Part 1: Male-Female Equality and Male Headship
The covenantal nature of mankind as created in God’s image with both an individual and collective nature is foundational to understanding the nature of male-female equality and the nature of male headship, respectively.
The Scripture says, “He created them male and female, and blessed them and called them Mankind in the day they were created” (Gen. 5:2). The fact that God created mankind as both individual male persons and individual female persons is foundational to the idea of male-female equality. And the further fact that God gave the human race a collective identity designated by the name Adam, translated here as “mankind,” is foundational to the idea of male headship. Thus Scripture requires that we first distinguish between the ideas of male-female equality and male headship in order that we might then properly relate them. Failure to do so creates unending confusion and conflict in regards to the respective roles of men and women in individual and collective governance in the Church in particular and in society in general. It also creates a blind spot in regards to the whole idea of collective governance in general.
Basileia therefore affirms the following three points to be the Scriptural pattern for the two distinct but related ideas of male-female equality and male headship:
- The idea of unqualified equality between the sexes is false. While Scripture teaches male-female equality, it does not assume an unqualified or undifferentiated sameness of function of men and women as individuals in exercising ruling authority, especially in the collective sense. Human sexual identity is not just a matter of anatomy; it also reveals something about who men and women are as individuals and how they complement one another as God’s rulers of the earthly creation.
- The contrast between the governance of women and the governance of male headship is a false antithesis. Scripture goes further than merely defining the complementary governing roles of individual men in contrast to individual women. Scripture also presents the complementary governing roles of both men and women as individuals in contrast to the governing roles of mankind collectively through the agency of elders. Thus it is inappropriate to pit the idea of the male headship of elders against the governing roles and responsibilities of women as individuals. This is a false antithesis since male headship is a function of the collective nature of mankind, not the individual nature of mankind. The governing roles and responsibilities of individual women must be considered in relationship to that of individual men. Thus the only proper contrasts are 1) between the governing roles of men and women as individuals, and 2) between the governing roles of both men and women as individuals and those of male headship in facilitating collective societal governance through family, Church, and state.
- The direct and indirect governing roles of male headship. Male headship facilitates the governance of the special collective institutions of family, Church, and state; it does not concern the governance of individual men in contrast to individual women. Thus unlike with family, Church, and state, male headship is not directly essential to the proper governance of educational, vocational, and associational structures that facilitate individual self-government. Both men and women may serve, for example, as principals of schools, presidents of businesses, chairpersons of neighborhood associations, and so forth. Nevertheless, male headship is indirectly essential to all such structures of individual self-government since these are to function within the societal boundaries collectively defined and defended through the representative roles of male heads in family, Church, and state. Male headship is directly essential only in the collective governance of society as carried out through the special collective institutions of family, Church, and state.
A more detailed description of the biblical foundations to this way of distinguishing and then relating the ideas of male-female equality and male headship follows below.
The Radical Contrast Between the Covenantal and Non-covenantal Ideas of Submission
Submission in non-covenantal thinking and practice is actually a form of denigration because it subjects individuals and collectives to the mediatorial authority of persons other than Christ. Such submission is a tyrannical form of subordination whereby some who seek to be “like God” lord it over others. In contrast, in the Covenantal view, submission to the ministerial and jurisdictional authority of others complements rather than denigrates individuals, giving rise to a peaceable and orderly society for every individual and collective jurisdiction. Such submission is ultimately submission to Christ since all members in a covenantal society equally derive their authority and value from Christ even while exercising different roles and functions in relation to each other.
In non-covenantal thinking mediatorial hierarchies introduce inequalities of value, not just differences in function. Confusion or lack of distinction between the economical and ontological aspects of human nature leads to the false conclusion that equal worth must be expressed by giving each individual an equal position in a hierarchy. Thus the non-covenantal view gives rise to mediatorial tensions between 1) individuals from different ethnic backgrounds (e.g., racism), 2) collectives and individuals (e.g., between a company and its employees), and individual men and women (e.g., the “war of the sexes”). However, in the Covenantal view, because Christ is the sole mediator of all authority in every jurisdiction, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28). In the Covenantal view the equal ontological value of persons who are “one in Christ Jesus” is not compromised by a difference of economical roles between persons, whether individual or collective. This is an implication of the fact that the Covenantal view champions ministerial jurisdictions rather than mediatorial hierarchies in the administration of all forms of individual and collective governance.
