because we are members of his body, of his flesh and bones.
Parallel translations
- KJV For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.
- BSB For we are members of His body.
- NKJV For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones.
- NASB because we are parts of His body.
- NLT And we are members of his body.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Believers are members of Christ's body, united to him. The church's intimate union with Christ grounds his care for her.
Overview
Paul explains why Christ nourishes the church: 'we are members of his body.' This union with Christ is the deep reality behind the marriage analogy. The believer's incorporation into Christ is so close that he tends the church as his own body, an assurance of his unfailing love.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 6
- 1 Cor 6:15Don’t you know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them members of a prostitute? May it never be!
- 1 Cor 12:12–27For as the body is one, and has many members, and all the members of the body, being many, are one body; so also is Christ.
- Rom 12:5so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.
- Gen 2:23The man said, “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh. She will be called ‘woman,’ because she was taken out of Man.”
- Eph 1:23which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.
- Col 2:19and not holding firmly to the Head, from whom all the body, being supplied and knit together through the joints and ligaments, grows with God’s growth.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
Every spiritual blessing is 'in Christ,' the head over all things for the church, in whom Jew and Gentile are made one new man by his blood.
How Ephesians 5:30 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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