21 submitting to one another in the fear of Christ.
(Ephesians 5:18-21 - HCSB1
You see, it’s all one sentence. Submitting to one another out of fear of Christ (the NIV says reverence for Christ, but fear is more literal) goes together with singing and making music in your heart to the Lord and giving thanks to God! (And notice that it says we should submit to each other—to men, to people—in fear of Christ, not in fear of men. Really, we submit to others because we trust God.)
So what does it mean to submit? (My wife always chews me out if I talk about the meaning of Greek words. She says I’m getting too scholarly. But I’m going to do it anyway and endure whatever the consequences might be.)
The Greek verb translated submit occurs about 37 times in the New Testament. It’s used in both the active and passive senses. (In case you don’t know what that means—active and passive—I’ll give an example: If I say, “I am hitting the lectern,” that’s active. I’m doing something to the lectern. If I say, “The lectern is being hit,” that’s passive. Something is happening to the lectern. So that’s active and passive.)
Now, here’s what the word that’s translated submit means. In the active sense it actually means to cause to submit, to subject, to subjugate or to bring under dominion or control. In the passive sense it’s usually simply translated as submit or sometimes as be subject to or be submitted to. (Now, did you follow all that so far?—active, cause to submit, passive, be submitted to.)
Okay. Now, I looked up the Greek verb that’s translated cause to submit or submit (depending upon whether it is active or passive) and found out that it is used just 7 times in the active sense—to cause to submit, to bring under dominion or control. The other 30 times it is used in the passive sense—to submit or to be subject to. Now, here’s the thing. In every one of the places the verb is used in the active sense—to cause to submit—it refers to something that God does. In every case where the verb refers to what people do or should do, it is used in the passive sense—to submit. You cause yourself to submit. You choose to submit. It doesn’t matter whether it’s to men or to God. You choose to submit. We are never told to cause anyone else to submit. That is God’s prerogative. We are told to cause ourselves to submit. And incidentally, the very first time the verb is used in the New Testament it refers to Jesus submitting to his parents when he was 12 years old. The NIV says that Jesus obeyed his parents, but it actually says that he submitted to them. (Luke 2:51)
So, it is God the Creator who causes submission; but it is we, his creation who choose to submit, whether it’s submission to him or submission to each other.
Submission is an attitude of your heart and mind. It’s the attitude that Jesus had when he left his glory in heaven and came to earth as a baby and then after he had grown up, went around serving and teaching people and finally gave his life on the cross to save us from our sin.
Really, submission is the opposite of rebellion. Satan, the devil, because of his pride, rebelled against God. He chose not to submit. Submission goes with humility. Rebellion goes with pride. And I might point out that now Satan is forced to submit to God whether he wants to or not.
Submission is an attitude of your heart and mind. Let me give a couple of illustrations. Suppose someone who is supposed to have authority over you—your boss, or in the case of today’s message, your husband—tells you to do something and you don’t think the result will be good. You argue, but he insists. You become angry. But you finally decide, “Okay, I’m supposed to obey, so I will do so in minute detail and hope that an absolute disaster results so that I can say, ‘I told you so.’” That’s not the attitude of submission. The attitude of submission puts the interests of others above your interests.
Or, suppose someone rebukes you for some wrongdoing. And suppose that person is a baby Christian (or maybe not a believer at all) and you consider yourself to be more mature. And suppose you know in your heart that that person is right in his rebuke. How do you react? Is your attitude “I don’t have to listen to you”? That’s not the attitude of submission. The attitude of submission puts the interests of others above your interests. In this case the question is, “Do you want to glorify God or to glorify yourself?”
In fact that’s really the question in every case: “Do you want to glorify God or to glorify yourself?” If you choose to glorify God, God will also glorify you. As a minimum, you will have a reward in heaven. By submitting to each other, we learn to submit to God. If you can’t submit to others whom you can see, how are you going to submit to God whom you can’t see?
One more thing about submission: You have to obey God’s authority as greater than human authority. If someone tells you to do something that God has told you not to do, or if someone tells you not to do something that God has told you to do, you obey God rather than men.
