Introduction
The argument is made that men and women can carry out any role within the church. In support of this view it is denied that men and women enact a symbolic role in the church, i.e. it is denied that brethren represent Christ the bridegroom in a breaking of bread meeting while sisters represent the bride. Since, brethren and sisters are not literally and respectively Christ and his bride, it is denied that they symbolically portray such in the Lord’s Supper. It is usually held alongside this view that sisters can speak in a performative way at the Memorial Meeting and that there is no need for them to wear head-coverings on such an occasion. Our focus in this essay[1] is not the question of ‘speaking’ or ‘head-coverings’ but on how you go about settling the issue of whether there is a symbolic role for brethren and sisters at the Breaking of Bread.
Setting the Scope of Symbology
The key texts for this are 1 Corinthians 11 and 14, Ephesians 5 and 1 Timothy 2 in the New Testament and Genesis 1-3 in the Old Testament.
(1) There is a distinction to be drawn between ‘role’ and ‘symbolic role’. The church just is the bride of Christ; she does not symbolize the bride; her role is that of a bride. However, a husband and a wife, as well as having those roles, also have a symbolic role in their married lives picturing Christ and his bride (Eph 5:32). So does such a symbolic role extend to men and women in the church generally?
(2) The symbolic roles of a husband and a wife are on-going, but is there a ritual that Christians enact that has symbolic elements? Do men and women have a symbolic role in that ritual? The Breaking of Bread has symbolic elements in its bread and its cup; this is readily agreed. We might say therefore that if there was going to be a ritual in which men and women had different symbolic roles, it would be the Memorial Meeting.
(3) Jesus institutes the ritual remembrance of him with reference to the future: “I will drink no more of the fruit of the vine, until that day that I drink it new in the kingdom of God” (Mark 14:25).
- The ‘new’ aspect of this promise is picked up in Rev 21:5: “Behold, I make all things new”.
- The aspect of drinking in this promise is picked up in the “marriage supper of the Lamb” (Rev 19:9).
(4) The ‘Lord’s Supper’ is a term unique to 1 Cor 11:20; the continual aspect of Jesus’ words “until that day that I drink it new in the kingdom of God” is picked up in 1 Cor 11:26 “you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes”. The Lord’s Supper, as an arrangement, looks back to what Jesus instituted, but it also looks forward to that supper which will be more explicitly about marriage.
(5) The Lord’s Supper does not only have symbolic elements relating to the bread and the wine; it is, as a whole, symbolic of the marriage[2] supper of the Lamb in which Jesus will drink anew of the fruit of the vine. Jesus is not a participant in the on-going Lord’s Supper and so if there is to be a symbolic portrayal of the marriage supper of the Lamb, there will be different roles for brethren and sisters as ‘the man’ and ‘the woman’ of that marriage.
(1) – (5) above set the scope of the symbology in the Lord’s Supper to be that of a marital typology. Are there confirming points in the text of 1 Corinthians 11 that support this interpretation?
1 Corinthians 11
This chapter has a lot of symbology and typology in it, and it would be surprising if there was no symbology in the chapter for men and women; however, such a denial is the feminist argument. Paul’s main rationale for head-coverings comes in 1 Cor 11:7,
For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man. 1 Cor 11:7 (KJV)
Since men and women are created in the image of God (Gen 1:26), Paul’s statement here differentiating men and women has to be about a symbology in which a man is (a type of) the image and glory of God whereas ‘the woman’ is the glory of ‘a man’. That is, there is a situation, namely the ecclesial Breaking of Bread, in which men and women have these different symbolic roles. Since it is Christ who is the ‘image and glory of God’ (Heb 1:3; Col 1:15) we have here a symbolic identity[3] in which men are said to symbolically represent Christ; correspondingly, the symbolic role of women is said to be that of the ‘glory of a man’.
How is it that women are the glory of a man? The glory in 1 Corinthians 11 is connected to the origin of the woman (v. 8). In the context of the New Creation (‘all things’, v. 12; cf. John 1:3-4), the woman comes into being through the saving work of Christ—the man. It is this notion of glory – a notion to do with the glory of salvation which we must use to understand 1 Corinthians 11. It is a notion bound up with the New Creation. Paul explains elsewhere that Christ gave himself for the church so that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of the word, in order that he might present it to himself a glorious church, holy and without blemish (Eph 5:25-27). This is his work. It follows then that the church has glory from her Lord and as such is his glory. She is the ‘glory of a man’.
