Mutual submission is about submitting to God by submitting to God’s design for that particular relationship. In the verses following Ephesians 5:21, we see that the wife is to submit to her husband, and the husband is to serve his wife. For the wife, to support her husband is to submit to God’s design. For the husband, to serve his wife is to submit to God’s design.

Godly submission carries the idea of voluntary yielding in love. And everywhere you see a call to submission, you also see a call to service, and a command to be righteous in your dealings. It is about Christians mutually serving each other and a readiness to give precedence to others (Philippians 2:3-4). For example, the strong must not neglect the weak, and the weak must respect the strong. The rich must support the poor, and the poor must give thanks to God for the rich. In each of these pairs, both members are exhibiting mutual submission, though in different ways.

Christ and the Church have a mutually submissive relationship. The Church submits to the rule of Christ, and Christ served the interests of the Church (Ephesians 5:25-27). But in Ephesians 5:22-24, wives are explicitly told to submit to their own husbands. This command is not repeated for husbands, who are told instead to love their wives. But this, again, IS mutual submission.

Obedience is about our actions toward authority, while submission is about our attitude toward authority. When thinking about marriage and submission, I have found it helpful to think of submit as support. To submit is to support. Rather than simple obedience, submission is helpful and encouraging in its approach to authority. And to serve is also to submit, to submit to God’s design for your authority as a leader, which will include self-denying, sacrificial service.

Women are required to submit to their husbands. That doesn’t mean the man is to rule as a tyrant, or that she has no say. No, the man and the woman should be consulting one another on most everything. And many times, the husband should defer to the wife’s judgment if she feels more strongly about a situation than he might. It is wise to listen to your wife and foolish not to listen to your wife. Of course, you may have a foolish wife. Or your wife may desire to do something that you know is foolish. So, yes, man, you have to make that judgment call. But there are times when that call is to value her judgment of things above your own.

Yes, there is submission as in obeying the person in authority. But too many times those who are called to submit, as well as those who are called to lead, see submission as one person “ruling” over another, instead of seeing it as one person as the quarterback, and the other as a running back, or receiver, etc. You see, there is the idea of submission as in being forced. And then there is the idea of submission as in allowing. Submission to each other is about lovingly and self-sacrificially yielding to and serving one another. Submission to someone else starts with submission to God. And mutual submission means for one person, submitting to someone else’s authority, and to the other, submitting to serving someone else under your authority. This biblically based mutual submission makes for the true flourishing of freedom and virtue. It comes from a place of willing submission to God, and it is not based in an outward conformity produced by fear and force.

So, what is Paul saying in Ephesians 5:21 and following? The context of vs.21 is vs.18-20. Believers are commanded to be filled with the Spirit, and then Paul describes what that filling looks like: speaking, singing, and making melody (vs.19), giving thanks (vs.20), and submitting to each other out of a sense of awe and adoration for the Lord (vs.21).

The problem is mutual submission can be difficult to visualize. What does mutual submission look like in daily life? So, Paul illustrates it using three pairs of relationships that involve an order of authority. For wives, mutual submission looks like submitting to their own husbands as to the Lord (vs.22‑24). For husbands, mutual submission looks like loving their wives as their own bodies and as Christ loved the church (vs.25‑33). For children, mutual submission looks like obeying and honoring your parents (Ephesians 6:1‑3). For fathers, mutual submission looks like not provoking their children to wrath but bringing them up with godly nurture and instruction (6:4). For servants, mutual submission looks like obeying sincerely (6:5-8). For masters, mutual submission looks like treating servants humanely and kindly (6:9). Ephesians 5:21 does teach mutual submission. But mutual submission doesn’t overrule authority structures. Ephesians 5:21‑6:9 shows mutual submission within the context of authority structures.

In Christian marriage, God is drawing a picture of his character, promises, and redemptive work in the world. We don’t always see that represented very well, and maybe we haven’t upheld that picture very well, but it is true nonetheless. It’s revealed in Ephesians 5:31-32, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.”

Marriage is a portrait of the marriage of Christ to his Church, which means that marriage is all about the gospel. Marriage is not ultimately about relational fulfillment or sexual fulfillment or procreation. All of those wonderful things are tied up in it, but the ultimate purpose of marriage is to serve as a portrait of the eternal marriage of Christ with his bride, the Church.

The covenant of marriage and the marriage bed are pictures of Jesus and his covenantal faithfulness and their eternal wedded bliss. Our future and eternal hope is rooted in his unwavering faithfulness. The man leads, loves, and serves his wife because that is how Christ gives himself to his bride. And the wife respects, submits to, and helps her husband, because that is how the Church follows the risen Lord Jesus. Jesus and his bride cherish and adore each other.