Unveiling the Veiled in 1 Corinthians 11

The Glory in our Differences

Because Reformed anthropology has yet to develop trinitarian and covenantal conceptions of gender, the commentaries are all over the place on 1 Corinthians 11:3-15. Here is a passage that magnifies the Trinity and covenant and ties them explicitly to male and female, and yet we have no basis to make connections which lead us to worship. For example, Calvin begins his discussion of the veil with the necessity of public decorum which makes clear that inequality exists between the man and woman. Calvin says that honor is brought to the prince (Christ) when proper honor is shown to his lieutenants (men) from “persons in the lowest station” (women). For Calvin the veil is an emblem of authority intermediate and interposed between God and the woman. Concerning women praying and prophesying, Calvin says that Paul is reasoning hypothetically about head coverings since in 1 Corinthians 14 he will silence women altogether. Finally, concerning women’s hair, Calvin says a woman who is shaven is “a spectacle that is disgusting and monstrous” and a woman with beautiful hair requires a veil to remedy her unseemliness, covering what otherwise would be an incentive to lust. One of two modern commentators on 1 Corinthians on my shelf, Gordon Fee, calls the passage “full of notorious exegetical difficulties.” He then divides his treatment of 11:3-15 into three arguments for the woman’s covering: (1) An argument from culture and shame; (2) an argument from creation; (3) an argument from propriety.¹ The second commentator, Anthony Thiselton, sees the veil as delineating gender in worship and preserving social boundaries.² John Piper summarizes the section by writing, “women should employ appropriate cultural means of expressing their acknowledgment of man’s headship (authority), which is rooted in creation and taught by nature.” One of my seminary professors had the most creative explanation for the veil. He understood the default lens of Paul’s readers to be Stoicism, so he examined the Stoic understanding of nature in relation to hair. He concluded that for the Stoics, hair was tied to readiness for reproduction. He suggested that Paul and the Corinthians understood hair as a sexual organ which brought on male desire. According to the Stoic understanding, an uncovered head was equivalent to nakedness. Although his exposition of Paul and hair was unsettling, this professor also saw something of the woman’s glory in relation to order in 1 Corinthians 11. He saw Adam prefiguring the first, earthly order and Eve the second, heavenly order.³ In recognition of that, I begin a rather long explanation of how I have come to see this passage.

I have suspected for some time that the passages that are most often cited against the woman are the very places where we will find something truly glorious revealed about her. Understanding gender as representation was the first step forward in my understanding. As male and female in Genesis 1, and as man and woman in Genesis 2, we represent things that preceded us, things more foundational than we are, things that came before us in time, and things which we are destined to behold and receive in a coming kingdom. “Things” is not really the right word. What I am speaking about is the triune personal God of the Scriptures and his revelation of himself in the unseen realm above —three persons existing as the entire divine essence without remainder, equal in power and glory, in two internal circulations.⁴ “Circulations” sounds cold and mechanical for what we are describing. It is, of course, an insufficient word. We are speaking about how we conceive the internal nature of God, glorious beyond measure as (1) an exit (or exitus) in personal processions and (2) a return (reditus) in mutual embrace.

As the divine essence, perichoresis or “circulations” entails what we hold dearest in this life, God himself. From internal circulation has come external circulations, God’s revelation of himself in the heavens as the Son is “incoronate” from the Father and seated with the Father on the one throne of heaven. From that one throne proceeds the glory train of Isaiah 6, which is the Spirit-Tent City which forms the tabernacle and the Spirit-smoke which fills it, sealing the throne and city in an embrace which causes the foundations of the threshold to shake and angels worship. The next circulation involves the Spirit proceeding from heaven and hovering over the darkness and void to the end of a union of heaven and earth, when “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.” As I understand it, these circulations mean nothing short of eternal life for us as from him and to him. There are imprints of these circulations in the good things he has placed in our lives, things seen in birth and marriage and in the beauty and wonder of the natural world that surrounds us, things God displays to bring us hope.

What does this have to do with us as male and female? When I speak about mankind imaging God as one and many in Genesis 1, this question arises: How can two people, male and female, mirror three self-contained, immutable, eternal persons, equal in power and glory? Genesis 2 gives us part of the answer. There are three persons but only two circulations: (1) the circulation of sonship; (2) the circulation of cityhood. Bound up with the first circulation is the man Adam, the son of God, molded from the dust and filled with the breath of life. He comes from the hand of God with the mission of returning to God in Sabbath rest (Heb 4:4-11). Bound up with the second circulation is the woman. We could call her Daughter Zion. Built like a city, she proceeds from Adam’s sacred side and returns to Adam. Her telos as a city is nothing short of what we see in Revelation 21:3, “I also saw the holy city, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared like a bride adorned for her husband. Then I heard a loud voice from the throne: ‘Look, God’s dwelling is with mankind and he will tabernacle with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them, their God.’”

