Submission is Christ

God has blessed me by allowing me to go to Seminary and to learn a lot of things about Him. i have been convicted recently to write more about what i am learning...here is one of the really cool things i recently read.

These are some quotes from Bruce Ware's book "Father, Son & The Holy Spirit"... "There is an ordering in the Godhead, a "built-in" structure of authority and submission that marks a significant respect in which the Persons of the Godhead are distinguished from one another. Surely, they are not distinct in essence, for each shares fully the identically same divine nature. Their distinction, rather, is constituted, in part by taxis (which Ware describes as) "the ordering of Father, Son and Holy Spirit within the Godhead" ...Intrinsic to God's own nature is a fundamental taxis, and He has so designed creation to reflect His own being, His own internal and eternal relationships, in part, through created and designed relationships of taxis."

Ware had just recently quoted 1 Corinthians 11:3 which says, "But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God." Then he said, "Without question, the Son stands under the authority, or, if you will, the headship of the Father."

See...I see a gaping lack of authority in our culture. I see people who should take authority--they shun it. I see people who should submit to authority--they shake it off and rebel. "This is not the way you learned Christ!" No, intrinsic to the Godhead is structure: authority and submission. Not only are men supposed to submit to God, God Himself--God the Son, submits...willingly submits...to God the Father. And Paul, in 1 Corinthians 11, uses this illustration of the Son submitting to the Father as an example of how we as humans should submit to each other. God has built-in to humanity and human relationships a structure of authority. This is not something "man" as put on "woman" or "masters" have put on "slaves". No, this is something the Son has willingly submitted to...He willingly submitted to the Father. And He asks that we follow His example.

Ware goes on to explain this very excellently, and I won't make this a longer blog post by quoting more and more of him, but it was incredible and eye-opening to see that God the Son willingly (and not just while He was on earth, but even from eternity past and into eternity future, as Ware proves from Scripture) submits to the Father. And this is not just a fact that we learn about Him. This characteristic is what makes Him the Son. For, how else is God the Son different than God the Father besides in His submission? He is not different in His power, His knowledge, His wisdom or in any of His attributes. The only distinction between the Son and the Father is His submission. This is what makes the Son the Son. The authority of the Father is what makes the Father the Father. These characteristics are essential. And for us to shun authority, or to rebel against it, is to rebel against who God is. It is to rebel against the image of God in us. He has imparted to us authority and submission. We would do well to accept these positions gladly, as a way to reflect Him.