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Now, welcome once more to this, our third of four double sessions, in which we are seeking to trace some of the major themes of the first epistle of Paul to the Corinthians. As you have just heard, the fourth double session and the last will be four weeks tonight, God willing, and not three weeks, Four weeks tonight. There was something much more important on the third week, you'll see. So, uh, we shall, with all good Christian grace, be taking the fourth week from now, not the third week.
Our study tonight will find the pattern that we have observed in previous weeks repeating itself. For here, perhaps you find it boring, but we shall be obliged to consider some more, a handful more of mistakes and faults and misbehaviors on behalf of, on the part of our ancient Christian brothers and sisters, the believers at Corinth. As we examine their mistakes, we shall do it somberly, I suppose, and I trust with humble hearts, remembering that one of these days we shall have to meet them, remembering ourselves also, lest we be tempted to misbehave as they misbehaved.
It's one of the advantages, isn't it, of being not the first rank of the Christians, that we can profit not only from the good example of those that went before, we may profit also from their mistakes. But more even than interest in the mistakes will be our interest in the way that Paul seeks to put these mistakes right. As we have observed on previous occasions, he does not seek to correct them simply by quoting a specific rule from the Christian handbook. What he does is to put right their mistakes by calling them back to the basic Christian gospel and point out how their mistaken behavior conflicts with the glorious wonders and the basic principles of our great Christian salvation that has been procured for us by Jesus Christ our Lord.
So that, as we consider their mistakes and then the way they are corrected, we shall, I trust, have come to a firmer grip on the great doctrines of the Christian gospel, and our hearts will be set a dance as we consider its glory. And then, of course, as Paul brings them and us back to the basic principles of the Christian gospel, it will raise once more in our minds one of our major themes in this epistle. We have called it the Christian philosophy of man, meaning to ask by that title, what, according to Christianity, what is man?
What does it mean to be really human? And since this is a Christian epistle, we must add not merely what does it mean to be human, but what does it mean to be a redeemed human being? And then again, since human beings come male and female, we shall be asking, what does it mean to be a Christian man, and what does it mean to be a Christian woman? That's not the same thing, is it, as being a man and a woman? And as the age advances, the two things will less and less coincide.
We shall be asking, not simply what does it mean to be a man and a woman, but what does it mean to be a Christian man and a Christian woman, and how are the two related? So tonight we are to put these things in the context of chapters, hold your breath now, chapter eleven, twelve, uh, thirteen, and fourteen. Never mind the amount. We are only to pick out some of the salient themes, and you are to be refreshed and restored and giving first art, first aid, resuscitation in the interval between this session and the next.
What we shall find, as now we begin these four chapters, from chapter eleven onward, is something strangely wonderful. For we shall have impressed upon our minds what is the specifically Christian plan of redemption? You see, for Christians, redemption means something exceedingly special. It is not a question merely of receiving forgiveness. Not simply meaning a matter of being justified by faith.
Abraham was forgiven, and Abraham was justified by faith, but of the things that we shall be talking of this evening, Abraham himself knew very little. For in Christian redemption, man and woman are not simply brought back to the state in which Adam and Eve were when they were first created and placed in the Garden of Eden, beautiful and glorious as that original couple were. No, there's something more wonderful than being restored to Eden's perfection. Christian redemption involve, does involve nothing less than a completely new kind of human being.
A new human race. It will involve, as we shall see, the creation of a new entity, the like of which had never existed in God's universe before, that entity being called the body of Christ. And it involves a new regime, the like of which Abram knew nothing. Let's see how those things are presented to us as we take a bird's eye view of our, of our f- four chapters, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen.
and then just in case you haven't enough to consider, chapter fifteen as well, you'll see. And we'll take them in reverse order, shall we? That, uh, uh, Christian redemption involves a new kind of human being. There was the first Adam, there is the second and last Adam, which is our blessed Lord Jesus Christ himself, was not just a perfect edition of what Adam was originally and should have continued to be. There is an infinitely large difference.