In other words, in the first divine circulation, the Son is begotten of the Father, and their embrace is manifest as the one Throne of heaven, which is often spoken of as having a right-hand. In the second circulation, the Spirit proceeds from the Father and Son and is conceived as a tabernacle, a tent dwelling of God. From the first circulation, I see the revelation of sonship. From the second circulation, I see the revelation of cityhood. Maleness is tied up with the person of the Son and sonship personified; femaleness is tied up with the person of the Spirit and sacred space or cityhood personified.

When gender is being amplified in the Scriptures, I am on high alert to see representation, man representing something of the Son, begotten and enthroned. . . and woman representing something of the Spirit, proceeding and “indoxate” (filled with glory). From Genesis 2, I see a steady recapitulation of sonship and cityhood throughout the Old Testament and Gospels, culminating in Revelation 21-22. When I get to Paul’s anthropology on display in 1 Corinthians 11, Ephesians 5, and 1 Timothy 2, I have more to work with than general “revelation” (that is, the natural anthropology of Aristotle) and more than the historical context of the first century Near East, though it is right to factor that in. I have eternal categories of representation.

I approach Paul and Peter’s epistles with categories established in Genesis 2 with the covenant of works and renewed with the covenant of grace in Genesis 3 after sin entered. The categories of sonship and sacred space are together throughout the old covenant. So, for example, when I come to 1 Timothy 2:12, I do not go to Aristotle and find the woman degraded by Paul and put in her rightful place, silent and out of the public eye. I could never arrive there because I know that man and woman represent God who reveals himself. I also know that there is no ontological hierarchy within God, no divine chain of being. I do not go first to the ANE and Greek context and find that Paul is just deferring to the customs of the day. In fact, if anything, I would expect that Paul is standing against the vain traditions of his day and reordering worship according to eternal and supernatural categories. The passage is not primarily about social etiquette in the first century. I begin with something more substantial, that is, representation. Some might protest, “You cannot do that. It is reading into the text.” Well, yes. Ever since I first read Geerhardus Vos’s Biblical Theology and understood the Scriptures in terms of covenant and acorn-to-oak progression, I have been reading into the text using “redemptive-historical exegesis.” I was taught to read the Bible as an unfolding unity, magnifying God in his purposes for mankind.

For example, when I see a passage like 1 Timothy 2:11-15, I look for representation beginning with the son. The representation of the Son as the Lord of Armies seems possible. As I have written before, 1 Timothy opens with Paul’s somewhat baffling defense of his ministry, until you realize that Paul has rivals and enemies that want to destroy the church. He is taking a polemical stance against false teachers at Ephesus. He is engaged in a heated battle with Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom he has delivered over to Satan to be taught not to blaspheme. That is just the first of many problems that Paul addresses in his letter, including anger, pride, greed, gossip, and neglect of the poor and needy among the Ephesians. There are threats from deceitful spirits and the teaching of demons. Timothy appears to be lacking confidence because Paul repeatedly calls Timothy to persevere and fight the good fight of faith, guarding what has been entrusted to him. Paul tells Timothy, “We struggle and agonize because we have put our hope in the living God who saves.” The whole letter calls Timothy to enter the fray in faith, reminiscent of the Lord’s repeated command to Joshua, “Be strong and courageous.”

If I had already anticipated that the prohibition against women teaching at Ephesus would be bound up with Timothy and the elders’ representation of sonship, now I might identify their representation more specifically as Yahweh Sabaoth, the Lord of Angelic Hosts. Paul wants this representation on display in worship as “sons” step forward to do battle with the false teachers in self-denying service. This does not mean that women are not meant to battle with problems in Ephesus. It just means that in worship, Paul wants sons representing the Son and women representing the Sabbath-city, the place where God’s will is done, not undone (Matt 6:10). In other words, in 1 Timothy 2, Paul wants our hope on display by what women do not do in worship. They do not represent the son of Genesis 2 appointed to guard and keep the garden sanctuary. In worship, sons are on display as entering the fray, reminding all of the Son, the divine warrior, the servant of the Lord, who defeated our enemy by the sword of his word wielded in the wilderness and on the cross (Is 59:16-20; 63:1-6). In worship, women teachers do not take up the sword against false teachers, but instead they stand with and for the realm of life. She does not take up the sword against her enemies, but rather she heralds the good news. She lifts up her voice in strength without fear, saying, “Behold your God!” (Is 40:9).

