Preface
. Within the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. there is not an
Insignificant number of persons who suggest that to discuss the Biblical
r~sons for the apostolic prohibitions against ordaining women to the
Office of pastor is to provide the energy for the ordaining of women to
come to pass. In this view. the voices raised in favor of ordaining women
are wearied and fading. and will pass from the Church. But events
continue to show that such voices have considerable inertia. and that
voices from other communions have brought their energy as well to the
conversation in the LCMS. so that the discussion of women in the
pastoral office. far from disappearing. remains a lively intercourse.
The concern. of course, is that such discussion might become a
one-sided speech. without the involvement of eloquent. knowledgeable.
and passionate voices which defend the ancient and apostolic practice
of ordaining only male pastors. The Church is therefore fortunate to
have within herself these latter voices. not the least of which is the
author of this paper.
Dr. William Weinrich has not in this effort plowed again ground
furrowed by other modem theological reflection. Rather. he has gone
out to ground once well-known. but long ago left untended. He has
cleared that ground of overgrowth, discerned the furrows of previous
apostolic and patrlstic plowing. and has renewed those fields with
modem words and insights. If a reader finds anything new in this paper
(as I must confess I certainly did). then he or she is betrayed as a modern.
As much as anything else. Dr. Weinrich's research into the fathers'
thought and considerations show our present discussions on the gender
of the pastor to be conversations long ago closed by the Church-not
that the Church fathers spoke at length on the topic of pastoral gender
(they did not). but the question Itself. as shown here. was settled byother
theological considerations of far greater import. To speak of female
pastors would have been to call Into question the nature of God Himself.
and so it needed not to be spoken of.
But In the modem age it is not impoSSible to call into question the
nature of God Himself. and this is being done precisely at the locus of
the pastor's gender. And so the service which Dr. Weinrich renders to
the Church with this work may be not simply tlmely-it may perhaps
also be timeless. Dr. Weiruich has shown that God gives knowledge of
His Fatherhood through IDs creation of Adam. through His merciful
salvation in Jesus Christ. and through the preaching office of Word and
Sacrament occupied by a shepherd-all incarnate manlfestations of
revelation. And he points out just what is at stake. what truly is
obscured-the revealed being of God Himself-when aLtempts are made
to set women into the preaching office.
Will a single paper sull the intercourse. and leave standing only
a unanimous affumation of apostolic command and practice? Probably
not. Can it push the conversation in that hoped-for direction?
This is certainly to be prayed for. At the very least. pastors and
laymen who seek direct and compelling elucidation of things
which likely have seemed intuitively certain all along will find. in
the pages which follow. a well-plowed theological field. where only
an ancIent. overgrown tract previously was found. And for the
present this may be precisely what the Lord's Church requires.
The Rev. Andrew W. Dirnit
The Lutheran Church of Christ the King
Duluth. Minnesota
Sts. Philip and James. 1991
2
"It is not Given to Women to Teach"
A Lex in Search of a Ratio
When Tertullian in the 2nd century wrote: "It is not pennit-
ted to a woman to speak in church. Neither may she teach,
baptize, offer, nor claim for herself any function proper to a man,
least of all the priestly office" (On the Veiling oJVirgins 9.1). and
when seven centuries later Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople.
wrote: "A woman does not become a priestess" (Nomocanon1.3 7),
they were reiterating the apostolic prohibition of the Apostle Paul.
At the same time they were indicating the practice characteristic
of their day and indeed were indicating that unbroken practice in
all sacramental and confesSional Churches which until the most
recent times remained unquestioned.
There were, of course, occasions in the Church's history
when heretical or utterly peripheral groups organized themselves
in ways contrary to Paul's prohibition. From Irenaeus (2nd
century) we learn of the gnostic Marcosians in whose sacramen tal
rites a woman consecrated the cup of Charis in to which she would
drop her blood (Adv. Haer. 1.13). From Epiphanius (4th century)
we learn of the -Quintillians" who appealed to Eve as the prototype
of their female clergy. Epiphanius explicitly says that this grou p
had women bishops and women presbyters and that. interest-
ingly in view of modem argument. they justified all of this on the
basis of Gal. 3:28 (Adv. Haer. 49.1-3). And from time to time in
the early middle ages there appears to have been out-growths of
gnostic or spiritualist enth usiasms which allowed women to serve
at the altar. In the 6th century, to mention but one example, two
priests in Brittany allowed women to assist them in the celebra-
tion and distribution of the Lord's Supper. This elicited a vigorous
response by three Gallic bishops who called this practice "a
novelty and unheard-of superstition." l Yet. despite these occa-
sional problems, the Church's obedience to the apostolic standard
was unyielding and universally faithful.
Nor, it must be said. did the Church's faithfulness to the
Apostle's prohibition of women in the pastoral office rest upon
some notion of the natural inferiority of women to men in either
intellect or virtue. One can, of course, find evidence of such
thinking. But as common and certainly more true to Biblical
models were other much more positive evaluations of the innate
gifts and abilities of women. John Chrysostom (4th cent.), often
castigated as misogynist. could write that "in virtue women are
often enough the instructors of men; while the latter wander
abou t like jackdaws in dust and smoke. the fonner soar like eagles
into higher spheres" (Epist to Eph. hom. 13.4). Similarly, com-
menting on Priscilla's teaching of Apollos in view of I Tim 2: 12,
Chrysostom says that Paul "does not exclude a woman's superi
3
ority, even when it involves teaching" when the man is an
unbeliever or in error (Greet Priscilla and Aquilla 3).
