(Note: While this post was written with elders’ wives and other Christian women in mind, we hope all of our readers will benefit from it and share it with others who might enjoy it.)
A culture that rejects the notion of gender itself laughs even more at the thought of headship and submission in marriage. “Submission” has become a forbidden word, even in many Christian circles. Yet God’s unchanging Word abounds with timeless instruction and examples of submission and its blessings.
What must Abraham have thought when God told him to offer Isaac to him as a burnt offering? The mere thought of it was not only horrifying but also seemingly illogical: how would God fulfill his promise to bless the world through Isaac’s descendants if Isaac were dead? But Abraham submitted to God—and Isaac to Abraham—and they passed God’s test of faith (Genesis 22).
When Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery, Joseph submitted to the officials in Egypt—even in the face of false accusation and wrongful imprisonment—and became successful in everything he did (Genesis 39). His godly character brought about the deliverance of his family and much of the ancient world from the famine.
Gideon’s 300 troops submitted to his unconventional clay-jar-and-trumpet battle strategy, and they defeated the Midianites, who were as numerous as a “swarm of locusts” (Judges 7).
The widow at Zarephath submitted to the prophet Elijah’s request for the very last of her flour and oil, and God miraculously replenished it for her and her son to keep them alive in the famine against all odds (1 Kings 17).
And our Lord Jesus Christ submitted to his earthly parents (Luke 2:51) as well as his heavenly Father. His tear-drenched prayer in Gethsemane—“nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will” (Matt. 26:39)—is the very essence of submission: resisting our own self-will and submitting to another, even when—no, especially when—we don’t want to.
Lest we think of submission as the yielding of an of an inferior to a superior, this is how the King of kings chose to behave:
[T]hough he was in the form of God, [he] did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Phil. 2:5-11).
Submission: An Orderly Arrangement
Submission isn’t merely for marriage; it’s God’s general way of ordering relationships. The Greek word for submission is a combination of hypó (under) and tássō (to arrange). We arrange ourselves under the authority of others according to God’s instructions: wives to husbands, children to parents, community members to government, Christians to God, and even God the Son to God the Father.
One of the classic New Testament passages on submission is broken up in our English Bibles to highlight the marriage-specific verses on their own (Eph. 5:22-33). The passage traditionally starts with verse 22, “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.” But if we back up a bit, the passage starts like this, translated more literally from the Greek: “Be submitting yourselves to one another in reverence of Christ—wives to the own husbands as to the Lord” (Eph. 5:21-22). So within God’s general order of Christian living and people submitting to one another, there is specific instruction for wives to submit to their husbands.
A parallel passage in Colossians 3—also situated within the context of general Christian living—ends this way:
Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them. Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged. Bondservants, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not by way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ (Col. 3:18-24).
The Logic of Submission
Life without submission is like a busy road without stoplights. When I read this illustration by P.B. Wilson as a new believer, submission made sense to me not just biblically but logically too. How dangerous it would be if we all approached intersections with no clue whose turn it was to go—or worse yet, if everyone plowed through at the same time! Just as a stoplight keeps traffic flowing smoothly and safely by signaling who goes first, submission helps marriages, families, workplaces, and communities thrive by providing a pattern for who leads and who follows. When it’s everyone’s guess, life is a mess.
Submission is God’s umbrella of loving protection over his children. When we submit to him by submitting to those he has placed over us in headship, we remain safe in his will. Husbands answer to God for how they love, lead, and protect their families—what a grave responsibility! A wife who places herself under her husband’s leadership, even when she disagrees with him, is in God’s will (unless, of course, her husband is asking her to sin). When they make decisions together, she should express her wisdom, input, and concerns with her husband—and he should listen—but when an agreement can’t be reached, it is God’s will for her to follow her husband, knowing that God will lead and protect her through him.
When Submission is Difficult
Women who are married to reasonable and humble men would likely agree that their job of submission feels easier than the tall order their husbands are faced with, to love their wives “as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Eph. 5:25). But what if your husband isn’t so nice? What if he has a bad temperament, bad habits, and bad behavior? What if he isn’t even a believer?
The Bible is far from silent about such situations. In part two of this series, we’ll consider how wives can please God in marriages where submission is especially difficult.