Scripture Queries and Answers: Christ as Head

From: Bible Treasury: Volume N5

• 2 min. read • grade level: 11

Q.—Eph. 5:23²³For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. (Ephesians 5:23); 1 Cor. 11:3³But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God. (1 Corinthians 11:3); and Col. 2:10¹⁰And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power: (Colossians 2:10). Christ given as Head to the church over all things is the plain truth of God; but does not Eph. 5:23²³For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. (Ephesians 5:23) convey a different thought? and in what sense are we to understand 1 Cor. 11:3³But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God. (1 Corinthians 11:3)? and Col. 2:10¹⁰And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power: (Colossians 2:10)?

W. T.

A.—It appears to me that there is no sufficient reason to attribute any real difference to Christ's headship of the church in any scriptures which speak of it. In each passage the great truth is used in a different connection, as to the Ephesians (i. 22, iv. 15, v. 23), but His headship remains the same in all; and so it is in Col. 1:18¹⁸And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence. (Colossians 1:18). And what more glorious for us as members of His body?

This is remarkably confirmed by the statement in Col. 2 For the apostle tells the saints, drawn away to Jewish ordinances and to visionary speculation about angels, that all the completeness of the Godhead dwells in Him, and that we are completed in Him, so that we need nothing creaturely outside Him. And he clenches it against the higher invisible hierarchy, of which we are expressly told so little, that He in whom we are thus complete is the Head of every principality and authority, so as to exclude all erratic flights, and satisfy our souls with Him who is not only our Head but after the incomparable nearness of head and body, which is not true of any other headship.

As to 1 Cor. 11:3³But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God. (1 Corinthians 11:3), it is clearly relative order only, to correct a breach of decorum according to God; and we read that the Christ is the head of every man (ἀνδρὸς, not (a human being) ἀνθρώπου), but woman's head is the man, and the Christ's head God. This is throughout quite outside the church, in which there is neither male nor female. It is the order or respective place for woman in subjection to man, and for Him who in love and for God's glory became Man, the Firstborn, to God who abode unchanged in divine supremacy.

Click here to show subject links in the text for more information.