Who is whose spiritual head, and how does this work? To look into this, we need to look into foundations and sources... The Bible is HUGE on source language. In both Testaments, it'll quite often go into one's spiritual foundation - the Rock. Is your foundation Jesus, the Cornerstone of your faith, or sand? Both Testaments also mention Christians as trees, or as branches from a vine. Jesus says in the New Testament that He is the Vine, and Christians branch off of Him, for He is our Source. Christ is the Source of the Christian Church - the roots - the foundation - the cornerstone. The Cornerstone of our Faith - Combining Source with Foundation While most of the time the Bible will use foundation and source language in separate places, sometimes it uses them together. We see this in the New Testament - at least, we do if we look in the Greek. Most English translations leave a word untranslated when it sometimes references Jesus as our Cornerstone. "Cornerstone" is the foundation stone, but the untranslated word in some of these cases is a source word - combining source and foundation together. Multiple times in the New Testament, when referring to Jesus as the Cornerstone, it actually says in the Greek that Jesus is the "head cornerstone." If head symbolically means authority, then we have multiple cornerstones with Jesus as the leader Cornerstone. The untranslated Greek word in these instances for "head" is kephale. Kephale is the Koine Greek word for "head." It literally means the physical head on the top of the body, but it also has a symbolic meaning, and it is not 'authority,' like what symbolic head means in English. In the Koine Greek, at the time of Paul the Apostle, symbolic kephale/head meant source/beginning/origination. Jesus isn't one of many Cornerstones, He is THE Cornerstone, thus the head Cornerstone doesn't mean 'the leader cornerstone (of many).' It means the origination (kephale) of the Cornerstone. Jesus isn't just the Cornerstone of our faith - the foundation of it, He's also the beginning of it - the source. Thus He is both the source - origination of the Cornerstone of our faith, and He's the foundation - Cornerstone of our faith. Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the scriptures: ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone [kephalē gōnia - origination of the cornerstone]; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is amazing in our eyes’? Matthew 21:42 NRSVue Jesus was quoting Psalm 118:22. The Hebrew word for head there can mean both source/beginning or leader. In Psalm 118:22 we see it means source, just like it does in the very first verse of the Bible - "In the beginning." "Beginning" in Hebrew is ray-sheeth, derived from the root word roshe, which is the word "head." How Ancient Writers saw the Greek Kephale/Head when Used Symbolically Ancient writers also agreed that symbolic "head" in the New Testament means "source," and not "authority." For example: From the Apocalypse of Moses, 19:3: Lust is the head [kephale] of every sin. Lust (selfish wanting) is the source of sin, not the leader of it. From the Testament of Reuben, 2:2: For seven spirits are established against mankind, and they are the sources [kephalai - kephale in the plural] of the deeds of youth. Cyril of Alexandria, who died in 444 AD, said: For the Word, by nature God, was begotten from Him. Because the head [kephale] means the source ... the man is said to be the head [kephale] of woman, for she was taken out of him. Athanasius, who died around 373 AD wrote: For the head [kephale], which is the source of all things, is the Son; and the head [kephale], which is the source of Christ is God; for thus we reverently lift up all things to the One without beginning, the source of everything that exists through the Son. What Symbolic Kephale/Head Meant at the Time Paul Wrote about it in the Bible The Greek word kephale didn't take on the common symbolic meaning of 'authority' until about 300 years after Paul the Apostle. Therefore, we must understand symbolic head in the New Testament as it was meant to mean to the original recipients, and symbolic head meant 'source' to them. The Greeks viewed symbolic 'head' as the head of a body, in which the sinews, veins, ligaments, and all body parts grew from the head, and the head gave nourishment to the body. They saw this symbolic head as the source of this symbolic body. We see this Greek imagery therefore also depicted in the New Testament: and not holding fast to the head, from whom the whole body, nourished and held together by its ligaments and tendons, grows with a growth that is from God. -Colossians 2:10 NRSVue but speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love. -Ephesians 4:15-16 NRSVue Here we see the symbolic relationship between Christ the head, and the body - the church. Christ is our source, as the Greek head was seen as the source from which the body grew from. Christ is the source of the church. Bible Passages that are Taught Incorrectly Because of Ignorance of Source Language We now carry this meaning of symbolic head to some trouble passages, and watch them make sense: But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of the woman, and God is the head of Christ. -1 Corinthians 11:3 NRSVue If we were to put our modern meaning of 'authority' on "head" above, then we would be committing the heresy of the Arians. The Arian teaching was declared a heresy in 325 AD. The Arian teaching was that 1 Corinthians 11:3 is teaching that since the head of Christ is God, Christ must therefore be lower in authority than God, and thus eternally subordinate to Him. This is at odds with the Scriptures, which teach that Christ willingly subjected to God when in Human form, as an example to us, but otherwise, the Scriptures show that Christ and God are the same entity, thus one part of one entity cannot be under the authority of the another part of the same entity. The entity is one. Therefore, 1 Corinthians 11:3 cannot be giving the above order in order of authority, or that destroys the essence of the Trinity. The order given in 1 Corinthians 11:3 is in the order of Source and appearance on earth: 1) Christ, the Word of God in the flesh, and God Himself, is the source of not only Adam, but every human being. 