because we are members of His body. Next comes v.31, quoting Gen.24. We tend to take this one flesh language primarily as a description of the union, probably the sexual union, between a husband and wife. But Paul seems to be saying rather that he’s taking it primarily as a description of the oneness between Christ and the church—that the church is Christ’s body, His flesh. That seems to be his purpose for quoting it on the heels of vs.30—we’re one flesh with Christ. 

The one flesh of marriage is indeed a mystery, a profound mystery, 31a. But he’s actually using that word more consistently with how he’s used it throughout this letter: here, specifically the union of Christ and the church, 31b. Marriage, then, is but a picture of that oneness—a visible manifestation of the invisible relationship of salvation.

Peter O’Brien (434) clarified this idea as he wrote, “A Christian marriage, as envisaged in this paragraph, is ‘to reveal the mystery of Christ loving his responsive church. Such a marriage bears loving witness to the meaning of “two becoming one”.’ It reproduces in miniature the beauty shared between the Bridegroom and the Bride. And through it all, the mystery of the gospel is unveiled.”

Perhaps with greater profit than any other Christian, then, the Christian husband could benefit from answering the question, what would Jesus do? For truly he is called to live the life of Christ in a unique way with his wife.

And perhaps beyond any other relationship, the Christian wife could benefit from asking, how would I respond if this were Jesus speaking to me? when she is interacting with her husband. For truly her highest calling as a wife is to submit to him as to Christ.

Looking Ahead – 33

That is precisely where Paul goes, then, in vs.33—what we’ve called looking ahead. In other words, as we seek to put this teaching into practice day by day, what do we really do with it? 

V.33 tells us. Husband, love your wife as you love yourself—now using precisely the words of the second great commandment—and wives are to respect their husbands. Now that is an interesting word, respect. Paul doesn’t go back to submit with the wife, but that is neither because he’s backing away from his original idea (vs.24 makes that clear), nor because he is introducing any new idea. No, he’s using respect of husband as a summary of the call to the wife. And it is not a new word in this passage. It is the verb form of the noun reverence back in v.21. It literally means fear. It is the word used to describe fear of the Lord, just as in v.21

Clearly this is not intended to introduce fearfulness into the equation, though, because, for one, 1Jo.4:18 makes it clear that there is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. How, then, could this sort of fear be present or welcome in the human relationship designed to imitate perfect love?

Second, though, wives are urged not to give in to fear. In fact, Peter (1Pe.3:6) made it even more clear saying: Don’t fear anything that is frightening. “Don’t fear any intimidation,” wrote Peter Davids (121). And Edmund Clowney (133) worded it, “not being afraid of any terror.” No, Francis Foulkes (170) got it right when he wrote, “Love cannot coexist with such fearfulness, but a deep strong love of wife for husband can be based only on the ‘fear’ that is both ‘reverence’ and ‘respect’.”

Furthermore, the love of the husband according to Peter (7) must be of a sort that is understanding, and showing honor—not taking any advantage of the position of authority assigned to him by God. Showing honor (esv) is translated respect in the niv. Living with wife in an understanding way might best be understood as offering her intellectually engaged attentiveness. The opposite of this would be emotionally distant acknowledgement—a quality all too prevalent among husbands, I’m afraid.

Conclusion

So, what are we to do with this? I don’t think I could improve upon Paul’s own words: husbands, love your wives as you love yourself (33, 28)—with that unconscious sort of care that enables you to eat and dress and rest and so many other things with barely a conscious thought. Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord (22). Respect him (33). And that’s a huge calling, isn’t it?

So, how much effort is supposed to go into this? All the effort that deserves to go into walking in a manner worthy of our calling (4:1)—for this is just one more way in which we’re suppose to do that. 

But, you know something? We get very comfortable not even trying. Almost anything—any plan, any event, any issue—can become more important to us than obeying God’s word at this point. Marriage is hard work. We’ve heard this so much that it has virtually become a cliché. Marriage is hard work. We know that it is. But still, most of us get married truly believing that ours won’t be! We love each other enough, ours won’t take hard work! This is why I spun out that little hypothetical example as we started today. Then, when we inevitably discover that our marriage takes just as much work as the next couple’s, we can tend to begrudge the effort required. We can complain about it and seek to hear affirmation from others that it really shouldn’t require this much!

But, my friend, it does. A good marriage is one of the hardest things to develop, one of the most elusive goals, in human experience. It is almost as hard as walking in a manner worthy of the gospel as a godly Christian—that of which it is to be a picture. But it is also rewarding beyond description as some success begins to be experienced. And it is worth every effort.

Yet it must become as important to us as it is to God in His Word. And one of the best – Pam Fitzner

One final word to singles: you’ve not missed out on the inside track to godliness—see 1Co.7 for many of the advantages. God’s callings to the husband and wife are both given to the body of Christ as a whole V.2: Walk in love as Christ lived us and gave himself up for us. V.21: submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. As we do this together, we’re all preparing to stand confident and unashamed before Him at His coming.