Understanding the Biblical Concept of Submission in Christian Marriage
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- Updated Mar 11, 2024
The topic of submission in the Christian family can be a touchy subject.
One reason that is the case is because it is often not talked about or taught correctly, even though it is taught in Scripture. Some Bible teachers downplay the importance of submission or skip it altogether.
Another reason submission can be a touchy subject is how common it is for many people (or maybe all of us) to abuse authority. I have heard so many sad stories of children, spouses, church members, and employees (really anyone who has a leader over them) who have been the recipient of some kind of abuse of authority, emotional bullying, manipulation, power-tripping, or even physical abuse by their leaders. Because of that, so many people turn around and dish out the same abuse of authority to people they are in leadership over (because hurt people hurt people).
In my experience, everyone (me and you included) will be tempted to abuse our authority given the opportunity with no accountability or consequence. I have even heard this phrase many times in my life and believe it to be true:
Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
So, does that mean we throw out leadership and put everyone on the same plane? As nice as that might sound at times, all it takes is a little bit of common sense, knowledge of human history, or understanding of human nature to know that it will not work. We need leaders - but good leaders. And to have leaders, you must also have others that follow and submit. There is no way around it.
This takes us back to considering what Scripture says about submission.
One of the most common and controversial passages about submission in the Bible is Ephesians 5. In this passage, Paul explains that godly husbands in the home are to:
“love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way, husbands should love their wives as their bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body.” (Ephesians 5:25-28, ESV)
How does the Bible say for husbands to treat their wives? With love. But not just the feeling of love, but self-sacrificing, selfless love. The kind of love that Jesus expressed when he died on the cross! The type of love that cares for her provides for her and leads her well toward good health.
Then Paul switches focus to the wives in a Christian home and teaches this:
“Wives, submit to your husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now, as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.” - Ephesians 5:22-24, ESV
God instructs wives here to recognize them as the “head” of their relationship and, therefore, submit to their leadership. But why does Paul say that wives should submit? Because they represent the “Church” and their husbands represent “Christ” in the relationship.
Again - for some people, this is a difficult concept to accept because of its negative connotations with leadership and submission. But if you have ever seen a marriage that lives this out well, you might know that it is a thing of beauty that others want to emulate.
Considering this passage, there is no room for tyranny, abuse, rebellion, or selfishness in a godly marriage.
But let’s be honest - we mess this passage up a lot in our marriages, don’t we? I have seen more marriages flipped backward than they operate in this biblical way.
So why is this model of leadership and submission in the Christian home so uncommon and difficult to obey? One reason is that we try to start in the wrong place. The passage we read does not begin with those imperatives, so we should not start reading from there either. Those commands merely apply principles that Paul teaches about in the previous verses.
For example, Paul begins his whole train of thought with this robust statement:
“Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children.“ - Ephesians 5:1, ESV
How do we know what acts of God we ought to imitate? We look to Jesus! He is our example. We were created in God’s image, and when God saves us, he recreates us back into that image. We follow Jesus’s example not as robots or clones or even slaves or employees but as sons and daughters following in our Father’s footsteps.
What, then, does it mean to imitate God? It means to work as he works, care about the things he cares about, love as he loves, and so on. In context, Paul goes on to tell us to live lives of love for God and others, to live holy and pure, to talk cleanly and with gratitude, to walk as “children of the light” and expose the darkness, to live wisely and not waste time, to be filled with the Holy Spirit, to sing to God with other believers, and to give thanks for everything.
Then, after all that, Paul gives one more example of how we are to imitate God in verse 21: by “submitting to one another.”
How does submitting to one another imitate God? Well, again, we can look to Jesus, who declared:
“I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me.” - John 5:30, ESV
So even though Jesus and God were “one” (as Jesus taught multiple times), he worked in submission to his Father. This is evident in many things that Jesus did, especially in his willingness to die on the cross and accept his “cup” of suffering in obedience to his Father’s will (see Jesus’s prayer to his Father in Matthew 26).
This takes us back to the idea of submission in the Christian family. In submission to Christ, though they are “one flesh” (as Paul explains later in the chapter), the wife is to submit to her loving husband - who in turn is to submit to God.
But this will only happen if we first live in a healthy, close relationship with God, seeking to imitate him and in love and submission to one another “out of reverence for Christ.” This is called “mutual submission.”
Although this passage is counter-cultural and goes against our rebellious and prideful fallen nature, it is the truthful and the right way to have a Christian home. Loving leadership and respectful submission are the only healthy ways to operate in any relationship. You can follow, respect, or defer, but we still discuss the same idea.
And you can use any other type of leader-follower relationship to explain this principle. For example, children are to submit to their parents, employees are to submit to their management, students are to submit to their teachers, citizens are to submit to their governmental leaders, and players are to submit to their coaches.
But while all of these scenarios rely on healthy leadership and submission, Paul uses the marriage model for an important reason. He explains that reason at the end of the passage:
“This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.” - Ephesians 5:32
God gave the gift of marriage to us to show us what his relationship with us is supposed to look like. It is a picture or a symbol. Changing the structure and organization messes up the picture.
So husbands and wives - let’s ask ourselves this question: what kind of picture of the Gospel does your marriage and life paint?
Photo Credit: © Getty Images/Goran13