The following three principles further substantiate the covenantal understanding of submission:
- The value and roles of the Trinity and mankind compared. The equal glory of men and women yet their difference in roles is reflective of God who is Three Persons, each equal in glory but different in roles. Likewise, the collective nature of mankind is reflective of God who is also One Person. When we speak of the Economical Trinity we mean that the members of the Trinity have different roles. The Father leads, the Son submits to the Father and the Spirit submits to the Father. But at the same time the Three Persons of the Trinity are equal in glory, knowledge, and authority. The term that describes this is the Ontological Trinity. It means that all three Persons of the Trinity – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – are each equally God. Thus in relationship to mankind, God does not ontologically subordinate Himself to human beings in the Incarnation. The economical submission of the Son, not only to the Father, but also to other human beings, is not a compromise of His deity ontologically. This serves as the pattern for defining the Covenantal idea of submission in human relationships as that relates to individual private-governance and collective public-governance.
- The value and roles between individuals compared. Thus within the framework of a Covenantal view of authority, the economical role of one individual does not compromise the ontological value of other individuals. An individual woman in the role as a man’s helper, for example, is not a compromise of a woman’s ontological value compared to an individual man. In the same way children are not less valuable because they submit to parents. However, within the non-covenantal view of authority the submission of one individual to another is perverted into subordination because ontological value and economic roles are confused.
- The value and roles between individuals and collectives compared. The Covenantal view of mankind also recognizes an equal value but difference in roles between individuals and collectives. The non-covenantal view, on the other hand, tends to elevate both the value and roles of individuals over collectives or the value and roles of collectives over individuals. However, in the Covenantal view, the headship role of men who serve as elders of family, Church, or state is not a compromise of, but a complement to, the ontological equality of men and women in their governing roles as individuals in family, Church and state. To think otherwise implies either that God did not create man in His image with both an individual and collective nature or that unity and diversity in God are not equally ultimate. Either option is a violation of the Covenantal view of God, man, and reality.
The Creation of Man and Woman in Genesis 2:15-24
God created man as a collective being first (Gen. 2:7) and then placed him in the garden to cultivate and keep it (Gen. 2:15). God’s offer of great provision to man, as large as it was, had one restriction: Man had a moral responsibility to voluntarily remain within the circle of God’s will (Gen. 2:16). God warned that any attempt to autonomously move outside of this circle would result in man’s death (Gen. 2:17). Then “the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him’” (Gen. 2:18). But before doing this the Lord set Adam about his assignment of subduing the earth, giving him the task of naming the animals (Gen. 2:19). God’s immediate purpose in giving Adam this assignment was that He wanted Adam, by carefully considering the nature of the animals, to discover that there was no other creature in the Garden who shared his nature. “But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him” (Gen. 2:20). Adam was alone and God wanted him to discover that fact for himself. We may assume that Adam did come to realize this, at which point the Lord placed Adam into a deep sleep, took one of his ribs and fashioned it into a woman (Gen. 2:21-22). The Lord then brought the woman to Adam at which point Adam completed his assignment of naming the earth’s creatures by giving this new creature, one like him in nature, her name, Woman (Gen. 2:23). The first recorded human words in history are a poem that celebrates an individual man finding a female companion equally suited to him. It is this event at the beginning of human history that explains why we see men and women paring off in marriage today: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” (Gen. 2:24). More than merely the pairing off of individuals, when the two become one this also gives rise to an expression of the collective nature of man.
