Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Genesis. This is study #23 of Genesis, chapter 3 and we are continuing to look at Genesis 3:16:

Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.

We have been spending some time looking at the marriage relationship that God established and the authority structure He laid out within the marriage. It is found in many places. We were looking at Ephesians, chapter 5, but the Lord speaks of a chain of command in 1Corinthian, chapter 11. This is an important thing we find everywhere in the Bible – things are to take place in an orderly way. God is a God of order. He is not a God of confusion. We read in 1Corinthians 11:1-3:

Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ. Now I praise you, brethren, that ye remember me in all things, and keep the ordinances, as I delivered them to you. But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.

So even within the Godhead there is order. God is one God and, yet, He is three Persons and of the Person or Being of God He says, “And the head of Christ is God.” It was God the Father that sent the Son into the world and it was the Lord Jesus Christ that humbled Himself, as we read in the Book of Philippians. I am going to read it because it has everything to do with the Lord Jesus Christ submitting Himself to the commands of the Father. It says in Philippians 2:4-8:

Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

He humbled Himself in submission to the commandments of God. The Father sent Him into the world and He entered into the world born of the Virgin Mary. He lived as a child and grew as a child, submitting to His earthly parents, His mother and stepfather. He submitted Himself to the government of Israel in all things lawful, and so forth. All through His life on earth He did the will of God, including being “obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.”

Jesus is our example and that is the mind that each child of God should have. This mind of Christ ought to be our minds. It is a mind in submission and humble before God.

When we look at any area of society, it only functions in a right way when there is submission, in subjection one to another, as we have seen in regard to the home. The husband is to rule in the house and the wife is to be subject to her husband and the husband is to be subject to God. The children are to be in submission to their parents and the parents rule over them, not roughly, but with love and kindness.

Let us also go to Romans, chapter 13. We saw a similar verse in 1Peter, chapter 2 in our last study, but this says it very plainly. It says in Romans 13:1:

Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.

It would save a good number of people a lot of grief if they would stop fighting against the government and concerning themselves with the things the government is doing and protesting against the government, and so forth. They should realize that the powers that be are ordained of God. That goes for presidents, kings and dictators and every ruler that has ever ruled, whether it was a good king like Josiah or an evil king like King Nebuchadnezzar. The powers that be are established and ordained by God, ultimately. In fact, there is no power but of God and that means that the power that is set up in any nation is ordained by God. If it is China and it is a Communist government, is that outside the will or ordinance of God? No – it was ordained by God. Or, if there is a nation with an evil dictator that rules ruthlessly over the people, it was ordained by God. Or, if there is a democracy or some other type of government, all have been established and ordained by God. There is no power anywhere in any country that is ruling that is not by the will of God.

Therefore, the Bible says, “Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers.” There is that word “subject” again and it is a word that people kick against. It is a word that people do not like. Wives do not like to submit to their husbands. Children do not like to submit to their parents and honor them. People do not like to submit to their government. If the government says to go 35 mph in this zone, they want to go 45 mph. If the government says they have to pay so much in taxes, they want to avoid it, and so forth. There is a lack of submission in every area that God has established the authority structure. God has established the laws that rule in the house and the government. Is it coincidental that people do not want to submit in the specified areas in which God has commanded them to be in submission? No – it is not a coincidence in any way. It is very intentional. It is the fallen nature of man to rebel and to refuse to do what God has commanded. If God says the wives are to submit to their husbands, they do not want to submit. If God says to submit to the government and be subject to the higher powers, they do not want to do that either. They want to get a movement going and rebel on some point of law. It is the natural tendency of fallen man to resist the higher powers, but notice what God says in Romans 13:2:

Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God…

Because God has given the power to the government, the government then has the authority to set the law. Again, let us use traffic laws as an example. They have the power to set the traffic laws and it in no way conflicts with the supreme Law of God in the Bible. They are not doing anything contrary to the Bible by laying down a particular traffic law. A man might break a law by going the wrong way on a one-way street. And some people do things like this intentionally. I live on a circle where the traffic goes one way and people tend to turn down it the wrong way because their driveway is close by and they do not want to drive all the way around the circle, so they drive the wrong way and pop into their driveway, but they have broken the law. When the government sets a law, God supports them in lawful laws and He says that when you resist their ordinance, you resist the ordinance of God. God gave them that power. Then it goes on to say that they that resist will receive to themselves damnation.

