In like manner, you married women, be submissive to your own husbands (subordinate yourselves as being secondary to and dependent on them, and adapt yourselves to them), so that even if any do not obey the Word (of God), they may be won over not by discussion but by the (godly) lives of their wives. – 1 Peter 3:1, AMP

In reaching understanding on any matter, context and premise are everything. A lot of the discussions about submission in marriage miss this fundamental point. The only context in which the idea of submission merits any discussion is actually among believers: mankind (the natural man) is intrinsically self-seeking, and to ask someone who is not regenerated to be other-oriented is simply futile. 

The only context in which the idea of submission merits any discussion is actually among believers: mankind (the natural man) is intrinsically self-seeking, and to ask someone who is not regenerated to be other-oriented is simply futile. 

It is proper to underscore that a regenerated person is not merely someone who has given mental assent to the idea of salvation – everyone is ‘born again’ these days. The apostle Peter here speaks to those in whose hearts the Holy Spirit has been at work. (Dear friends, God the Father chose you long ago and knew you would become his children. And the Holy Spirit has been at work in your hearts… 1 Peter 1:2, TLB). It is to this category of believing women, who have given the Holy Spirit free reign to work in their hearts that the instruction to submit can resonate. To all others, it is an impetuous and odious assault on self (That innate desire to pursue and promote one’s own desires).

It is to this category of believing women, who have given the Holy Spirit free reign to work in their hearts that the instruction to submit can resonate. To all others, it is an impetuous and odious assault on self (That innate desire to pursue and promote one’s own desires).

But even among such believing women, the idea of submission in marriage can still be a very strenuous test of faith. Some men are just scum. Still, the Lord apparently has great confidence in what the Holy Spirit is able to accomplish, for He instructs that even for Christian women married to “any who do not obey the Word of God (i.e., scum), victory can be won even without a word. All this is however predicated on a somewhat unconventional understanding of the concept of marriage, and it is to that that we now turn our attention.

Eve was not an afterthought

A cursory reading of the account of creation in Genesis may suggest that Eve was an afterthought. A reader may go away with the wrong impression that, after placing Adam in the garden (Genesis 2) God somehow belatedly realized that “it is not good that man should be alone”, and then went on to create Eve. In reality, the reason God said, it wasn’t good for man to be alone in Genesis 2:18, is because, all along he was never created to be alone.  God had originally made them male and female in Genesis 1:27. All along, from the beginning, God’s plan was for Adam to have a partner, together with whom he had then given the blessing and the mandate to multiply and have dominion. So, when we encounter God saying, “it is not good for man to be alone” it is against the backdrop of the fact that he had originally created mankind to start as a couple. God was simply saying, it isn’t good for only half of my plan to be implemented.

Why is this important to know?

If we think of Eve as an afterthought, then we might be tempted to see her only as a contingency plan, and not an integral part of an original master plan. When Adam saw Eve for the first time and exclaimed, “now this is the BOMB! (Bone of My Bones)”, it wasn’t merely adulation, it was a dawning of an eternal truth, only just realized. Actually, Adam and Eve’s marriage was a key part of God’s grand plan for mankind. While making them male and female (Genesis 1:27), blessing them, and instructing them to be fruitful and multiply, God also adds “fill the earth and subdue it”.

When Adam saw Eve for the first time and exclaimed, “now this is the BOMB! (Bone of My Bones)”, it wasn’t merely adulation, it was a dawning of an eternal truth, only just realized.

Subdue?

What’s that doing there? What’s there to subdue (overcome) in pristine Eden, and the earth just created, and declared very good? All the animals were obedient to Adam, and at that time, the earth was yielding its fruit without the sweat of man. What was the opposition to subdue?

In all of that pristine innocence of Eden and it’s first tenants, I can only think of one person that was in opposition – the devil, with his agenda to wrest the tenancy of Eden, and the dominion of the earth from man. It was he that was to be subdued.

Paradise Lost. Paraclete Restored.

Unfortunately, the first Adam (and by extension mankind) lost the first battle. It appeared perhaps like a little skirmish, but the adversary was wily. Thank God however for the second Adam (and by extension all of mankind who accept his Lordship) who completely routed the devil. The battle front had moved from pristine Eden to a parched desert. Mankind had come full circle from the splendour and abundance of God’s providence to a dry wilderness – a fitting metaphor for the wilting and wasting that the devil wrecks with sin.