Nor, it must also be said, did the Church's obedience to the
apostolic command reflect an unevangelical accommodation to
social and cultural circumstances. In fact, the social and cultural
context of early Christianity at times very much favored the
introduction of women into teaching, priestly or sacramental
offices. In 1 st and 2nd century Asia Minor, for example, the social
position of women was well developed. There were female
physicians, and Ephesus had its female philsophers among the
Stoics, Epicureans, and Pythagoreans, who were known to teach,
perhaps also publicly. Female leadership and priesthood were
well-known in the local religiOus cults of Cybele, Isis, Demeter,
and Artemis. In the Greek cults of Demeter and Artemis the
holiest places were open only to female priestesses. Generally in
the mystery cults women shared "equal rights" with men and were
initiated into all the mysteries. Often women performed the
ceremonies and delivered the instructions, even to the male
participants. This is, for example. documented in the cult of
Dionysius in which all distinctions between men and women.
adults and children, freemen and slaves. were broken down.
Furthennore. at times the Fathers themselves show a much more
pOSitive attitude than does the 'surrounding culture concerning
women. and they demonstrate no lack of sensitivity to unequal
law and practice. Speaking of chastity. Gregory of Nazianz us (4th
cent.) remarks that in regard to that (Le. chastity)
.. the majority of men are ill-disposed. and their laws are
unequal and irregular. For what was the reason why
they restrained the woman. but indulged the man. and
that a woman who practices evil against her husband's
bed is an adultress. and the penalties of the law for this
are very severe; but if the husband commits fornication
against his wife. he has no account to give? I do not
accept this legislation; I do not approve of this custom.
Those who made the law were men. and therefore the
legislation is hard on women" (Orat. 37.6).
Gregory need take a back seat to no feminist in his disapproval of
actual male chauvinism and self-serving.
What, then. was the basis and rationale ofthe Church for its
pervasive adherence to the apostolic prohibition of women in the
Office of preaching and the· sacraments? There was in fact a
rather broad basis for this practice. This basis was essentially
three-fold: (1) the Biblical history; (2) the example of Jesus; and
(3) Paul's prohibitions in I COrinthians 11 and 14. and in 1 .
Timothy 2. Using the Biblical history. Origen argues against the
Montanists, and Epipharuus argues against the Collyridians.
4
~Never from the beginning of the world has a woman sexved God
as priest", writes Epiphanius (4th cent.). And then he runs
through the stories of the Old and New Testaments indicating tha t
God's priests had always been men but never a woman (Against
the Heresies 78-79). Similarly, in view of the Montanist appeal to
the Old Testament prophetesses Origen (3rd cent.) argues that
indeed Deborah, Miriam, and
Huldah were prophetesses. yet "there is no evidence that Deborah
delivered speeches to the people. as did Jeremiah and Isaias.
Hulda, who was a prophetess, did not speak to the people. but
only to a man, who consulted her at home." The same is true of
the daughters of Philip: if they prophesied, "at least they did not
speak in the assemblies, for we do not find this fact in the Acts of
the Apostles" (Frag. on I Cor 74).2
The practice of Jesus was perceived to be fully consonant
with this more general Biblical history. Not only did Jesus choose
for himself only males to be his apostles, but more significantly
Mary herself, the Mother of the omnipotent Son of God, was not
given the task of baptizing Jesus. that taskbeinggiven to John the
Baptist. The prohibitions of Paul, therefore, were understood to
be fully in hannonywith the broad narrative of the Old Testament
as well as the New Testament histories and the practice of Christ
himself. Whenever the need arose, these three Biblical bases were
adduced either individually or in combination. In the middle ages
this whole perspective received canon law expression in the ban
of Pope Innocent III against the preaching and hearing of confes-
sion by powerful monastic abbesses:"No matter whether the
most blessed Virgin Mary stands higher, and is also more
"illustrious, than all the apostles together. it was still not to her,
but to them. that the Lord entrusted the keys to the Kingdom of
heaven."3
The Church, therefore, through the centuries understood
herself to be not only in continuous agreement with the Old and
New Testament history but also saw herself envisioned and
imaged in these stories. As Paul indicated in another context, the
things of the Old Testament were written for the instruction of the
people of the New Covenant upon whom the end of the ages has
come (1 Cor. 10: 11). Such an appeal to the Biblical narratives
was. therefore. no mere referral to tradition or a recital of
histOrical precedents. The appeal to Biblical narrative was
predIcated upon the belief that the Creative Word of God, incar"
nated in the man Jesus. revealed His will not only in the hearts
of people, spiritually if you will, but also in the events and
orderings of HiS people and in the canonical testimony to those
events andordertngs. It was not without reason that, to repeat the
words of Epiphanius. "never from the beginning of the world has
a woman served God as priest." This was rooted in the way in
which God has always arranged His people so that they might be
5
a sign of His creative will C!nd intent. The 4th century Apostolic
Constitutions make the point: Jesus did what He did. and He has
delivered to His Church no indication of women priests because
He "knows the order of creation." "What Jesus did. being the
Creator of nature. He did in agreement with the creative action.
