Symbols of Headship and Glory
This text originally appeared in The Word, 1980.
It is the Holy Spirit’s role to glorify the Lord Jesus, and through the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 11:2–15 he shows us two symbols by which we demonstrate our obedience to God, our loyalty to Christ, and our respect for one another.
Three times over in this short paragraph he fires our hearts with a vision of glory: in v. 7, the glory of God, and the glory of man; in v. 15, the glory of woman. No symbols could be nobler in their scope: Redemption (vs. 3–6); Creation (vs. 7–12); Nature (vv. 13–15).
Redemption
Notice the terms used to describe the relationship of our Lord to God. They do not speak of his subordination as the Son to the Father within the Godhead, nor of the relationship between the pre-incarnate Word and God before and at Creation; they say, ‘the head of Christ is God’ (v. 3). Jesus Christ is the Messiah, the Lord’s Anointed, the Saviour of the World, the Head of the Church, and the ruler of the kings of the earth (Rev 1:5).
It is not difficult to understand why the Holy Spirit gives pride of place in this protocol of glory to the realm of redemption when we remember what his submission to the headship of God cost our Lord Jesus Christ. For all eternity he had existed in the very form of God, and that has never ceased, of course. But when he undertook to become Messiah and bring us back into loyal and loving submission to God, he took the form of a servant and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. That was the cost to him of his willing submission and obedience to God, his head, and God has gloriously exalted him. We owe our salvation to him, and would gladly use every means available to us to call attention both to his obedience and his glory.
That brings us to the first of the two symbols
Whenever Christians meet for the exercise of spiritual gifts, and even more so in official public church capacity, it has been the tradition right from the very beginning (v. 2) that the men do not wear any covering on their heads. It is their God appointed way of honouring their head, the Lord Jesus (v. 3), and of proclaiming their belief that God has raised him from the dead and made him both Lord and Christ (Acts 2:36).
This has nothing to do with local customs. Ancient Greek men normally prayed to their gods bareheaded, but obviously not for the same reason as Christian men did. Indeed, unconverted Greeks would never have guessed the significance of the Christian practice if the Christians had not told them. The meaning of the symbol as the Christians used it was altogether and exclusively Christian.
It has nothing to do with gentlemen removing their hats in the presence of ladies. In a Jewish synagogue all the men wear coverings on their heads, and it is not because they are not gentlemen. When they pray, Jewish men cover their heads out of reverence to God. Christian men are no less reverent. By their uncovered heads they are claiming that Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ; and also that, in the absence of their head, Christian men are his official representatives here on earth.
This is no insignificant matter. The Jews would consider this symbol to be blasphemous. They do not accept that Jesus is the Christ. Neither do unconverted Gentiles. But Christians do! The Christhood of Jesus lies at the very heart of our faith. It is important that we symbolize his death for our sins by the bread and wine at the Lord’s Supper. It is equally important that Christian men witness to his Christhood and headship by this further symbol. For a Christian man to reject it and deliberately cover his head at prayer would be to dishonour his head (v. 4). This is not his own physical head, of course—that would not matter much; his spiritual head is the Lord Jesus, and that would matter immensely.
Once the meaning of the symbol is understood, no truly Christian man would need to be exhorted not to abandon it. It does not matter that the modern world no longer realizes its significance; the ancient unconverted Greeks didn’t either. They had to be told.
The second symbol given by the Redeemer is the converse of the first
Where the Christian man is to leave his head uncovered, the Christian woman is to cover hers. And she does this in recognition that her head is the man.
To grasp the point and the spirit of this symbol, we should look at it in the full context in which the Holy Spirit places it. ‘I would have you know that of every man [male] the Christ is the head, and the head of the woman is the man, and the head of the Christ is God’ (v. 3). We can see at once how important headship is in the realm of redemption. Under God, everyone has a head—man, woman, Christ himself.
But notice the order. Before the woman is told that the man is her head, the man is first reminded that he too is under the authority of Christ, his head. The man, then, is no autocrat, responsible to nobody but himself and free to lord it over the woman. His head, the Lord Jesus, has laid down the pattern and spirit in which all leadership must be carried out (Luke 22:24–27). The greater the office a man holds, the greater servant he must be of those he leads. Christ will call the man to account for the way he has exercised his headship.
When the woman has been told that the man is her head, the Holy Spirit immediately adds that Christ too has a head. The woman might feel it to be unfair that she has to accept the man as her head. After all, she is the man’s equal, made in the image of God just as he is. Why then must she accept the man as her head? Can she not be equal with him? Christ has submitted to having a head. He always was and has never ceased to be equal with God. But where would any of us be if he had demanded to remain equal in position and role with God? Instead, he humbled himself and obediently submitted himself to God as his head.
Some scholars have suggested that the word ‘head’ in this context does not carry the idea of leadership or authority. ‘The head of the woman is the man’ (v. 3) refers to creation: ‘the man is not of the woman: but the woman of the man’ (v. 8), and it means that the man is the source of the woman. But it is unlikely that verse 3 is referring to creation. As we have seen, its context is redemption. Moreover, if in verse 3 ‘head’ means ‘source’, we should have to understand the end of the verse as saying that ‘the source of Christ is God.’ That would be a very strange and unnatural expression, and there is no need for it. It is much more natural to allow the word ‘head’ in verse 3 to carry the meaning of authority as it does in Ephesians 1:22, ‘. . . and he [God] put all things in subjection under his [Christ’s] feet, and gave him to be head over all things to the church.’
