Biblical References: Gen. 1:26–28 Gen. 2:18–25 I Cor. 11:2–12

Preliminary Considerations

This is a big subject on which reams have been written in recent years. The Christian Reformed Churches have had several long study reports on it, some of which are not worth the paper on which they were written. The basic question is always: “What does the Bible say?” Nothing else really matters. Our controversy is really a question of how we look at the Bible.

Speaking frankly, I am convinced that some people in the CRC (notably some women) don’t really care what the Bible says about this. They’re going to have women in office, come what may. That becomes very obvious in some of their writings and actions. Just recently the self-styled Committee for Women in the CRC met again, with Marchiene Rienstra as one of the speakers. Calvinist Contact reported: “We celebrated communion together (a distortion of the biblical idea of Communion, J. T.) and I could sense that all of us were profoundly moved.” (Note by the way, that these women who want so much to be a part of the action, now have communion by themselves. Talk about segregation!)

This kind of argumentation makes me both sick and worried. We were “profoundly moved.” On that basis we are finally going to decide the issue; on the basis of sentiment, feeling and emotion, rather than on Biblical grounds. Recall the report in The Banner about some “moving” speeches at last year’s synod, though not one reference was made to the Bible!

What should make us especially wary is the fact that this whole issue entered the church on the wave of the secular Women’s Liberation Movement. And that, in turn, is one expression of the revolutionary tendency of our times to overthrow God-given authority. It is part of the aftermath of the French Revolution, with its motto, “No God, no master.” It is part of what Paul predicts to Timothy: “In the last days will come times of stress; people will be proud, arrogant, disobedient to their parents,” etc. (II Tim. 3:1ff). It is part of the lawlessness that is to come (II Thess. 2).

The Rev. J. Eppinga wrote in The Banner a few years ago: “The present-day emphasis of the Women’s Liberation Movement has affected us all in the church, even though its modern roots are found in the soil of humanism rather than the Christian faith.” Just for that reason alone, he goes on to say, we should be extremely hesitant to make any long-range decisions now, for we are so strongly influenced by the spirit of the age. We cannot be objective. We are being swept along by the modern emancipation movement. As was pointed out in Christian Renewal recently, before World War II the issue (of women in church office) was never mentioned; now it is the only issue in the minds of some. And the fact that for almost 2000 years, the entire Christian church has been unanimous on this matter should say something to us. It’s not renewed insight into the Scriptures that makes us want to change now. On the contrary. “That the issue entered the life of the church on the waves of a hardly Christianly inspired women’s emancipation crusade is not much of a recommendation and could qualify it as a matter of fashion” (Rev. Wm. Deenick of Australia, in Trowel & Sword). (Anyone who wants to get an insight into the real nature of this emancipation crusade should read the editorial in The Banner of Dec. 5, 1983.)

According to the Bible, men and women are equal before God, but they have different functions, different roles to fulfill. Both are equally made in the image of God and have identical status in the matter of salvation.

In that view there are two golden strands running through the whole Scripture. The one strand has to do with the salvation of male and female alike, the bestowing of the gifts of the Spirit on both sexes, the realization of the Pentecostal dream that your sons and daughters shall prophesy. Those who take this road assert no inferiority on the part of the female, no slavery for her, neither hidden or overt. They simply believe that god has made both sexes magnificently in their own way and in their own order, so that they are both fellow-heirs of salvation as well as living witnesses to the grace of God.

The other strand, equally clear in Scripture, shows that male and female do not have the same function before God. The woman is to be submissive to the male because of the creation order, for the male was created first and the woman after that. This, says Paul, is what the Torah, the law, says about her.

(Rev. L. Mulder in The Banner, Aug. 22, 1975)

   

“We are riding on two (racks, one of equality and one of submissiveness, and we see no reason why that gospel train should be derailed” (Rev. L. Mulder, letter in Reformed Journal, Sept. 1979). Or, to say it in the words of another author, “The equality of man and woman is an equality that speaks of their creatureliness . . . . Equality of creatureliness does not mean sameness of task assignment” (Rev. R.J. Sikkema in Calvinist Contact).

We must not confuse the two Biblical teachings. Some have done so (purposely?), throwing up a “smoke screen,” as they speak of “inferiority” and “superiority.”

Let me say in the clearest possible way: This whole issue has NOTHING to do with any “inferiority” of the woman. Children are equal to parents in God’s sight too, but they must obey their parents. Employees are equal too, but they must submit to their employers. Does obedience mean inferiority? It has nothing to do with it.