Similarly. since Jesus is the incarnate Word in whom the creation
is being made new. He, as Head of the Church. the new people of
God. typified in His ministry the new life of the Ch urch not only
in it 'spiritual' but also in its fleshly contours. "4 The Church did
not see in the Pauline prohibitions. therefore, commandments
extraneous to, even alien to the new life which they had through
Christ. It did not see in those apostolic statements ad hoc
accommodations to the cultural surroundings. It saw in them
rather apostolic exhortation and regulation which bespeaks the
'shape' or 'configuration' of the new community whose Life is
constituted in the Word of God and made active through the
Spirit.
Within Protestantism. the principal Reformation and post-
Reformation leaders merely assumed Without question the practice
of reserving the office of pastor to men. Their strong "Scripture
alone" position led them. however. to rely virtually exclusively on
the Pauline prohibitions, with the concomitant result that appeal
to the Biblical history and to the example of Jesus was less
frequent, if not eschewed as Roman Catholic. Within Protestant-
ism generally there was insistence on what could be regarded as
clearly applicable Biblical mandate before a practice was to be
regarded as required or prohibited. Luther. for example. while
asserting that all Christians have the full power to preach,
asserted as well, and on the basis of the Pauline prohibitions
alone, that not all in fact can or ought exercise this power. He
regarded the Pauline injunctions as normative for the Church.
because they were given by the Holy Spirit: in the Law. by which
Luther meant the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit had subordi-
nated woman to man and now in the apostles the Holy Spirit does
not contradict Himself. 5 Beyond the mere fact of the Spirit's
speaking through the Apostle, which to be sure was for him
sufficient in itself, Luther is not all that strong in explaining the
whys and wherefores of the P~uline injunctions. He speaks
unaffectedly of ability and aptitude: man is in many ways (multis
modis) more suited for speaking than is a woman and it is more
seemly for the man to speak. And this way of doing things. says
Luther, is for the sake of order (ordo) and respectibility (honestas). 6
This was apparently sufficient to the day. The whole issue of the
ordination of women into the pastoral ministry was still unthink-
able. For him and for his time there was no such question.
It is. however. not so for us. Today. it is important to
emphasize. we are faced With an entirely new and wholly frontal
assault upon the common and traditional practice of the Church
6
not to ordain women to the public Office of Word and Sacran1ent.
This assault involves not merely the higher-critical e..-xclusion of
the pertinent Pauline passages as authentically from Paul; it
involves a very different reading of the Scriptures themselves.
Rather than the Pauline prohibitions being understood as rooted
in the creative will of God and hence but instances of apostolic
regulation in harmony with the full Biblical narrative in the
specificities of its stories (there never is in all of SCripture a woman
priest or apostle). the Pauline injunctions are regarded as ad hoc
accommodations to the surrounding culture, and hence of only
temporary applicability. Or the Pauline injunctions are regarded
as rabbinic hangovers of Paul's pre-Christian life which now are
actually in conflict with the pure gospel which Paul elsewhere
preaches with such clartty. Here ahnost invariably Gal. 3:28 is
invoked.
For our own understanding of the task before us, it is
necessary, therefore, that we realize that the simple appeal to
Paul's statements in I Corinthians and I Tirnothy are not sufficient
anymore adequately to ground our present practice. This is not
to say that properly understood and properly related to the rest
of SCripture these Pauline injuctions do not apply as we have
commonly understood them to apply. I firmly believe that they do
apply. However. in the contemporary context the appeal to these
three Pauline passages is countered by a host of argument which
intends to void those passages of present authority. And this is
occurring not only in the more liberal church bodies which we
might expect to have a cIitical posture toward the Scriptures. It
is happening every bit as much within American evangelical
circles whose formal adherence to the SCriptures remains that of
us in the Missourt Synod. Note, for example, the self-testimony
of Gretchen Hull. who in her book. Equal to Serve, asserts that
.. this book is written from the standpoint of what is called a high
view of Scripture: The Bible is the inspired, trustworthy Word of
God written and as such stands as the tru e revelation of God's
message, regardless of any human reaction to it." Such a high
view of SCripture "afIirms that the Bible texts have been proven
authentic and considers them completely reliable transmitters of
God's message. "7
What could we possibly find at fault with that posture
toward the Scriptures? Yet, within her book Ms. Hull absolutely
rejects patriarchy, equating it quite simply with male domination
(p. 83), and regards the patriarchal stories of the Old Testament
as "the true record of the false idea."8 The Biblical accounts of the
patIiarchs she regards as inerrantly true (the Scriptures are
inspired). But the patrtarchal narratives illustrate not the will of
God which is given in creation and which receives renewed and
sanctified obedience in the new creation. The patriarchal stories
of the Old Testament illustrate rather the perversity of human sin
7
which has set up an ordering of human existence in opposition to
that desired by God and created by Him. Now it is quite clear that
the procedure of Ms. Hull is the very opposite of the procedure we
summa.rized above of the early Church Fathers. For them the
stories of the Old Testament illustrate the will of God the Creator
and Redeemer. The Fathers were not unaware that the stories of
the Old Testament could also illustrate sinful behavior and sinful
attitudes. But sin was the perversion of what in itself was good.
