The Headship of Christ; 1
Cor 11:1-3
1 Corinthians 11:3 NASB
“But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the man
is the head of a woman, and God is the head of Christ.”
The key word that we are
going to find in this passage is the word “head.” Three times in this verse the
word is used, again in verse 4, three times in verse 5, and again in verses 7,
10. Therefore, because it is such a key word it has become the focus of a
tremendous amount of debate over the meaning of head. The Greek word is KEPHALE [kefalh]. The feminist contention is that the word does not
mean authority but that the word is based on the idea of origin. The
traditional interpretation of headship is that is has two concepts, a literal
meaning, the physical head, and a figurative sense where it refers to
authority, where it refers to the exercise of authority and the person who is
in authority. The contention from the liberal is that this word does not
signify headship or authority at all. One scholar writes: “In normal Greek
usage, classical or contemporary, KEPHALE does not signify head in the sense of ruler or
chieftain of a community.” It is just a bold statement,
however, he cites no documentation for that claim. This is a typical sort of
debater’s technique that is found in literature, that people just make bold
claims like that where there is no evidence to support the claim. However, a
search of over 2000 years of usage of the word KEPHALE in all classical and
Hellenistic Greek makes it clear that head meant authority or leader, and the
only two time (and there are only two instances) that it has the idea of source
or origin is when it is used in the plural. So when it is used in the singular
through 2000 years of the Greek language from the classical Greek through
Hellenistic, Koine and up to modern Greek the word has
the idea of authority or leadership.
Bauer, Danker, Arndt and
Gingrich, 3rd edition, states that KEPHALE means the part of the
body that contains the brain or a being of high status. Metaphorically it is
used of persons. i.e. the head, the chief, one to whom
others are subordinate. For example, the husband in
relationship to the wife (1 Corinthians 11:3; Ephesians
So the idea of KEPHALE does not
have the idea of origin, it has the idea of headship. One of the basis of
support that will be found for this is that people will try to go to verse 12
where it states: “For as the woman originates from the man, so also the man
{has his birth} through the woman; and all things originate from God.” That is
a verse that is about nine verses removed from verse 3 and is not explaining
the concept of headship. In fact, what that is explaining is the principle in
verses 8 and 11 which is the biblical balance to the extreme of male tyranny.
The unique thing about the apostle is that when he speaks on the one hand about
the headship and the of the man, on the other hand he
always balances that with the significant role of the woman. There is a
balance. Even though the male is the one in authority, the male comes from the
woman through birth and that indicates that at one level there is a level of
equality; they are both fully human. This takes us back to Genesis chapter one
to understand the distinction between role and essence.
In 1 Corinthians 11:3 Paul is
saying he wants us to understand three things. The word “that” is a translation
of the Greek word HOTI [o(ti], used here to
introduce a principle. Basically this could be translated: “I want you to
understand: and then following tie colon the three propositions that Paul is
emphasizing. Proposition # 1 is that Christ is the head lf every man. They key
element in that phrase is Christ. Proposition # 2 is the man is the head of a
woman. Third proposition: God is the head of Christ. It is structured like
this: “Just as Christ has authority over every man, man has authority over the
woman, and in the same sense God has authority over Christ.” The first and the
third elements in this structure have a relationship to Jesus Christ and this
is what is set up in terms of its literary structure as an inclusio. In an
inclusio you will have a statement a), then statement b), and then perhaps
statement b) prime that reflects statement b), and you come back to statement
a), a) prime. In an inclusio the focus is on what is in the middle. So there are two statements that mirror each
other with something in between, and it is what is in between that is important
and being emphasized. So what is being emphasized in verse 3 is the principle
that the head of woman is man, and that is the subject of verses 3 through
16—the biblical teaching on the distinct roles of and males and females. When
it states that the head of woman is man it is not using the generic term ANTHROPOS [a)nqrwpoj] but
it is using the term
To understand this verse we
have to have a correct understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity. 1
Corinthians 15:28 NASB “When all things are subjected to Him, then
the Son Himself also will be subjected to the One who subjected all things to
Him, so that God may be all in all.” This takes us into the future to the point
in time at the end of the Millennial kingdom when all things are made to Him
with the destruction of Satan and his sentence to the lake of fire, the
sentence of all unbelievers to the lake of fire, then the Son Himself will be
subject to Him who put all things under Him, and that is a reference to God the
Father. So in eternity future even after the close of human history Jesus
Christ, the second person of the Trinity, is still under the authority of the
first person of the Trinity, God the Father. This is also clearly stated by
Jesus Himself in the Gospel of John 5:19: “Therefore Jesus answered and was
saying to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself,
unless {it is} something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father
does, these things the Son also does in like manner.’” This clearly teaches a
subordination of God the Son to God the Father. [22] “For not even the Father
judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son..”
