Kristen

The answer to that question, and the evidence/research to back up that answer, Pastortnew, are too long to answer in a blog comment. If you are interested, you are welcome to read my five-part analysis of the passage, which begins at
http://krwordgazer.blogspot.com/2011/11/my-interpretation-of-1-timothy-211-15.html

Ok. I can agree to that. 🙂

I guess I would say that from God’s perspective (outside time) He already was the Christ because He was absolutely going to be the Christ. From within time and the human perspective, sure, He wasn’t the Christ yet. No, I don’t have a verse that says point-blank, “God gave Him the title “Christ” before the foundation of the world.” But I do think that all the scriptures I have cited, including the one in Revelation about “slain from the foundation of the world” and the ones in 1 Cor and Col., with their contexts, all point to the idea that at the time of Creation He was the Christ in the mind of God, and that “all things” were created by and for Him.

So what you mean is that the Word is called the “future” Christ?
In a way. I mean that to the Godhead, in Their unbounded Now, the Son was the Christ from the moment when They planned the Incarnation, Atonement and Resurrection (if it even makes sense to say “the moment when” in this context). I simply don’t think time travel on the part of the human body of Jesus was necessary, based on the way God looks at time.
Hope that makes sense.

Cheryl,
No, I don’t mean that the Word died. I mean that He was called the Christ from Creation onwardsin anticipation of His later death, which is what I think “slain from the foundation of the world” also means.
Hope that clarifies my position. You are free, of course, to continue to disagree.
Peace,
Kristen

Cheryl, I appreciate your push-back, but I’m going to stand by my position. 🙂 “Christ” is the Son’s title as Savior, and “Lamb Who was slain” is part and parcel of what it means to be the Christ. Therefore, in my mind He has been the Christ from the foundation of the world, and there is no reason to conjecture His traveling back in time in order for this to be so. Time-travel, it seems to me, is an anachronistic application of modern science-fiction ideas to an ancient text, the writers of which could not have intended that meaning.
I also think that “all things” in Col 1:15 and 1 Cor. 8:6 probably means “all things” and not “all presently existing things” or “all principalities and powers only,” as Gengwall suggested.
Let’s just agree to disagree on this. We are in agreement on the essentials, anyway. 🙂

My italics disappeared in my last post. I wonder what happened to them? I intended to set off your questions from my responses, Cheryl. If you could go back and put them in, I’d really appreciate it!

Final response to Cheryl:
what connection between the two makes God the head of Christ? Makes Christ, the last Adam the head of man? And the husband the head of the wife? When we can see the common denominator between all three, we will understand.
God is the “head of Christ”in 1 Cor. 11:3 because God is the source/origin of Christ. Col 1:15 – “He is the image of the invisible God.”

Christ is the “head of man” in 1 Cor. 11:3 because Christ is the source/origin of man. He already bore the title “Christ” at the creation (because in divine anticipation He was “slain from the foundation of the world”) when all things were made by Him, to exist through Him, according to 1 Cor. 8:6.

“The man” (meaning Adam) is the “head of woman” in 1 Cor. 11:3 because Adam was the source/origin of the woman, when the woman was taken out of Adam. But verse 12 says that just as the woman originated from the first man, so also man now originates from woman (in childbirth), and God is the source/origin of all things.

The husbands is “head of the wife” in Eph. 5:23 because the husband was the source of provision for the wife. But the husband is not the “head of the wife” as source/origin in the same way as “man is the head of woman” in 1 Cor 11:3.

Paul was capable of using, and did use, the word “head” in a variety of metaphorical ways. The original audience, being familiar with all these different metaphorical meanings, would not have had the trouble we have today, figuring out what meant. They knew “head” could mean “source/origin” AND “source of nourishment” AND “preeminent/prominent one.” They would have followed Paul seamlessly, where we get tripped up.

But I think it’s a mistake to say the Son did not become the Christ till the incarnation. When we do that, we negate “slain from the foundation of the world,” and we render 1 Cor. 11:3 un-interpretable as being about origins (which the context supplied by verse 12 makes clear is the case).

Answering Cheryl’s questions, continued. . .

I can see that you are not talking about any nature of God or man, but a title only. Yet you turn around and say that Christ is what He “is”. This is very confusing to me to understand you. What a person is, is the nature of that person.
Yes, I can see the confusion here. According to that definition, you are right– He is not the Christ in the same sense that He is the Word or the Son, because He was the Word and the Son from eternity, but He took the title “Christ” at the creation of the world, in anticipation of what He would do for the world. However, to say that He only became the Christ when He was incarnated, causes the exact problem Gengwall raised. Once you do that, “head” as “source/origin” in 1 Cor. 11 no longer makes sense. If He was not yet the Christ when humans were created, then Christ cannot be “the head of man.”