The often misrepresented Galatians 3:28 teaches that no one has any special status with God when it comes to salvation. “They are all one in Christ, equally heirs of salvation. I honestly fail to see how this good news has any bearing on the authority of women” (Mulder). This text is “totally irrelevant to the debate” on women in office. To try to pit this text against others, and even to make it the key plank in the whole debate is plain dishonesty. Verse 26 states the matter clearly: “For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith.” No nationality, race or sex can claim any special standing with God. That’s what Galatians 3:28 says, and that’s ALL it says.

Look at Genesis a moment: “In the image of God made He man” (generic use of term); “male and female he made them and blessed them and gave them dominion.” Both male and female are treated in the same way. There is no difference there whatsoever. Here we have EQUALITY in the biblical sense: both are made in God’s image and both serve him as prophet, priest and king.

On the other hand, there is a difference in roles: the woman must be submissive. She may not exercise authority over the man in the home and in the church. The Bible clearly insists on this submission, beginning already in Genesis 2: which states that God made woman a “helper” fit for man. Paul picks that up in I Corinthians 11:

But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of the woman is man, and the bead of Christ is God . . . For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man. For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man (vss. 3, 7 ,8). We find the same thing in Ephesians 5:

Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, His body, and is Himself its Savior. As the church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands (vss.22–4).

(Note, by the way, that the analogy of the church to Christ is not some time-bound, culturally-conditioned matter. Note also, prospective brides, the principle of subjection, which the new Marriage Form has completely omitted from the vows as a concession to the spirit of the age. That omission is one reason I like the older Form a lot better.)

The teachings about subjection are by the same apostle Paul who wrote that in Christ Jesus there is neither male nor female.

It does not take a great deal of scriptural insight to discover that there are two strands of thought presented by Paul. In the frrst place men and women are equally partners in salvation; they are both used by God in His service; they both prophesy in the church. At the same time the headship principle is irreversible: the woman serves the Lord with a difference, always mindful of the fact that the head of every woman is the man (Mulder, Reformed Journal) .

Anyone who takes the Bible seriously will recognize its two complementary teachings on this matter.

Once again, this has nothing to do with inferiority. Or with the woman being a slave or the husband a dictator. Such abuses have occurred now and then. But they are a misuse of the Bible’s teaching. Misuse never cancels out proper use. Any husband who uses Paul to defend a dictatorial behavior hasn’t understood him at all. But according to God’s wise ordinance the man is the head of the woman, and in the home that comes to expression in the headship of the husband over the wife. The husband takes the leading role as the captain of that particular ship.

This Biblical submission, is plainly “heresy” to the Women’s Liberation Movement and to some people in the Christian Reformed Churches. That’s where our real problem lies. That hostility to the Bible’s order is behind the current push for changing the rules in the home, in society and in the church. The feminist movement is egalitarianism in the secular sense which means all doing the same thing, having the same “rights.”

The feminist thinks it necessary to rush with all her wisdom to the defense of the equality of rights for male and female, but forgets that the family is the indispensable condition for the survival of the nation as a whole. Besides, she fails to recognize the very nature of womanhood and posits manhood as the ideal. (From The Bible and the Life of the Christian)

Thus, some want to change the roles in the home and have the husband stay at home with the children while the wife goes out to work. “It’s all a matter of culture,” they say. But I don’t believe that for a moment. On the basis of Gen. 3:16–19, I see something of a permanent Divine ordinance (with respect to child-bearing, no role-change is possible!). Note also Titus 2:4, 5:

The older women are to teach what is good and so train the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be sensible, chaste, domestic (busy at home, NIV), kind, and submissive to their husbands, that the word of God may not be discredited.

This, of course, in no way diminishes the husband’s (father’s) role in bringing up the children and helping at home. But it is just to say that the diverse roles are set by God, and are not of our own making.

Too many of the women clamoring for office in the church and change in the roles are unhappy women, domineering, not the kind of personality suitable for the consistory under any conditions. Real joy and satisfaction and fulfillment in life come from obeying the ordinances of God. Thank God, many women are finding that to be true.

We should be thankful for the fact that, more than in former decades, there are opportunities for women to find a place to serve according to their special gifts in all areas of life. We need women, Christian women, who will serve as teachers and nurses, as social workers and as doctors, as officials in female prisons and as assistants of juvenile court magistrates . . . . With this reservation, however, that we should honor as surpassed by none the oldest avenue of woman’s service: that of housewife and mother. The home is the impregnable fortress of every people, and one of the most central castles of the church of God. Israel’s wise man stated it well:

“A worthy woman who can find? . . . Her children rise up, and call her blessed; Her husband also, and he praiseth her, Saying: Many daughters have done worthily, But thou excellest them all.”

(Dr. L. Praamsma in Banner, Jan. 28, 1966)

Jelle Tuininga is the pastor of the First Christian Reformed Church of Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada.