Church Order - Submit Yourselves One to Another

Don't let your assembly earn this warning.

Eph 5:15-21

¹⁵ See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, ¹⁶ redeeming the time, because the days are evil.
¹⁷ Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. ¹⁸ And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit, ¹⁹ speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, ²⁰ giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, ²¹ submitting to one another in the fear of God.

Over the years I’ve struggled to understand what “Church Order” is and what the implications of it are in the assembly I am joined with, and in my own life; perhaps you have too. Church order is established and maintained through submission; submission to the will of the Father, to the Lordship of Christ, to the promptings of the Spirit, to the revelation of Scripture, to the leaders of the local assembly and each believer one to another.

Having served for 20 years in the Canadian Forces I understand a thing or two about submission. From the outside the Church can look like a military, but this view is not accurate. It looks like we have a Great High General in God, and then various ranks down through to the individual soldier in the pew – but this is not how God has organized His Church. In a military organization one is submitted to a person of higher rank because of that higher rank’s authority over the lower rank. In the Church, the people who might be seen as having a higher rank are actually gifts to the people who might be seen as lower ranks; at least from a cursory look from the outside. In a military the higher ranked person is responsible for the wellbeing of the lower ranked person, and at least this much is the same in the Church – but in the military this is again a function of authority. The higher ranked person can impose their will on the lower ranked person, so they are ultimately responsible for imposing that will in a proper way. In the Church the higher ranked person has great influence on the lower ranked person – not imposable authority, but spiritual influence.

Have you ever heard people joking about not wanting to give to charities? They may say “Charity starts at home!” It’s a play on words, abusing the notion that giving should be a foundation of our lives to make it be about ensuring our own homes are prosperous before we give to anyone else. That concept is funny to the world, and rightly offensive to the mature Christian. However, submission does start at home – or with one’s own person.

In the Church we submit ourselves one to another. In a military the higher rank imposes their will, and those below must submit to it. This isn’t submitting one’s self to the higher rank, it is capitulating to their will. When we submit ourselves it is exactly that, people deciding to and willingly submitting to someone else. When someone actually out ranks me, has more power, has more authority, then I am submitted by their power and I can only surrender or capitulate. This is not how the Church is organized.  Eph 5:21 finishes Paul’s immediate thought with the words “submitting to one another in the fear of God.”  Willingly submitting ourselves one to another is actually submitting, or even capitulating to the will of the Lord Eph 5:17. I submit myself to each other believer as a wilful act of my own, based only on my own relationship with Christ – not based on the other believers whatsoever. I also am not to require any be submitted to me, I am only to be focused on my own submission.

Eph 4 makes it clear that the gifts given to each believer and most specifically the giving of people to hold offices in the Church are an explicit operation of the Lordship of Christ. 

Eph 4:7-16 

⁷ But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift. ⁸ Therefore He says:
      “ When He ascended on high,
      He led captivity captive,
      And gave gifts to men.”

⁹ (Now this, “He ascended”—what does it mean but that He also first^[c] descended into the lower parts of the earth? ¹⁰ He who descended is also the One who ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things.)
¹¹ And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, ¹² for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, ¹³ till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; ¹⁴ that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, ¹⁵ but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ— ¹⁶ from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.

Verses 7 – 9 explains the basis for His giving gifts being that He is God – He alone has descended and ascended, He is Lord.

Verses 11 – 12 tell us why He gave us these people to hold offices; for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for edifying the body of Christ. And for how long; for as long as we are here in our bodies and not in Heaven with Christ when we will be “as He is” 1Jn 3:2 a “perfect man” in “the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ”

Verses 14 – 15 give us the result; mature believers

Verse 16 tells us how; according to the effective working of each believer edifying the whole.

This brings us back to Eph 5:15-21 where we are told that exercising the will of the Lord, or the Lordship of Christ is being controlled by the Spirit, worshiping God and submitting ourselves one to another.

Brethren, for the sake of the Angels (who desire to look in on this salvation we have 1Pet 1:12) we need to maintain order. 1Cor 4:9 1Cor 11:10 1Tim 3:16 1Tim 5:21 and for the sake of the great cloud of witnesses Heb 12:1 (the best examples of which are found in Heb 11) we need to recognize the Lordship of Christ over us and His Church by submitting ourselves one to another.

This is Church Order, and how we will each grow in godliness.

1Tim 3:14-16 

¹⁴ These things I write to you, though I hope to come to you shortly; ¹⁵ but if I am delayed, I write so that you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. ¹⁶ And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness:

      God was manifested in the flesh,
      Justified in the Spirit,
      Seen by angels,
      Preached among the Gentiles,
      Believed on in the world,
      Received up in glory.