Mutual Submission: What Is It?

We are all to be submissive. But are we to be submissive in the same ways?

Sometimes we who believe that the Bible opposes women's ordination quote Ephesians 5:22, "Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord." When we do this, someone is likely to ask, "Why don't you read the previous verse? It calls on all of us to be subject to one another and not just women to their husbands."

So, let's read the previous verse, and also the verses that follow. The previous verse (5:21) does say that God wants us to "be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ." The verses that follow, reading down to chapter 6:9, develop this important theme further. In the process, helpfully, they show that we aren't expected to submit in only one way but rather in at least six different ways. The differences may be as important as the submission itself.

Ephesians 5:22-33 analyzes the mutual submission of husbands and wives. Ephesians 6:1-4 lists ways children and parents are to submit to one another. And chapter 6:5-9 talks about the submission of slaves and masters.

Slaves are to submit to their masters by obeying them and rendering loyal service. Masters are to submit to their slaves by being fair and restraining their own anger. Children are to submit to their parents by obeying them, and parents (fathers in particular) are to submit to their children's emotional needs by not irritating them and to their children's spiritual and other needs by taking time to educate and nurture them. There is no room here for the absentee father who leaves child rearing to the mother.

"We aren't expected to submit in only one way but rather in at least six different ways. The differences may be as important as the submission itself."

So we come back to husbands and wives. The husband is to submit to his wife by going on loving her, even if she lacks outward beauty or inward grace. He is to love her, in fact, at any cost to himself, "as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her." Evidently, the husband, like Christ, is to lay aside selfish preoccupations and pay attention to the spiritual growth of his wife, remembering that there's no better way to do this than by giving a good example. He is also to lay aside his selfish use of time and money, in imitation of the Christ who sacrificed Himself and all of heaven for the good of the church.

In her turn, the wife is to subject herself to her husband "as to the Lord." Being subject "as to the Lord" implies that the wife isn't expected to submit when doing so would be contrary to Scripture. Nonetheless, it is a heavy challenge that God lays upon wives, to be subject to their husbands, "as to the Lord," even when the husbands aren't thoughtful or kind.

It is also a heavy challenge that He lays on children, on slaves, on slave masters, and on fathers, none of whose submission partners are likely to be thoughtful or kind all of the time, if in fact they are thoughtful and kind any of the time. And it's a heavy challenge that He lays on husbands. The longest portion of our passage is directed to them. To love a sweet, affectionate, cooperative woman isn't hard! But to love even a suspicious, reproachful, ungrateful, virtually unlovable woman as Christ has for centuries loved His all-too-often angry, ugly, and nagging church is to submit oneself indeed.

So yes, God does call on all of us to submit to one another. He does so on the only basis that makes sense at any level, namely "out of reverence for Christ."

But He doesn't ask us to submit to one another in the same ways. Children are required to obey their parents; parents are not asked to obey their children. Slaves are expected to obey their masters; masters are not expected to take orders from their slaves.

"We are all 'one in Christ Jesus.' But we aren't all the same in Christ Jesus."

Husbands are not called on to obey their wives. Nor, let us remember, are husbands called on to make their wives obey them! Instead, husbands are asked to sacrifice themselves for their wives. The husband is also asked to serve as "the head of the wife," to whom the wife is asked to submit. Husbandship is headship, not dictatorship. As head, he is expected to be the family leader; but he is to lead in the way that Christ leads as "head of the church," compassionately, graciously, justly, openly, honestly, responsibly, manfully.

The wife is asked to submit herself, to "adapt" herself (Phillips), to her husband "in everything," not meanly or grudgingly or self-deprecatingly, but gladly, wisely, nobly, "as to the Lord."

We are all "one in Christ Jesus." Paul tells us this in Galatians 3:28. But we aren't all the same in Christ Jesus. Christian children aren't parents, Christian slaves aren't masters, and Christian husbands aren't wives. We are all to "be subject" to one another "out of reverence for Christ," but God asks us to be subject in different ways.

But let Scripture speak for itself; there is power in the Word. Here is Ephesians 5:21-6:9 with the kinds of people printed in capitals, the designations for Jesus and God in boldface, and the different verbs for submission in italics. To reassure ourselves that in writing this passage Paul wasn't saying what he didn't really mean, a remarkably parallel passage is provided from Paul's epistle to the Colossians.