Here we get headship in its larger context. As head over all things, Christ is in process of regaining that universal dominion over all creation which God designed for man, but which Adam and Eve together lost through their disobedience. At the last he will deliver up everything to God (1 Cor 15:24). In one respect Christ has already gained more than Adam lost. Man in Adam was made a little lower than the angels; Christ is even now exalted far above all angels, authorities and powers (Eph 1:20–22).
In another respect, of course, all things are not yet subject to him (Heb 2:8). The devil introduced disobedience, self-will and disorder into our world when he tempted the woman through the animal, and the man through the woman, and the human race at large is still in rebellion against God. Our world is filled with ugly strife and disharmony.
But it should be different in the church. Can we not submit to his gracious government and accept the leadership and headship that our Saviour appoints for us? Even in the world of sport, players in a team need a captain and vice-captain. Without feeling insulted or inferior they accept their leadership. Shall we in the church do less? Surely not! To refuse the symbol would in fact be to reject his headship in this matter. It would be like professing to accept the lordship of Christ and then refuse to be baptized.
We have seen how serious it would be for a Christian man to refuse his symbol. Now let the Holy Spirit tell us what it would mean if a Christian woman, realizing the significance of what she did, were to refuse her symbol. It would bring upon her head—that is, upon the Christian man, not on her own physical head—the same kind of shame that an adulterous woman brings on her husband (v. 6). In the ancient world such unfaithfulness would be publicly advertised by the woman’s hair being shaved off. The woman who refuses to cover her head, says the Holy Spirit, might as well be shaved.
Creation
Next the Holy Spirit shows us that the two symbols point to realities in the realm of creation (vv. 7–12). He doesn’t refer us to the local customs of ancient Corinth or elsewhere, but to the divinely inspired account of creation. Genesis makes it clear that man and woman were both equally made in the image of God as to their essential nature and status, and they were both intended to share dominion over creation (1:27–28). But when it came to their administrative roles there were significant, God-designed, differences between them (2:18–25).
The man was made first, and had already begun his God-given tasks before the woman was made. Moreover, he was made direct, and not out of the woman. As he stood alone, fresh from the hand of God, he was the image and glory of God (1 Cor 11:7). He was God’s viceroy in creation, invested with God’s own glory as his official representative. The woman, on the other hand, is the glory of the man (vv. 7–9). God made the woman out of the man and designed her role to be that of a partner, help and companion for the man. She was to complement him in his God-given tasks. She was the man’s glory, as the man was God’s glory. The man felt joy and delight in the woman and her role, just as God did in the man and his role.
Satan spoiled it and diminished the glories of both their roles. But Christ, the seed of the woman, has come to undo the works of the devil (1 John 3:8). Through the church, angels are being taught the manifold wisdom of God. They can see men and women restored to God and to the roles for which the Creator designed them, when out of love for Christ they use the symbols that indicate their acceptance of the order that the Redeemer has laid down (Eph 3:10; 1 Cor 11:10).
When it comes to the terms on which we receive salvation and our great inheritance, there are no differences between male and female, Jew and Greek, slave and free (Gal 3:28). A child is saved on exactly the same terms as his or her parents. But when it comes to roles in the family or in the church, the lordship of Christ does not abolish the distinction between male and female, parent and child. Christian children are expected to obey their parents ‘in the Lord’ (Eph 6:1); and even more when they become believers.
The distinctions between the roles of men and women, as well as their harmonies, are not obliterated, but restored ‘in the Lord,’ in accordance with the Creator’s original intentions (vv. 11–12). Redemption is no more responsible for the idea of unisex than creation was.
Nature
Finally, the Holy Spirit shows us how the two symbols fit in with the instincts of Nature (vv. 13–15). Nature teaches us that if a man has long hair, it is a dishonour to him; but if a woman has long hair it is a glory to her. (Notice that he says ‘if’. Nature does not give to all women equally a lovely head of long hair.) It is given as a stole or mantle (the Greek word here is not the one used for ‘veil’ in the preceding verses, it is the word used for ‘vesture’ in Heb 1:12). God thought he was conferring a delightful gift on women when he gave them long, beautiful hair. It is a glory for them. How rightly it draws attention and compels admiration—but not when we are in the presence of God. Etiquette, let alone spirituality and love for the Saviour, would lead a woman to veil her own glory so as not to distract attention from his. The head covering best suited for this purpose would be more likely to resemble a mantilla than an eye-catching model of a hat.
How then shall we respond to the Holy Spirit’s teaching with regard to these two symbols? We can hardly argue that as long as our hearts are right, we do not need the external symbols. The same argument would put an end to the use of the symbols at the Lord’s Supper, and baptism. Nowadays it is easy for Christian men to keep their symbol, but current fashion and the tide of opinion in the world make it difficult for Christian women to keep theirs. It requires of them great grace, spirituality and courage.
On the other hand, if a woman is invited to the palace, or even Ascot, to meet the Queen, she is normally required to wear a hat. Few women refuse the Queen’s request or are ashamed to be seen wearing a hat in these circumstances. Shall we show less respect for the declared wishes of the King of kings?