When we look at society as a whole we find that “submission” is key for a society to function properly and for the world to function in a good way and there can be peace and prosperity and some degree of happiness. The home can function better and the home is the building block of a society. All the homes are beneath the government and the homes have their own set of laws that God has given them. He has given all the households the law of the government and they are to be in submission to that. It says in 1Peter 5:5-7:

Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble. Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time: Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.

God says to “submit,” the younger to the elder. We do not see that any longer today in America and in many other lands, but down through time there had been respect for elders that was shown by younger people. This was a proper and right thing. The younger people ought to submit themselves unto the elders. Even in that area, it goes beyond the family. The family has its own structure and guidance, but if you are a young man and you step out of your home and you go out into the society, God has guidelines for you there, also.

When you go to work, the Lord also addresses that situation in Ephesians 6:5-7:

Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ; Not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart; With good will doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men:

You are to serve your masters and today that would mean that you would go to your work and you are in submission to your bosses. You are working heartily as to the Lord because that is who you are really serving, but the Lord says you are to obey your masters or supervisors or bosses or managers. If they tell you to do something, you “jump to it” and you go about doing it as best as you can because for the child of God it should always go back to the idea of obeying the Lord. In every area of life God commands “submission” and people do not like it. They do not like it in the home. The children do not like it. The wife does not like it. The husband does not like what he is told to do. The younger people do not like to submit to elders and their attitude is as if they are saying, “Well, what do they know?” Today workers do not like the idea of submitting to the authorities within their workforce and you will find the workers gossiping and criticizing the boss and speaking badly about upper management, and so forth.

It is a lack of submission that reveals a lack of humility and a lack of obedience to God on practically every level of society. It is no wonder that everything is a mess. It is no wonder that the marriage institution is in shambles. God lists the sins that will be in evidence at the time of the end and in that context he says of children, in Romans 1:29-30:

Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,

Children are disobedient to parents. The marriage institution is a mess. People despise government. They do not want to listen or obey the ordinances of the government, even though God has set the government up and, therefore, obedience to the government is obedience to God. In point, after point, after point, there is a complete lack of submission from one to another. That is because there is no humility. No one is humble, as the Spirit of Christ demonstrated humility in submitting Himself to the will of God. Now the world is casting off the Word of God and they are casting off the commandments of the Bible. They cannot function properly because everything is “jammed up” due to there being resistance. The younger do not submit to the elder. The worker does not want to submit to the supervisor and the people do not want to submit to the government. There is nothing but disputes and turmoils and arguments. And, of course, it is all due to man’s pride and arrogance. Man thinks he knows better (than God) and he will not live his life as someone that submits because he is too proud and lofty for that. He is too “high and mighty” to submit in these others. If the government says to drive 55 mph, he will go 75 mph. There is resistance in all these areas because man is at enmity with God and he is resisting God, ultimately, and that is what it says in Romans 8:6-7:

For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.

Here is the same word that was translated as “submit” that was used where God says the wife is to submit to her husband in Ephesians, chapter 5. The carnal mind is at constant enmity or warfare against God. It is fighting God and always resisting the ordinance of God. What God wants, it does not want because it is “carnal” and “fleshly” and not spiritual and, therefore, it is not in submission to the Law of God and it cannot be. But this is not true for the one God has saved because God has changed that person and the Spirit of Christ indwells him. They have that spirit of Christ we read about in Philippians, chapter 2:5-8:

Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

Christ submitted and became obedient to all that the Father commanded for Him to do. In 1Peter, chapter 3 God speaks to the wives and tells them to be subject to their husbands and then He mentions “the hidden man of the heart,” and that refers to the Spirit of Christ within the child of God that permits us to be humble. Christ was the humble God/man and the Spirit of Christ is completely obedient to the will of the Father, so if the Father’s will is for the wife to submit to her husband and for the man to bear rule in the home, then the “hidden man of the heart” will direct the child of God to submit to her husband. If it is a child God has saved, he also has the Spirit of Christ within and, like Jesus submitted to His parents, he will submit and honor his parents in all things lawful. All of God’s people that go to their workplace will submit to the authority structure and as they live in their land, they will submit to the government that God has set up and they will live at peace. They will have peace in the home and they will have peace in the workplace and peace with others, to a large extent. They will be operating as they should and as God commands all man created in His image to do, but it is the true believers that operate in a proper way and, therefore, they shine forth as lights in a crooked and perverse generation.