For the first Adam, the first man, was of the earth, earthy. But the second man is the Lord from heaven. The first man was made a living soul and could transmit his physical life to his progeny. The second man, though truly man, is not just a living soul. The second man is a life-giving spirit. It is true to say that our blessed Lord Jesus is truly human.
He is a real human being, but it wouldn't be true to say he is only human. And here is a thing to warm our hearts and fill them with wonder as we begin our session tonight. Happy those people who have met with Jesus Christ, who is a life-giving spirit, said he as he stood here, a man amongst men, as the Father has life in himself and quickens whom he will, so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself.
So the blessed Lord Jesus imparts life, spiritual life, to whomsoever he will. He has life in himself. We human beings don't, do we? We got our life from our parents, and they from their parents, and thus all down the channels of life. None of us has life in himself, and one day we shall depart our physical frames. The blessed Lord Jesus, the man Jesus, had life in himself and source of life.
He is able to impart eternal life to all who trust him. Oh, what a message that is for us little human creatures sitting here tonight, and for me more than for you, because you look in the bloom of your youth, and uh, the decay of the old mental cells, the brain cells, mm, and the enlargement of the arthritic knees hasn't troubled you yet. It will do presently, if not before the end of the meeting later on, you'll see. Ha ha. Ha ha. And then you will bless God that ever you met Jesus Christ our Lord. The man who was not only sinless, over whom death had no claim, but a man who, when you meet him and trust him, can impart to you now the very life of God.
Eternal life. A life-giving spirit. And not only can he now impart that eternal life to all who trust him, but this wonder too is announced, that he is now risen from the dead, human still, but with a transformed and glorified body. And one day, as you have borne the image of the old earthly body, the body you got originally from Adam, so you shall bear the image of the heavenly.
Oh, it would almost make one like Paul, wouldn't it, impatient to, to, to, to have it, but yours isn't, your earthly body isn't worn up yet, so you don't feel that way. But there is a beginning of a longings, isn't there? A kind of a wistfulness, such as perhaps an old butterfly still in the chrysalis might feel if he had heard a rumor that you didn't have to be always inside a chrysalis thing, hanging upside down on a branch, scarce knowing what you were. If you had heard a rumor as an inside butterfly that one day it would be transformed into a thing of radiant beauty and ascend the heavens.
Oh, the very longing of it might work in you what it worked in Paul when he said it's okay to be here in the body, but I have a longing, not escapism, but a longing inwrought by the Holy Spirit to be absent from the body and present with the Lord, and then to have my glorious habitation, which is from God, the eternal habitation, the body of glory in heaven. Good, isn't it, what? Ha! Marvelous. Oh, you know, you can, you, you'll never know what God is going to do next, so to speak, you see.
He is not content just to forgive us our sins, not content just to put us back where Adam was before he sinned. Oh, God will take the occasion of man's sin to do something absolutely breathtakingly new and wonderful. That's God. That is his plan for redemption. A new kind of human race. Hm. And then coming backwards to to to chapters, uh, twelve, thirteen, and fourteen, Already before the day of glory, there has, uh, come into an existence a new entity, such as never was before in the whole of God's universe.
It must have been a startling thing for the archangel and Gabriel to observe the ascension of the blessed Lord Jesus, to see what heaven had never witnessed before, a resurrected human body, a real body, a tangible body in heaven. I wonder what, what Michael said to Gabriel on the day of Pentecost. I think these angels must have had an exciting time. It's not the only thing they're interested in, as we shall find later. A- as they saw this new development.
The body of Christ. God's solution to the problem of human individual personality, with all its personality problems and personality clashes. A new kind of a being, of which myriads upon myriads of uncounted, uncountable myriads of redeemed human beings, without losing their individual personality, would be formed into one great living entity. The only thing like it you could think of in our world is a human body, made up of many individual members, each with its own personality, but one entity.
And the breathtaking thing about it, call it how you will, explain it how you will, phrase it how you will, without falling over the edge into, um, uh, into heresy. Taken up into, placed into the Holy Spirit. And each one filled with the Holy Spirit. And it goes beyond our greatest imagination, doesn't it? It's true, though. And then, of course, as we come backwards still further to chapter eleven, which must be our springboard for this evening. Not only a new kind of human race and a new entity to people the heavens, but a new regime.
