If someone were to write a book entitled Therapy of Subjection, no one would buy it, because everyone craves liberation, not subjection.
Actually, no one seems to be satisfied with the current situation in society. On the one hand there are abuses of power, and on the other hand there is disagreement with the role that God assigned to every human being in this creation. Therefore many do not want to submit to anyone on anything, and reject even the sexual identity that God designed for them. Nor do they want to adhere to the social order that God established in Eden, which intends to be re-established in the bond of love.
With this type of longing for individual liberation that is breathed everywhere, there is no home, no church, no government that can eventually survive. In extreme cases, we find people who live alone, completely isolated, because they believe that the world is evil, and that the only solution is to chew bitterness in loneliness. Therefore, in this document, we will deal mostly with the principles of subjection that many neglect in dealing with social problems, but which are required in the Bible for attaining peace and happiness in human society.
God made man to be sociable. After creating him, the Lord said, “it is not good for man to be alone” (Gen 2:18). No one lives for himself, and even after the introduction of sin and death, no one dies for himself. We were created to live in relationship and dependence, first of all with God who made us and to whom we belong, and also with our neighbors (Rom 14:7,8). The isolation and breakdown of human relations was a consequence of sin. But “it was not so from the beginning” (Matt 19:8).
How Was It At First?
There was perfect harmony in the universe for all eternity back in time. The Father loved the Son, the Son loved the Father; the Father loved the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit loved the Father; the Son loved the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit loved the Son. The Trinity is the most extraordinary example that love has always existed, and that love is as eternal as God Himself, because “God is love” (1 John 4:8). By creating living beings in the likeness of God, that bond of love held all the universal creation united. The Trinity itself is revealed as an example and model of such bonding and subjection of love.
How then can we explain that in such a wonderful universe, that bond of love was broken, producing chaos and desolation? This began when an angel discovered how beautiful God had made him (Eze 28:17). As he began to look at himself, it occurred to him that he could go further, and occupy a place for which God did not create him. He wanted to be like God and draw the attention of all creatures to himself, above God (Isa 14:12ff). And to that end, he worked to break the order which God had assigned to all creatures in order to hold together His creation in the bond of love.
That rebellious angel was driven from heaven to prevent the whole universe from being corrupted. But he came to this world and managed to plant the first flag of independence on this earthly creation. The result of his selfish philosophy, which breaks the order of love established by God, is seen in the degradation of this creation, not in a supposed progressive evolution.
“Those who refuse to submit to the government of God are wholly unfitted to govern themselves. Through their pernicious teachings the spirit of insubordination is implanted in the hearts of children and youth, who are naturally impatient of control; and a lawless, licentious state of society results” (GC 584).
“It Was Not So From The Beginning” (Matt 19:8)
So what was it like when God created our first parents?
“Adam was appointed by God to be monarch of the world, under the supervision of the Creator… God gave Eve to Adam as a help-meet” (BEcho, August 28, 1899). “The angels cautioned Eve not to separate from her husband in her employment; for she might be brought into contact with this fallen foe. If separated from each other, they would be in greater danger than if they were together” (ST, January 16, 1879).
Adam and Eve’s strength and happiness could be kept only in mutual dependence and subjection. And as an example of this mutual dependence was the Trinity itself. The Deity revealed that everything God did, He did in common accord: “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness” (Gen 1:26). And God gave Adam a woman so that he could love a fellow being as the three components of the Godhead loved among them. Just as they are “one”, the couple must also become “one flesh” (Gen 2:22-24).
“Adam [not Eve] was monarch in this beautiful domain” (HR May 1, 1873), until he and Eve decided to be free from God’s supervision, and became subject to the rebellious angel. “Having conquered Adam, the monarch of the world, he [Satan] had gained the race as his subjects” (RH February 24, 1874). Promising them freedom, he made them slaves to corruption and to his despotic dominion (Rom 6:16-19; 2 Pet 2:19). See a critical analysis of the first four chapters of Genesis here.
The Need for a Second Adam
Where did E. G. White find in the Bible the view that Adam would be the monarch of this creation? In the Bible, in both testaments (see Gen 1:28). He was created first, before the woman and before his offspring. He was “the first Adam,” according to the apostle Paul, who possessed the “principality” in this earthly creation, the primogeniture of this creation (see Eph 3:10; Col 1:16). This worthy privilege was snatched by the rebellious angel who became the “prince of this world” (John 14:30; 16:11). Thence a “second Adam” had to come, not a second Eve, to recover this principality that the devil had usurped from the first Adam. That second Adam was to become the first-born of this creation, which would recover the inheritance, the first [in importance and category] in being raised up from the dead.
