Bible Truths – “Submitting to Authority”

“We will not have this man to reign over us.”   Luke 19:14

Mankind has always had a problem with authority.  From the moment a little child learns the word “No” up until our last breath, we don’t naturally enjoy being under another’s authority.  This extends even to submitting ourselves to the authority of our Maker.  Psalm 2 describes the rulers of our world and their attitude against the Godhead when they say, “Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.”  Mankind does not want to be shackled under the authority of another.  We want to be our own ruler.  However, as Christians, we are commanded otherwise.  We are to be a people that willingly submit ourselves to the authority of others.

A Christian child is told to “Obey your parents in the Lord” (Eph 6:1).  They are to “be in subjection” (I Tim 3:4) to their father and mother.  Christian wives are told to “submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord” (Col 3:18).  Christian employees are commanded to “be subject to your masters” (I Pet 2:18).  Younger Christians are to “submit yourselves unto the elder” (I Pet 5:5).  In our churches, we are to “obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves” (Heb 13:17).  In our daily lives we Christians should not be striving to exert our dominance over one another, but should be “submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God” (Eph 5:21).  Regarding the civil authorities that make the laws and enforce them in our nation, we are told, “Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers” (Rom 13:1) and to always remember to “be subject to principalities and powers, and to obey magistrates” (Titus 3:1).  That seems like a lot of “obedience”, “submission”, and “subjection”, does it not?

It is not in our fallen nature to desire to submit ourselves to anybody else.  We can easily understand the anger of Joseph’s brothers when they told him, “Shalt thou indeed reign over us? Or shalt thou indeed have dominion over us?”.  The Bible says that Joseph’s brothers “hated him yet the more”  (Gen 37:8)   for implying that they would be subject unto him. 

None of this submitting, subjecting, and obeying makes much sense unless we have first submitted ourselves to the Lord of the Universe.  The Bible says “Submit yourselves therefore to God.” (James 4:7)  This is where mankind really has a problem.  The Bible describes the Jewish people and many others with the same attitude that “go about to establish their own righteousness, and have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.” (Rom 10:3).  It all begins with submitting to the authority of God.  He is our Maker.  He is the Lord of all.  It is to Him that every soul will “give an account” (Rom 14:12).  We can bow before Him now, submitting ourselves to His authority now, or we will do it later.  “Every knee shall bow to me…” (Rom 14:11), says the Lord.

Once we have submitted ourselves to God, calling upon Him to save us from our sins, we become a child of God.  Now, and only now, do all the submission, subjection, and obedience make sense.  We are to submit ourselves to others, “as unto the Lord”.  We submit to others because He has told us to.  We obey others for His glory.  We put ourselves under the subjection of others “knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance: for ye serve the Lord Christ” (Col 3:24).  May we as believers shun the dominance-seeking ways of the world instead embracing and following the ways of our Lord Jesus Christ, who “being in the form of God…made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant…humbled himself and became obedient unto death” (Php 2:6-8).

Pastor Lee Smith