Colossians 3:17ff. Submission, Love, Obedience, and Service

Working through the “submission” and “obey” sections in Colossians 3:17ff., it is interesting that every command — wives to submit, husbands to love, children to obey, slaves to serve — all point to Christ as the model of submission, love, obedience, and service. Christ is also a restraint against any abuse of the principles taught. Marriage is to be a mirror of the relationship between Christ and the Father and between Christ and his Church. Christ demonstrates submission to the Father. He shows his great love for the Father in submission to his will (“not my will, but yours be done”), and his redeeming love for the Church. Submission, love, obedience, and service can only be understood by seeing how Christ did them all.

There is no justification for a husband to be cruel or domineering to his wife because of the command that she must submit to him. It is like saying that icecream is a murder weapon — because someone was hit over the head with a block of ice. Icecream and the murder weapon have nothing in common except the temperature of the ice. The principle of submission, as it is presented in Scripture, is at the center of the relationship of Christ for his Father. Submission becomes foundational for the way the Church relates to God. Submission is irreplaceable in the manner in which every Christian relates to God by faith. Submission appears in the way each Christian relates to every other Christian. Submission, when understood in Christ and applied by faith, becomes the way wives relate to their husbands — children to parents, slaves to masters. Our difficult with submission rests in our difficulty being submissive.

Scriptures denunciate any notion that the wife’s submission gives the husband the right to be harsh with her. It specifically forbids any unkindness or unloving act of the husband toward his wife, as Christ loved the Church and loved her redemptively, sacrifically, and completely. Even so, that is how husbands are to love their wives, see Ephesians 5:25. They are commanded in Scripture, in the context of submission, “do not be harsh with (your wives),” see Colossians 3:18. Who could object to that kind of treatment — hubands loving their wives, not being harsh with them, as Christ loved the Church? Where is the seed for mistreatment there? There is none. Just practical instruction on how to be kind and loving in marriage. The seed for mistreatment comes not in submission but in sin.

The objection to submission, as it is rejected in our day generally and in principle today, must rest in our difficulty submitting to God. That is the great stumbling block that many cannot overcome when the subject of submission comes up. Some people hate the word. But rejecting the word out of hand it to reject the center of Christ’s relationship with his Father, and the chief principle by which the Church relates to God, and how husbands and wives relate to one another, and how children relate to their parents, and slaves to masters (and by extension, workers to their bosses).

By refusing to submit to God, husbands treat their wives unkindly, abusively, harsely. But by refusing to submit to their godly husbands, wives become separated from the love of their husband and his protection. They cannot submit to God, because they will not submit to anyone. The issue is not that their husband is cruel, it is that they must do what another person wants them to do. It is here where our sin cries “foul” and we kick against submission as a great evil, when it is the greatest gift of life.

Submitting to God is the way to peace with him. A godly woman’s submission to her godly husband, is the surest way to happiness and peace. But not in our day. Submission is evil, an invitation to abuse, and Medieval. But it is none of those things. It is freedom and joy and safety, when lived in the way that Scripture presents it. It is the greatest freedom to give up our rights to One who loves us the most and who has nothing but our best interest and our supreme happiness in his heart (husband or Savior in mind here).

There is nothing in the Bible that can permit, tolerate, or endorse any mistreatment of a Christian wife by her Christian husband. Submission of a wife to a husband assumes a husband truly loves her, and he loves her like Christ loves the Church. There is redemption in that relationship, not hatred and abuse, nor is their unkindness and harshness. There is, to the contrary, love and mercy, forgiveness and sacrifice of the husband toward the wife he loves more than his own life. And there is found the submission and love from the wife toward her husband. There is discovered, as a beautiful diamond, respect and deferrence, trust and love.

The snarls and grimmaces are viceral when submission comes up. In current day discussions (especially around marriage vows, “I won’t say ‘submit'”) hatred of submission is categorical. But that rage is simply not justified by the teaching of Paul. He defends and gives protection for women against abusive husband domination. He celebrates submission of all Christians, one to the other. As Christ to the Father, even so we to each other, especially wives to husbands. In each case of obedience, submission, obedience, and love, submission mirrors the relationship of Christ to the Father.

It turns the Scriptures upside down to castigate Paul for teaching submission as an unfair and sub-human condition resulted every time the word “submit” is uttered. As though this wonderful and essential word has become a “dirty” word. If submission is good for all Christians, it is good for wives. If it is good for all Christians, is good for husbands, too. But submission isn’t horrible because some men are jerks or because some women don’t want to submit either to God or their husbands. In the same way it would be a grotesque reading of Scripture to say that Paul encouraged slavery when he was simply and wisely encouraging faithful service from slaves to their masters. Paul called himself a “slave of Jesus Christ” as he identified himself in the greeting of most of his letters. Neither does Paul endorse the horror of slavery when he tells slaves to obey their masters. But there is something in that slave-master relationship that is part of the Christian life and the experience of everyone who is a believer living in submission and obedience to God. We relate to God as Christians as though we were his slaves serving our loving Lord (“Master”). Being a slave of Jesus Christ is an incredible honor for us. His Mastery and Lordship can be trusted and our service to him freely given. Slaves can serve their earthly masters, rendering service “as to the Lord.” It was not Paul’s agenda to end slavery in the Roman world. But neither does Paul celebrate or agree with slavery. He is living in a world in which slavery exists. But he sees in the slave/master relationship something that rings true of the relationship we have with our Lord. Slavery can be horrible, but not if your Master is wonderful. Submission to Christ is wonderful, but neither does he endorse submission to a cruel and abusive husband.

The New Testament is not a civil rights manual. It is not a marriage manual. It is a “Christ is enough in every circumstance” manual.