It was the same old battle plan: the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh and the pride of life, disguised as a skirmish. The villain really has no new tricks. In Eden, he twisted the Word of God, in the wilderness, he quoted them for his own ends. This time though, he was routed and eventually vanquished… “And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it.” (Colossians 2:15)

Christ has won the victory, and handed us the authority to enforce it, and having sealed us with the Holy Spirit “we are not ignorant of the devices of the enemy” (2 Corinthians 2:11).

Or are we?

Christ has won the victory, and handed us the authority to enforce it, and having sealed us with the Holy Spirit “we are not ignorant of the devices of the enemy” (2 Corinthians 2:11).

Marriage as Warfare

Sad to say, but even among believers who supposedly have the Holy Spirit, there can be an unbelievable amount of ignorance about the devil’s devices regarding marriage. Too often, we divorce the idea of subduing (warfare) the earth from marriage as expressed in Genesis 1:27, and when we do think of marriage as warfare, it is unfortunately an internecine war fought, sadly to the enemy’s glee.

Now we find that what is rendered “multiply, fill the earth and subdue it” in Genesis, the psalmist renders in more direct and graphic phrasing as:

“Children are a gift from God; they are his reward. Children born to a young man are like sharp arrows to defend him. Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them. That man shall have the help he needs when arguing with his enemies.” – Psalm 127:3-5, TLB

What God says in Genesis 1:27, he reiterates through Psalm 127:3-5, Genesis18:19 (For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment) and Malachi2:15 (You were united to your wife by the Lord. In God’s wise plan, when you married, the two of you became one person in his sight. And what does he want? Godly children from your union).

From the foregoing it becomes evident that we don’t just get married and have kids because we fell in love. We do it because it is a key strategy for establishing godliness on the earth.

From the foregoing it becomes evident that we don’t just get married and have kids because we fell in love. We do it because it is a key strategy for establishing godliness on the earth.

Mutiny in the Ranks

It is clear that God designed families as ‘fighting units’. “Two”, he says “are better than one, because they get a better reward for their labour” (Ecclesiastes 4:9). To borrow the thought in Deuteronomy 32:30, while one shall chase a thousand, two shall chase ten thousand.

There is a grand mission to subdue the earth; to enforce the victory of the cross, and establish godliness upon earth. In and since creation, man was given the privilege of pioneering this mission. Yet God judged that it was not good that man should pursue the mission alone, because in himself, he was incomplete. The woman (who was created) was then manifested to help with the mission. Now because there is a mission, which pioneering work was given to man, the manifestation of the woman invariably mandated a sub-mission.

Now because there is a mission, which pioneering work was given to man, the manifestation of the woman invariably mandated a sub-mission.

Now where there is a sub-mission, it is clear that the individual carrying the mandate for the sub-mission ought to be in submission to the person with the mandate to pioneer the mission. To suggest that this in any way translates into a commentary on the worth of the two individuals is to say trees are more valuable than soil. Rather than pursue such strenuous and pointless ends, it is sufficient actually to see it simply as the divine order of things.

In one of those portions of scripture that we sometimes wish were not there, Apostle Paul alludes to the breach of that divine order as the cause of that great fall of man.

“Let a woman in quietness learn in all subjection, and a woman I do not suffer to teach, nor to rule a husband, but to be in quietness, for Adam was first formed, then Eve.” –

1 Timothy 2:11-13, YLT

I choose to skirt the topic of women teachers here. I’ll focus for now on why the apostle says he does not permit a woman to rule over her husband. In referring to the order of creation, he reminds us again of that divine order, which speaks not about the relative importance of men to women or soil to trees, but their individual mandates from their creator from whom alone they derive their worth.

With a fighting unit, it is critical not just to the mission, but to the survival of the unit that all members execute their personal mandates. Unfortunately, we are in a great conflict today about the roles of individuals within a marriage. That conflict is a ploy by the enemy to breach the divine order, and again, it is not a new ploy. In verse 14 (and it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman who was led astray and fell into sin) of the same scripture above, the apostle adduces the cause of the fall of man to the breach of the divine order. From the beginning, this has been the strategy of the enemy, to undermine the family (God’s fighting unit) by stoking mutiny within its ranks.

From the beginning, this has been the strategy of the enemy, to undermine the family (God’s fighting unit) by stoking mutiny within its ranks.

Amos 3:3 says that two cannot walk together unless they agree; Mark 3:25 says the corollary: “And if a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand.”

To be continued …