The Child born of Mary is subject to all manner of human weakness. He takes on mortality and become subject to death. He is under subjection to His Father as a creature born of the Virgin. He is subject to His earthly parents as a Child ( Lk 2:51). He subjects Himself to His Father's will in all things. False teachers, both ancient and modern Arians, want to diminish His true divinity by pointing out the various forms of subjection undergone by the Christ. If He is subject to the authority of anyone or anything else, it is thought by the false teachers that He cannot be fully divine, but something less.

 

We must ask why He becomes subject. He willingly subjects Himself to His Father who is an equal, and also to earthly authorities, who are His inferiors by reason of His divinity, such as Joseph and Mary, and to those things which plague mortals, such as sin and death. All these forms of submission are undertaken by God's Son freely and gladly.

 

Of the first, subjection to His Father, as a dutiful Son He conformed Himself to His Father's will. He did not do so because He was compelled by His Father, as a human son might be required by his father to be obedient and has no choice in it. He is submissive to His Father, though He is co-equal and co-eternal with Him for our sakes. He was submissive to the eternal plan of salvation worked out to include suffering and death for the sake of humanity. He was submissive to give us a sign of our calling as God's people to be submissive to others who may well be our inferiors in piety, gifts, and calling. For example, in many marriages the wife is superior to her husband in created gifts, and yet she gladly subjects herself to the God-given authority of her husband and she becomes a true "imitator of God" ( Eph 5:22-33). She becomes subject to his authority for the sake of the greater good of community, church, and family. Christ is likewise submissive to His Father, even though they are equal, for our sakes. How deep is the mystery of such submission!

 

Of the second, Christ becomes subject to the authority of His earthly parents, that He might redeem us from our disobedience to the earthly authorities that our Father has placed over us and to give us a true picture of the importance of subjection to those whom God has placed over us. Luther points out in the large Catechism that we do not obey our parents because they are always right (they're not!), but purely because they are God's representatives to guide us and deflect us from harmful ways of life. Christ is subject to His inferiors for our sakes to redeem us from our horrible rebellions against authority and to teach us to be subject to those whom our Father has placed over us, even though we are (or think we are) superior to those authorities. Why shouldn't we be subject to our parents? Jesus certainly was.

 

Of the third; His subjection to the powers that plague fallen humanity, He willingly takes on these in our place. He becomes the new Adam, who while suffering from human weakness and living in the wilderness of this sin-shattered world, defeats our common enemy for us by rejecting the blandishments of the tempter. How different this is in comparison to Adam and Eve, who while living in the blessed paradise of the garden, permit themselves to be overtaken by their enemy and doubt God's Word to them. He swallows down subjection to death, that by His death He might free those who are subject to the fear of death ( Heb 2:15). These subjections are all willing and do not diminish His divinity, but raise His humanity and ours. His glory is to stoop to the needs of us wretched humans, that He might bring us out of death to life, from darkness unto light. He is subject to these things that He might be the church's true Head, suffering all this for us. The Arians wanted to treat these things as a diminishment of His divinity, rather than as a glorification of His humanity and as a blessing to us. He is subject for us.