Or. as pertains to our point of discussion, patriarchy could be
pelVerted, but patriarchy in itself revealed the will of God. that is,
it revealed the way God works so that His will brings to pass His
purposes. For Ms. Hull, on the other hand. the Old Testament
patriarchal stories are a kind of anti-God story wherein it is not
possible to see God at work at all. It Is evident. therefore. that to
the extent that Ms. Hull allows the Pauline passages any partiCi-
pation in the good. it can be only as a temporary accommodation
to his immediate historical context. The Pauline passages cannot
in any case be perceived as consonant with a "true record of the
true idea", as an apostolic conunand correspondant to Old
Testament and New Testament narrative wherein women were
not admitted to the priestly and apostolic office. and this in
obedience to the divine will. Now apart from the fact that Ms. Hull
wrests from the formal principle its proper material principle, that
is, empties the narrative of the Scriptural record of any content as
the stoty of God's willful acUvity, it is clear that fundamentally Ms.
Hull, and she is by no means unique in this, is operating with an
analogy of faith quite different from that of the Fathers and quite
different from that of the traditional understanding of confes-
sional Lutheranism. including the Missouri Synod. That is. quite
directly put, Ms. Hull in her whole method and in her whole
approach to the question of the relation between male and female
and to the specific question of the ordination of women bespeaks
a creed at variance with that which has been operative from the
time of the apostles. What we are dealing with in the broad issue
of the relationship between male and female and with the partiCU-
lar question of the ordination of women is a doctrinal and creedal
issue. The question Is -what Is the Faith?", "what Is the analogy
of Faith? .. , or, if you will. "'what is the Biblical story which
determines. guides, and commands our understanding of the
cUstlnctlve place and role of both man and woman in the world and
in the Church of God'r
What makes the present moment in the Church's history so
difficult in this regard is that this complex question has never
been forthrightly put and answered in the doctrinal history of the
Christian Church. While the basis for the early Church's under-
standing and practice was broad-encompassmg the whole Old
and New Testament narratives. the example of Christ. and the
specifiC Pauline injunctions-the rationale of the early Church 1s
e:x:tremely sparse, if not non-existent. While we have the fact that
8
throughout the Church's his~Ory there have been women saints,
martyrs. prophets. missionaries, monastics, secular rulers and
while there have even been some women who by the Eastern
tradition have been deSignated ijsapovstoloi "equal to the apostles". 9
we have also the fact that there have never been women who held
the public Office of the bishop and pastor. But why that is so has
never been doctrinally or theologically delineated. There are few
if any sources in the early, medieval. or modem Church which
deal with this question in any explicit way. What the significance
of the distinction between male and female might be in terms of
a Christian understanding of human life and the life of the Church
has never been adumbrated. And, in the present Situation
governed as it is by an egalitarian ethos, this has easily given rise
to the belief that there is no significance. The Church has,
therefore. expeIienced a ready. even precipitous capitulation to
the feminist claim that restIicting the office of Word and Sacra-
ment to certain chosen male members ofthe Christian community
is a mere vestige of an antique and outmoded way of thinking. In
the present age it is in fact. so it goes, inherently arbitrary and
oppressive.
In the present polemical and apologetic context a simple
appeal to the Pauline passages is futile and bears no persuasive
power. For the real question lies deeper than the issue of Biblical
inspiration and inerrancy or the question of whether a particular
passage is applicable to this or that situation. The question is
rather whether the relevant Pauline passages are. as it were,
imbedded in the general matrix of the Christian revelation and the
corresponding vision that it engenders. so that they are perceived
to artse organically out of the very preachment of the prophetic
and apostolic Witness to the creative and salvific work of God. and
are not to be regarded as mere regulatory additions attached. for
some unknown reason. to the real apostolic concerns. We seek
after the organic. that is. the theological foundations which lie at
the bottom of the Pauline prohibitions and therefore give shape.
form. and content to the Pauline prohibitions.
