Submission is a dirty word in 2022.
In reality, I think there’s something in our human hearts that is timelessly offended by the idea of submitting ourselves to someone or something outside of ourselves. Particularly in independence-loving America, the idea of submission goes completely against our natural tendency.
But according to Scripture, our role in the universe is one of submission to God and even to each other (Ephesians 5:21).
How do we embrace this call to submission?
Counting the Cost
There’s a couple principles here that we must hold in tension.
First, we know from Scripture that all knees will bow to Christ.
For it is written, “As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.”
Romans 14:11
While this final submission is inevitable, God does not force us to our knees in this moment. For now, we have the choice to submit or to reject God’s authority in our lives. Rejection brings with it terrible consequences and submission brings glorious joy but the choice remains.
God invites and calls us to submit. He does so while making the cost clear.
Hear, O daughter, and consider, and incline your ear: forget your people and your father’s house,
Psalm 45:10
In Psalm 45, the celebration of the Messianic King’s wedding, the psalmist describes the submission of the Bride to the King. But before he does, he calls her to consider the cost of her commitment. He tells her three times: hear, consider, incline your ear. He wants her to carefully weigh the cost of submission (and the reward of submission in v. 12).
If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.
Luke 14:26-33
In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus speaks at some length about the cost of following Him. And here He also encourages a careful counting of the cost.
Jesus does not manipulate us into submission with false advertising. He lays out the cost before us quite plainly, inviting us to examine the costs and the rewards of submission.
The Rewards of Submission
While there is great cost to submitting to God’s authority – cost to our control and independence – there is also great reward.
First, we enjoy the reward of living in a world that has been ordered rightly. When God is in His rightful place in our lives, and we are in ours, we are living in the world as it was created to be.
Second, the Bible tells us that when we humble ourselves and submit, we will be exalted.
Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
James 4:10
It is good to be exalted. Sometimes, as Christians, we can swing too far to an extreme and believe that it is wrong to be exalted. But as James points out, God Himself exalts us. So it cannot be wrong to be exalted. It is when we attempt to exalt ourselves that we do wrong.
Psalm 45 also draws our attention to this submission-exaltation connection.
The people of Tyre will seek your favor with gifts, the richest of the people.
Psalm 45:12
The Bride is exalted to a place of honor and high position due to her submission to the King. Likewise, our submission to our King will yield us a beautiful position at His right hand as His Bride.
Finally, submission yields joy. It frees us from the responsibility to control and direct our own lives. It allows us to live in grace. And when we truly submit with joy, we find that our rightful purpose gives our soul a home.
I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart.
Psalm 40:8
Our Perfect Example
We are not left to follow the call of submission blindly. We have the Word of God to guide us. And we have Jesus Christ Himself as our example.
Christ submitted to His Father perfectly.
So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.
John 5:19
I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me.
John 5:30
In the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus submits to the will of His Father (Luke 22:42).
And it is only through Jesus’ perfect obedience to His Father that we can even enjoy fellowship with Him. Furthermore, His obedience and submission provides us with a perfect example of what submission should look like.
The choice remains ours: will we count the costs and embrace the rewards? Or will we insist on our own authority, suffering the consequences of living in an upside-down world of our own making?