Submission begins with Christ, head over the universal Church..,
By Jim Lauber
Shared with permission
“But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God.”
1 Corinthians 11:3
Wives Submitting to Husbands:
The Bible teaches wives to,
“submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord” (Col 3:18)
Because,
"just as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands” (Eph 5:24)
“Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord” (Eph 5:22).
“as to the Lord” means a husband cannot make his wife submit to ungodly or sinful practices.
In the Old Testament period,
“this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves, by submitting to their own husbands” (1 Pet 3:5)
Submitting to God
When we submit to authorities, we are actually submitting to God (Rom 13:6)
But our first obligation is to be in submission to God as even “the church submits to Christ” (Eph 5:24a)
Within the church
We should,
“Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ” (Eph 5:21)
“In the same way, you who are younger, submit yourselves to your elders. All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble” (1st Pet 5:5).
Before we were saved, we did not submit to the laws of God,
“For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law” (Rom 8:7)
Without the Spirit of God,
“being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness” (Rom 10:3)
Conclusion
To avoid sinful practices, believers are told,
“Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (James 4:7)
Because,
“The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent” (Acts 17:30)
So the person who repents and trusts in Christ must submit their lives to God and agree to be placed under His authority.
In Christ alone