Male Headship and Male-Female Equality in Genesis 2:15-24
Marriage is a pre-fall institution established by God as part of the good order of creation. Marriage is a reunion of that which God differentiated and then brought back together in an even more glorious, collective form. “So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself” (Eph. 5:28). To be united as one flesh in marriage is to be reunited by mutual consent in a covenant relationship in which an individual male person and an individual female person are also made into one collective person while retaining and not compromising their individual identities. The collective and individual aspects of man’s nature do not supplement each other in the sense that one or the other is incomplete, but rather complement each other since being completely human involves both individual and collective dimensions. Thus marriage, as first introduced before the Fall of man, is basic to understanding the administration of human governing authority in all areas of life (1 Cor. 11:3-12; 1 Tim. 2:12-13) as well as serving as a type of Christ’s relationship with His Church (Eph. 5:22-32).
The description of the woman as a “helper comparable to him” (Gen. 2:18, 20) incorporates both the ideas of male headship of mankind collectively and male-female equality of mankind as comprised of individuals. The woman is equal with the man in that she is “comparable to him” in an individual sense. And just as true is the fact that she is also man’s “helper.” The woman was made as man’s helper; man was not made as the woman’s helper. While there is equality in one sense there is a differentiation of their respective roles in another sense. The Lord did not create man merely as male and female as he did with all other living creatures. Instead the Lord created mankind as a covenantal being in His own image with both a collective and individual nature. There are two major implications of this. First, men and women as individuals are equal in one sense and yet have different roles in how they relate to each other in another sense. Secondly, men and women also equally share in the collective nature of mankind and yet have different roles in how man’s collective nature engages in governance.
The idea that male headship is an aspect of the governing role of mankind in a collective sense, is found in Genesis 2:23 and 2:24. First, Adam exercises his headship authority by giving woman her name, Woman (Gen. 2:23). Secondly, it is not the woman, but the man who leaves his parents’ household to found a new household (Gen. 2:24). The man initiates leaving his household to establish a new one, not the woman. This is an early indication that a primary role of male headship (i.e., the governance of a collective that complements how men and women govern as individuals) is to establish and keep the covenantal context for society in general through the institutions of family, Church, or state in particular.
The Fall of Mankind in Genesis 3:1-20
The Fall of man begins when the Serpent succeeds in getting Eve to reevaluate her situation from his worldview. The Serpent misquotes God, twisting His words to emphasize the one restriction instead of God’s great provision (Gen. 3:1).
Eve’s defense of what God had said, which Adam evidently had communicated to her, indicates that she was already beginning to see things from the Serpent’s perspective. While God had said to Adam that he could freely eat from every tree but one (Gen. 2:16), Eve only affirms that they may eat of the trees of the garden (Gen. 3:2), failing to place as strong an emphasis as God had on freely eating from every tree. Eve reduces God’s lavish provision to mere permission. Moreover, Eve refers to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil as the “tree which is in the midst of the garden” (Gen. 3:3). But it was not the only tree in the midst of the garden, for “the tree of life was also in the midst of the garden” (Gen. 2:9). This further shows that Eve’s perspective was shifting from God’s perspective to the Serpent’s perspective. Furthermore, the fact that Eve amplifies God’s prohibition by adding the phrase, “nor shall you touch it,” shows that she is well down the path of regarding God as one who limits and restricts her. Finally, Eve reduces God’s strong warning, “you shall surely die” (Gen. 2:17) to the weaker “lest you die” (Gen. 3:3).
The Serpent immediately jumps on Eve’s weakened view of the consequences of sin, affirming, “You will not surely die” (Gen. 3:4) and then proceeds to give her some further twisted insight about her situation. The Serpent implies to Eve that God is holding out on her, that God’s motive for the restriction is to keep her from rising to the same level as God in knowing what He knows (Gen. 3:5). Eve now has come to view the world according to a new worldview and then takes action in response to an injustice that actually doesn’t even exist (Gen. 3:6).
