What Does Ephesians 5:32 Mean?
This is a great closed thing, but I speak concerning the Anointed One and the assembly.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.THE KEY
The one-flesh union remains a human joining, and it also opens onto the bond between the Anointed One and the assembly.
THE MEANING
The joining named just before this verse carries a further depth: it reveals the bond between the Anointed One and the assembly. The mystery is hidden meaning now being spoken into the open. The human joining and this wider union remain together; neither erases the other.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the idea that the passage is only about marriage or only a metaphor: the verse holds both the human joining and the Anointed One’s bond with the assembly in view.
THE ROOT
μυστήριον
mystērion
GROWS FROM
μυ-
my-
The related word family carries the idea of what is hidden and of initiation into hidden knowledge; the exact etymological path is uncertain.
“closed thing” in this verse is mystērion. Here, “mystery” is not an unsolvable riddle: it is hidden meaning being spoken aloud. The verse names that meaning as the bond between the Anointed One and the assembly.
ALSO GROWS
mystēs: An initiate, someone admitted to a mystery.
μύστης
It echoes the sense of hidden knowledge opened to those brought into it.
mystikos: Belonging to a mystery or initiation.
μυστικός
It shares the word-family’s association with what is hidden, giving “mystery” more depth than a puzzle.
ἐκκλησία
ekklēsia
GROWS FROM
καλέω
kaleō
To call or summon; this word-family connects with the idea of people summoned into an assembly.
The KJV word “church” can suggest a building or institution, while the Greek word means an assembly. Its connection with calling and summons makes the people in this verse a gathered body in relation to the Anointed One.
ALSO GROWS
klēsis: A calling or summons.
κλῆσις
It carries the sense of people being called into a gathered life.
klētos: Called or summoned.
κλητός
It echoes the calling that brings people into an assembly.
Χριστός
christos
GROWS FROM
χρίω
chriō
To anoint, including the application of oil.
“Christ” names the Anointed One; it is not a surname. The verse speaks of a relationship with one marked by anointing, alongside a people gathered as an assembly.
ALSO GROWS
chrisma: Anointing or an anointing substance.
χρῖσμα
It makes the anointing in the title concrete as an act and its mark.
christianos: One identified with the Anointed One.
χριστιανός
It extends the same name-root to those identified with him.
THE PATTERN
A human joining can reveal a wider covenantal union without losing its human meaning.
Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother, and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.And I will betroth you to me for the ages. Yes, I will betroth you to me in alignment, and in judgment, and in faithful love, and in compassion.The mystery that has been hidden away from the ages and from the generations, but now has been made visible to his set-apart ones.THE THREAD
Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother, and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.Ephesians 5:31 quotes this verse immediately before calling the matter a great mystery. Genesis names the one-flesh joining; Ephesians 5:32 opens that joining onto the bond between the Anointed One and the assembly.
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