Submission

“But my people did not listen to my voice; Israel would not submit to me.                      Psalm 81:11 ESV

For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot.                                                                                                                       Romans 8:7 ESV

Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.                                                                                         Hebrews 13:17 ESV

In his classic devotional book, The Imitation of Christ, Thomas a Kempis makes the striking observation that our flesh will not submit to us if we will not submit to those in authority over us. This is reminiscent of the comment of C. S. Lewis who suggests that before the Fall, nature was submissive to Adam and Eve. That first pair were able to decide when they would sleep and when they would not, when they would eat and when they would not, etc. But this was only true because they were submitted to the Lord of nature. They imagined that they could still rule nature if they refused their submission to God. But it was not so and has never been so since.

But if our bodies (our flesh) will still dictate to us when we eat and sleep, our “flesh” (our wills) can be brought into submission to our true selves (our souls?) if we will learn to bring ourselves into submission. But how hateful submission is to us. I find it very interesting how carefully we have to tread over those passages in Paul where he commends the submission of wives to husbands. I understand that in our fallen state to submit to another suggests to us that the other must be of greater value than the one submitting, but that is not the case in the Biblical world. We are all of equal value. The issue is the fallen will. Somehow that stubborn refusal to bow must be broken, and every opportunity to bring the will into line ought to be taken, whether in the home or the office or the school. To practice joyful submission to those who in the hierarchies of life are “over” us is to experience a mastery over ourselves that is the key to the Christlike, the holy, life.