SUBMIT

“Wives, SUBMIT to your own husbands, as to the Lord” – Ephesians 5:22

The first key to divine Order in the Family is SUBMISSION: “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as is fitting in the Lord” (Col.3:18). The wife must submit to her husband because this is fitting for her position in Christ. Submission is often wrongly misconstrued to imply inferiority or subjugation; but it means none of these. From a military perspective, to “submit” means “to arrange under rank” or to “come up under.” Military and other settings observe some form of hierarchy, but this does not infer inferiority of one soldier to another. Submission satisfies the need for Order in roles and relationships and prevents anarchy or chaos. It ensures that the marriage relationship functions effectively as a formidable instrument in God’s Hands. A wife who submits to her husband as unto the Lord is not less than or inferior to him in their standing before God. There is no racial or gender inequality in Christ (Gal.3:28). This does not however remove the roles of the husband and wife.

Why the woman is called to submit goes back to the creation story: “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, in our likeness…So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Gen.1:26-28). “Let us” referred to the Trinity: God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, being one. In making man in His image, God made two people who would be “one flesh” (Gen.2:24). In marriage, the male and female as one are therefore a reflection of the Trinity – God’s plurality and concurrent unity. Even though God the Father and God the Son are co–equal, the Son submits to the Father. In a similar vein, God put authority and submission in the marriage union: “Now I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God” (1Cor.11:3).

This describes the headship within God’s Person. As God is the head of Christ, and Christ the head of every man, so is the husband the head of his wife! God the Father does not force Christ to submit to Him. Submission and authority happen in the context of the Father’s love for the Son. Similarly, the husband is not called to demand his wife’s submission. He is to love her, care for her, encourage her to grow in God, and serve her. The wife is also to submit to the husband willing. This unity and authority in marriage reflects the image of God in humankind. Sin has however terribly distorted this divine image, as it created rebellion against divine order: “because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be” (Rom.8:7). The law of sin has captured man and corrupted human relationships. The effects of these became evident in the marriage union after the fall, with the woman’s tendency to control her husband (Gen.3:16).

At the fall, marriage was broken and submission in the context of a loving relationship was destroyed, resulting in ruptures in the majority of marriages and desecration of the holy institution. The wife tries to manipulate the husband, and the husband tries to dominate the wife. Marriage is becoming redefined entirely as no longer simply between one man and one woman. The divine image has been distorted, leading to disorder in society. Home is the foundation of society: broken homes lead to broken education systems and broken governments. God started His building of a community on the earth with a marriage; and when the marriage does not work correctly everything else fails. In God’s perfect model, Christ is never inferior or less in comparison to God the Father. He wilfully and joyfully submits to the Father. In the same way, the wife must submit to her husband as it is fitting in the Lord. Ultimately submission is mutual: “submitting to one another in the fear of God” (Eph.5:21).