In this context, the first embrace of the two Adams in the New Eden, between the redeemed Adam and the second Adam, the Redeemer, is very meaningful (GC 647-8). Nothing is said in the Spirit of Prophecy about a future meeting between the first Eve and a second Eve. Because “under God, Adam was to stand at the head of the earthly family, to maintain the principles of the heavenly family. This would have brought peace and happiness... When Adam sinned, man forfeited his centrality in the heaven-ordained plan for earth. A demon became the central power in the world” (6 T 236). And the second Person of the Deity decided to come to recover that dignified position of Adam.
Liberation or Subjection?
We live in a Western society that presumes to have achieved the greatest degree of independence and freedom in history. Therefore, therapies offered by non-Christian psychiatrists and psychologists are mostly release therapies. Even many religious individuals who end up entering the realm of politics, promote a “theology of liberation.” If they fight for liberation, it is because they feel that they are still under some degree of oppression. We can all agree that when there is abuse of power, when we are oppressed, a certain kind of liberation is necessary. But in the entanglement introduced by sin in all strata of society, a presumed deliverance is often more damaging than subjection.
Subjection Under Pain
Once sin entered and broke the order of our creation, God approached Adam first, because he had been entrusted with the Garden. As a consequence of his sin, death would pass to all mankind (Rom 5:12). But the Lord comforted the first couple, telling them that they could stay together if they respected the order of creation. Adam would continue being the “head” of the family, although he had lost his principality over all mankind, which would be restored to man by the “second Adam,” “the King of kings and Lord of lords” (Rev 17:14; 19:16; see Mic 4:8). The subjection that had been pleasant for both men and women was now to be often experienced with pain.
Does redemption change the order or design of divine creation that made man head of the wife? God said to the woman: “Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you” (Gen 3:16). The curse had to do with a submission under contention and rivalry, not with a voluntary and happy submission in a Christian context, which brings any couple closer to the Edenic ideal of mutual dependency. The purpose of redemption is to restore the happiness that comes when we are converted to the Lord, and return to the original subjection. E. G. White wrote:
“The husband is the head of the family… and any course which the wife may pursue to lessen his influence and lead him to come down from that dignified, responsible position is displeasing to God. It is the duty of the wife to yield her wishes and will to her husband. Both should be yielding, but the Word of God gives preference to the judgment of the husband” (RH, April 22, 1862 par. 9). “We women must remember that God has placed us subject to the husband. He is the head, and our judgment and views and reasonings must agree with his, if possible. If not, the preference in God’s Word is given to the husband where it is not a matter of conscience. We must yield to the head” (Letter 5, 1861).
“The husband and wife can so blend in labor that the wife shall be the complement of the husband… Through her unselfish interest to advance the cause of God, the wife has made her husband’s work much more complete” (6 MR 43). “I am trying to help my husband bear his burdens…The work was not pleasant to me at first, but I have overcome my dislike for it… I had for a time to study hard and pray much to overcome my weakness of character, and become, in some degree, what a woman should be, a true helpmeet. I desire not to lead into sin, as did Eve [see 1 Tim 2:14]” (14 MR 305.3).
We should be careful not to gloss over that last statement. E. G. White implies that Eve was led to sin when she sought independence, avoiding the fulfilling of her role of serving her husband as “a helpmeet.” She also infers that this is the sin which many modern Eves commit, something that they must and may overcome thanks to redemption.
Subjection and Dependency in the Trinity
The three Persons of the Deity act in common accord, and subject themselves to the decisions made by them in their eternal councils (Zech 6:13; Rom 16:25; 1 Cor 2:7; Eph 3:9; Col 1:26; 2 Tim 1:9). Unlike the rebels, the components of divinity are subject to the law that they themselves determined in the creation of the universe. So that when sin was introduced into this creation,
“the Godhead was stirred with pity for the race, and the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit gave Themselves to the working out of the plan of redemption. In order fully to carry out this plan, it was decided that Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, should give Himself an offering for sin…” (CH 222).
Should this mutual subjection of the three persons of the Godhead change after sin? Were the three Beings who rule the universe to fight among themselves, in their decision to redeem the creation of the breakdown introduced by the rebellion of Lucifer? No! That is why David and the Apostle Paul tell us that God took an oath in establishing their plan of redemption, to show that their plan to redeem humanity is immutable, and from which He will not retract, for it is impossible for God to lie (Psalm 110:4; Heb 6:17,18; 7:21).
