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Here our apostle answers the query, and resolves the case which the Corinthians had put to him, and laid before him, about church-order, and concerning the decent behaviour of men and women in church- assemblies.
And first he reminds them, that a subordination of persons in the church of God ought to be observed and kept: that as Christ, as Mediator, is inferior to God the Father, but is the head and lord of all men, as Creator and Redeemer; so the man is the head of the woman, and as such she must show her subjection unto the man. As Christ, as Mediator, acts in subordination to the Father, so must the woman act in subordination to the man.
The Socinians would wrest this text to confirm them in their blasphemous denial of the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ. "Here, say they, the apostle declares that the head of Christ is God. Now the most high God can have no head above him; therefore Christ, who hath an head above him, cannot be the most high God."
The modern and general answer is, that God is here called the head of Christ as Mediator, in which relation he received his kingdom from him, and exercises it for him; and therefore is elsewhere styled the Father's servant, Behold my servant, &c. because he doth all things according to his Father's will, and with a fixed eye to his Father's glory.
But the ancients reply to this objection thus: "That God is said to be the head of Christ, as he is the Father of the Son, and so the cause of him; and as the woman is of the same nature with the man, who is her head, so is Christ of the same nature with God the Father, who is here called his head: The head of Christ is God."