The dual symbolism of son and city is consistently reinforced in the Old Testament. The prophets are most conspicuous. The second half of Isaiah juxtaposes the Servant and Zion. The Son fights for the City. He will not keep silent “until her righteousness shines bright as light and her salvation like a flaming torch,” until she becomes “My Delight is in her” . . . “For as a young man marries a young woman, so your sons will marry you, and as a groom rejoices over his bride, so your God will rejoice over you” (62:1, 4-5). Daughter Zion stands for the future glory of the city. The woman’s worship reminds us that there is a day beyond battle, beyond sin, Satan, suffering, and death. She stands with a place where every tear will be wiped away and weapons of war will be obsolete because her “childbearing,” her Seed, her Son, has bared his holy arm in the sight of all nations (Is. 52:10).

In the Old Testament, the Son was first called “Lord of Angelic Hosts” (יהוָ֥ה צְבָא֖וֹת) in 1 Samuel 1:3 in the context of Elkanah and Hannah, and Eli and the tabernacle at Shiloh. There she wept and pleaded with the Lord of Armies to give her a son, vowing that she would consecrate him to the Lord all the days of his life. Using representation, I see Hannah standing with Daughter Zion in Shiloh, meaning “place of rest.” There she prayed silently in the Lord’s presence, weeping, her lips moving but her voice not heard. Her grief indicates a great internal conflict between her barrenness and her representation of life-givingness. As Daughter Zion and realm of life, she is juxtaposed with Elkanah, who asks her, “Am I not better to you than ten sons?” As shelter, she is contrasted with Eli, son of Levi, son of Aaron, and her future son Samuel, the last judge and the warrior prophet who led Israel to victory over the Philistines in 1 Samuel 7, who also anointed David as king in chapter 16.

So why would I not take 1 Timothy 2:12 to literally mean that God does not allow women to ever teach or have authority over a man, but to remain quiet? The reason is because she represents Zion, a herald in Isaiah 40:9 and a shouting city in Zechariah 9:9, which is perhaps why the Old Covenant and Gospels never indicate such a thing. There is no law requiring women’s silence in the Hebrew Scriptures. On the contrary, we are given the voices of prophets and leaders like Miriam, Deborah, and Huldah and the great deeds of women of faith, like Tamar and Rahab, Puah and Shifrah, Deborah and Jael. We have the testimony of Ruth and Esther, whole books named for women who magnify God’s saving acts through women. We have a book of the Bible where the voice of the woman dominates, the Song of Songs. The Gospels open with faithful individual women who speak, among them Mary, Elisabeth, and Anna, the prophet.

One of my favorite passages in the Bible is the story of the woman with the issue of blood found in Matthew 9:20-22, Mark 5:25-34, Luke 8:43-48. In all three accounts Jesus calls her “Daughter,” which indicates to me her representation of faithful Daughter Zion. The attention drawn to her reminds me of Isaiah 62:1: “For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, for Jerusalem’s sake I will not remain quiet, till her vindication shines out like the dawn, her salvation like a blazing torch.” What strikes me most is found in Luke’s account. Luke 8:42 says that as Jesus was going along, the crowds were nearly crushing him. That word in Greek (συνέπνιγον) means choking or suffocating. In the imperfect tense here, it indicates ongoing, sustained action. Think horde. Then one woman in the crowd, Christ’s congregation, who with all of her heart wanted to stay in the background, to remain veiled and silent, touched him with faith that Jesus would heal her — “When she found that she was discovered, she came trembling and fell down before him. In the presence of all the people, she declared the reason she had touched him and how she was instantly healed.” I can never believe that the church is a place where women as individuals are only meant to blend into the background. The Gospels begin and end with women, named women, attending Christ in life and in death, witnessing his resurrection, and heralding the gospel of life in union and communion with him. The last words of Jesus commission us all to preach the gospel, and Acts gives us the voices of that first evangelistic congregation as fulfillment of Joel 2:28, 29:

I will pour out my Spirit on all kinds of people.

Your sons and daughters will prophesy.

Your elderly will have prophetic dreams;

your young men will see visions.

Even on male and female servants

Daughter Zion lifts her voice. She is not silent. She proclaims the glory of the Son who dwells within her walls. The Son in turn magnifies the glory of the eternal Spirit-city. She is the City of the Great King, and the Great King desires her (Ps 132:13). The one thing that David wants is actually two things, the Son and the City, “One thing I have asked of the LORD; this is what I desire: to dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the LORD and seek Him in His temple” (Ps 27:4). The last voices of the New Testament are the Son and the Spirit-bride (Rev 22:17, 20).

