There is a Canon of Authority to Observe
The intention of the apostle in writing the first half of 1 Corinthians 11 may be gleaned by knitting the first verse (verse 2) with the last verse (verse 16.) The intention is to deliver a tradition or ‘ordinance’ (verse 2) for the ‘churches of God’ (verse 16) to ‘keep’ (verse 2.) In verse 3 the foundation is laid for it: “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.” This is the apostle’s second statement, which is foundational to his teaching. The word ‘head,’ used in 5 verses out of 15, is the key to understanding the message. The word is used both literally and figuratively in the passage. In verse 3 it is used figuratively, as in the head of a corporation. The word ‘head,’ therefore, signifies an authority figure. Because the subject of the apostle’s message is the woman’s head covering, he begins, in verse 3, to place the emphasis on the woman. He does that by wedging ‘the head of the woman is the man’ between ‘the head of every man is Christ’ and ‘the head of Christ is God.’ This lessens the sting that might be felt by the woman who is reluctant to acknowledge her head by wearing a veil on her head in church. The woman is comforted by first being told that her head (man) has a head (Christ); then after she is told that her head is man, she is told that even man’s head (Christ) has a head (God.) Seeing that both man and Christ have heads, she has no cause to be greatly disturbed by a having a head also, and even by showing this by wearing a symbol. Therefore, the basis upon which the ordinance is made to stand is clearly stated as being the following hierarchy: God, Christ, man, woman. To ensure that the chain of command is not misapprehended, we have the repetition: the head of, the head of, the head of. We should be mesmerized into submission by the repetitive simplicity that is employed. The counterargument that the symbol is limited to first century Christians was crumbling already in verse 2 because of that word ‘keep.’ Now in verse 3 this modern objection disintegrates completely because of the revelation that the basis of the ordinance is this fixed canon of authority: God, Christ, man, woman. Whether or not the ordinance is still relevant depends on whether or not the canon still holds. This is an easy question to answer. If the canon did not still hold, verse 3 would not be given as an authority structure to mind, and there would be no custom to ‘keep.’ The New Testament is our rule for doctrine and life; this authority structure is given in the New Testament as a doctrine to guide our life; therefore the authority structure stands, and is ours to mind.
That should be enough on this point. But I will prove the point some more. This canon of authority is copiously affirmed elsewhere in the New Testament as the order of authority in the Church. Some sly deniers have tried to neutralize ‘the head of the woman is the man’ with Galatians 3.28: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.” There is no fusion or confusion of genders or roles to be found here, though, only the abolition of religious distinction among those who have been ‘baptized into Christ’ (verse 27.) The context of Galatians 3 shows that plainly enough: “For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus” (verse 26.) This is what it means. Ye are all, by faith in Jesus Christ, children of God, no matter your gender, ethnicity, or status. This is the teaching. There is a parallel verse in Romans to the one in Galatians: “For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him” (Romans 10.12.) No matter who believes on Jesus (verse 11), and no matter who is saved by calling on the Lord (verse 13), no religious distinction is in order; the same Lord is over every person who believes. That is what Romans 10.12 and Galatians 3.28 mean. The canon of authority: God, Christ, man, woman, has never been rescinded. And both the canon in view and the religious unity in Christ are confirmed and reconfirmed elsewhere. It is difficult, however, to find a verse to support the feminist interpretation of Galatians 3.28: that the roles of man and woman are unisex. There is no such verse. If we were to take the feminist interpretation seriously, we would have to be consistent in our interpretation of the verse. Therefore, not only would there be no distinctive gender roles, but no distinction between Greek and Jew, and none between bond and free; and all of this obliteration would have had to be in effect in that day, which it was not. Religious equality does not negate practical matters. Philemon had a bondman, or slave. Far from being forbidden to keep his bondman, Philemon received him back from the apostle Paul. No matter how civilization has progressed since the apostles’ days, slaveholding is upheld as an extant distinction in Scripture among Christians. We are not commanded to have slaves; but we do have the permission, though not, of course, in the fashion of men-stealing (1 Timothy 1.10), which sin both Islam and America have been guilty of. Galatians 3.28 does not mean, then, that the roles of man and woman are indistinct any more than it means that the New Testament outlaws slavery. Without question, too, ethnic Jewry is not negated by writers of New Testament Scripture; especially is this evident in the book of Revelation where the Jews are conspicuously featured tribe by tribe. Moreover, in Romans 11 we read this: “Hath God cast away his people? God forbid…blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in” (verses 1, 25.) Blind Israel is obviously ethnic Israel, even if we grant that only the elect among Israel are intended, as in ‘every one that shall be found written in the book’ among ‘the children of thy people’ (Daniel 12.1.) Ethnic Israel is blind, it says in Romans, ‘until’ the Gentiles are come in; therefore ethnic Israel still exists because the Gentiles are not all in. Ethnic Israel is spoken of here in a future sense, not just future to Paul, but future to us since not all the Gentiles are come into God’s kingdom yet. Galatians 3.28 does not mean, then, that the roles of man and woman are indistinct any more than it means that ethnic Israel no longer exists. There is nothing in support of feminist philosophy in Scripture. The mother of feminism in the Church is feminism in the World. There is the same hatred in each sphere today for patriarchy, chivalry, valor, and virility. Feminism of every stripe and of every wave is about woman gaining superiority and dominion over man. Masculinity is to the feminist what garlic and sunlight are to the vampire; and the Bible is the mirror that shows the feminists’ true reflection. Changing what the Bible says by neutering male pronouns exposes what feminism is more than it changes what the word of God says. This very passage of Corinthians will be the stake through the heart of feminism when the world wraps up and Judgment Day dawns. Can a feminist pastor say ‘Amen’ to that? No, he cannot, for he has put himself under the head that God has placed him over. The head of the feminist pastor is the woman; he dares not raise her ire by asserting a manly right.
