What does it mean to be one flesh in a marriage?

Being "one flesh" would indicate oneness of activity and purpose and also the physical relationship.

Verse 24 puts on record the thought of God as to marriage from the outset, and to this the Lord Jesus appealed when answering the Pharisees, as recorded in Matthew 19:3-9. Deviation from this Divine thought and order, or worse still the denial of it, has probably been the cause of more sin and misery in the world than any other single fount of iniquity. When maturity is reached, a man is to leave father and mother and to found a new family, adhering to one woman as his wife. Thus they become one flesh. As we have just seen, Adam and Eve were one flesh to start with, since she was taken out of him.

How good it is to have divinely given certainty! And this the Lord supplies. We need Him in one form or another to interpret the Bible; and here it is simple and direct. He Who made the man and the woman regulated the relationship from the first; and when things were out of course, the Lord Who made everything perfect cleared it of that allowance which man had abused, and recalled to its original order. This is all the more impressive, because it was so ruled of God, not merely for the transient state of paradisaical innocence, but as His mind for man on the earth at any time: so the terms prove. Marriage was divinely instituted from the beginning.

"Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and they shall become (be for) one flesh. And they were both of them naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed" (vers. 24, 25). The former verse contemplates circumstances wholly different from those of Adam who had neither father nor mother to leave; the latter presents the facts which attached to the primeval condition and neither were nor could be with propriety at any other time. Shame followed sin: the knowledge of good and evil led them consciously fallen to cover themselves.

As marriage was to be the social bond, so is it the ground of family life; the oldest of all institutions relative, yet a fresh start for each man and woman so united, as ver. 24 contemplates. The work of God corresponds with His word. If a man was to leave his father and mother, he was to cleave to his wife, not to multiply wives. So had the Creator made one man and one woman. So had Jehovah Elohim ordained. Self-will too soon broke through the order, and sorrow followed personal and widespread, for man in nothing errs with impunity, even in a world out of course.

Up to the time of a man's marriage the chief relationship in which he stands is that of a son, and his responsibility is towards his parents, but when he marries he leaves his father and mother and cleaves to his wife. Henceforward she becomes his chief care, for he and she are no more twain but one flesh.

Every right-minded man will look upon his wife as the only woman in the world for him, he will desire no other; and that not because he has chosen her for his wife, but because God has joined them together. He will look upon her as the very woman that God made for him; he will treat her as God's gift to him, and more, he will treat her as himself, for they twain have become one flesh; and that by no mere ordinance of man, but by God's own act and decree, hence "what God has joined together let not man put asunder."

In marriage too, an individual loses his own identity and both become a new person: "And they twain shall be one flesh: so that they are no more twain but one flesh." (Matthew 10 v 8) If we take Christ as our pattern we should give our love to our partner, wanting only their love in return. (He loved us and gave Himself for us. Ephesians 5 v 25) and as this is displayed love will grow.

The relationship established brings with it the joys and privileges peculiar to it, "They two shall be one flesh,"-joined in a unity such as no other relationship could possibly exhibit. It is theirs now to share in common the experiences and exercises of live, and what will also be welcome to the honourable heart, the responsibilities that have been willingly assumed by acceptance of one another. In all the experiences of life henceforth, let us firmly purpose to act consistently with this noble and blessed relationship. Let us not however expect in this a perfect state, for if so we shall be rightly disappointed. Indeed, it will be rather a further field of training in view of the perfect state, and it will be well if we gird ourselves to learn well by experiences of joy and sorrow, quietness and turmoil, rest and labour, distress and relief, pain and pleasure.

In this very practical portion of the Epistle to the Ephesians the Apostle is exhorting us as to the conduct that becomes believers in the marriage relationship. In so doing he shows the intimate character of the relationship. There are other relations in life, as parents and children, and brothers and sisters, but in no relationship is the link so close as in that of husband and wife. The Apostle says, "they two shall be one flesh:" again he says, "so ought men to love their wives as their own bodies." They are viewed as one; hence the Apostle argues, for a man to hate his wife would be to hate his own flesh, an unheard-of thing. On the other hand to love his wife is to love himself.

But again it is added, "So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church: for we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones. 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. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the Church. Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself." (Eph. 5:28-33.) Here we are carried back, as has been remarked, to the garden of Eden, to the creation and presentation of Eve to Adam, which in itself is a manifest figure of the union between Christ and the church; and this fact accounts for the way in which the apostle weaves the two things in these exhortations. (See Gen. 2:21-25.) The union is thus looked upon as so complete — as Adam said of Eve, "This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh;" and again, "They shall be one flesh" — that it is said, so ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. In this aspect, self-love is to be the measure of a man's love to his wife; and as this is one of the instincts of our nature — and naturally its governing principle — it is impossible to conceive of a more definite and comprehensive direction. Let therefore the oneness of the union — they two shall be one flesh — be apprehended, and love will follow; for the husband will then no more consider his wife as distinct from, but as a part of himself. Thus whatever touches her, will touch him; and his self-love, moving now in a wider circle, includes her, and all that affects and concerns her, within its embrace. All that he desires for himself he will also desire for his wife; all the care he exercises for himself he will exercise for her; and all that he receives he will receive for her as well as for himself. In a word, all the good he seeks and all the evil he deprecates, he will also seek and deprecate for his wife, as for himself; for together they are "one flesh," and therefore he that loveth his wife loveth himself. The word of God provides in this way a perfect antidote against selfishness, and leads out the husband in self-sacrifice, which is the fruit of all true love, and which finds its highest exemplification in Christ, who loved the Church, and gave Himself for it.

The primitive marriage in Eden was remarkably simple and exclusive. Two only shared the delights of the occasion. And this mutual reserve is a character marriage still retains. In matrimony two hearts, two lives become one exclusively in each other. At every wedding a new little world is formed with a total population of two numerically, but administratively of one only. How happy the new experience, and how momentous!

How intimate the relationship. Taken out of man (Ish) she was called woman (Isha). Marriage is instituted for man and woman’s comfort and joy, and for the procreation of the human race. In Genesis 1 man and woman are exhorted to be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth, to subdue it, to have dominion over it, Adam being head over all. A man is to leave his father and mother and cleave unto his wife, one in affection and interest, each the complement of the other.