Some interpreters want to say that Paul wants women silent in all congregations in all places for perpetuity, but women in 1 Corinthians 11:5 are praying and prophesying in worship. In his commentary, Calvin dismisses this by reading the passage in light of his interpretation of 1 Timothy 2:12 and 1 Corinthians 14:34, and so adds the word “even”: “It would not, therefore, be allowable for them to prophesy even with a covering upon their head.” With that we go to Calvin’s interpretation of 1 Timothy 2:12. There Calvin gives us Aristotle, not redemptive history. He indicates that while there is no “absurdity” in a man being relationally under the authority of other men, like magistrates, it will always be absurd for women to take a position of authority over men. Calvin writes,

But this does not apply to the case of woman, who by nature [that is, by the ordinary law of God, (i.e., general revelation)] is formed to obey; for γυναικοκρατία (the government of women) has always been regarded by all wise persons as a monstrous thing; and, therefore, so to speak, it will be a mingling of heaven and earth, if women usurp the right to teach. Accordingly, he bids them to be “quiet,” that is, keep within their own rank.

Before Calvin ever gets to 1 Timothy 2, he has already “ranked” woman according to nature and by what “all wise persons” consider “monstrous.” This is a classic instance of reading natural law’s hierarchy, Aristotle’s scale of perfection, into the text, which makes the woman’s rank deducible by common sense. Apparently, with this in place, Calvin feels ready for an open-minded and impartial interpretation. When interpreting 1 Timothy 2, given the choice between Calvin’s natural ranking and supernaturally inspired redemptive history, I will opt for the latter every time. I suggest that Paul is saying that in worship, for our consolation and joy, let sons represent our sonship in the Son and let daughters direct our eyes to the beauty and consolation of Zion, an imperishable garment of salvation, a robe of righteousness, causing praise to spring up before the nations (Is 61):

For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent,

for Jerusalem’s sake I will not remain quiet,

till her vindication shines out like the dawn,

her salvation like a blazing torch.

The nations will see your vindication,

and all kings your glory;

you will be called by a new name

that the mouth of the Lord will bestow.

You will be a crown of splendor in the Lord’s hand,

a royal diadem in the hand of your God.

No longer will they call you Deserted,

or name your land Desolate.

But you will be called Hephzibah,

and your land Beulah;

for the Lord will take delight in you,

and your land will be married.

As a young man marries a young woman,

so will your Builder marry you;

as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride,

so will your God rejoice over you.

I have posted watchmen on your walls, Jerusalem;

they will never be silent day or night.

You who call on the Lord,

give yourselves no rest,

and give him no rest till he establishes Jerusalem

and makes her the praise of the earth. (Is 62:1-7)

Until we understand the foundation of gender, there will always be confusion on the passages that juxtapose man and woman, with an intent of magnifying our differences for our instruction, comfort, and anticipation of future glory. Without that, Aristotle’s voice will come through clearly in the commentaries of the Church Fathers, Scholastics, and Reformers in places that compare man and woman with a view to application in the church or the home, passages such as 1 Corinthians 11:2-16; 14:34-40; Ephesians 5:22-26; 1 Timothy 2:11-15; and 1 Peter 3:1-6.

Recently, Lane Tipton preached on 1 Peter 3:7, coming to the conclusion that Peter's reference to wives as the “weaker vessel” refers to her covenantal representation of the pilgrim church whose faith is not yet perfected. Tipton is explicit, “In her laughter of faith tinged with weakness and doubt, Sarah represented and typified the church as the bride of Christ . . . whose laughter will be turned into uncontaminated joy” at the fulfillment of God’s promises. Tipton continues,

Abraham and Sarah are the representation of Christ and the church and nothing else, nothing else. It's not ontological difference. It’s not anything other than a presentation of Christ and the church . . . which informs the way that you are to live in an understanding way with your wife and show her honor. ‘They are heirs with you of the grace of life.’ So not only is your wife sitting before you the blood-bought Spirit-raised church of Jesus Christ, she is with you, and equally with you, an heir of the grace of life. No hierarchy in that relationship. Pilgrim husband you represent Christ. Pilgrim wife you represent the church, but you do so together as heirs of the grace of life. Peter could not be more explicit that there is an absolute equality here between the husband who represents Christ and the wife who represents the church . . .

Although Tipton did not go there, perhaps he might have established the husband and wife’s ontological equality and equal rank in Genesis 1, one mankind, male and female, in the image of God who said, “Let us make mankind in our image after our likeness.” That equality finds further support in Genesis 2, in their covenantal representation. The woman proceeds from Adam, as the City from the Son, built by God from Adam’s sacred side, representing to him the imperishable beauty of the Sabbath realm. The man and woman of Genesis 2 point to the Enthroned Son and Spirit-City, the external revelation of two divine persons, equal in power and glory. Peter’s reference to co-heirs is rooted there, in the garden of life before sin entered.