The Son does not act on his own, but says and does all that he hears and sees the Father do (John 5:19,30; 8:20; 12:49; 14:10). The Father also restricts Himself to the plan established by the Deity to the point of surrendering his Son to die for all of us (John 3:16-17; Rom 8:32). The Holy Ghost does nothing on its own either. It is the Spirit of Truth, not “the spirit of lie” that introduces a discordant voice in the world, to deceive, as he was an angel of light (1 King 22:22; 2 Thess 2:11-12; 2 Cor 11:14). The Spirit says all that He hears, and fulfills the Father’s decision to send Him into this world at the request of the Son (John 14:26; 15:26; 16:7,13).
This mutual submission of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit to the plan traced in their council, also passed through a crisis. When the time came to be delivered in Gethsemane, the cup of pain the Son was to drink to save mankind trembled in his hands. And when the Son was executed, He cried in anguish from his humanity to the Father, “why have you forsaken me?” (Matt 27:46). Jesus could have called ten thousand angels, to be freed. But His was a responsible, submissive, obedient and unalterable love to the will of the Father, according to the path that the Trinity agreed from the beginning (Heb 5:8; Philip 2:8). What an example of submission and subjection is given us by the Deity!
Subjection and Dependency in the Home and the Church
Today, many psychologists talk about not maintaining what they call “toxic love.” But if the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit had come to the conclusion that their love for us, rebellious children, was a toxic love from which they had to disengage, where would faith and hope be? God would have destroyed this world for a long time, for that was what we deserved.
There are men and women who have endured the burden of home with unfaithful wives and husbands, and their love was not toxic, because they ended up succeeding. They won the hearts of their spouses. The same has happened with parents and husbands who patiently and humbly endured quarrelsome wives and children, where love ended up prevailing.
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails” (1 Cor 13:4-7).
Submission is also required of men and women to the pastors in the church who, as in the Old Testament, were always men (Heb 13:17; see 1 Tim 2:12). They also had to submit to civil authorities (Rom 13:5; 1 Cor 16:16; 1 Pet 2:13)]. The “authority” of men in any context, even in biblical slavery prescribed by God, had boundaries marked more definitely by the Law of God.
[See my book, Jubilee and Globalization (2000), where I show that slavery in the OT had to do with a kind of temporary social security for defenseless people]. Women had authority over women in both Testaments, also required by God (Gen 17:7-10; Titus 2:3-4), and they served the apostle Paul as helpers on his missionary trips (Philip 4:2-3). Noticeable in this context is that E. G. White never claimed “the position of leader of the denomination” (8 T 236-7).
The same order of submission that originated at Creation is the one that God wants to be respected in the church. And since corruption often enters the church with the introduction of people who do not know, or have forgotten the love of God, crises’ occur that require the intervention of a human authority. That authority that God gave in the government of the home and the church corresponded to man. Let us keep in mind that in the Bible, headship is not a curse—as pretended by many—but a dignified position. And when the principles of the gospel are respected, it is a blessing.
It is appropriate to emphasize this truth. It is God who laid down authorities in governments, and requires our submission to such authorities in all that does not force our conscience which, in turn, are to be submitted to the Word of God. It is God who laid down authorities in the church, to which we must submit in all that does not run over the conscience which is always governed by the Bible (1 Cor 12:28; Eph 4:11-12). And it is God who designed man to be the head of his wife, so that his wife should submit to him in everything that did not alter her conscience governed by an “it is written” (Eph 5:22; 1 Pet 3:1). Just as the members of the Godhead submit to each other in the bond of love, so in this world we must also “submit to one another,” trusting in God’s direction (Eph 5:21).
In the next article we will see more clearly the divine order of subjection that God established for the happiness of His creatures, not only in this world, but in the entire universe. There is a chain of submission that we must respect here, if we want to one day enjoy the social order of heavenly creation. Stay tuned for Part 2.
Dr. Alberto R. Treiyer was born in the Adventist community of Libertador San Martín, Entre Ríos, Argentina. Dr. Treiyer is an author, and has a doctoral degree in theology from the University of Strasbourg, France. He has served as the director of the theological department at the Adventist Antillian College in Puerto Rico, where he taught for six years. He has also taught at the University of La Sierra, and Columbia Union College, as well as theology in Costa Rica and Columbia. Alberto is now a retired pastor, giving seminars, and writing books and papers that support our distinctive message.