Josie. Wherein, we are not saved and then left like Abram, simply as an individual directly responsible to God with no intermediary. There is now for Christian people a new regime, where as well as the Father, as well as the God, in that sense, God the Father, to whom we are ultimately responsible, God has appointed us a Christ, a Messiah, a sovereign, a leader, a shepherd, call him what you will, to be Lord, to whom we are immediately responsible.
Abraham didn't have any such, did he? We do. And it's part of what it means to be a redeemed man and woman. Now we come early on to recognize this situation. I say it's new, but of course, if you are, if you are vigorous and rigorous, you might perceive some early prototypes of this in the Old Testament. Come to Moses, for instance, who was used of God to bring Israel out of slavery in Egypt. Moses came to reveal the name of God to the Israelites in Egypt and get them to put their faith in God.
But for the Exodus to be a success, it was necessary not only that the, uh, Israelites believed God, they had to believe Moses, did they not? Which is why God gave him all kinds of miracles to do, so that the people should believe Moses. And when it came to the critical moment on which their very fate hung, and they stood on the banks of the Red Sea and looked back to hear what the noise was coming on behind them and saw Pharaoh and all his tanks coming swiftly up behind them, and the Red Sea in front of them.
And they cried out, they shrieked in their panic. They thought that they must go back under Pharaoh now, and could almost feel the lash of the taskmaster again upon their naked backs. And they cried to God. God told Moses to take his rod, and the waters parted, and there stood Moses, and Israel had their choice. You went back to Pharaoh, or you got baptized to Moses. Believing in God meant believing in Moses. Believing in God meant you committed yourself to Moses as the God-appointed captain of your salvation.
And if you were a true Israelite, you couldn't believe in God without accepting Moses as the captain and leader of your salvation. And you might take another prototype in King David, mightn't you? When God eventually had King, uh, David anointed as the divinely chosen, divinely anointed king, the anointed one, the Messiah in Hebrew, then if you would be loyal to God, you must obey the king. So you might see in Old Testament, um, early shadows, early prototypes of what would become a distinctive thing in Christianity.
It's not enough nowadays to believe in God, is it? If you would be saved, you must be, you must believe in the Lord Jesus. You believe in God, believe also in me, said he. But of course, he stands even so unique, doesn't he? Neither Moses nor David was a new kind of a human being. And Israel was never called the body of Moses. And as for David, well, his sepulcher is with us to this day, is it not?
And his bones are a rotting still somewhere in some sepulcher in Jerusalem City. And these shadowy prototypes fall into the background and leave us with this extraordinary wonder, which is our blessed redeemer. What is man? What is redeemed man? What is redeemed man and redeemed woman? Oh, something magnificently wonderful. Part of this new race already. Part of this great new entity, which is the body of Christ.
And willing subjects under a new regime, under the blessed Lord Jesus as head. But now, how I wish I could impress upon you the wonder of it, to get you to see it as you've never seen before. But, uh, now we must come down to the practicalities. What does it mean to be under this new regime?
Would you look in your text to one Corinthians eleven, And we're going to start thinking about the first set of faults. In chapter eleven, there are two sets of faults, so to speak. Both concern themselves with the misuse and abuse and neglect of the Christian symbols laid down for our use by our blessed Lord Jesus and his apostles. Those symbols by which we express our obedience to God, our devotion to the Lord Jesus and our respect one for another.
So here in the first major paragraph of chapter eleven, Paul deals with this matter, this custom, this set of symbols, which when Christian men pray or prophesy, they do not cover their head. But when Christian women pray and prophesy, they do cover their heads. They got it wrong, apparently, at Corinth. They were either misusing or completely neglecting these symbols. Our interest tonight is not so much in their fault, but what Paul does to correct their fault.