Now before we begin this task. and it can only be a
beginning. we must take note of some attitudes and concerns that
have been voiced against any attempt to go to the bottom of the
Pauline statements. The appeal to Paul is, many say. enough. and
any attempt to do more is speculation and can never have any
appeal, let alone authoIity. for the Church. To this it must again
be Said that SCripture is not a bundle of truisms. true stortes. and
legislations which somehow on their own and apart from the
~ho~e can be properly understood and appropriated. SCripture,
~splred Word of God as it is. is the prophetiC and apostolic
Wlt~ess which norms our understanding of the speaking and
a~tmg of God which began in the creation. continued through the
hIStOry of the Old Testament people. was fulfilled in the incarnate
9
\Vord, and now in the speech and life of the Church moves toward
its appOinted end in the resurrection of the dead and the eternal
Kingdom of God. The deep reason for the details must be sought
in the whole, and where such reason cannot be found, then, to be
sure, argument may commence whether the detail is not a true
adiaphoron or a temporary incidental which no longer may not
have, or perhaps even dare not have, any abiding authority. \Ve
seek after the Biblical structure, the way of God in the world, to
understand the reason why Paul. when confronted by the prob-
lems of his day, had to answer the way he did. IO
This will not be the first time that Church practice searched
for its theological rationale. In theArianconllict of the 4th century
the question arose concerning the legitimacy and propriety of
prayer to Christ orto the Holy Spirit. The answer came in the fonn
of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity which affirmed the full deity of
both the Son, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. In the Pelagian
controversy of the 5th century the question was concerning the
theological requirement of the baptism of infants. The ariswer
came in the doctrine of original sin which asserted that each
individual. however small or young, was put out to the death
which sin brings and therefore was in need of the redemptive work
of the Savior. In the 5th century conflict with Nestorius the
question arose concerning the legitimacy of the Church's liturgi-
cal reference to the Virgin Mary as the "Mother of God". What deep
theological reason made that reference not only possible but
necessary? The answer came in the Church's assertion qf the
incarnation of the Word of God whereby the flesh of humanity was
assumed into the Person of the eternal Son so that the humanity
of Jesus was in truth the humanity of God. Therefore. that One
born of Mary was in truth the divine Son of God incarnate. Mary
was in truth the "Mother of God. "
Today the search is after the rationale for the Church's
practice of reserving to a Christian man the Office of Word and
Sacrament. That search is in itself not speculation as some are
wont to assert. 11 The beginning of all speculation is the posture
of autonomy in which an idea or a principle is developed
according to its own inherent dynamic. Speculation Is indepen-
dent in its own deductions: it Is in a state of emancipation from
the basis of the Scripture narrative. On the other hand, Biblical
theology is not creative. It is the task of serious hearing, of
listening to the whispers and echoes of the Biblical stories in order
to hear more. to understanding more, to increase more our
wonder and awe at what God has done and what God proposes in
what He has done. Biblical thinking is bound therefore to what
has been spoken before. Biblical thinking is directed toward an
"is". It is not engaged in what the feminist theologian. Letty
Russell, calls "utopic envtsagement" wherein faith claims a
knowledge of God's future apart from and indeed often in contra
10
distinction to the past and present of God. 12 In t..rying to come to
terms with why Paul spoke as he did, we do not speculate. We try
rather to lay bare the Biblical contours which lie within Paul's own
words.
In the midst of the 4th century, at the height of the Arian
controversy. concerning the divinity of Jesus Christ, the bishop of
the French town of Poi tiers , Hilary, wrote ofthe necessity of saying
things which were beyond "what heaven has preSCribed," He
wrote:
We are compelled by the error of heretics and blasphemers to
do what is unlawful, to scale heigh ts, to express things that are
unutterable, to encroach on forbidden matters. And when we
ought to fulfill the commandments through faith alone, ador-
ing the Father. worshipping the Son together with him, rejoicing
in the Holy Spirit. we are forced to stretch the feeble capacity
of our language to give expression to indescribable realities.
We are constrained by the error of others to err ourselves in the
dangerous attempt to set forth in human speech what ought to
be kept in the religious awe of our minds .... The infidelity of
others drags us into the dubious and dangerous position of
having to make a definite statement beyond what heaven has
prescribed about matters so sublime and so deeply hidden" (De
Trinitate. 2.2.5).
We may take comfort and warning in the sentiments of Hilary . We
have been warned by people of piety and caution not to attempt
to define the ineffable nature of the human being. It is incompre-
hensible even as is that greater incomprehensibility of the divine
nature. As we cannot approach With our understanding the
essence of God. so we cannot approach the essence of our own
humanity. Mankind. too. is a mystery. I accept these reservations
as apt warnings. Nonetheless. the incomprehensible God has not
remained in His essential hiddenness. He has revealed Himself.
not in his essence directly. but in the hypostatic or personal
relations in which God's essence receives its distinct representa-
tions. We know God to be Father. Son, and Holy Spirit. And we
know God to be the Trinity of persons in and through His revealed
activities, pre-eminently perhaps in our baptisms wherein we
receive the Spirit of Sonship whereby we cry out "Abba Father"
(Rom 8: 16m. We do not and cannot know God in His essence. but
we do know him in the three Persons of His Godhead, in which
God is in relation to Himself and graciously moves out of Himself
to relate to us "from the Father. through the Son, and in the Holy
Spirit. .. In an analogous way, might I submit. we come to know
also our own human nature. For God did not create an abstract
human nature to which were then contingently added the quali-
ties of maleness and femaleness. Sexual complementarity is a gift
of God's creative act. Humanity is essentially binary. "Maleness"
11
and "femaleness" are strictly speaking not qualities or attributes
at all: they are modes of human being. ways of being human. If
we wish to understand humanity. it must be by considering
humanity as male and female.
Nor is our task here the wholly complex one of understand-
ing humanity as male and female. It is however our task to grope
toward an understanding of why. from the Biblical perspective.
Paul made the prohibitions he did. At the outset we might make
the observation that if Paul claims that man is the "head" of
woman and that this "headship" must be indicated in the assem-
bly of the Church and that this indication involves at least this .