The fact that the Father delegates all judgment to the son indicates that the
Father is the one who is in authority over the Son. [30] “I can do nothing on My own initiative. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is just, because I do not seek My own will, but
the will of Him who sent Me.” These three passages clearly teach that there is a role subordination in the Trinity. Then in John 10:30 NASB
“I and the Father are one.” So we have to go back to the doctrine of the
Trinity and the essence of God if we are going to understand the role and the subordination
of women to men.
In the essence of God, God is
sovereign. He is the ultimate authority in the universe and the ruler of all
things. God is absolute righteousness, that is the standard of His character,
and God is perfect justice, the application of that standard in His dealings
with Himself in relationship to the other members of the Trinity and with all
of His creatures. God is perfect love and He is eternal life. He has no
beginning and no end. Then, God is omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent. That
means that God knows all things, there is nothing that
God does not know. He never learns anything, he is never surprised by anything,
He never increases or decreases in knowledge, He knows all things potential and
actual. He is equally present at every point in the universe at all times, and
He is able to perform that which he wills. Then God is immutable, He never
changes, and He is absolute veracity or absolute truth, a function of His
righteousness. This is the essence of God and all of these attributes relate
equally to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. So he is said
to be one in essence but he is three in persons. There are three distinct
persons and yet they are identical in essence. That implies that in terms of
their essence they are completely equal. So on the one hand there is true
equality and on the other hand there are distinctions—equality in essence and
distinctions in terms of roles. For example, in creation God the Father is the
architect or the planer. It is the Son who carries out or executes the plan,
and it is God the Holy Spirit who reveals the plan. So each person has a
distinct role and a distinct function within that plan, and just because the
Son is subordinate to the Father do9es not mean that He is any less than the
Father.
This introduces the concept
of a team. This takes us back to some fundamental ideas in relationship to
understanding the person of Jesus Christ as well as the person of God the Holy
Spirit. This has to do with laying a crucial foundation for society. Society in
this sense is any collection of individuals. We have an eternal society between
Father, Son and Holy Spirit in which case there is true equality between the
members of that society, and there is distinction in roles. So this becomes the
ultimate foundation for understanding the operation of human society because we
have as a model or an example we have divine society which then becomes a model
for human society where we have on the one hand true equality and on the other hand
genuine distinction. One does not override the other.
This has an implication. If
you have, for example in Islam, solitary or Unitarian monotheism where you have
only one person, what are the implications of that? With only one person there
is no eternal society, no eternal relationship. When you have an eternal
society made up of three persons you have communication, relationship, and love
because love demands an object. If there is only one person that person has an
eternity minus communication, minus relationship, and minus love. All you have
in a solitary monotheism is a totalitarian or tyrannical authority. Under a
biblical model of a Trinitarian God there is a correction to tyranny because
each person is equal in essence and equal in all of their attributes. So one is
not superior to the other, there is only a distinction in roles in what is
called a functional hierarchy.
Furthermore, if you go into
an evolutionary model of ultimate reality, again you still do not have a
person. Ultimate reality is matter, there is no
person, no relationship, no communication, no love. So there is no ultimate
basis for having a value in relationship in society, and so all relationships
are then just arbitrarily determined by the creature rather than the creator. Every
time Paul gets into the subject of the relationship of men and women he never
grounds it in culture. Paul has a strong commitment to the equality of men and
women as equal image bearers of God. Every time Paul gets into this subject he
doesn’t go to society in order to substantiate his argument, he always goes
back to creation prior to the fall. Therefore we understand that the authority
relationship set up in society as far as the relationship of men and women is
concerned is not something that is added after the fall as a means to control
the sin nature but is something that is inherent in the original creation
itself, and God designed men and women with distinct roles.
Genesis 1:26-28 NASB
“Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image,
according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over
the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every
creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’ [27] God created man in His own
image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
When we start messing
around with the role of men and women and start changing it, it is not simply a
matter of society, not simply a matter of function, not merely a matter of
pragmatics, it ultimately goes back to a view of God and a view of the creator
over the creation. Once we start changing these things they have profound
theological implications. That is why our starting point always has to be with
God. The tendency is to start with situations, but that comes down the road. We
have to first of all start with what the Scripture says and what the Scripture outlines
and that defines parameters. Once we establish those parameters and boundaries
then we have to go in and realize that man is a sinner, and so all of our social
relationships are completely distorted and marred because of sin, and this is
why only as a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ applying doctrine under the
filling of the Holy Spirit can the damaging consequences of sin on a society—whether
it is a nation, any kind of social group or marriage and family—be reversed.
So we have to understand
that there is a male and female soul, a male and a female body, and these are
not interchangeable. When we have a starting point from the Word of God men and
women do not have interchangeable roles. The problem is that most of us have
grown up in a post-feminised society, in a feminised church, where the
assumption is granted that the role of men and women is interchangeable; and it
is not. It is a deeply rooted idea and most of us do not realize how profoundly
we have been brainwashed with this idea.
In Genesis chapter one we have the creation of male and female, both in the
image of God. That means that in terms of the essence and women, male and
female, there is no difference, there is true equality in terms of their being.
However, there is a clear role distinction and this is the argument that Paul
always uses, he goes back to the creation. Genesis