What does it mean to submit to one another (Ephesians 5:21)?

Returning to our epistle, we see that another element comes in. When we have them all in order, he says, "Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord." Such is the joy they were to have, "Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ." There are two things - my own will gone, and the perfect certainty of God's love. "Giving thanks always for all things": take away my fortune and I say, "Thank God." It is not easy, and of course the will must be broken; but on the other hand, God makes everything to work together for good to those that love Him. Then you get a spirit of grace, "submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of Christ." It is not submitting to do evil if you want me to do it, but that in faith there is no will. If you want me to do wrong, I cannot do it because it is not God's will, but in everything in which my will is concerned I give way to you. We are to submit to one another in the fear of Christ. It is what sitting in heavenly places produces upon earth. Christ when here, could say He was in heaven, and He is given as our pattern, though to us it is purely by grace.

A particular example is then given which illustrates the principles thus laid down: "And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit; speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ; submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God." (vv. 18-21.) The world's joy expresses itself in a carnal manner; it is mere natural excitement, such as that caused by wine. The believer's is to be in contrast with this. It is not the exhilaration ministered by mere natural causes, but the deeper delight ministered by the Spirit of God. It is one thing to be indwelt by the Spirit, and another to be filled with the Spirit. All believers are indwelt; but how few, alas, are filled! As we have seen in former chapters, the Spirit, though still sealing, may be grieved, and not able to minister either peace or joy. But to be filled with the Spirit is to be under the direct energy of the Spirit's action. It is here put in contrast with the forced, natural mirth caused by wine. In place of this the believer should have the joy and happiness shed abroad in his heart by the Holy Ghost. This will find its suitable outlet in expressions of joy; not the foolish songs of the world, but the psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs in which the heart, filled with the sense of God's goodness, delights to pour forth its feelings. Thanksgiving is as natural to hearts thus tuned as the idle songs of the world are to the heart excited by the world's gaiety and folly.

There is another word added which seems to come in somewhat strangely: "Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God." The mirth excited by wine is quarrelsome and self-assertive; not so the gladness of heart shed abroad by the Spirit. The deep sense of grace which calls forth praise and thanksgiving to God humbles instead of exalting. The fuller the heart is of praise to God the lower it will be in its own esteem, and hence the submission one to another; not indeed out of simple kindness and good-nature, but in the deep sense of the fear of God, which never ceases to fill the heart occupied with His goodness and love.

Verse 21. "Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God." The general exhortation, which has occupied so large a portion of this and the foregoing chapter, is concluded in this verse. Being founded on the doctrine of the unity of the body, it is addressed to the saints in common, as living members of that body, in the edification of which they are both individually interested and personally responsible, according to the measure of the grace bestowed on each (Eph. 4:7, 16). Holding severally to the Head by faith, they were to walk in the power of that grace which both kept them fast in Christ for their salvation and joined them to each other in His love. Above all, it was to be kept in their remembrance that they were God's building and His workmanship. They should submit themselves, therefore, not only to God in their individual relation to Him, but also to one another, in the fear of Him. Christian humility of mind, which takes willingly the lowest room at God's great feast of mercy — conscious of its utter unworthiness of that which it is so freely called to share — yields also a ready precedence to His other guests. If the heart is in its right state, there will always be such a discernment of the Lord in His people as will make deference in love to them an easy and welcome duty. Judging himself in faithfulness, and finding as the result that the description, "least of all saints," suits no man better than himself, the exercised believer will rather put honour on his brethren in the Lord, than seek it for himself. We shall be clothed with humility while God is in our thoughts (1 Peter 5:5-6; Phil. 2:3). Moreover, it is this habitual reference to God that most effectually secures practical Christian fellowship from degenerating in its character to mere ordinary human intercourse. It is in the fear of God that holiness is perfected and spiritual increase is attained.

The third trait of those filled with the Spirit is that they submit themselves “one to another in the fear of Christ.” We ought never to be self-assertive, but ever willing to submit to others. This does not mean that we are to submit to anything that will compromise the holy Name of the Lord, but rather that when no divine principle is involved we do not press our own ideas. Our submission is to be “in the fear of Christ,” which means that we submit with our eye on Him and what secures His honour.

Moreover, if filled with the Spirit, we should be marked by that spirit of lowliness and meekness that would lead us to submit to one another in the fear of Christ, in contrast with the self-importance of the flesh that asserts itself and its liberty to act without reference to the consciences of others.