Not only did Eve then take of the fruit and eat, she also took the leading role in giving the fruit to Adam, who then ate. Adam did not initiate taking the fruit, but Eve initiated giving the fruit to Adam while he stood by passively, abandoning his role as head. Eve was deceived and assumed the role as head while Adam abandoned his eldership responsibility of collective guardianship, forsaking his role as head. The fall of mankind involved a role reversal of the sexes in regards to collective governance contrary to what God had ordained from the beginning. This resulted in a negation of the collective role of the headship authority of Adam in relationship to that of the individual authority of Eve.
Mankind’s fall into sin was not just individual, but also collective, warping and diminishing, not just the individual, but also the collective dimension of mankind’s nature in the administration of kingdom authority. Thus we face a greater challenge than merely restoring men and women as individuals back to a healthy approach to individual governance in relation to each other. The additional and perhaps even greater challenge is to do this while at the same time restoring the collective dimension of human governance in relationship to that of the respective governing roles of men and women individually.
Satan’s strategy was aimed, not just at Adam and Eve individually, but also and even primarily at mankind collectively. Satan did not approach Adam first but Eve because Satan’s strategy was to strike at Adam’s headship by moving Eve to usurp that headship. Thus it was not just Adam and Eve as individuals who fell into sin, but also mankind collectively. While individual and collective sin (and righteousness) must be distinguished, they ultimately cannot be separated. They are a package deal, covenantally speaking. Thus in Romans 5:12-21, while both Adam and Eve individually fell into sin, Paul pins a collective form of blame upon Adam in addition to his role as an individual male. Adam had the primarily responsibility of exercising collective headship. Therefore the Fall of mankind did not occur simply because Eve as an individual took of the fruit and ate, but only after Adam in his collective capacity and as the covenantal head of the whole human race also took of the fruit and ate. Adam’s taking of the fruit was not just an individual act, but also a collective act on behalf of mankind. Only then does the Scripture say of Adam and Eve as individuals that “the eyes of both of them were opened” (Gen. 3:7).
After the fall of Adam and Eve individually and of mankind collectively, the Lord did not summon both Adam and Eve by name. Rather, because Adam was collectively responsible for what both he and Eve had done individually, the Lord called out to Adam specifically, “Where are you?” (Gen. 3:9). Thus it’s precisely because Adam is finally responsible for the Fall, not just as an individual, but collectively, that we regard his attempt to blame Eve for what happened as doubly hypocritical and evasive (Gen. 3:12). And because Eve actually did assume a headship role as Adam stood by passively, there is some truth in her admission, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate” (Gen. 3:13). We know, according to 1 Timothy 2:12-14, that Eve’s admission is a confession that she was deceived into usurping Adam’s headship. She did not sin in just an individual sense, but also in a collective sense by violating the covenantal order God had instituted for collective governance of the human race. Paul’s prohibition upon women as individuals usurping or exercising authority over men in their headship role of collective governance is nothing new, but simply a restoration of the order God instituted before the Fall in regards to how individual and collective governance are to be integrated one with another (1 Tim. 2:12).
Thus the idea of male headship as defined in Scripture is not the enemy of defining the proper roles of individual men and women in governance in the Church in particular and in Christian society in general. Rather the enemy here is the twisting and perverting of the idea of male headship through 1) the sinful dynamics of male domination and female domination that resulted from the Fall and 2) the negation of the guarding and keeping function of collective governance exercised by means of male headship through elders.
The Judgment Upon Eve
The consequences of the Fall for the woman are twofold. First, suffering will now accompany childbearing (Gen. 3:16a). Second, suffering will now enter into the marriage relationship itself. Just as the Lord tells Cain that sin desires him but that he should rule over it (Gen. 4:7), so He says to the woman, “your desire will be for your husband, and he shall rule over you” (Gen. 3:16). Just as Eve as an individual sought to usurp the collective headship role of her husband in the temptation, so God says she will continue to suffer from this desire.