. as Paul says in I Corinthians 14. that the man speaks but the
woman does not. then this claim of Paul may well be founded upon
the mystery of what it means to be a male human and upon the
mystery of what it means to be a female human. IfPaurs point
is not in fact merely a vestige of anCient patriarchal social fOnDS.
if Paul's point is not merely the temporary accommodation to
histortcal circumstance. then does not the cast of Paul's injunc-
tion itself imply that there is something to being a man. and there
is somethingto being a woman. which demands an ordering in the
assembly oIthe Church so that the distinctive modes of human
being. maleness and femaleness. might be properly expressed
and realized? Is it really a speculation or-heaven forbid!!-a
flJght to catholic traditions. whether Roman or Eastern. to inquire
after what we have so often called the "order of creation?" Is this
not. in fact. demanded by the Biblical text itself which does speak
of the sexual distinctions within humanity and which does reflect
on the place and roles assigned to them both in the Church and
in the home? The Bible does speak of a mutuality and reciprocity
between the sexes, which mutuality and reciprocity however
entalls no interchangeability or confUSion between the distinc-
tions but rather a mutuality and reciprocity which has its own
intIinsic order. In any case. the present feminist attack on the
traditional practice of the Church. whether from the liberal or
evangelical sides. finds it very difficult to make meaningful sense
of the distinction of male and female in the human family. let
alone in the Church. 13 There is rather a pervasive, and I would say
docetlc. tendency to denigrate and to nullify that distinction as
significant. This does not. of course, occur only in explicit denials
of the significance of being male and being female. It occurs as
well In the neglect of taking the question as significant or in the
refusal to believe the question approprtate in seeking the ratio-
nale for Paul's prohibitions against women in the pastoral office.
We wish now to inquire after what among us has been called
the ·orderof creation." We wish also to give some reflection on the
relation of the ·order of creation" to the so-called "order of
redemption". for one still finds with great frequency the argument
that in the Gospel the patterns of the "order of creation" are
12
overcome, transcended. ortransfonned, and this is understood to
mean that something structurally totally new is come in the
Gospel. Against this view, the Commission on Theology and
Church Relation's 1985 report, "Women in the Church", stated
that the "distinctive identities forman and woman in their relation
to each other were assigned by God at creation. These identities
are not nullified by ChIist's redemption, and they should be
reflected in the church."14 This very point was rightly reiterated
by Dr. Samuel Nafzgerin his presentation. lhe Order of Creation.
or the Creator's Order", delivered in October 1989 at a conference
in Minneapolis. 15 These two presentations make an essential
point: the distinction between man and woman, given in the
creation, is not unrelated to ordered distinctions in the Church.
What is left unclear in both. however. is why the distinctive
identities for man and woman should be reflected in the Church.
What is the nature of this 'should'? It is at this point that we wish
to think in a supplemental and complementary manner to what
our church body has said in the past.
In a recently published article the Rev. George L. Murphy of
Tallmadge. Ohio, makes an appeal to MissouIi for the ordination
of women. 16 I would like to use some of his discussion as a lead
into my own. M urphy's own article is divided in to three parts: (1)
in the first part he discusses the question of the continuing
relevance of the Pauline prohibitions and other passages which he
believes bespeak a Biblical attitude which allows the ordination
of women; (2) in the second section Murphy gives a short
discussion on certain aspects of the Church's tradition and
argues that even Lutheran tradition appears to allow the ordina-
tion of women (he discusses a quotation from the 17th century
Lutheran, Nicholaus Hunruus), but that in any case no tradition
in itself is for a Lutheran authoritative unless it has "clear and
unambiguous support from scripture"; (3) finally in the third
section Murphy addresses general theological issues. among
them the "orders of creation". the distinction between prophets
and priests, the question of the pastor's representation of the
person of Christ, and the relation of the pastoral office to the
Church as a community of priests. Not all of Rev. Murphy's
arguments are of equal weight and interest. Yet, he meIits a
thoughtful response. Here I have time only to be selective in my
response, but I do wish to dwell especially upon his remarks in the
third section concerning the relationship of the person of the
pastor to the person of Christ and the relation of the Office of
pastor to the people as a whole.
_ (1) I begin with some remarks of Rev. Murphy about the
continuing validity and authority of the Pauline injunctions
which traditionally make up the argument for the ordination of
men alone. Rev. Murphy does not demean these passages of Paul,
and it is evident that he does not wish to be facile in his use of
13
them. His argument. he says. is not "the simplistic one that the
biblical authors were 'wrong', or that these passages are irrel-
evant simply because they refer to a context dille rent from ours ...
Rather. he argues. there are good reasons for believing "these
authOritative statements to refer to particular situations in the
first century. and therefore not automatically binding in all other
situations." Acts 15:29. for example. whIch forbids the eating of
blood. is authoritative Scripture. yet today. argues Murphy, we
are not for that reason forbidden from eating blood sausage. And
this is true even though the prohibition of "blood" had deep
theological roots in the Noachic covenant. The conditional
character of Paul's statements concerning the speaking of women
in the Church do not mean. argues Murphy. that the Church may
simply ignore them. "They continue to say that in some situations
it may be appropriate for some groups within the church not to
hold the pastoral office .... But it cannot be said that in prinCiple
any gender or race must be excluded."