And for that purpose, I ask you to notice first verse four of chapter eleven: Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonoureth his head. What head is it that he dishonored? If he has his own physical head covered when he prays or prophesies, what head is this that he dishonors? And verse three will give you the answer. It is on verse three that I would like us to concentrate for a moment. And I would have you know this is something we as believers need to know and to grasp.
This is essential before the problem can be solved. I would have you know that the head of every man is the Christ, the Messiah, and the head of the woman is the man, and the head of Christ is God. These are the basic facts, and they take us in one stride to the heart of the wonder of our Christian gospel. Pray notice that last remark, and the head of the Messiah is God.
We might well spend our whole evening on that phrase tonight, working out its implications and the wonder of it. And did we so, I suspect we should end in worship, the whole lot of us. Just you imagine what this verse is saying. The head of the Messiah, the head of the Christ is God. Who is this Messiah? Otherwise known is he as the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, as the theologians call him.
But when we remember so, we shall immediately remember that the blessed Son of God, Son of the Father, the second person of the eternal Trinity, was not always the Messiah, was he? There were uncharted ages of eternity, then he was the Messiah. He became the Messiah. And became that Messiah for God's sake and for our sakes, that he might redeem us and bring us back to God.
Oh, I'd have you know that, says Paul, lest salvation should become to you a thin little thing, an arbitrary matter of a few regulations that could be, uh, ignored. Oh, let the wonder of this, my brother, my sister, grip your heart just now, for your sake and for mine, as for God's sake, to bring us back to God. He who was God, a very God, and stood on equality with God, for our sakes, became Messiah.
And becoming Messiah meant for him knowing God as head. All the wonder of it, beautifully expressed in the early Christian hymn that Paul quotes in his letter to the E. Philippians. Of Christ Jesus, who being and eternally existent in the form of God, thought it not a prize to be on an equality with God, for he never ceased to be God.
But what he gladly surrendered for our sakes was to be on equal terms with God. He thought it not a prize, something to be grasped and held on to. All the marvelous wonder of it, that he would not cling to his outward dignities, but he whom angels worshipped, on an equality with God, gave up being on equal terms with God. And while God was forever as God was in his unsullied presence, this blessed one was born in a stable amongst some of the humblest of his little creatures.
Humbled himself, poured himself out, the word means, and took the form of a servant. From being God, a very God. He became a servant. That's what it means for him to be Messiah. Oh, grasp it if you can. You see, we have such funny ideas of what it means to be Messiah, of what it means to be king. Oh, James and John, you can admire their ambition of a sort, can't you?
They saw more clearly than others that one day Jesus would be acknowledged the universe through as Messiah, and they rubbed their hands with glee at the prospect. Oh, if only we follow him a bit now and give up a penny or two or a shekel or two. We've got in, you see, they said to themselves. And Mama Zebedee, uh, wasn't behind helping them on in their ambitions to see? Pay your cards right, she said to John, you know, as they went out in the morning, and uh, make yourself readily available to Jesus, won't you? Because when he becomes, when he becomes Messiah, you see, chances are you'll sit on the right hand and on the left, and you'll sit on a throne with a big scepter. You'll never have to do a stroke of work again, you'll see. Ha. Really?
When they asked if so they might sit, our Lord said, you don't know what you ask, gentlemen. Can you, uh, drink the cup I drink of and be baptized with the baptism wherewith I am baptized? And they said, yes, Lord, I- I mean, to put it bluntly, we don't care what it costs. We go through hell and high water so as to get the the top two places beside you. Well, then you've not understood, he said. In the first place, it's not mine to give anyway. But you know what being first means. What it means to be king. The one that's first is the one that serves most people, isn't it?
The one who's down at the bottom and serves the most. Hmm. After all, not to compare great things with small. Which do you think is the more important? A half a dozen pigs in a sty, all shouting their heads off to be fed and gobbling and complaining if they're not? Or the, or, or, or the farmer who comes to feed them. H- who is the more important? Farmer, isn't he? And the comparison is so weak and thin, compared with what it meant to him to become a sire and king, that he should step from that throne to kneel at our feet and wash them and serve us.