Both the apostle Peter and the apostle Paul have told us that we must submit to the governing authorities. (1 Peter 2:13-17, Rom. 13:1-7) But when Peter and John were brought before the Sanhedrin (the governing authority of the Jewish nation), they were told not speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. They replied, “Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God's sight to obey you rather than God. For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.”
A while back a Navy Chaplain was court-martialed and dismissed from the navy for refusing to obey a legitimate order from his superior not to pray in the name of Jesus. He lost his pension and all of his benefits. Now, in order to maintain an army (or navy) that will function properly, there has to be an absolute requirement for each member to obey the orders of his or her superior officer. Also, the word of God says that we are to obey the governing authorities. Furthermore, Jesus told his disciples that they would pray in his name. What do you think he meant? So, do you think the navy chaplain did the right thing in disobeying his superior? I’m not going to try to answer, but I think the answer depends on what was in his heart.
There was a Korean woman (her name is Ahn Ei Sook) who was a school teacher during the time of the Japanese occupation of Korea during World War II. I read part of her biography over 20 years ago. It’s called If I Perish. (It might have been an autobiography. I don’t remember.)
According to the account, the Japanese wanted to indoctrinate the Koreans into Japanese culture and as part of the effort set up Shinto shrines in the entrances to public buildings. You were supposed to bow to them when you entered. Even churches had them.
The Japanese officials required the Korean woman, along with a group of other people, to go out to a field where they had set up a shrine in order to make sure that they would bow down to it. When they were told to bow down, the woman stood up straight while everyone else bowed down. She wound up in prison.
Now the back cover of the biography described the incident where she failed to bow down to the shrine. It said that in ‘bold defiance’ she stood while the others bowed down. My comment was that it was not in bold defiance the she refused to bow down, but in obedience to God. The attitude of your heart makes the difference.
Now let’s look at today’s part of the passage. Verses 22, 23 and 24 say:
22Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. 23For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. (Ephesians 5:22-24 –NIV)
We are told by God to submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. This is an example of submission. It’s a strong one, too, isn’t it? Wives submit to your husbands as to the Lord. (There doesn’t seem to be any conditions given either. Of course, if you don’t submit to the Lord, then you don’t have to submit to your husband either.)
It’s important to God and to us also that we learn to be submissive. God has established governments. All governments are established through Christ and for him. We are commanded to submit to the governing authorities.
God also at least permitted slavery. (I’ll be saying more about slavery next week. But for now I’ll say that it isn’t slavery that God condemns, but oppression.) Slaves are commanded to obey their masters. (And we are commanded by the same command to obey our employers since we don’t have slavery in this country.)
God has also established families and established an order of authority within the families: Children obey your parents and wives submit to your husbands. The husband is the head of the wife. (And I have to point out to husbands—and all of us husbands who have been married more than a few minutes know that this is true—you can’t make your wife submit. You remember that, in the Bible, God causes submission, but people choose to submit. Of course you can force a person to do your will, but it won’t be with an attitude of submission.)
I also want to make sure everyone understands that it is not degrading in any way to submit to human authority in the way God calls us to submit. I’ve seen the argument that it somehow makes you less than fully human to submit to human authority. (That happened to be from a feminist theologian.) God says that “there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Jesus submitted to his heavenly Father and he submitted to the evil men who had him put to death. Do you think it degraded Jesus to submit?
Well, God is telling us to submit to people—to sinful human beings. We know that governments can be absolutely evil. In any case they are far from perfect. The same goes for bosses and certainly for slave masters. And the same goes for husbands, too. They are far from perfect and can be absolutely evil.
What if your husband is violent and you are in danger of being seriously injured or even killed? (Tom said that I would probably say some things that some of you would not like. I’ve probably said some already.) Well, if your husband is violent, I don’t think this is a command for you to stay with him. But not too long after the church started in Jerusalem, a persecution broke out against the Christians. They were putting people in jail and some were killed. Many fled to other cities and spread the gospel in those cities. But some stayed and served Jesus in Jerusalem. I know that when a husband is abusive to his wife repeatedly, common sense says, “Get out of there before you get killed. He’s never going to change.” But the important thing is to seek God’s will in every situation. You may save your husband by staying with him. The point of all this human submission is to trust God to bless your obedience to his commands.