Vos taught me that eschatology precedes soteriology, laying bare the foundations of ontology before sin entered. That is a way of saying something very simple. Applied to male and female, we know who we are by looking at Genesis 1 and 2 in the light of Revelation 21-22. Before sin entered the garden, we were created in God’s image with a natural glory made to advance to an exceeding glory in union and communion with our triune Lord in the heaven temple. Our enduring identity as man and woman is better understood by seeing who Adam and Eve were before sin, in the light of who his people will be after sin exits. Peter expresses man and woman’s essential, exceedingly glorious, enduring identity as equals in 1 Peter 3 using the term “co-heirs” of life.

The fact that there is no scale of perfection, no rank, no “monstrosity,” is firmly rooted in the life of God, a trinity without ontological or economic subordination, represented by Eden’s man and woman initially, and Zion’s man and woman in eternity. Perhaps this is why Peter addresses the wife’s representation in 3:1-6 before Peter moves on to the man’s representation. We fall short of interpreting Peter’s “weaker vessel” by not recognizing her parallel in 3:1-6, the noble wife who fears God alone. Before Peter calls men to mirror faithful Abraham and Christ, he calls women to mirror Sarah and fearless Zion before their disobedient husbands. They are to seek an imperishable beauty. When we come across “imperishable” in 3:4, we recognize that Peter has already told us the location of what is imperishable: “According to His great mercy, he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that is imperishable, uncorrupted, and unfading, kept in heaven for you” (1 Peter 1:3b-4). Heaven is the realm of imperishability.

With this overly lengthy introduction, I turn to my main subject. Last Substack, someone asked me how I see man as the head of the woman in 1 Corinthians 11. Another person who commented suggested that it deserved a separate article. So this is what I began with. There are many ways that head (kefale) can be used: (1) literal body part; (2) one standing in for many (representative head or head of state); (3) symbolic (figurehead); (4) source (fountainhead); (5) authoritative head (executive head, head of government or military), and most recently, thanks to Valerie Jacobsen, I add (6) union. For me, the difficulty with this passage is the use of “Christ.” It would have made more sense to me to say “the Son of God is the head of every man.” Beginning with “Christ,” the incarnate Son as head, instead of the eternal Son, throws me off, but then I remember that Paul has no problem speaking about Christ as the Eternal Son. Consider what is attributed to “Christ” in Colossians 1:

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For everything was created by him, in heaven and on earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities — all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and by him all things hold together. He is also the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead so that he may come to have first place in everything. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile everything to himself, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

What category of head, kefale, is not mentioned in these verses with reference to Christ? Christ is everything from (2) — (6) in this passage.

Once I resolve Paul’s use of “Christ” as “head,” I get to my next problem, “every man,” The Greek word for man indicates maleness (ἀνήρ). Gender is front and center in this passage. How is Christ the head of every male person in a way that Christ is not the head of every female person? What do Christ and “every man” have in common that excludes women? Sonship. Sons are male, and though in the Scriptures women participate in sonship in the Son, they do so derivatively or secondarily. Similarly, men participate in cityhood in the Spirit derivatively or secondarily, through the woman. But I get ahead of myself.

The first clause, which to me is the most difficult of the entire passage, now seems to be framing the passage with familiar categories, beginning with sonship, and I now read, “The Son is the head of every male son.” I still am potentially dealing with all the possible meanings of kefale. Christ is the representative Son, the symbolic Son, the source, the executive head to whom all other sons, beginning with Adam, are united by sonship. Women’s sonship is understood as “once removed” because she is not male, just as men’s cityhood is “once removed” because he is not female.

Once I have found the Son, I am ready to find the City. The first clause, “Christ is the head of every man” has taken me back to categories of personal sonship, and I am ready now to see personal cityhood. I do not have to wait. There she is — “man is the head of woman.” Notice that “all” is absent. It is not that all men are the head of all women, but rather that Adam and Eve, who appear to represent categories that are established in Genesis 2, represent all men contrasted with all women. With the paradigm in place, I now read: “The eternal Son is the head of every male son. And Adam, the first male-son, representing sonship, is the head of Eve, the first female-city, representing Zion.” When I arrive here, I can still see representative head, symbolic head, source, and union, but I have ruled out the complementarian executive head. Why? I rule out "head” as “authority over” because the man and woman of Genesis 1-2 exist as the one irreducible image, not images, of the triune God, whose persons are equal in power and glory. I will not expect this passage to be telling me who is boss below but rather something far more glorious about ourselves as male and female.

