WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO SUBMIT TO ONE ANOTHER IN EPHESIANS 5? by Daniel Darling for Core Christianity
Giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ (Ephesians 5:20-21).
It was a simple gesture, but it caught me by surprise. My wife and I were seated, at an outdoor wedding for a mutual friend, when a colleague of ours, named Bobby, interrupted the conversation we were having. Bobby stood up and announced: “Jeff and Chelsea are back there with their baby and there are no more seats. I’m going to find another seat so they can sit down.
There were no more seats so Bobby stood the entire ceremony so a much younger colleague could sit with his young baby and enjoy the wedding. It was a simple sacrifice in an otherwise ordinary day but it exemplified a life given to the welfare of others.
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This kind of self-forgetfulness is what I think Paul is referring to in an often debated passage in Ephesians 5 when he says that brothers and sisters in the Lord should “submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” The passage is preceded by an exhortation to live in a state of continual gratitude and worship of Christ. The chapter is in a book that, in rich and beautiful language, describes our status as adopted, redeemed, and rescued heirs of grace.
So submission to each other—setting aside our preferences and comforts—should then be an outflow of the grace that is working its way through our hearts. Worship and sacrifice always go together in ways that make putting others first more reflex than rigor. This is why my colleague didn’t think twice about giving up his seat to a friend in need. He submitted his preference—to sit down at a wedding next to his wife—to the immediate need of another. Meditating on God in worship makes you grateful for his good gifts, which allows you to hold what you have loosely in order to freely give it in service to those around you.
This, really, is what submission is. We put our brothers and sisters first in biblical community “out of reverence for Christ.” If we are his body, to serve another is to give to Christ and to hurt and injure another is to injure Christ. This is why we cannot separate vertical piety from horizontal love. 1 John 4:20 reminds us that if we don’t love our brothers, we don’t love God.