Cheryl, I will try to answer your questions one at a time to clarify how I see it.

Are you also saying that the Bible could have said “The Christ became flesh and dwelt among us?”
In a way. What I’m saying is that “Christ” is a title. It means “Messiah.” But– and this is the crux of it– it is a title He took on at the creation of the world. When God made the world and its creatures, and humanity in His image, He had already decided within His triune Self that the Son would be the Christ to the world. So it does make sense to say, as Paul does in Col. 1:15-16 and 1 Cor. 8:6, that all things were made by and through the Christ. He had that title before He was incarnated, though He had to be incarnated in order to fulfill the role that the title anticipated.

the term Christ is intimately connected to His humanity in that it is not a term that can be used for the pre-incarnate Word other than in reference to the time of His incarnation, therefore to use it synonymously with “God” is incorrect.
I agree that it is not synonymous with “God.” I disagree that it cannot be used for Him pre-incarnation, because that is exactly how Paul did use it in 1 Cor. 8:6 and Col. 1:15-16.

When we say that Jesus Christ as head of the church as the husband means that the husband is like God over the wife, we distort the connection of one flesh and make it about authority and power over another. Is Jesus Christ one flesh with the Church? Is the Christ head of or head over?
I think Paul uses “head” in Eph. 5:22 in the same way he uses it in Eph. 4:15-16 — as the Source of provision and nourishment. Husbands in Paul’s day were the source of provision and nourishment for their wives. Womenhad no way of taking care of themselves or providing for themselves in that society, short of prostitution. So as the church is dependent on Christ for her nourishment and growth, so also the wife was dependent on the husband.
Jesus is not “one flesh” with the church yet. The marriage of the Lamb to the Bride has not yet occurred. When it does, when He comes back, we will “be like Him, for we will see Him as He is.” 1 John 3:2. Then we will be “one flesh.” That is the “mystery” Paul spoke of in Eph. 5:32. He will raise the Bride up, completely cleanse her of all spot or wrinkle and present her to Himself in glory. That is what husbands in Paul’s day were being asked to do for their wives– to raise them out of their lowly state of inferiority and subservience, to be glorious beside them.
Christ is “head of” the church in Eph. 4 and 5. He is “head over” all principalities and powers in Eph 1. The church is not one of the things he is “head over,” for she is beside Him in the heavenly places. In Eph 1, “head” combined with “over” instead of “of,” means “The One in the Place of Prominence” or “Preeminent One.” So applying that to Chapter 5, husbands (being in the place of prominence and preeminence in that culture) were being asked to raise their wives up to be beside them in all the things the husbands were “over.”

To be continued. . .

I see “Christ” as a role or title, not a statement of the Son’s nature, whether human or divine. “Christ” means “the Anointed One, the Messiah.” I do think that the Son took on the role and title “Christ/Messiah” when He was incarnated– but can we really say that He is ONLY Messiah in His human flesh and not in His divine nature? Is the Son divided to that extent? Look at 1 Cor. 8:6: ‘for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things– and we exist through Him.” Paul makes it clear that it is also as the Christ that He is the Lord by Whom all things exist and through Whom we exist. The Word and the Christ are not so divided from one another that we can say only the Word can create and only the Christ can save. John 1:14, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us . . . full of grace and truth.” Then in verse 17, “Grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ.” He did not cease to be the Word when He became Christ. He was, in God’s divine anticipation, the Christ even before He became flesh, for He was appointed to be slain from the very foundation of the world. We must not make Him into two beings rather than one divine/human Entity.
The Word and Christ are not synonymous, but that doesn’t mean we can divide them up into slices. And “Christ” is not merely a reference to His human nature, though He needed to become human in order to complete the Christ’s task. “Christ” is Who He is, just as much as “the Son” or “the Word.” Whatever Cheryl may have meant when she wrote to NN, I cannot agree that His natures should be separated like that.

Cheryl, yes, I was aware that “firstborn” was a reference to position.
But Gengwall, what about “all things were made by Him and for him” in Col 2:15-16? Surely that means the Christ is also the Creator?

PS. The Lamb is “slain from the foundation of the world,” so in that timeless sense, He has always been the Christ.