The next phrase seals the specific headship on display and the glory revealed in this passage— “God is the head of Christ.” We are taken back all the way now. We are before time and have arrived at the internal life of God. If we have understood “Christ” as the eternal Son in the first clause, “Christ is the head of every man” (11:3a), we will see that it is unwise to make it only about the temporal Son in the third clause (11:3b). God, the Father, is head of the Son, can only mean that the Son is eternally begotten of the Father. With this final phrase, I reach the heart of what God is telling us by “head.” We are talking about personal processions. We have come to the ineffable, internal life of God and his revelation of himself in the heaven temple. This is what Paul wants on display in worship in Corinth for our comfort, for our encouragement, especially as it serves the larger concerns of Paul in 1 Corinthians, unity and love among us, not divisions and rivalry.

The earthly covenantal order is (1) Adam-man as second, from the Son (11:3a), radiating the glory of the Son (Gen 2:7; John 1:3; Col 1:16: Heb 15-13:), who is begotten of the Father and the radiance and exact expression of the Father, and (2) Adam-man first (11:3b), the son, as contrasted with Eve, second. Eve proceeds from Adam, second in order, not representing sonship. In other words, in 11:3a, Adam stands with the Son, who is second (11:3c), eternally begotten of the Father, who is first (11:3c). But Adam with reference to Eve (11:3b) stands in the position of head or first with the Father of 11:3c and Son of 11:3a. Adam as second is in the likeness of the eternal Son as begotten. Adam as first in the likeness of the Son first over all creation. These categories make sense of why the Son, not the Spirit, takes on flesh. The eternal Son, the temporal son Adam, and the incarnate Second Adam are tethered by “sonship.” Eve is not that image. Her image is elsewhere, which this passage will make abundantly clear.

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If we chart it, we see the emphasis is not primarily on the man, but on the woman, especially her veiled head in worship. Since I already see the entire passage with reference to personal processions, I am left to work out Eve’s procession from Adam as it relates to her hair and veil. The key resides in the Levitical law. As a permanent statute, the priest's head was covered with a turban (מִצְנֶ֣פֶת) woven from fine linen, for beauty and for glory, and covered with a golden plate, a crown (Ex 28:36-39; 39:30-31).

And thou shalt make a plate (צִּ֖יץ) of pure gold, and engrave upon it, like the engravings of a signet: HOLY TO THE LORD. And thou shalt put it on a thread of blue, and it shall be upon the turban; upon the forefront of the turban it shall be. And it shall be upon Aaron’s forehead, and Aaron shall bear the iniquity committed in the holy things, which the children of Israel shall hallow, even in all their holy gifts; and it shall be always upon his forehead, that they may be accepted before the LORD (Ex 28:36-38).

The discussion of this headdress and its relation to Christ has a wealth of encouragement for us, but for the purposes of 1 Corinthians 11:4, we can say something has changed in the coming of the Son from heaven. Now, “Every man who prays or prophesies with something on his head dishonors his head.” That head is Christ, according to 11:3a. Similarly, there is no law concerning women and the covering of their heads in worship in the Levitical order, but now something has changed in the new order, “Every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head . . .” (1:5a). That head is the man of 11:3b. Before the coming of Christ, the man in priestly service to God is covered, and the woman uncovered, or more precisely, covered only by her hair. After the resurrection of Christ, in the new order of the Spirit, the man is uncovered and the woman is covered (1 Cor 15:45-49).

As I understand it, the Son, Christ, has been unveiled. He has been revealed from heaven. He has fulfilled the law by meeting its just requirements. Its shadows and types, the linen turban and the gold plate, have given way to the substance standing in the full light of day. Christ, our great High Priest, has come. The Son has been unveiled, and thus sons in worship are similarly unveiled. They remind us of the finished work of Christ. For a son to veil dishonors the person and work of the Son, his head, who has accomplished redemption.

But what about the woman? As second, proceeding from the son below, the woman in worship reveals things still veiled to his eyes. In the garden, she proceeded from her head, the son of the garden, with a glory that proclaimed to him something of his telos, his final destination. She represented the joy set before him, his advancement to glory in heavenly Zion. As veiled in worship, she tells him something of the glory that awaits him, which is still in the shadowy future: ”For now we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, as I am fully known” (1 Cor 13:12). When the woman unveils in worship, it is as if she is denying what awaits him as a son destined for glory. Her unveiled head would dishonor him by saying, “There is no future above, no heaven-tent, no gates, no garden city, no house of the Lord in which to behold the Lord’s beauty, no myriad of angels in festal garments, no seraphim, no cherubim, no saints made perfect, no throng in worship from every tribe and tongue and nation, no tree of life, no river of life for healing, no hope, no future.” To unveil herself would proclaim to the man, “There is no future, no advancement to glory, no resurrection from the dead, no inheritance.” Unveiled, she dishonors her head. Veiled, she proclaims to him his future glory, what no eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined, the things that God has prepared for those who love him (1 Cor 2:9).

