Submission in an Autonomous World

Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus … he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name. (Philippians 2:5, 8-9)

          It happens far more frequently than my wife or I would like to think.

          Jennifer will come home exasperated from teaching school, lamenting the fact that not much instruction was accomplished that day. “The students were wild,” she’ll say. “They wouldn’t be quiet, and they wouldn’t listen to me.”

          For the longest time, I assumed the parents weren’t teaching their children basic manners. That might be the case, certainly, in some situations.

          But after reflecting on the Fifth Commandment, I began to wonder if the parents weren’t actively setting a terrible example for their children: teaching them to do one thing (obey their instructor) while doing just the opposite.

          It is remarkable and commendable if you care for and visit your father and mother in their senior years. All too frequently, our seniors are placed into nursing homes and forgotten about completely. The love you show your parents by checking on them often is encouraging in this cold, selfish world.

          Yet Christian, how do you speak of your employer when you’re at home around your spouse and children? How about those in authority, from the president to our mayor or aldermen?

          The Fifth Commandment is, like the others, tremendously inclusive – and if you and I will examine our hearts and lives honestly, we’ll see that our children’s rebelliousness is a direct reflection of our own rebelliousness toward our superiors. And the Lord will not bless our rejection of His authority.

          This morning you and I will examine the root, the requirements and the results of submission to those in authority over us. Christ’s example of submission is our own motivation and empowerment in this endeavor: the more you grow in Christ-like submission to those whom God has placed over you, the greater will be your joy in the Lord.

          You and I first must observe that the root, or basis, of our submission to those in authority over us is found in the triune God Himself.

          Consider the nature of God. The one, true God has revealed Himself to us in His Word as one God in three Persons. The Persons – Father, Son and Spirit – are equal in divine essence, power and glory; they all three are equally God.

          When it comes to the works of creation and of redemption, however, each Person of the Trinity plays a different role. There is a certain order to the working of the Trinity, and from that inter-Trinitarian order you and I derive our understanding of government and of submission to authority.

          Jesus, of course, is equal in essence to the Father and to the Spirit. But when it comes to the work of salvation, Jesus (we’re told in the Gospels) submitted his own will to that of the Father. Recall the awful scene in Gethsemane: Jesus, sweating drops of blood, fell to his knees and – surely mindful of the pains of hell he soon would endure – prayed that “this cup” might pass from him. Here you and I see Jesus’ humanity with stunning clarity. Yet he also prayed, “Nevertheless, not my will but yours be done.” Fully assured of his divine nature and glory, the Second Person of the Trinity humbled himself to the death of the cross, in submission to his Father’s will.

          You’ll note that the second table of the law, which begins with this commandment, deals with how you and I treat our neighbor. (When Jesus summarized the moral law, he divided the Decalogue into two tables: love for God first and love for neighbor second). It’s no surprise this commandment – to honor those God has placed over you – precedes the others: it mirrors the first commandment’s call to worship God alone as our God.

In our world of autonomy, when “I” do whatever “I” think is right, Jesus’ submission to the will of his Father is both humbling and instructive to you and me. Jesus knew God was a God of order, and his very life and ministry reflected the perfect orderliness of the Trinity. Indeed the most-important thing in the world to Jesus was to accomplish the will of his Father through submission to the Father’s authority, and even to man’s authority as derived from the Sovereign Father.

          Can the same be said for you?

          Observe secondly the requirements God makes of you and me in the Fifth Commandment: they are broad and encompass the duties of superiors, inferiors and equals.

          The requirement to submit to God’s authority, and therefore to the intermediate authorities He has placed in your life, runs throughout Scripture. In fact the second commandment God gave to Adam – to not eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil – emphasized the Lord’s authority over man. From that point we see God calling His people to submit to His appointed kings, prophets, Son and servants; St. Peter in his first epistle commands Christians to submit to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake.

          To honor one’s father and mother, and by extension all who are in authority, involves not only obedience to their commands but – as the Westminster catechisms teach us – filial reverence to them as well. To honor your father, mayor or employer, according to Scripture, demands that you submit to his will (“No TV after 9 p.m.”) and that you do so from the heart, not with secret bitterness.