In regards to the next phrase, “and he shall rule over you,” (Gen. 3:16b) some understand the Lord to be saying that Eve’s suffering will be amplified because her fallen husband will exercise ungodly male domination over her. However, in light of Genesis 4:7, we may understand the phrase, “he shall rule over you,” as a solution to, not an amplification of, the fallen desire of women to usurp the collective headship authority of men. Thus we reject that line of reasoning popular today which equates the ideas of male headship and male domination as justification for the conclusion that male domination was imposed on Eve for her part in the Fall. Such reasoning claims that when a woman is redeemed in Christ she is released from the punishment of male domination and reinstated to “full equality” with man. While this is certainly true in one sense (i.e., ontologically, but not economically) this is not the focus of Genesis 3:16. Rather we understand the phrase, “he shall rule over you,” in a restorative sense. Godly male headship is one of the good aspects of the pre-Fall created order. Therefore redemption in Christ does not redefine the covenantal nature of man as both individual and collective but rather restores it. Christ Himself ultimately models the restoration of godly male headship in relationship to the Church as the pattern of restoration for men and women in individual and collective governance in all areas of life. Genesis 3:16 anticipates this.
The Judgment Upon Adam
Just as childbearing was not Eve’s punishment, but the pain added to childbearing was, so work is not Adam’s punishment, but the cursed ground that will frustrate his work. The reason for this punishment is not just because Adam disobeyed the clear command of Genesis 2:17 and ate from the tree which God commanded him not to eat, but that he abdicated his collective headship role in heeding the voice of his wife to disobey God’s command (Gen. 3:17a). In his disobedience, Adam abandoned his headship role, leading the entire human race and all creation into ruin. Adam’s failure to exercise his collective headship role as a watchman left both Eve and himself as individuals effectively defenseless against Satan. Guardianship of the gates of Eden is a governing function of mankind collectively through the agency of elders (Gen. 2:15). Thus throughout Scripture elders are pictured as exercising their collective form of governance in the gates of cities. Adam’s abdication of this collective governing role left both Eve and himself as individuals open to attack and defeat by sin, Satan, and death.
In the order of judgments in Genesis 3, Satan is first, Eve is second, and Adam is last. This is because Adam, in his collective governing role as guardian of Eden’s gates, bears the final responsibility for the Fall. While Adam and Eve shared equal responsibility for the Fall as individuals in one sense, they did not share equal responsibility in an unqualified sense in regards to Adam’s headship role. God tells Adam that the ground is cursed, not because both he and Eve sinned, but because he (in his headship role) sinned (Gen. 3:17b). God made no such qualification in regards to the judgment He pronounced upon Eve. Furthermore, the death sentence that fell upon Adam (Gen. 2:17) would now also come upon all under his headship, beginning with Eve, extending to the whole human race (Rom. 5:11-19) and all creation (Rom. 8:19-22).
Adam’s Response to God’s Judgments
Adam then “called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all the living” (Gen. 3:20). This shows that Adam believed God’s promise that through the children his wife would bear would come the Seed that shall crush the head of the Serpent (Gen. 3:15). Instead of falling further into unbelief and rebellion, Adam demonstrated faith in God’s redemptive promise. By faith Adam embraced a proactive rather than a reactive approach to dealing with God’s judgments. While there will be heartache and suffering as a result of sin, God’s redeeming promise means that the power of sin doesn’t have to rule the day. Just because Adam may be sinfully prone to exercise male domination instead of selfless male headship doesn’t mean that it must be that way. God’s promise is that He will redeem this situation. And just because women may be sinfully prone to usurp the collective governing role of male headship, it does not have to remain this way. It is true that the human race – both male and female as well as collectively – is prone to the selfish use of mediatorial power in lording it over others. However, the promise of the coming Seed who will be bruised shows that those who exercise godly authority by laying down their life for others shall ultimately define the course of history and defeat sin, Satan, and death.
The Redemption of Mankind in Galatians 3:26-28
The historic interpretation of Galatians 3:26-28 has focused on the biblical doctrine of justification by faith. But in modern times this focus has increasingly taken second place to a discussion about the governing roles of men and women in the Church. However, this passage doesn’t even speak to the issue of the various roles of men and women in the Church but rather to the ontological equality that all persons have in Christ.