The connection between the woman’s hair and veil seems to find some explanation in Song of Songs 4:1 and 6:5. The man says to his beloved, “How beautiful you are, my darling. How very beautiful! Behind your veil, your eyes are doves. Your hair is like a flock of goats streaming down Mt. Gilead . . . You are absolutely beautiful, my darling: there is no imperfection in you” (Song 4:1, 7; 6:5). What might sound like an obscure reference to veil and hair is actually quite profound, especially when combined with “dove” eyes and the symbolism of the Son and City throughout the book. Mount Gilead is a fertile area on the east bank of the Jordan River, synonymous with grazing lands and healing balms, and thus becomes a metaphor for the Promised Land in the prophets. Consider Zechariah 10:10: “I will bring them back from the land of Egypt and gather them from Assyria. I will bring them to the land of Gilead and to Lebanon, but it will not be enough for them (Zech. 10:10). Other mountains also point to Zion, including Mt. Zaphon: “The LORD is great and highly praised in the city of our God. His holy mountain, rising splendidly, is the joy of the whole earth. Mount Zion—the summit of Zaphon—is the city of the great King. God is known as a stronghold in her citadels” (Ps 48:1-3). The veil of the woman in Song of Songs and in 1 Corinthians 11 takes us to the Promised Land, the Spirit-city. Behind her veil, her eyes are doves, overt symbolism for the Holy Spirit. Her hair cascades down her sides like flocks of goats on the mountain slopes. These are symbols of prosperity and abundance, our inheritance in the Land of Promise. In 1 Corinthians 11:5-6, both hair and the veil signify the same thing, abundance and glory, evoking the Spirit’s train, forming and filling the tent city, the realm of Sabbath life. The hair is the glory, and the veil proclaims both its presence and its hiddenness. The woman has yet to be unveiled; the glory of what she represents has yet to be revealed.

In 11:7-8, instead of the category of “head,” the categories of “image” and “glory” are used with reference to the man and woman. The man is uncovered not only because the revealed Son is his head, but also because he is the image and glory of God.⁵ Before image and glory are applied to the man, they are applied within the Trinity. In Hebrews 1, the Son is “the radiance of God’s glory and the exact impress of the Father’s nature,” who “after he had made purification for sins, sat down at the hand of the Majesty on high” (v. 3). When he brings his firstborn into the world, the Father says, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever, and the scepter of your kingdom is a scepter of justice. You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness; this is why God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of joy beyond your companions” (vv. 8-9). Hebrews 1 and 1 Corinthians 11:7a alike conjoin the Father and the Son as one “God,” emphasizing one glory. In Hebrews 1, that glory is manifest as the one Throne of heaven. In 1 Corinthians 11, that glory is manifest as the one man of earth, the image and glory of God, singular. In other words, by using “God” (11:7a) instead of “Son” (11:3a), the internal relation between Father and Son in 11:3c has gone out of view, and the conjoined Father and Son as one God remains. For me, alarm bells go off signaling that we are now moving on to the second circulation or procession, the Spirit from the Father and Son. This is foundational for all that follows. What comes into view now is not Adam’s association with Sonship, but the Throne’s association with the Spirit-train and Spirit-smoke of Isaiah 6. The woman’s glory will be further grounded in this second procession. She proceeds from the man as her head in 11:3b, and she proceeds from man as his glory in 11:7b. Rooting this glory from him is the procession of God the Holy Spirit from God, Father and Son. Further rooting her glory as his glory is the procession of the Spirit-Tabernacle from the one Throne of heaven. Woman was made for man, to proclaim to him second things, last things, enduring things. The man was not made to proclaim to the woman first things. She came from him, for him, so that his eyes and desires may be fixed on that one coming thing of Psalm 27:4, the beauty of the triune Lord manifest in the bride, the Sabbath city.

I suggest that the key to the next verses, 1 Corinthians 11:10-12, is found in the Greek adversative πλὴν in 11:11, which is translated “however” or “nevertheless.” The sense is that the discussion stops for a moment to draw attention to what is most important in the previous statement, perhaps in order to restrict it (Friberg), namely that a woman should have authority on her head because of the angels. Paul has exalted the woman to the heavens with mention of her authority, and now he must bring her down to earth again by referencing her dependence on man, just as man is dependent on her.

The only place in Scripture where I find the woman, authority, heaven, and the angels together is Revelation 12:

A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and crown of twelve stars on her head. She was pregnant and cried out in labor and agony as she was about to give birth . . . she gave birth to a Son, a male, who is going to rule all nations . . Her child was caught up to God and to his throne. The women fled into the wilderness . . . war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon . . . So the great dragon was thrown out — the ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the one who deceives the whole world . . . and his angels with him. Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say, “The salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come now . . . Therefore rejoice, you heavens, and you who dwell in them!” (from vv. 1-12).