I think Col. 1:15-16 shows Christ (specifically mentioned as “Christ” earlier in the chapter) as the “firstborn of all creation, for all things were created by him and for him.” I don’t think the idea of Christ, with that title, as the Source or Origin of man, is outside Paul’s Christology.

Steph said:
“If women with serious intellectual and communication gifts stopped treating other women as secondary, and instead saw it as an honor to teach them deep, provoking spiritual truths, a lot of the problem would be solved.”
This brings Susannah Wesley to mind. Many know her as the mother of John and Charles Wesley, but she was also a minister in her own right (though the church denied her any sanction or support). She started teaching a few women in her home. Her teaching was so deep and spiritually provoking that more and more began coming. Men came too, more and more men and women, to hear and receive.
Should Mrs. Wesley have driven away the men who came to hear her teach, since no man had given her authority to do so? Should her teachings have been only for women? Does God really want His messages hampered by the sex of the person whom He anoints to teach? Is this really about women’s roles, or about men wanting the sandbox all to themselves?
As far as the idea that women should teach only women and be content– I am certain you would be horrified at the idea of telling an African American preacher that he could teach children of any race, or adults of his own race, but it was not his place to teach white adults. The discriminatory nature of this is very clear when African Americans are substituted for women. But discrimination is discrimination, no matter whom it is practiced against.
It is not women who want to teach both women and men, who are treating women as secondary. It is those who tell a woman she can’t do this, because she is a woman.

Personally, I don’t think the Bible was intended by God to be “the history book of the universe.” It’s not a history book, or a science textbook, or a rulebook that tells us what to do in every situation, or anything of that nature. It’s the story of God’s creation and redemption of humanity; it’s the story of Christ. As such, it contains history; but telling us all about the history of the universe is simply not what it has ever been forl.

I think finding authorial intent (both God’s and the human writers’) is the best way to interpret it. I can find no reference within it that it was ever intended to be “the history book of the universe.” I think if we’re not careful, we will apply templates to it that the original authors simply never conceived of. Scientific methods, newspaper-style reporting, and so on, are among those templates that are often misapplied. The Bible needs to be allowed to be what it is, not faulted for not being what it was never meant to be.

I’ve read it over now, and I think you’ve made a very, very good case. I can understand why Paul might feel the need to treat this woman as a special case, and thus not to speak of her with the other individuals he was talking about in chapter 1, but to talk about her as a sort of aside, while talking about women in general in the next chapter.

I know you wrote this in part, in response to my questions. I have begun reading it, but I’m under a lot of time pressures right now as well and it may take me a few days to get all the way through. 🙂

Maxwell, my own experience is that many complementarians have said much worse things to me and about me. I’m sure Cheryl, the author of this blog, has had similar experiences. In the eyes of some complementarians, I’m a reprobate feminist and not even saved.

If you’re looking for scriptural backup, please view the other articles here. Scripture is all over the place. All you have to do is read. 🙂

James,

I don’t dispute that Eve was deceived and Adam was not. Why does that mean all women should be silenced?

Why does submission of the church to the will of the King, mean women must treat their husbands as if they were Christ? Isn’t this idolatry?

In the New City, we are all kings and priests. Not just the males.

James, I am not the blog owner, nor am I the author of this post. That would be Cheryl. I simply saw your comment in the recent comments section, and responded– that is all.

I appreciate your words about 1 Cor 14; I was aware of that interpretation already.

I don’t think we can see eye to eye on Genesis 2-3. The words “help meet” in the Hebrew are “ezer kenegdo.” Almost every other time “ezer” is used, it refers to God as the “help” of humankind. “Ezer” implies no inferiority, but means “strong aid.” “Kenedgo” means “facing him.” So “help meet” would be better rendered, “face-to-face strong aid.”

The passage about the temptation says Adam was right there with Eve when she took from the tree. And she didn’t “offer” him the fruit, she “gave” it to him. There is no indication she had to talk him into taking it. The Bible is silent on whether Adam heard what the serpent said, but the way the story is put together seems to imply that he was standing right there with her throughout the entire temptation, and he certainly was with her when she took the fruit.

I have no idea what Luke 17, about Jesus meeting the lepers, has to do with Genesis 2.

To say the Bride is taken from the Body of Christ is odd. The church is the bride; the Church is also the body. She is not “taken from” the body.