Murphy believes that the fact that these passages are
dealing with particular circumstances implies that there may
continue to be situations which-presumably for reasons of
peace. decency, or order-require some persons not to be admit-
ted to the pastoral office. That is the continuing relevance of
Paul's statements. However, no gender or race can in principle
be excluded. We shall forego any comment on the matter of race
which here for unexplained reasons appears in the discussion. I
am unaware that anyone at any time in the Church's history has
been debarred from the pastoral office because of race. At least
that is certaJnly true of the claSSical tradition to which I have
alluded above. It appears that here Murphy is simply overcome
by a modem American sensibility which finds itself unable not to
mention the equality of the races and the sexes in the same
breath. But the text has nothing to do with the question of
whether persons of race may preach in the assembly. It does
make the explicit statement that women ought not preach in the
assembly. That is. it appears to be precisely the case that one
gender is In principle excluded from the function of preaching in
the assembly. And as the parallel passages of I Corinthians 11
and especially I TJmothy 2 make clear. this exclusion is grounded
not on the basis of what in view of the culture and society would
be considered proper.·decent. and in good order. Nor. we should
add. does Paul argue on the basis of a covenant which arises in
view ofhumanity·s previous rebellion. Paul argues on the basiS
of the stoty of creation wherein man and woman relate to one
another according to an order initially willed by the Creator:
-Adam was formed first. then Eve," The Apostle argues his case
on the basts of a more encompassing context. namely, the
creation orman and woman. Not inCidentalirregulartties occa-
sion his full theological response. He could certainly have
demanded decent and orderly behavior of the Corinthians on the
14
basis of common notions of orderliness and propriety. Bu t he did
not do so. The question of a man or of a woman speaking in the
assembly connoted an order given by God at the creation and an
order which continues in the Church.
At this point. however, the Rev. Murphy makes an interest-
ing argument. It is risky. he writes, to base the traditional
argument on "the simple temporal order of creation in Genesis 2. ,.,
Murphy recognizes that I Timothy 2 does give the order of creation
as an argument for the silence of women in the assembly.
However. that does not mean, he argues. that conclusions drawn
from such an argument hold unconditionally. The same order of
creation argument is used by Paul for the veiling of women. If.
however. despite the order of creation argument. the veiling of
women is no longer required, "then it is inconsistent to argue that
the silencing of women prescribed in I Timothy must always be
maintained because creation-based arguments were used to
support it. This is a question worth pondering. And I would like
to begin a reflective response by asking a prior question: is the
wearing of the veil in the assembly and the speaking of the woman
in the assembly the same kind of activity? I would.1ike to suggest
that they are not. Of course, were it yet today the case that the
absence of the veil would in our culture be regarded as the self-
assertion of the woman against the man. we would still today. I
submit. have to require the wearing of the veil. And this would be
so precisely for the reasons Paul indicates. However. does the
wearing of the veil in itself and apart from a cultural context
denote the self-assertion of a woman against men. Obviously it
does not. In our culture the wearing of a veil or the absence of a
veil has lost its voice. Neither behavior says anything except
perhaps something about the personal taste of the woman or
maybe of the man she wishes to please. The wearing of the veil
has no organic relation to the being of woman and her posture
within the community of persons. However, there is indication in
the text itself that a similar reflection cannot be made of the
speaking of woman 1rt the assembly. In I Corinthians 14 Paul says
that "it is shameful for a woman to speak in the assembly" (v. 35).
The word here translated "to speak" is the Greek word lalein which
is a virtually a technical term for preaching (see also Matt 9: 18~
12:46; Mark 2:2; Luke 9:11: John 8: 12: Acts 4: 1: 8:25; 13:43; I
Cor 2:7; 2 Cor 12: 19; Eph 6:20; Phil 1: 14). That the term is used
to Signify the activity of preaching as a teacher may be seen from
the parallel text of I Tim 2: 11 ff where the word "to teach" or "to
instruct" (didaskein) is used. What therefore seems to be indi-
cated by Paul in these passages is that a woman ought not to take
the pOSition of the one who preaches or teaches in an authoritative
way, that is, a woman ought not to speak the message of the
Church for the Church and unto the Church. Now, the Church
relates to such speaking in a vastly more Significant way than the
Church relates to the weaIing of veils. The Ch urch organically
15
relates to such preaching and teaching as that which is created
by and through suching speaking. In short. the Church is
constituted in the hearing of faith which arises out of such
authoritative speaking. And this fact. I would like to argue.
possesses a substantive and organic relation to the relational
order of man and woman given in the creation.
When we read in Genesis 1:27 that "God created the man
(adam. ho anthropos) in His own image, in the image of God He
created him (singular), male (zakcu1 and female (neqebah) He
created them", we gain our first clear indication of how central to
the Biblical vision the distinction of gender actually is. In some
discussions this is denied by referring to the use of "adam" in the
Hebrew or to the use of "anthropos" in the Septuagint. both of
which can be used to render common humanity. Only then are
the distinctions male and female indicated. Hence, the argument
goes, there is a common humanity created by God which exists,
so to speak, independent of and autonomous to the concrete
distinctions of male and female. We are, uyou will, humans first
and male or female in a secondary way. However, what is not often
observed is that in the Hebrew text at the word him ("in the image
of God He created him", sing) there is a mark called an athnach
which creates a pause in the narrative, something like an id est
(1. e.), a .. that is". It is after this athnach that the words "male and
female created He created them" continue. An athnach divides
two parts of a sentence into its logical parts so that what comes
second makes clear the inner logic of what comes first. In the case
of Gen 1 :27 we might therefore render like this: "In the image of
God He created him and by this we mean male and female did God
create in His image."17 In short what this means is that in the
mention of "adam" already in Gen 1:27 no idea of a generic
humanity apart from the concretions male and female is pos-
sible. 18 This athnach has the further effect of preparing us for the
creation account of Genesis 2 where. in a clear narrative way,
Adam and Eve are distinguished.
