There are Creatures of Glory to Consider
Verses 7-9 contain the principal argument: “For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man. For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man.” The argument is the nature of man, which argument is reasoned out by two facts: woman originates from man (coming from man’s rib), and she was created for him. Both facts disclose her subordinate standing. The man is even made to stand taller than the woman in order for God to showcase her subordination in all of her interactions with man, both inside and outside the church. The average height of a woman is five feet four inches, four or five inches less than the average height of a man. Woman was created to fill a supportive role, not a superior one. Man was made to be her authority; she was made to be his auxiliary.
The creation of woman from man and the purpose of one for the other, are facts from the revelation in Genesis that lead to the reasonable deduction of whose glory should be displayed in the church. Man was created first; he is the glory of God; he is the substance from whom the woman was made. Woman was created second; she is the glory of man; she is the ‘weaker vessel,’ as Peter says. A print is not as fundamental as the painting that it is lifted from; man is the basis of woman. A painter would rather have his painting represent his work than his print; God’s glory is the man, not the woman. A print is the image of a painting; woman is the glory of man.
The woman is from man and for man. She is made to attract him and to receive him. She pines for his affection and she needs his provision and protection. Her disposition is to revolve around man just as the moon revolves around the earth. God made her that way. And, incidentally, both man and woman are supposed to orbit God just as the moon and earth go around the sun. So perfect is woman for man that ‘the way of a man with a maid’ is spoken of as being ‘too wonderful,’ or inscrutable (Proverbs 30.18, 19.) A man in love or lust will go to any length to obtain the object of his desire or at least to get into her circle. We have all observed this. If not, we have all heard of it. Some men are inexplicably drawn to certain women. “Consult your own experience, and confess, whether you are not touched by almost everything they do, or say, or look; confess, whether their very foibles, and follies, do not often interest, sometimes please you?” (James Fordyce, The Character and Conduct of the Female Sex, and the Advantages to be Derived by Young Men from the Society of Virtuous Women, p. 11.) Nonetheless, woman is the glory of man as certainly as man is the glory of God. Woman was made for man. This is why she cannot help doing whatever she can to be resplendent in his eyes. Women are obsessed with men, and will be until the end of the world. When a woman can get a man, she wallows; when she is not wanted by a man, she wilts and wanes. She wants to be wanted by the one whom she is the glory of. “That Providence designed women for a state of dependance, and consequently of submission, I cannot doubt, when I consider…their incessant study, at every age, in every state, by every means, to engage our attention, and insure our regard” (Ibid., p. 39.)
What is more intrinsic to God than that he emits glory? In the church his desire is to emit that glory from his first-created gender. Man is created in the image of God (Genesis 1.27.) The woman, being created out of man, is created in the image of God at second hand. She is an image of an image. Both man and woman are endued with reason and moral awareness. But it comes to pass, more particularly, that man is the glory of God and that woman is the glory of man because the man was created directly while the woman was created indirectly through the man. The man was created for God. The woman was created through man and for man. Fundamentally, both man and woman were created for God, and in his image. But in a circumstantial sense and for practical reasons, the woman was created for man.
Three glories are mentioned in the passage: the glory of God (man), the glory of man (woman), and the woman’s glory (her hair, verse 15.) The woman covers her head in order to cover the glories of man and woman: the woman and her hair. This is done in order that God’s glory (the man) is the one that is shown, and thereby is God glorified. God’s glory must be exposed, and that of man and woman concealed. It is misconceived that man is exalted and that woman is suppressed when the woman covers her head. The truth is that God is glorified. In order for God’s glory to be preeminent, his glory (the man) must be uncovered, while the glories of both man and woman (her and her hair) must be covered. When the woman’s glory is uncovered in the church, man’s glory (the woman, verse 7) and the woman’s glory (her hair, verse 15) compete with God’s glory (the man.)
These days in our churches the glories of man and woman compete with God’s glory for the preeminence. Is it right for man’s glory (the woman) and woman’s glory (her hair) to be exposed where their exposure are forbidden? “And Moses was not able to enter into the tent of the congregation, because the cloud abode thereon, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle” (Exodus 40.35.) There should be room for no glory but God’s in either tabernacle or church. I have been in assemblies where all the heads of women were covered according to New Testament tradition. These assemblies were not necessarily more doctrinally correct than others. But there was an atmosphere of peace in them that disobedient churches did not exhibit. Obedience to this tradition occasions order; and, where order is, there tends to be peace. When obedience and order are on account of obedience to an ordinance of God, the peace that follows is peace from God. The glory of God brings peace; and obedience is the way for God’s glory to permeate. Barring exceptions to the rule, this peace will not occur except women cover their heads in church. “For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man. For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man.”