The sign is a woman, a mother. The fact that she is clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and a crown of twelve stars on her head seems to stand in stark contradiction to her agony and vulnerability as she prepares to give birth before the fiery red dragon. Add to this the necessity of her flight into the wilderness and protection. We can only put these two things together using our understanding of the church in her suffering and in the promise that she will overcome and reign with the Son. As Paul conceives her, she is simultaneously delivered over to death and seated with the Son in the City (Eph 2:6; 2 Cor 4:11). The authority that she wears on her head, her veil, is a symbol of the latter even as she lives with the reality of the former. Her veil proclaims both the already and the not yet of God’s people as the dwelling of God in the Spirit.

Revelation 12 also sheds light on the interdependence emphasized in 1 Corinthians 11:11-12. The Woman as Mother realm and as Eden’s Eve, is the beginning of the Genesis 3:15 Man, the Son from heaven. She will give birth to the Seed in the context of angelic warfare above and pain and travail below. And yet her Son is destined to save her as he comes from heaven to earth to vanquish all of his and her enemies (Rev 12:16-17). These things also emerge in 1 Timothy 2:15 as she is saved through the Son she bears.

In the final verses dealing with the women’s veil, 11:13-15, we have a reference to nature. Calvin will take this opportunity to introduce “nature” as the general customs of the nations, “confirmed by length of time and common use.” And yet, Calvin must admit that at the time of Paul’s writing, it was not the established custom of the Greeks or European tribes for men to cut their hair short. Additionally, we should note that there is no Old or New Testament command for men to have short hair. In fact, in Numbers 6, uncut hair was required for men and women who consecrated themselves to the Lord by taking the Nazirite vow. At the end of his or her consecration to the Lord, the Nazirite was to shave his or her consecrated head at the entrance to the tabernacle and to burn the cut hair on the fire under the fellowship offering. For the Nazirite, long hair was associated with consecration to God and the supernatural second order; shaved hair was associated with the natural first order. We understand that the first things given in creation in Genesis 1 and 2 were always destined to give way to the last things given us Revelation 21-22. Genesis 1 tells us that by nature we are the image and likeness of the supernatural triune God. Genesis 2 tells us that the natural man, who was molded supernaturally by the hands of God, and the woman, who was supernaturally built by the hands of God, were destined for something beyond the natural life of the garden (Heb 4:11). They were destined for the Mountain of the Lord, the supernatural Sabbath city, the heavenly abode of God and angels. Perhaps the association of long hair with glory and the supernatural veiled city, where we will be consummately consecrated to God, makes sense of Paul’s reference to short hair associated with “nature” and first things. The man’s hair represents our alpha as from God, formed by him in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness; the woman’s hair represents our omega as consecrated to God forever in the garden of Sabbath rest, our irrevocable inheritance in the City above.

In conclusion, I again mention that there is no Reformed consensus on 1 Corinthians 11:3-15. Just as with 1 Timothy 2:13-15 and 1 Peter 3:1-7, we have found no eternal categories to anchor our interpretation of the man and woman. We have not arrived at the deeper Protestant conception of gender introduced in Genesis 1-2, even with the light of Revelation 21-22. Scripture begins and ends with garden sanctuaries planted by God. In both gardens we find a man and a woman. Could it be that our natural existence as male and female holds a promise of things to come so that we might have hope, endurance, and encouragement, living in harmony with one another and glorifying God with one mind and one voice? (Rom 15:4-6)

Thanks for reading and thinking along with me. I welcome your thoughts. Please comment.

1. Gordon Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, 492.

2. Anthony C. Thiselton, “The First Epistle to the Corinthians,” 820-823.

3. Mark Garcia, “Theological Anthropology,” Lectures 6.4 and 6.5.

4. For the language of “circulation,” see Geerhardus Vos, Reformed Dogmatics, Volume 1, 46 . See also, Lane Tipton, “Calvinistic Trinitarianism: A Reformed Federalist Alternative to Thomistic Sacerdotalism: Autothean Perichoresis,” Lesson 6, https://reformedforum.org/lessons/autothean-perichoresis-28min/, starting at minute mark 13:00.

5. Depending how the Greek δὲ is translated, the next clause could say, (1) and the woman is the glory of man (YLT); (2) but the woman is the glory of man (NAS, ESV); (3) So too, the woman is the glory of man (CSB). Whether δὲ means “and,” “but,” or gives the sense of “furthermore,” personal processions continue to be in view.