2) THE man (the original man - Adam) is the source of THE woman (Eve - the first woman). 3) God is the Source of Christ in His human form - He was born of a virgin - God provided the Y Chromosome, etc. The order is of human appearance on earth. First was Adam, then from him came Eve, and then later from God came Jesus Christ in human form as the last Adam (Romans 5:12-19). As we see, this verse is not saying that the husband is the spiritual head of the wife. It is saying that Adam (THE man) was the source of Eve (THE woman). This is why later in this chapter it goes from singular - the man, the woman, to 'any man,' 'any woman.' We see further verification of this source language in verse 12, where it says: For just as woman came from man, so man comes through woman, but all things come from God. -1 Corinthians 11:12 NRSVue 'Come from' is being used synonymously with "head," which is 'source.' It is taking us somewhat back to what we saw earlier in verse 3. Verse 12 is telling us that yes, Eve came from Adam - thus Adam was Eve's symbolic head/source, but since then, all men have come through women as their source - which would then make women the spiritual head of men since after Adam, but "all things come from God." GOD is our head/source. This is why it borderlines as blasphemy when people go around calling a mere human being their spiritual head, because 1 Corinthians 11:12 makes it very clear that our source is God - God is our spiritual head. This matches ALL the source language we see used throughout the Bible, in both Testaments. Next, we move on to a tricky passage in Ephesians 5: for the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. -Ephesians 5:23 NRSVue Is this saying that a woman's husband is her spiritual head? No. Look closer. It is saying that THE husband (which is the same word as 'man' in the Greek) is the head of THE wife (which is the same word as 'woman' in the Greek.) We see this is referring to a specific man and a specific woman, just as it did in 1 Corinthians 11:3. Like in 1 Corinthians 11:3, here it is also referring to the original man - Adam, and the original woman - Eve. This is why after this verse it switches to wives and husbands in the plural. Recall that "head" is source, and not authority. Thus we see that Ephesians 5:23 is being synonymous with 1 Corinthians 11:3. Adam was the source of Eve, just as Christ - the last Adam (1 Corinthians 15:45) is the source of the church. Recall that "husband" in the above is the same Greek word for man, and "wife" in the above is the same Greek word for woman, so the above can equally say "man" and "woman." Note: In verse 22 it says wives are to be subject to their husbands. The word "subject" is not there in the Greek. It just says "wives to your husbands," meaning that it's carrying the definition of subjection given in verse 21, which says: being subject to one another out of reverence for Christ. -Ephesians 5:21 NRSVue This is mutual subjection. Also, we must pay attention to the word "subjection," as the Greek word that underlies it gives two definitions - one is a military definition of obedience, and the other is the non-military definition of cooperating with others. A marriage is not a military. The form of subjection in a marriage means to cooperate with one another, as defined from the mutuality in verse 21. Verses 22-24 explain the wife's "subjection," and verses 25-30 explain the husband's "subjection." This whole passage that began in verse 21 cannot be patriarchal, because it wraps it up by saying: “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” -Ephesians 5:31 NRSVue In patriarchy, the woman leaves her family to join the husband, which is the opposite of the above verse. And verse 32 reminds us that: Just as Eve came from Adam, the church is to grow from Christ (the last Adam) as its source. And verse 33 sums up how the husband and wife are to subject themselves to one another in stating: Each of you, however, should love his wife as himself, and a wife should respect her husband. The husband was told to love, because in that culture, adult men married young, uneducated girls who were often still children, and they were treated like property. The wife is to respect, because it's hard to respect someone who took you without your permission to be their property. In Conclusion The church runs into trouble when it (likely ignorantly) teaches that symbolic head is authority. To the original recipients of the New Testament, head did not mean authority, it meant source, so that's what it should mean to us, as that's how it was meant to be understood. Note on Greek Dictionaries Unfortunately some Greek dictionaries have fallen to making words fit one's definition, rather than defining the word by its proper definition. BDAG butchers kephale in this way. However, the Standard LSJ Greek Dictionary is more accurate and honest when it comes to kephale.
This is a great mystery, but I am speaking about Christ and the church.