Now let’s look at verse 25 in today’s passage: “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” Husbands, are you willing to die for your wife? A lot of husbands—maybe even most husbands—would say yes to that question (or they would have in the past). Certainly some husbands have died for their wives. But for most of us it’s a hypothetical question—something that doesn’t really have to be answered at the moment because the situation hasn’t come up.
But there are many smaller ways in which you can give yourself up for your wife. Do you know what Jesus told his disciples? I’m going to read from Mark 10:42-45. This is what Jesus said:
42You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. 43Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 44and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. 45For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. (Mark 10:42-45 –NIV)
Jesus did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. What is your relationship to your wife? Did God establish your marriage for your wife to serve you or for you to serve her? (And I have to speak above where I’m actually at in this because it’s what the word of God says.) And I have to point out that this doesn’t say, “Husbands love your wives if they are nice and submissive.” There are no conditions. Jesus died for us while we were still sinners. We are commanded to love our wives sinful or not.
Now let’s look at some more of the section on husbands. I’m going to read verses 25, 26 and 27:
25Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. (Ephesians 5:25-27 –NIV)
Jesus’s purpose was to make the church holy by cleansing her by washing her with water through the word and to present her to himself as beautiful, perfect, holy and blameless. How should we husbands present our wives to Jesus? Doesn’t this imply something about our responsibility for our wives? The husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church. If your wife is not perfect and holy (and submissive) whose responsibility is that?
A pastor told about a husband that came to him to complain that his wife was hard to get along with. The pastor asked the man how she had been when they were first married. The man said, “Fine. She was wonderful when we were first married.” The pastor replied, “Well, she came to her present state under your leadership.” Husbands, it’s your responsibility.
Now let’s look at verses 28, 29 and 30:
28In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church— 30for we are members of his body. (Ephesians 5:28-30 –NIV)
We are to love our wives as our own bodies. What is love? God (speaking by the Holy Spirit through the apostle John) says:
16This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. 17If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? 18Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. (1 John 3:16-18 –NIV)
Husbands ought to provide for their wives material needs. That’s one of the ways we love our wives. Do you do that, husbands? We should. (And wives, that’s needs by the way, not wants!)
Now look at verses 31 and 32:
31“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” 32This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. (Ephesians 5:31, 32 –NIV)
Husbands, when you love your wife you are loving yourself. The quote in verse 31 is from Genesis 2:24. The two will become one flesh. It’s from the creation account. God created husbands and wives to be one flesh. There’s no closer union. It’s his purpose for marriage.
In verse 32 Paul says that he is talking about Christ and the Church. The closeness of a marriage is a representation of the closeness of the relationship that God is building between Christ and the church. Husbands and wives, do you think your marriage is a good representation of the relationship God intends for there to be between Christ and the church? Probably not. But don’t despair. This is what God wants us to work toward.
Now look at verse 33:
33However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. (Ephesians 5:33 –NIV)
This summarizes the passage. (Respect, by the way, is the same word that’s translated reverence back in verse 21: “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ,” except that it’s the verb form rather than the noun form. The translators thought that reverence ought to be reserved for Jesus.) This passage says wives must respect their husbands. But wives, you must also love your husbands. Paul told Titus to teach the older women to train the younger women to love their husbands and children.
Well, let me summarize what I said about what God said. First of all, submission is an attitude of the heart and mind that allows you to consider others as more important than yourself. (Actually, God said that, not I. It’s the attitude that Jesus had when he came to earth as a man to die on the cross for our sin.)
Also, submission between husbands and wives goes both ways. While God established the husband to be the head of the wife, he also established the husband not to be served, but to serve his wife as Christ served the church.
Furthermore, neither God’s command to husbands nor his command to wives is conditional. What he tells husbands to do does not depend on whether or not wives do what he commanded them to do. Neither does what he commanded wives to do depend on whether or not husbands do what he commanded them to do. (I’ve heard a number of times the complaints, “But he isn’t doing his part,” or “but she isn’t doing her part.” There aren’t any conditions.)
Finally, submitting isn’t degrading. It doesn’t make you less than human. It’s what Jesus did. And praise the Lord for what he did. We were dead, but now we’re alive in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
[Prayer]