Understanding the Biblical Concept of Submission in Christian Marriage

For example, Paul begins his whole train of thought with this robust statement:

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:

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:

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

Robert Hampshire is a pastor, teacher, writer, and leader. He has been married to Rebecca since 2008 and has three children, Brooklyn, Bryson, and Abram. Robert attended North Greenville University in South Carolina for his undergraduate and Liberty University in Virginia for his Masters. He has served in a variety of roles as a worship pastor, youth pastor, family pastor, church planter, and now Pastor of Worship and Discipleship at Cheraw First Baptist Church in South Carolina. He furthers his ministry through his blog site, Faithful Thinking, and his YouTube channel. His life goal is to serve God and His Church by reaching the lost with the gospel, making devoted disciples, equipping and empowering others to go further in their faith and calling, and leading a culture of multiplication for the glory of God. Find out more about him here.