110 Submit

One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, ‘Of all the commandments, which is the most important?’ ‘The most important one,’ answered Jesus, ‘is this: “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” The second is this: “Love your neighbour as yourself.” There is no commandment greater than these. (Mark 12:28-31)

What standard does Jesus want his disciples to keep to? Which of the 10 commandments does he expect me to obey? His expectation is that we obey these two commandments, quoting a summary of the ten in these two. They are not optional for anyone and especially for Christians.  Here is Jesus standard for us all.

When we keep the first of these commandments it’s not always visible in our life but when we keep the second it becomes evident. If you love your neighbour as yourself then you must give your neighbour the same consideration you give yourself.

When Paul wrote to the Ephesians he put this commandment in different, practical and challenging terms.

Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. (Ephesians 5:21)

With this statement we are given a vital Christian guideline. The general rule is to submit to one another, to love one another as you love yourself. We cannot help asking ourselves whether what we do or say helps or harms me but must at the same time ask does it help or harm the other person. The other person has needs; have I considered them? Have I given them priority, as much priority as I have considered my own?

When we  submit to one another we are doing what Christ wants — we are loving our neighbour as ourselves. We are doing so out of reverence for Christ.  We are doing what Christ would do, we live out the life of Christ who is in and with us.

We submit to one another just as Christ submitted. He loved the Lord our God with all his heart, mind, body and soul and entirely submitted to his will and purpose, submitting himself to crucifixion. He did this perfectly.

He also loved his neighbour perfectly, submitting to the hands of evil men and so submitting to the needs of you and me for forgiveness and cleansing, needs he never had.

As it was for Jesus so it is for us, submission to one another comes at a cost but in submission to Jesus and out of reverence for him we submit to one another.

This is established as a general guide. Paul applied it a common human relationship, in the family.

Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Saviour. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. (Ephesians 5:22-24)

The particular application that a wife should submit to her husband is only part of the deal because at the same time the husband should submit to his wife.  The general principle works both ways or not at all!

When a wife submits to her husband’s needs this means she does not prevent him from doing and being what Christ expects him to do but gives them priority. At the same time the husband gives priority and supports his wife in doing what Jesus expects of her.

Jesus died for his disciples who together make up the church.  This makes him the head of the church. Very seldom does a husband give his physical life for the benefit of his wife but he should be willing to do so; in that he takes the part of her saviour. While he does not give up his physical life he makes his wife’s life and welfare his first priority. The implication is that her welfare is his responsibility, that his submission to her enables her to be the married person Jesus intends her to be; he saves her from failure to please her Lord.

Her submission allows him to meet the expectations Jesus has for him. Their mutual submission allows their marriage work together for their good as a couple. 

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no-one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church – for we are members of his body.  (Ephesians 5:25-30 )

Christ’s sacrifice of himself for us, for the church, was extreme and complete. The only reason a Christian, the church, can come before God is because of Jesus sacrifice allowing him to regard them as faultless as Jesus himself. Such is the totality of this that as the head of the church Jesus is able to do his work through his body, the church. 

Jesus love for Christians, the church was demonstrated by the complete giving of himself, his very life and body for us.  And this is the kind of love a husband should have and show for his wife, what submission requires of him. Words like defender, protector, provider apply to him. Women and children first applies. She is certainly no less important to him than his own life and body.

‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ This is a profound mystery – but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.  (Ephesians 5:31-33)

A Christian marriage is a profound mystery. It is a mystery as profound as the relationship between Christ himself and the Church – his Christian disciples. Jesus also left his father. He did not hold onto his equality with God but emptied himself and as a man humbled himself and became obedient to death.

As a result of his death and resurrection, he now has a wife in the form of his disciples, the church, the one, united body, united with Christ. He loved them and loves them still. A man and his wife are also one body, one unit with a unity which may produce children.

The summary says that a man must love his wife as himself and that his wife must respect her husband.

Jesus reminds us that we are to love each other which is going to mean submit to each other, which includes respect each other. Respect is a form of submission, a form of love.

Both the husband and wife come to their union following some years of experience, learning, gifting but they are two different people each loved by their Lord and known fully by him from before their conception. Now they are loved as a couple, a pair loved as a unit by the same Lord, loving each other as Jesus does.

Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. ‘Honour your father and mother’ – which is the first commandment with a promise – ‘so that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.’ Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. (Ephesians 6:1-4)

God’s principles for human relationships have never changed. His commandments were set when the universe was formed, have been published and taught and then reenforced by Jesus himself for his followers. This continued to Christians in Ephesus when Paul wrote to them and now we follow them today.

They come to us with practical guidelines, recognising the different roles each member of a family fills. Children have parents, both parents and children have responsibilities and relationships. The fifth of the original ten is the only one that comes with a caveat — a promise that should encourage us to keep it: 

Honour your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you. (Exodus 20:12)

Again the general principles apply: submit to one another, respect or honour one another, love one another. The 10 Commandments were never meant to be too onerous!

Children submit to their parents while fathers and mothers submit to their children within the different relationships, recognising each other’s needs, responsibilities and capabilities, adapting as these change over time. A casual observation of human interaction will readily show that it is very easy to exasperate each other!

The instruction to bring up children, training and instructing them in the teaching of the Lord Jesus is a serious responsibility for parents. Children, in honouring, obeying their parents are called on to show respect to their parents efforts to do their job. Ultimately, the goal is not simply to have instructions and teaching to follow but that all involved, parents and children, live together in union with Jesus and his Holy Spirit but know him as Lord and saviour, living eternal life together all the way into eternity.

Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. Obey them not only to win their favour when their eye is on you, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart. Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not people, because you know that the Lord will reward each one for whatever good they do, whether they are slave or free. And masters, treat your slaves in the same way. Do not threaten them, since you know that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favouritism with him. (Ephesians 6:5-9)

Relationships change over time but the Lord’s teaching never does! The relationship of owner and slave has changed but the call to love one another, to submit to each other has not changed.  It applies as ever to the relationship between and employer and employee.

We each have the same responsibilities before the Lord; we all answer to him as we seek to do what he wants us to do. Once we were all slaves to sin, dead in sin, but now alive to Jesus and free because of his sacrifice for us, now committed to follow him, submitted as slaves to him. It has been said that people don’t do as you expect but they what you inspect but we are taught here that we are each called to live as the Lord’s living sacrifice wholeheartedly.

We do this not because we might be caught out when we fail but because we are all treated equally by God as we live moment by moment in his presence. It is his will we follow and his approval alone that has eternal consequences. In our different roles we submit to each other because we submit to the Lord encouraged to know that he shows no favouritism. We are all equal in his sight.