If the issue is our salvation and the Kingdom to come, the silencing of women has no place in either one. If women are not to be free in the Kingdom, then they are never to be free. But it is for freedom that Christ set us ALL free– so I will not be subject to a yoke of bondage. Gal. 5:1. In Christ there is not male or female, for we are all one in Christ, and all adopted as sons (this phrase in the original Greek meant we ALL have the rights and privileges pertaining to freeborn male citizens. There are no differences in rights and privileges in the Kingdom). Galations 3:28-4:6. The Bible should not be used as a gag on the mouths of half the church.

The issue of the church’s submission to Christ, as it relates to wives’ submission to husbands, is a complex one. I do not disagree about wives’ submission, but this passage has been interpreted to mean many things which it doesn’t actually say; and the cultural-historical context, as well as the context of this passage within the whole letter to Ephesus, has been largely ignored, in order to subordinate women unjustly. I suggest you read Cheryl’s other posts on this topic.

For the rest, I find your way of writing confusing and indirect. Why not just come out and say what you mean?

James, that is a very odd way of taking one passage from Ephesians and laying it over the top of another in 1 Timothy– without any justification that I can see. Did Paul INTEND to have his idea of the church as the Bride, apply to 1 Timothy 2? Did he in any way remind Timothy (his original audience) of his words to a totally different audience years before in Eph. 5? Did he intend any connection to be made such that 1 Timothy 2 is supposed to be referring to the church as Bride? Not that I can see.
This kind of interpretation can lead to all kinds of problems.

Then there is the fact that Genesis 1 gives both the man and the woman dominion over the earth, not just the man. You say not to add to the word; don’t take away from it either. And it is taking away from the word to erase the woman from God’s words to male and female in Genesis 1.

And we don’t know for sure that Eve added to the word. God never told her she had sinned by adding to His words, did He? The Bible is silent on where Eve got the idea “you shall not touch.” She could have got it from God. Or not. But it is adding to the word to claim we know for certain that she added to the word.

The important thing is what the text really says, and doesn’t say.

Amos, thanks for that link. A very good post!

Amos– yes, I post here too. And just about everywhere else I can find where women are fighting for equality in Christianity. 🙂

Thanks for your encouraging words, at BWE and here!

Thanks, Amos. It really made me me angry when he posted questions to me but gave me no opportunity to answer them. It makes me wonder why he asked them in the first place.

I thought it was interesting that when I pointed out a clear contradiction between what Christ and the apostles taught about the New Covenant kingdom of God, and what he claimed the apostles taught about women’s roles, he merely asserted that they knew better than I did, so I should just accept the contradiction, Another form of “sit down, shut up and know your place.” But he is apparently blind to the distortion it causes in any consistent understanding of the nature of women or the nature of the kingdom.

But all I can do is bellyache here, since he shut me down there. I hate being shut down. It really frosts me!

How lovely to receive such excellent affirmation of your work, Cheryl.

I’m hoping that when you have time, you will continue your defense of your argument that “a woman” in 1 Tim 2:12-15 refers to one woman. The main item I think you have not addressed yet is why this discussion of one particular woman appears in this chapter, which deals in general with groups, and not in Chapter 1, where Paul talks specifically in terms of individuals.

Cheryl,

Again, take your time; I was not meaning to push you. I would dearly love to be able to present your reading as the best reading of this text; but I need to be able to answer the critics. 🙂

Melissa,

I have posted on the Challies site under the username “KR Wordgazer.” Thanks for the link.

The issue I would have, then, is that if I were reading a letter from the principal to this teacher, I would expect the principal to make some transitionary phrase such as, “Now, with regards to the student you wrote me about,” and not just tack it onto the end of a general section about all students, with no transitionary words. That’s where my difficulty with this interpretation comes in, as you all know by now. 😉

Craig said: “I was wondering if anyone may be able to help me with an example from everyday English where a statement about “a woman” sounds generic, (like 1 Tim 2:11,12) but a following statement about “the woman” and “she” (like 1 Tim 2:14,15) clarifies that a particular woman is being referred to and the first statement is not generic.”

Craig, one example that comes to mind would the case of a principal of a school explaining to a teacher how he might deal with one specific student (with an implication that any student in this specific situation would be subject to the same treatment; ie., that he is not singling this student out, but this student is the only one in this particular situation, so the action is being applied specifically to this one student).

Something like: “I do not permit a student to sell personal items to another student on school property The student should keep items she wishes to sell in her backpack and not make her transaction with the boy until they are off campus after school hours.”