Finally, we are told to submit to each other "in the fear of God", that is, there is to be no standing aloof from each other, but we are to be happy to be submitting to each other. If you think something, I am happy to go on with it, provided it is the truth of course. We are willing to help, willing to share the exercise, willing to take a low place, willing to think others better than ourselves. It is so easy to say these things, but if we are filled with the Spirit they will be living realities. The Spirit will produce them in our hearts.

Submitting myself to another, means, my accepting and taking a subordinate place under another person's lawful authority over me. Obedience means my behaving and acting according to that place, no matter, whether I am in it by my own choice, or through necessity (by birth, etc.,) by submitting my will to the will of the one, who is in the place of authority over me Submission and obedience, in a natural sense, are not necessarily identical. There may be an outward submission without real obedience. In the Christian sense, both are a matter of the heart as being done to the Lord. "The principle of submission and of obedience," as another has said, "is the healing principle of humanity; only God must be brought into it, in order that the will of man may not be the guide after all. But the principle that governs the heart of man in good, is always and everywhere obedience."

Now, before proceeding, we may just notice, that although the words that head this chapter, refer to all those who are in a subordinate relationship, i.e., wives, children and servants, yet the word "submitting," in our chapter, as well in the other passages of the New Testament, is only applied to wives, but not to children nor servants. The reason is clear. Children, as being born in the subordinate place, and servants, or rather slaves (for in those times, hired servants were unknown) being in the same place either by birth, or purchase, or as prisoners of war, could not be enjoined to accept or take that place, in submitting themselves to their superiors — parents or masters, — because they were already in that place, independently of their own consent. Therefore they are in our chapter exhorted to obey their superiors. It is not so with wives. They have become so by their own free consent; and knowing beforehand the character and relative duties of their place. Therefore they are told to "submit" themselves to their own husbands, and reverence them, according to the place, upon which they have entered with their own full and free consent, as before the Lord, and according to His will, Who has thus united them. Children and servants (or slaves), therefore, are told to obey, whilst submission — and submissiveness — is enjoined upon the wives.

But, as I have said before, the divine injunction: "Submitting yourselves one to another," applies, in a general sense, to all the three classes of subordinate relationships in our chapter. For if children and servants are not enjoined to submit themselves, from the reason stated above, yet they as well as the wives are to behave to their superiors in the spirit of submission, i.e., submissiveness, which characterises true Christian obedience. Thus the exhortation in chap. 5:21, in this sense, applies not only to children, but also to the servants of our days. Therefore, as under grace, and in the spirit of grace, the injunction is general.

The fruits of being filled with the Spirit follow in verses 19 to 21. The heart is filled with gladness which finds a spiritual outlet in song. There is a glad acceptance of all things — even adverse circumstances — with thanks-giving to the Father, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ; and as to our relations with one another the spirit of yieldingness and submission, whilst always maintaining the fear of God. Our submission to one another must not be at the expense of true subjection to Him.

All these detailed exhortations, which have continued from Eph. 4:17, have been applicable to all believers. Now we have the special exhortations, and with verse 22 the apostle turns to the wives. To them the exhortation is comprised in the one word, Submit. This flows naturally out of the general exhortation to submission in verse 21. The difficulty about submission is that it entails the non-assertion of one's own will. But clearly enough in the economy of things, divinely established, for this world, the subject place is allotted to the wife. Her place is typical of the position in which the church stands to Christ. Just as Christ is "Head of the church," all authority and directing ability and power being vested in Him, so the husband is "head of the wife."

We are to serve one another by love. This service is the service of a bondman, just as the Lord Jesus Christ served, and what an example this is for us! You remember in Philippians 2 it says clearly that He took a bondsman's form, served in that way, serving the will of God. Now here as bondsmen we are to serve each other, and we have the example that the Lord Jesus Christ set as He served His God, as He did His Father's will. It is not a case of setting my will against your will or you setting your will against my will, but together we are to submit to each other in the fear of the Lord and seek to love each other in this way. Now I know that we say, 'We cannot do this, there are all sorts of problems and difficulties and trials', but I think we will see in a few moments, thank God, there is power to do this.

I now would direct the reader's attention to the second part of our verse, which tells us that such submission of one to another is to be "in the fear of Christ," For such is the correct reading, and not "In the fear of God," as the common version has it. For all-important as is the fear of God, as not only characterizing the beginning of the work of God in a soul, as in the case of the thief upon the cross, but also as to the Christian's walk in holiness of life (2 Cor. 7:1), it is evident, that in our portion of the Ephesians, as well as in Col. 3 (where we find a similar mistake, viz., the "Peace of God," whereas it ought to read "the peace of Christ") it is the second Person of the Godhead, Christ, the Father's well-beloved, Whom the Spirit of God delights to set in full relief before the eye of faith, as Head of the Church.