And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient, even unto death. And that? The death of a cross. Not an heroic martyr's death, surrounded by thousands of his loving disciples, admiring his courage and praising him even as he died. But to die the song of the drunkard, with a spittle of ignorant and sadist men, and little religious prigs mocking him.
This is what it meant for the Son of God to become Messiah, and to accept God as his head, and do the will of God. Our redemption. Oh, I would so like you, said Paul, to get hold of that, my dear Corinthians. That is so fundamental, and once you get hold of it, it will reorientate your whole attitude and outlook. Christ has his head. It is wonderful to think what happened when he was born in the manger and for our sakes went to Calvary.
But all for a moment, let's remember what chapter fifteen tells us of God's great scheme in appointing him. 1 Corinthians 15, verse 27, this is. For he, that is God, put all things in subjection under his feet. That is quoting Psalm eight. What is man that thou art mindful of him, or the son of man that thou visitest him? Thou crownest him with glory and honor. Thou settest him above all the works of thy hands. Thou hast put all things under his feet. God's word about the man, the Messiah.
And then it adds, but when God says all things are put in subjection, it is evident that he is accepted who did subject all things to him. That is God who subjected all things to Christ and put them under Christ's feet. God still remains above the Messiah, yes. And therefore, when all things have been subjected unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subjected to him, that is, subject all things unto him, that God may be all in all. That's a very complicated sentence in modern English, isn't it? You ought to get a new translation at that stage. Means this, that God was pre- uh, confronted with a whole universe gone astray, and the world of men and women gone astray.
How should God bring back his great empire? He appointed his viceroy, who became, for our sakes, the Messiah and became man, his own very son. God's plan was that he should redeem mankind by being obedient unto death, and that the death of the cross. And now God has highly exalted him and set him above every name, not only in this age, but that which is to come. And God has ordained that one day everything in heaven, earth, and hell will bow the knee and admit Christ's moral right to rule.
And he shall restore all things, and all things through him be reconciled, says Colossians, things in heaven and things on the earth. And when the blessed Lord Jesus has brought that vast empire, including you and me, back to the Father, then the Son shall himself bow at the Father's foot- footstool and be subjected to the Father. What a magnificent role does our blessed Lord Jesus carry. And we do well to sing it. I cannot tell why he whom angels worship should set his love upon the sons of men, or why as shepherd he should seek the wanderers to bring them back, they know not how or when.
But this I know, that he was born of Mary when Bethlehem, Bethlehem's manger was his only home, and that he lived at Nazareth and labored. And so the Savior, Savior of the world, is come. I cannot tell how all the land shall worship when at his bidding every storm is stilled. Or who can say how great the jubilation when all the hearts of men with love are filled?
But this I know. The skies will thrill with rapture, and myriad, myriad human voices sing, and earth to heaven and heaven to earth will answer at last, the Savior, Savior of the world, is king. I'd like you to know that, says Paul. I'd like you to think of it. I'd like you to use your God-given imagination to grasp it. And when you grasp it, now listen. And first of all, Paul appeals to the men.
It's letting no secrets loose, is it? Ah, to say that sometimes these verses are expounded as though the ladies had the monopoly of their interest. You'll forgive this hard-hearted man that stands before you, won't you? If I give a little prominence to the men, to see, just to make up the weight, to see. My good fellow Christian men, listen to this. If you've grasped what is involved in the Son of God becoming the Messiah and obeying God as his head.
And becoming a servant. And listen you men. Every man, male that is, praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonors his head, not his own physical head. Disarmers his head, just mentioned in the verse three. Disarmers the Lord Jesus. You wouldn't want to do that, would you? Why don't Christian men cover their heads when they pray, or prophesy.
Some say, well, that was simply because they're good Irishmen, and others say it's simply because they're polite Englishmen, you'll see. There's nothing to do with it, of course, absolutely nothing. Oh, well, some say it was a Greek custom, a custom in Corinth. It wasn't. Well, perhaps it was, I ought to say. That is, Greeks, when they prayed to their gods, prayed with nothing on their heads. Aperto capite, as the Romans said. Romans, by contrast, at least the high official ones, when they were at their dignified ceremonies, prayed felato capite, their heads veiled.