We have established that men and women have two symbolic roles, one in relation to Christ the image and glory of God, and the other in relation to his bride the glory of ‘a man’. We have suggested that these roles pertain to the Lord’s Supper which is typical of the future Marriage Supper of the Lamb. They are roles that pertain to the ritual of that meeting rather than any other meeting or in a general sense, for generally, we know that men and women are equally the image of God.
The Breaking of Bread
How do we know that the first part of 1 Corinthians 11 is about symbolic roles within the Breaking of Bread? We know that v.17f is about the Memorial Meeting and that 1 Corinthians 10 is about issues around the Table of the Lord, so it might be expected that 1 Cor 11:2-16 (in the middle of these other two sections) also deals with this meeting. The key text is v. 17,
Now in this[4] that I declare unto you I praise you not, that ye come together not for the better, but for the worse. 1 Cor 11:17 (KJV)
The following points establish this verse as a bridge between vv. 2-16 and vv. 18-34,
- The expression ‘come together’ in v. 17 is used with ‘in ecclesia’ in v. 18, which is the language Paul uses for the Breaking of Bread meeting; this ties v. 17 to v. 18.
- Some translations (e.g. RSV) make 1 Cor 11:17 refer only to instructions that Paul is about to give concerning the breaking of bread rather than to the instructions he has been giving concerning head coverings. However, the tenses of the verbs are in the present, meaning ‘Now in this that I am declaring unto you, I am not praising you…” (cf. 1 Cor 4:14). Hence, the NASB has, “But in giving this instruction…” rejecting the RSV interpretation.
- Furthermore, once we pose the dilemma as to how Paul can say that the Corinthian brethren and sisters remember him in all things and yet receive so much criticism from Paul throughout the letter, we see that his ‘praise’ in v. 2 is not praise (but an irony), and this is what he makes plain in v. 17. In effect, v. 17 is a rhetorical inclusio with v. 2, and as such it sets the tone for the following remarks.
- Another indicator that 1 Cor 11:17 is a bridge verse is seen in the way that 1 Cor 11:18-34 is tied together as a unit. The Greek of this passage is a men-de structure in Greek reflected here[5] in the English as “first of all…and the rest”. The rhetoric appears in the idiom:
Now in this I am declaring unto you, I praise you not, for to begin with you have sects at congregation…and the rest I will set in order when I come.
The idiom binds vv. 18-34 leaving v. 17 to function as a bridge. A bridge cannot just look forward; it must have an end on both banks of the river—and so v. 17 ‘praise’ not only links with v. 2 but it also links with v. 22.
For these reasons, we would reject the view that Paul is dealing with two types of meeting in 1 Corinthians 11. Accordingly, there are symbolic roles for men and women at the Breaking of Bread. Although we have not discussed the issues of head-coverings and sisters’ silence in such meetings, it would not be surprising if their rationale was tied to the symbology that enacts the marriage of the Lamb and his bride.
Conclusion
The original Passover (with its own lamb), the Last Supper and the Marriage Supper of the Lamb are all meals with symbology. ‘Showing’ the Lord’s death, for example, is a Passover motif in that the Israelites were commanded to ‘show’ what God had done (Exod 13:8); and the Marriage Supper is precisely described in Passover terms as being ‘of the Lamb’. We should expect therefore that there is a symbolic role for men and women at the Lord’s Supper. According to Paul, the Corinthians were coming together, but because of the wrong behaviour in that meeting, they were not actually ‘eating the Lord’s Supper’ (v. 20). The same possibility exists for us today if we do not recognise different roles for men and women.
[1] This essay is designed to complement the article “Sisters Speaking and Ecclesial Contexts” by J. W. Adey in this issue of the EJournal.
[2] Jesus shows that he is aware of the marital symbology of the Last Supper when in John 17 he talks of his disciples as those that had been ‘given’ to him by his Father, quoting Adam’s words, “the woman you gave me to be with me” (Gen 3:12).
[3] Normally, commentators take the identity to be a literal and metaphysical one; it is instead an identity in typology; this is how the texts harmonize.
[4] For similar usage, see Josephus, Ant. 5.211; 13.85; Philo, Aet. 1.48.
[5] The structure is often represented as “On the one hand…and on the other hand…”.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One