The Glory of Submission

Our culture gets the idea of submission all kinds of wrong.

You can hardly even utter the "s" word without the wrath of modern ideology being poured out by people who ought to know (and think) better.

Eyes roll, mouths tighten, necks stiffen...oh, I've seen it happen. And to be fair, there are often a few too-gleeful-and-triumphant looking husbands giving their wives the I-told-you-so look, whenever those *black and dreadful* verses-which-shall-not-be-named are read out loud.

Jesus never rolled His eyes and stiffened His neck when it came to submission.

And He never smirked in arrogant triumph at anyone either.

Instead, Jesus glorified and exalted submission as something to be highly desired, cultivated and sought after.

Jesus was GOD, you know...He spoke the world into creation. He laid the earth's foundations, marked off its dimensions, stretched a measuring line across it, and shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb. He takes the very light to its abode and puts the darkness into its residence. He fills the storehouses with snow and hail, and scatters the east winds over the earth. Every bolt of lightning reports back to Him, for He has created and directed each one of them. (Job chapter 38)

Can your mind even conceive of such vast greatness, can you even begin to consider the majesty and awesome power of Jesus? He is the beginning and the end, He dwells in light unapproachable, He is the WORD OF GOD MADE FLESH. He is the glory of all creation, and all flesh will fall on its knees and worship Him in the end.

And for all of that glory and power and authority and majesty, Jesus Christ submitted in ways that we probably can never fully appreciate. And He did it willingly, in perfect obedience, never demanding that His "rights" be given to Him, never whining that it was unfair. He made submission a glorious thing for us to emulate.

Jesus equated submission with greatness; He equated servant hood, and even slavery, with being the best, and first, position.

Matthew 20:25-28

"But Jesus called them to Himself and said, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them. Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave—just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.""

In Matthew 5:5, Jesus says, "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth."

So if Jesus, who was God, commended submission and meekness, why do we resent and fight back against it, in any of its many forms? Well, the big answer is that we are full of sin, but more specifically, I think, it's because we are full of PRIDE.

And the culture that we, as post-modern Americans, live in, encourages us to be filled to the brim with the nastiness of pride. I know, because I am naturally a very prideful person. By the grace of God, I can say that I have been sanctified a great deal in this area, but believe me, I understand this particular sin from the inside, out.

This pride tells us that we don't have to submit. That submission somehow is shameful and weak and 'less-than.' That it ain't fair, and that the people we are called to submit to certainly don't deserve our submission.

But contrast all of that "wisdom" with the true wisdom of Jesus. Jesus submitted to Mary and Joseph as His earthly parents, even though He was God. Jesus submitted to the government that he lived under, even though they only held power at His good pleasure. Ultimately, Jesus submitted to a gross and horrible death on the cross, at the hands of people who certainly hadn't done anything to deserve His submission. And He always acts in perfect submission to the will of the Father, with whom He is an equal.

So the next time your mind goes down the rabbit trail of pride, the next time you are tempted to think of submission in a negative light, consider Jesus, and consider it a glory to share with Him in submission, that you might be exalted by Him in due time.

1 Peter 5:5

Likewise you younger people, submit yourselves to your elders. Yes, all of you be submissive to one another, and be clothed with humility, for "GOD RESISTS THE PROUD, BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE."

Submission of the Gut Wrenching Variety

And just so you know, I'm not talking about husbands and wives in this post. Although I could, cause, boy, is that fertile ground for the topic of submission. But, nope, I'm going to be talking about Jesus.

There are times when we read Scripture and it is just kind of, well...a thing to get through. I have those mornings just like the rest of you.

And then, there are those days when you see something in the text that makes the hair on your arms stand up and your gut suck in a deep breath. I had one of those moments a few days ago.

Most of you are probably familiar with the story of Jesus being arrested by the mob of thugs in the Garden of Gethsemane. It's a Bible story that we church-grown folks grew up hearing. Maybe we even heard it so often that we got kind of casual and flippant about it. Sometimes reading it afresh divulges a gem that is so astounding we can't believe we've MISSED IT all these years!

Let me set the stage a little bit for you and then see if I can wrangle the same WOW out of you that I experienced.


Jesus was a perfect man. He was also fully a man. However, unlike any of us, He was also fully God. The theological term for this seeming contradiction is hypostatic union. And as God in the flesh, Jesus had at His disposal all of the power of God. As a man, who walked around on the earth and felt human needs like hunger and fatigue, He was also the same God who created the heavens and the earth by speaking words. Now, I should be able to stop typing at this point and just leave you with that thought. Because, honestly, if that doesn't make you go, "Whoa," then you haven't thought about it long enough, or deep enough.

But there is more. Jesus, as God, also had at His disposal command and control of the angels. Far from the chubby babies with feathery wings of our popular culture, angels are actually pretty fearsome things. Think of the angel that swept through Egypt and killed all of those first born sons before Pharaoh agreed to let the Israelites go. And that was just the work of one lonely angel. Imagine the power that Jesus had at His command as a man who could call down the power of all the angels in heaven at his whim.

NOW, imagine Jesus as He is praying in the Garden, just hours and moments before He knows He will die a humiliating, painful and horrible death on the cross.

He doesn't really want to go through with it. Now, bear with me here. Jesus is always in perfect, sinless submission to God the Father. But as a human being living in flesh, Jesus the Son had some real anxiety about what was going to happen to Him.

Matthew 26:39

"He went a little farther and fell on His face, and prayed, saying, "O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will but as You will."

Jesus says, I will do your will. But, Father, if it is possible, let there be another way. But there isn't. Jesus must die. There must be atonement for the sins of His children. It has to happen this way.

And so, despite the natural resistance of His human nature, Christ willingly submits to the will of the Father. I say willingly, because nobody ever forced Jesus to do it. He willingly submitted to all of the horrors of the cross and all of the horrors of broken fellowship with the Father as He endured the holy wrath of a holy God in order to redeem OUR lives from the pit of destruction.

As the multitude carrying swords and clubs laid hands on Jesus and arrested Him, Peter couldn't contain himself. You can imagine that they were roughing Jesus up in the process of arresting him. And in reaction, Peter drew his sword and struck off the ear of the servant of the high preist.

It is what Jesus said next that is so astounding.

Matthew 26:52-54

"But Jesus said to him, "Put your sword in its place, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword. Or do you think that I cannot now pray to My Father, and He will provide me with more than twelve legions of angels? How then can the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must happen thus." (emphasis mine)

Did you catch that? The Father will provide angels. Not He might, or He may, or its possible that He will take that into consideration. He will do it. If I ask, He will. If I ask, this whole plan will not be fulfilled, it will not happen.

But Jesus didn't ask. He died on the cross.

And that, girls, is submission of the gut wrenching variety. Wow. Is there anything else to say?

Hebrews 12:2

"looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God."