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The abuse which the apostle is reflecting upon in this and the following verses, is women’s praying or prophesying with their heads uncovered, against which the apostle strongly argues. His argument seems to be this: That the woman in religious services ought to behave herself as a person in subjection to her husband, and accordingly to use such a gesture, as, according to the guise and custom of that country, testified such a subjection; to this purpose he tells us in this verse,
that the head of every man is Christ. Christ, considered as God according to his Divine nature, is the Head of all men and women too in the world; but the text seemeth rather to speak of Christ as Mediator: so the apostle tells us, Eph_5:23, he is
the Head of the church; and the New Testament often speaks of Christ in that notion, and of believers as his members: in this sense, by every man, we must understand no more than every Christian, every member of the church.
The head of the woman is the man; the man is called the head of the woman, because by God’s ordinance he is to rule over her, Gen_3:16; he hath an excellency above the woman, and a power over her.
The head of Christ is God; and God is the Head of Christ, not in respect of his essence and Divine nature, but in respect of his office as Mediator; as the man is the head of the woman, not in respect of a different and more excellent essence and nature, (for they are both of the same nature), but in respect of office and place, as God hath set him over the woman. Nor indeed could those who deny the Divine nature of Christ, easily have brought a text more against their own assertion, than this, which rather proveth, that God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ are equal in nature and essence, than different; for surely the head is not of a different, but the same nature and essence with the members. Nor doth Christ’s subjection to his Father at all argue an inequality, or difference from him in nature and essence, more than the subjection of subjects to a prince argue any such thing. The apostle then determines this to be the order which God hath set: God is the Head of Christ; Christ is the Head of his church, and every one that is a member of it; and man is the head of the woman, he to whom the woman ought to be subject. as the church is subject to Christ, and Christ is subject to his Father; and from hence he argues as follows.