The customs weren't the same in the ancient world. But for the Jews nowadays, if you go to a Jewish synagogue, you'll find the men not only wear the kamulka, but when they pray, they cover their heads with the prayer shawl out of reverence for God, like Elijah did when he went out and stood at the entrance of the cave and God passed by. What is the Christian reason why Christian men, when they pray and prophesy, don't cover their heads? The reason is that they are pointing to who they believe Jesus is.
They are by this symbol indicating that Jesus is their head, that he is the Messiah, and that they stand under him as his representatives, immediately responsible to him. And because that is the significance of the symbol, then for a Christian man to neglect the symbol and pray or prophesy with his head covered would be understood in heaven as dishonouring the Lord Jesus.
Ah, it's like a wedding ring, isn't it? I must be careful how I speak, but I, I spoke about jaguars in another city last week, and I mentioned E-type jaguars, at which all the young people laughed to see E-type jaguars went out with Queen Victoria, and they guessed how old I was. For all I know, wedding rings have similarly disappeared. I could, I couldn't tell you, do you see? But in my youth, uh, ladies used to wear wedding rings, and jolly proud they were. Is that a wedding ring? Yeah. Ha ha. And who's your husband? Well, they were very quick to tell you. Be odd if a woman got rid of a wedding ring, wouldn't it? They said, why aren't you wedding your, wearing your wedding ring? Um, no, I don't want anybody to know I'm married.
Really? Who are you married to? I never tell anybody. And the last thing I want to do is to advertise it. Odd, wouldn't it? Christian men. To pray or prophesy with your head covered, dishonored your, dishonors your immediate head, that is Jesus Christ, our Lord. You won't do it, will you? We'll say, but what's the use of symbols like that? Nobody nowadays understands them. Well, nobody in the ancient world understood them either.
Ha! If a rascal, the old Greek, has in a Christian man at his prayers, and the man was praying with his head uncovered, I wouldn't fiz upon the Greek. He, well, that's what he did himself anyway. You all say, you all say, well, if nobody understood what was happening, why, why do it? That does sound silly. Oh well, tell me about the Lord's Supper, where you take bread and you take wine in memory of the Lord Jesus. If a Greek had wandered into a Christian church and saw early Christians eating bread and drinking wine, they would have said to themselves, ah yes, this is some kind of religious sacrificial, so you know, some religious meal, communal, spiritual, religious meal or something.
They never would have guessed in all eternity unless you told them that the bread was symbolic of the body of a carpenter who worked in Nazareth. And the wine represented his blood. That no Greek would ever have imagined in his wildest dreams. But then, the Christians could always tell the Greeks, couldn't they? And anyway, it was a God-appointed symbols. Symbols are like that, if you've noticed. For all I know, the Pygmies wouldn't know why you ladies wear these aforesaid wedding rings.
I wouldn't understand it anyway. They don't. You would have to tell them what they meant. That's how symbols are, aren't they? And this is a God-appointed symbol. Gentlemen. You will observe it, won't you? With that, we come, of course, to the difference, don't we? That much disputed difference. Why the difference, says somebody, the man honors his head, that is the Lord Jesus, by uncovering it.
Now, what about the woman? Why should she cover her head when she prays and prophesies? Why? First of all, and here I take my courage in both my hands, but I am behind the pulpit tonight anyway. So I'm half safe. But I would have you know, says Paul, that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is the man. That I could get hold of that too, says Paul. And the coward in me reminds the ladies present that I didn't write it, I'm only telling you what the Bible says.
Didn't write it. Can't blame me for it. Really, you can't. You know, I... I fancy Paul felt that, uh, when the Corinthians read this, they wouldn't all be smiling. And he added a little something. The head of the woman is the man. And the head of Christ. Does Christ have his head? He does indeed. Will the ladies object to having one? If Christ himself has a head. Anyway, it stands written that thus it is. And if a woman will not use the symbol and prays with her head and prophesies with her head uncovered, unveiled.
She dishonors her head. That is her head immediately above her. She dishonors the man. And it's one and the same thing as if she was shaved or shorn. And that is saying something very dark, isn't it? For in the ancient world, adulteresses could be paraded with their heads shorn, hair cut off completely. And what a shame it was to their husbands when society treated a woman like that. And to refuse the symbol is to d- dishonor her head.
The man, says Paul. You say, well, why the difference? Why is it that to honor, uh, their head, men have to leave their heads uncovered. But to honor their heads, the women have to cover their heads. Why the opposite way around? From this, Paul proceeds to explain verses seven, eight, and nine: For a man indeed ought not to have his head veiled, for as much 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. For neither was the man created for the woman, but the woman for the man. That accounts for the difference. And here Paul takes us back not simply to redemption, as he has done in the first few verses. He takes us back to Genesis and creation. Man is the image and glory of God. In what sense? Why, that man is God's viceroy. What is man, says Psalm eight? Oh, something. Thou madest him a little lower than the angels.
Thou hast crowned him with glory and honor. Thou hast set him over the works of thy hand and put all things under his feet, the animals in particular. Man is God's viceroy. As far as the animals are concerned, man is a kind of a god. He comes between them and God, doesn't he? Man officially is God's viceroy and carries the glory of God, therefore. But if you will observe this story of Genesis, you will find two things. One, that man and woman were not made exactly at the same time, were they? According to Genesis two, man was first made, then God summoned the animals before him, and he named them fit occupation for someone that was to be their lord and master under God.
And then said God, it's not good for man to be alone, I will make a help meet for him. So, woman was not made at the same time as man, says Genesis. Secondly, man was made direct. Woman was made out of man, says Genesis, not man out of the woman. And thirdly, the woman was made for man, queen to his king, to be a help for him and a support in his tasks. She was made for man. Sum all that up, and you will say man is the image and glory of God.
Man is God's viceroy. The woman was made for man. She is man's viceroy. Man is the glory of God. Woman is the glory of man. There is a difference then in function. Of course, if you don't accept Genesis, my good sir, my good lady, then all this is so much nonsense. But tonight I'm talking to people who I'm persuaded do believe Genesis, don't they? What is man according to the Bible? This is God's idea of man.
And this is how God made them. Let's clear away one or two misapprehensions. When it says that man is the head of the woman, it's not implying that woman is somehow some inferior kind of human being. Doesn't mean that, does it? When it says, for instance, that God is the head of Christ, and Christ has his head, it doesn't mean that the Son of God is inferior in essence to God. He's equal with the Father, isn't he? Equally divine.
But being equally divine in nature, he chose to humble himself in this function. So woman is every bit equal with man as to her essential nature, yes. And similarly, when it comes to salvation, men and women are saved on the same terms, aren't they? Be you Jew or Greek or Gentile or hot and tall or whatever you are. We're all one in Christ when it comes to salvation. We're saved on exactly the same terms. We're not talking about salvation, we're now talking of function. And our functions are different. They are different at the physical level.
They are different at the spiritual level, by God's design. And when it comes to redemption and our functioning in this new regime, God proposes to keep the difference. Let's use an analogy. Cricket, or if you prefer, football teams. Now, all the better football teams have a board of man- a board of whatever they are, who own the show, yes? And the board appoints a manager, yes?
And the manager and the board, perhaps, I don't know how, uh, choose the team and appoint one chap amongst the eleven to be captain. That doesn't mean that all the other ten in the football team are inferior human beings to the captain. But it does mean that on the field, they agree to obey the captain. Isn't that so? Of course, each individual footballer can appeal above the head of the captain to the manager, and if they like, the the players on the field can appeal beyond the manager to the central board in control, if they want to. But in the day-to-day workings, the ten men on the field obey the captain.
Off the field, the captain and all the others obey the manager. And when it comes to the yearly accounts, the manager and all the rest of them have to do what the board says. Yes? I don't know that anybody gets very upset about it, do you? And so under the new regime is it thus. And there's another reason, says Paul, that we ought to obey these symbols because of the angels. And the best meaning of it, as far as I can make out, is what Paul says in Ephesians chapter three: to the intent that now to the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be made evident the wonderfully varied wisdom of God.
Ah, what is Michael thinking, and Gabriel likewise, and all the vast intelligences, as they see the ruin and chaos that sin caused in our world, and now see the blessed Lord Jesus, the Redeemer, not only forgiving us, but bringing us into his regime and creating a harmonious hierarchy of his servants copying him, who accepted his head and obeyed. Of course, that is not to say that, uh, men are to act a tyrant over women, is it?
And particularly in the home, because Paul goes on to point out that creation is one. At creation, Adam was made by God direct, and Eve was made out of Adam. In ordinary life in the home, of course, things are somewhat different, aren't they? Men, most men have a mother. Yeah, I think so. Uh, uh, uh, and most women have a father these days. Yes. And so the two sexes are mutually interdependent in the home. Of course they are. The subject, of course, to the Lord, each for their own function.
And finally, says Paul, observe these symbols, won't you? Because, well, doesn't your own sensitivity teach you? Doesn't nature itself teach you? Well, here at least he was speaking to Greek people, and in this I fancy they would have agreed. That if a man have long hair, it is a dishonor to him. Thus it was felt, at least in the ancient world. If a woman have, notice the if, not all do, but if a woman have a lovely head of hair, it's her glory, isn't it?
Her, and still to this day it's true. See a woman with a beautiful head of hair, and if the ladies don't realize it, but they do, of course, the men are open-mouthed in admiration. Oh, look, oh, what a beautiful head of. Oh, wow, do see, yes. It's a glory to her. It isn't so in the animal world, is it? You take lions, for instance. It's the man that has the beautiful, whatever they call itself, mane around. It is the charming chap, isn't it? And the lioness, she's a poor, nondescript looking affair, do see. But in humans, it's the other way round. It's us men folks, poor soul, that look pretty nothing, and it's a lady of a beautiful hair, you'll see.
If they have it, and if they have it to glory, a glory, of course it is, very magnificent and beautiful. Eh, that's why they should cover it. When it comes to spiritual activity, isn't it? For a woman praying and prophesying, then it's not to herself and to her own glory that she would call attention, is it? I remember being at the Lord's Supper once. We were all getting ready to remember the Lord when in came a dear sister. She was a dear sister too.
I think she did it in all innocence, not aware of her potential, I think, but she came in with such a hat and with such a feather that would have cut the necks off people sitting in two seats on the right. At which moment, oh, oh. It wasn't exactly the best preparation to concentrate the mind on him who, for our sakes, was crowned with thorns. Etiquette, if nothing else, would have suggested that however glorious and f- and to be admired by God's deliberate intention to be admired the good lady was in other circumstances.
When it came to spiritual exercise, etiquette, if nothing else, would suggest that she covered her glory, that all attention be riveted on Christ. And thus does Paul correct the faults. It does not mean, does it, and he is not saying that women have no part to play. Every woman praying and prophesying, not in church, but in many other semi-official occasions, like Anna the prophetess and Elizabeth the wife, uh, mother of John Baptist, wife of Zechariah, and others who exercise powerful ministry for God.
In their proper sphere and with their opportunity, this land and in foreign lands, a magnificent ministry. But I would have you know this, says Paul, in our ministries, we men and women are under a new regime where everyone has his head, our blessed Lord included, and we do well to follow his example and to keep those symbols that recog- that point to our ready obedience and proclaim to the world who exactly we consider Jesus is.
Shall we pray? Lord, we bring thee thy word now, and pray thou wilt further open our eyes and warm our hearts, that this at least we may learn, the wonder that thy son, for thy sake and for ours, became the Christ and was obedient unto death. Our hearts shout their acclaim already as we hear thou hast raised him from the dead and highly exonered him.
And we remember that even as thine exalted Messiah will he yet serve all his people. We bless thee for bringing us into his kingdom. Make us like him, we do beseech thee, and help us, even in this matter of these symbols, to glorify him and to magnify his grace and to serve thee acceptably and with godly fear for his name's sake. Amen.