          The New Testament apostles pick up on the moral law of the Old Testament, found here in the Decalogue, and apply it to Christians’ redeemed lives as well. St. Paul several times says children are to obey their parents in the Lord (even quoting the Decalogue in Ephesians 6), and he and St. Peter apply this commandment to your relationships with your employer, with your governmental rulers and with your spiritual elders. This commandment is about more than simply visiting Mama and Daddy once in a while!

          To be sure, as the catechisms enumerate, the Fifth Commandment places requirements on superiors and on equals as well. Just as the Father praised the Son (especially at his baptism: “This is my Son, in whom I am well-pleased; hear ye him”) and provided for Jesus (for instance, by sending angels and the Spirit to minister to him), you and I as parents are to train up our children in the nurture and warnings of the Lord – not to crush their spirits by being oppressive and nagging. Men, as husbands we are to love our wives and to provide for them spiritually and physically, eliciting their submission. As your pastors, we are to be your servants – not your lords.

          Our focus this morning, though, is on the duties each of us owes to those over us in this world. While we are not to submit to any requirement that contradicts God’s law, you and I are to obey our superiors from the heart, “as unto the Lord.” Even when they are evil to us, you and I submit to their authority because we are serving our true Master, Governor and Father in heaven.

          Examine your own heart and life. Wives, do you care for your parents yet think nothing of despising your husbands? Husbands, do you expect your children to obey their teachers yet disparage your own boss in your children’s presence? Do you, parishioners, neglect your membership or, elders, ordination vows in this church because “I don’t like the kind of coffee they buy” or “I never have liked the preacher personally” or “It’s just church, after all?”

          In recent years it became popular to refer to one of our presidents as “Slick Willie.” Regardless of what you thought of the man, how does calling him a disparaging nickname square with the apostolic injunctions to pray for and to honor your rulers?

          The respect, or disrespect, you show those in authority over you is a reflection of how you view God Himself.

          This commandment, thirdly, contains a promise from the Lord: blessings and longevity for those who keep it, so far as God sees fit to grant you such blessings.

          This commandment – given to redeemed Israel – was intended to preserve society and to bear witness to the God of order before pagan peoples. It makes sense that those who honor the aged and obey the laws of the land would, generally speaking, prosper in their lives. It also makes sense that children who disrespect and disobey their parents will grow up to disobey their teachers (and thus learn little or nothing), their employers (and thus be fired) and their leaders in government and law (and thus become liable to prison and to injury). When our children see you and me driving 70 and 80 miles an hour on Highway 63, should we be shocked that they get into life-threatening accidents?

          Recall, though, the unmistakable teaching of Scripture: those who vaunt themselves will be humbled to the dust, and those who hate parents and authority ultimately hate God Himself. Paul says in Romans 1 and in First Timothy that those who reject the one, true God for idols are “haters of parents.” Ham dishonored his father Noah and incurred a curse – the curse due to those who dishonor Noah’s God. In the New Testament, Diotrephes “loved to be first,” wrote St. John. His profession of faith in the Savior might well have been in vain.

          Contrast them with our Lord Jesus Christ, whose submission to the Father procured salvation for you and for me, the faithful, and earned him the Name that is above every Name. Jesus demonstrated that the way of submission was the way of blessing and of supreme joy. Whereas Adam rebelled against authority, supposing himself to be autonomous, the Second Person of the Trinity obeyed his Father and brought life where Adam earned death.

          Whoever exalts himself shall be abased, and whoever humbles himself – in the Lord – will be exalted. This is the fruit of breaking or of keeping the Fifth Commandment.

          Your children come to church to learn about the Lord God, and that’s part of God’s intention for the church.

          But the very first church they’ll ever attend, and the one they attend most frequently, is in your home.

          Your children will see either Eden or Gethsemane, sin or submission, Adam or Jesus, from you every day. As you talk of your employer, your representative, your elders, are your children seeing Jesus the submissive, and victorious, Savior?