Take one item, perhaps the lowliest, `not having wrinkle'.  The word

`wrinkle' in the original means exactly the same as the English word, viz., `a

corrugation of the skin', and is allied with rhusa (old age, the time of

wrinkles).  Care and anxiety, worry of any description are the chief causes of

wrinkles; how this reveals the character of the husband's love that shields the

wife from as many anxieties as possible.

Throughout this passage the physical interchanges with the spiritual as

type with antitype.

A

Wives submit

B

As the church

A

So ought men

B

Even as the Lord the church

A

Wives and husbands.

One flesh

B

The mystery.

Christ and His Church.

The union of husband and wife is looked upon in Scripture as something

deeper than a civil or religious joining together of two persons in marriage.

Every true marriage harks back to Eden:

`For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be

joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh' (Eph. 5:31).

The same apostle says in 1 Corinthians 6:17, `he that is joined to the

Lord is one spirit', which shows the antitype to be mentally supplied in

Ephesians 5:31,32.  Moreover the argument concerning a man nourishing and

cherishing his own body finds its alternative in that sin which is against his

own body (1 Cor. 6:18).  If 1 Corinthians 6:15-20 be carefully weighed with

Ephesians 5:28-32, a great deal of irrelevant matter need never have been

It is an established truth that the church of Ephesians is `the Body' and

`the New Man'.  Now the Scripture uses figures with discretion.  The bridal

relationship to Christ belongs to another calling; in Ephesians we are dealing

with the Bridegroom if such a figure is allowable at all.  The passage before us

is not discussing the title of the church of the dispensation of the Mystery; it

is dealing with the relationship of husbands and wives who belong to this

dispensation.  If Ephesians 5 teaches that the church is `the bride', Ephesians

6 teaches that the church is `a child' and `a slave', neither of which titles

are true.

When Paul draws to the conclusion of his exhortation to wives and

husbands, he says, `This is the great mystery, but I speak with a view to Christ

and His Church' (Eph. 5:32).  That there is a mystery in marriage let anyone