A major theme of Galatians is the doctrine of justification by grace through faith apart from legalistic works. The immediate context of Galatians 3:28 concerns the purpose of the law in leading us to Christ in whom we have sonship (Gal. 3:24; 4:1-7). In 3:26, Paul emphasizes that the universal privilege of sonship in Christ is available to all the Galatian believers. Then in 3:27, Paul explains how this new relationship came to be through baptism by which the Galatians were incorporated into Christ. And finally in 3:28, Paul introduces a second fact about their sonship in Christ: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” With this sonship comes a glorious freedom in Christ that is equally available to all, including Gentiles, slaves and women. As a Hebrew of Hebrews, Paul probably had in mind the morning prayer of Jewish men of that day in which they thanked God that they were not born a Gentile, a slave, or a woman. While such distinctions had become a mark of apostate Jewish culture, Paul declares them all invalid in Christ.
In regards to the first distinction, that between Jew and Gentile, we recall that in the Old Covenant period, only those who became circumcised members of the covenant nation of Israel were heirs of the promises made to Abraham. But in this New Covenant era, the sign of baptism takes the place of circumcision, signifying that in Christ both Jew and Gentile are now heirs of the Abrahamic promises (Gal. 3:14, 29).
Second, Paul emphasizes that slaves, who were regarded at that time by many even in Israel as inferior in status, equally inherit the promises (cf., 1 Cor. 7:22; Col. 4:9; Philemon 8-20;). Elsewhere Paul calls a slave, “the Lord’s freedman,” because the social distinction between slaves and freedmen has no bearing on the fact that they are both equally one in Christ (1 Cor. 7:22).
Finally, Paul affirms women are equal heirs with men of the promise of righteousness in Christ that comes by grace through faith.
Thus in Galatians 3:28 Paul affirms the full equality of Jew and Greek, slave and free, and male and female, saying “you are all one in Christ Jesus.” All believers, regardless of ethnicity, social status, or sex, fully inherit the Abrahamic promises by grace through faith apart from legalistic works. Paul is not referring here to the differences in roles and functions in the Church. In the Church the equality of all members coexists with the differences in functions between members individually and collectively. Scripture forbids using differences in position and function to abuse and exploit others (1 Cor. 12:12-30). Thus the kingdomcultural alternative is not to minimize functional differences in a misguided attempt to achieve equality (as Egalitarians do), nor to maximize functional differences in an equally misguided attempt to achieve a hierarchical dominance of men over women (as Traditionalists do), but to properly integrate our functional differences in a ministerial way rather than in a mediatorial way in order to affirm 1) the inherent equality of men and women as individuals and 2) the complementary roles of individual and collective governance in the Church as the microcosm of Christian civilization.
As shown by its immediate context, Galatians 3:28 concerns our union with Christ. The main point it teaches is that there are no human distinctions that give some people over others greater advantages or preferential status in terms of being saved. This passage is not a discussion about the roles of men and women in the Church. What bearing Galatians 3:28 has on that topic must be understood in the light of those passages that speak more directly to that issue. In other words, in regards to the roles of men and women in the Church, what Galatians 3:28 contributes to our understanding must be limited especially by such passages as 1 Corinthians 11:3; 14:34; and 1 Timothy 2:11-14. Why? Because these passages speak directly to the issue of the roles of men and women in the Church while Galatians 3:28 does not.
Furthermore, the three distinctions Paul lists here are not all of the same kind. The distinction between men and women, unlike that of Jew and Gentile and slave and free, is a distinction rooted in the created order. Until the end of the age, the created order and distinct roles of men and women in individual and collective governance remains and continues to serve as a pattern for governance in society in general and of family, Church and state in particular. The male headship of Presbyters in the Church does not destroy the equality in Christ of all members (Acts 20:28; 1 Thes. 5:12-13; 1 Tim. 5:17; Heb. 13:7, 17, 24). Galatians 3:28 does not argue against the idea of male headship in Church and society, if for no other reason, because this is not its focus.