There is an assumption in the Bible in favor of the headship of man over woman. The pastoral epistles assume that officials to be appointed in our churches will be men: “A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife” (1 Timothy 3.2); and that these men will rule at home: “One that ruleth well his own house” (verse 4.) Even the deacons are assumed to be men: ‘the husbands of one wife’ (verse 12.) The woman is not to teach men (2.12), but is encouraged to teach younger women and children (Titus 2.4.) The restriction is due to the creative order and to sin. The woman originates from man; and, as the weaker vessel, was deceived. Both of these facts are given as reasons for the restrictions that the woman is under. “But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression” (1 Timothy 2.12-14.) It is for the good of every church that man is the head of woman, for the initial deception has caused sorrow enough. The passive men who sit under the teaching of women are the most blameworthy, for, as men, they should know better, and probably do. But because they are mousy more than macho, they endear themselves to bossy women by encouraging the usurping of God’s delegated authority, and thereby scoff at the wisdom of God and at God himself. Such men consider it a nuisance to learn the word of God better than impudent women know it. Man submits to his head (Christ) by not forfeiting his obligation to act as the head of woman. Man imitates the Lord by being a lord (1 Peter 3.6.) No verse of Scripture needs to be twisted to prove any of this. But pick up virtually any Bible study book ‘for women,’ and you will not be able to tell how feminist conclusions are arrived at when you come to Scriptures that teach, in one way or another or for one reason or another, the subordination of women. You will have to take a Woman’s Study Bible ‘on faith,’ which, to devious writers, means: just believe what the feminist editor, in his meandering, muddling way, tells you.
Jesus Christ is the head of the body, the Church, because he is ‘the beginning, the firstborn from the dead’ (Colossians 1.18.) And God is the head of Christ, even after the Lord’s death, resurrection, and ascension because the letters to the church at Corinth were written after those events. The subjection of Christ will go on indefinitely: “And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him…that God may be all in all” (1 Corinthians 15.28.) Charles Hodge: “So the eternal Son of God may be coequal with the Father, though officially subordinate. What difficulty is there in this?” How insolent to not fall in line under our head when even our Lord and Saviour will be subject! Woman under man, man under Christ, and Christ under God—that is the biblical sequence of authority in the churches of God.
The connection between the first half of 1 Corinthians 11 and the last half shows the necessity of an authority structure in the salvation of man. To be given as the only begotten Son, ‘the head of Christ is God’ was necessary. The subordination of the Son to the Father made the foundation of Christianity (Christ’s sacrifice) possible. “To obey is better than sacrifice,” said Samuel (1 Samuel 15:22.) We will not say that there is something better than the sacrifice of Christ. But it is nevertheless true that there had been no sacrifice without his obedience; and, consequently, without that obedience, there had been no salvation for anyone. Christ’s obedience to the Father’s authority was the prerequisite to his sacrifice on the cross. If Christ’s sacrifice is the foundation of Christianity, the Father’s authority and the Son’s obedience form the foundation for the sacrifice. The Son was offered as a sacrifice, and we remember that (his body and blood) by the symbols of wine and bread. In harmony with this ordinance in the second half, we have in the first half a symbol by which to honor the hierarchical structure that a substitutionary death required. Since Christ was a substitute for man, there had to be a higher power to accept his obedience and sacrifice. The sacrifice of Christ, given to satisfy the wrath of God, had to be accepted by an authority figure: God the Father, the head of Christ. Jesus was obedient to the Father’s will, even unto death, in order to accomplish what was prophesied that he should do. If, in Jesus’ death on the cross, the wrath of God was satisfied for us, then we should find it no burden to be subject to each our head in order to please God. If Christ will be subject to his head, the Father, what reason have we to not be subject to each our head? “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous” (1 John 5.3.) What are these ‘commandments’? These commandments are whatever the New Testament commands us to obey. Therefore, when the apostle says to follow him as he follows Christ (1 Corinthians 11.1), that is a New Testament command to obey. “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.” This canon of authority is set down by the apostle to be regularly observed. And the symbol of power is the way that it is given to be done.
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