What Does It Mean to Submit?

As Christ’s body on earth, we need people to know us and understand a little more about what God is like, specifically in three sets of relationships.

In our homes. When a husband looks like Christ, he puts his wife first. He provides for her and protects her. He encourages her personal and spiritual growth. This then frees her to submit to him because she knows she can trust him. Neither is “over” the other in authority, but each ministers to the other in unique ways.

Submission is a complex concept—surprisingly, it doesn’t mean to obey. Unlike Romans 13, where we are called to submit to authority, here in Ephesians, we are told all believers should be willing to respond and yield to each other out of love. There’s no room for the hierarchy of power, but rather a sensitivity to others frees us from pride and helps us act in loving, caring ways.

Submission says we walk with each other in humility. Wives aren’t told to obey their husbands. It says, submit to him. It’s a loving, mild word that means to respond to him as you do the Lord. We love the Lord because He first loved us.

The husband doesn’t have the authority to be the top sergeant in the home, barking and ordering his wife around. Instead, he is the primary lover, leading her in a love relationship. The husband loves his wife because she is part of his own body. Like Jesus Christ knows the church's weakness, the husband nourishes and cherishes her. Of course, this kind of love is only possible through the Spirit’s power, filling you every day.

God never asks a woman to submit to any man who doesn’t love her and love her like Jesus Christ loves the church. Not many marriage books talk about this, but this is how people look at you and see Jesus.

In our relationships. Even children can look like Jesus when they obey their parents (6:1). (And parents help them do that by not exasperating them.) This word for “obey” is different from the word in Ephesians 5:22, which talks about how the wife is to submit. The wife occupies a place of equality with the husband, and submission is merely a question of headship. Here the child is to obey as a servant is to obey (see also 6:5).

The responsibility to nurture (instruct) your children’s relationship and obedience is given to the parents. Don’t provoke your kids to anger. Instead, take them by the hand and lead them in how they should go. Discipline them in a way that brings a positive response (Proverbs 13:24, 19:18, 22:15, 23:13-14, 29:15-17). When you do, they learn how to have a relationship with Jesus and will be ready to face the confusing and daunting philosophies of the world.

In the workplace. In the first century, almost every Roman home had slaves. In a Christian home, slaves were to sincerely obey their masters, while masters treated them with consideration and respect. Slaves now had new motives for serving their masters, and masters had a new perspective on their slaves as people and as family.

We take this same submission to the marketplace. It’s a different situation here, for the love that holds a home together isn’t necessarily found here; yet, as God’s representatives, filled with His Spirit, we will be submissive to others. When we get to the place where our goal is to please Christ, then the hurdles posed by our employers are easily passed over.

This attitude of submission helps establish order. Husbands are subject to Christ. Wives are subject to their husbands. Children are to be subject to parents. Servants are subject to masters. This is to be a willing subjection to someone who loves you. If there is no love in it, the idea of submission isn’t worth a snap.

This is really where the rubber meets the road.

Next: We’re in for the fight of our lives, but learn how to battle God’s way.