From the very beginning of the Bible. therefore, it is evident
that maleness and femaleness are constitutive aspects of human
being. There is no humanity. there is no personh9Od apart from
male humanity. male personhood and female humanity. female
personhood. 19 Masculinity and femininity are. as I noted above,
constitutively connected to the person: they are modes of human
being, ways ofbeing human. Now. if this Is true, the implications
are important. If masculinity and femininity are not merely
qualifying adjectives alongside other adjectives like brown hair,
blue eyes, and dark skin. then all that a person does is done either
in a masculine or in a feminine way. and that includes what we
are wont to call the spiritual actMties of individual. The gift of the
Holy Spirit which we receive when we are united into Christ does
not, as it were. impart some sort of spiritual nature to our natural
16
selves. so that. apart from our human selves as man and wonlan.
there is a new. undifferentiated spiritual nature. common to both
man and woman. which manifests itself by prodUCing or allowing
only the selfsame. undifferentiated activities for both man and
woman. The common gift of the Spirit does not mean that there
can be no differentiation in spiritual matters any more than the
cormnon gift of the life-giving Spirit of creation means there can
be no differentiation in the activities of created nature. Bu t this
refusal to allow for differentiation is the effect of the common.
contemporary use of Gal. 3:28 which wishes to see in this passage
the assertion that in Christ there is neither male nor female. and
this in such a way that being male or being female has simply
ceased to be important in the arena of the Church. The "order of
redemption" has transformed the "order of creation" so that the
order of creation simply no longer functions in the Church. As
illustrative of this. I would like to quote from Prof. Gilbert
Bilekizian of Wheaton College. who writes the following in hiS
book. Beyond Sex Roles:
The transforming power of the gospel needs to be applied to
individual lives and to the way Christians relate among them-
selves. Fragmentation and divisions consUtu te ... weapons in
Satan's arsenal against the people of God. Where God wants
to create unity and cohesion. the enemy seeks to cause
alienation and separation .... The concept of sex roles is one of
those bondages from which the gospel can set us free. Nowhere
does the Scripture command us to develop our sex-role aware-
ness as males and females. It calls us ... to acquire the mind of
Christ and to be transformed in His image [Gal 3:27; Eph 4: 13;
Phil 2:5: and so on). Both men and women are called to develop
their 'inner man'. which means their basic personhood in
cooperation with the Holy Spirit. 20
Quite evident here is the spiritual monism that arises when the
concretions of human being. namely. the human as male and the
human as female. are not taken with sufficient Biblical serious-
ness. Paul's "inner man" is identified with "basic personhood"
and this is not in any way defined by the notions of maleness and
femaleness. Indeed. sex roles. which after all is the only way
fundamental gender differentiation can express itself. are for
Bilekizian a "bondage" from which we must be set free by the
Gospel. Hence. for Bilekizian. the works of the Spirit can only
illegitimately be differentiated between the male and the female.
In such a view. that there might be spiritual vocations which
correspond to the distinction between male and female is incon-
ceivable.
However. it is wholly illegitimate to understand Gal. 3:28 in
a way that obliterates the continuing significance of the distinc
17
tion between male and female Within the -orderofredemption~. In
this regard it is important to observe that immediately followincr
GaL 3:28. that is in Gal. 3:29. Paul introduces the terminology of
human sexuality and does so in order to define our being in Christ
in terms of the Old Testament covenant and therefore not
surprisingly in terms. of the .masculin~ role o.fbegetting: "For you
are all one (Note: thIS is elS masc.) m Chnst. but if you are of
ChriSt. then you are the seed (spenna) of Abraham. heirs of the
promise." There is no radical diSjunction here between the
patriarchal story of Abraham in the Old Testament (Abraham
means "father of a multitude: his previous name. Abram. means
.. the father be exalted") and the new life of unity in Christ throucrh
the Holy Spirit. Indeed. a patriarchal story is used to e..xplicate the
Gospel of Christ.
Because the SCriptures in fact do conSider the human race
as consisting in two consubstantial forms and therefore conSider
these two forms. male and female. as of enduring and abiding
significance, it is not surprising but rather to be expected that the
Bible is not unaware of distinctive spiritual roles which corre-
spond to roles given to masculinity and which correspond to roles
given to feminlnity. It is not to be overlooked. let alone denigrated.
that when the Scriptures speak of God or of those who represent
Him to the people of God. it does so predominately throucrh masculln~ imagery. And similarly. it is not to be overlooked thOat
when the SCriptures speak of the people of God and their relation
to God. it does so predOminately by means of feminine imagery.
And here. with our specifiC purpose in mind. we reiterate the fact
that those figures. both in the Old Testament and in the New
Testament. who serve as fundamental representatives or types of
the redemptive purposes of God in Christ are male figures. There
is the figure of Adam. the figure of Abraham. the figure of Moses
(prophet like Moses). the kings of Israel, especially the figure of
David. There is also the idea of the first-born son. and there is
even the figure of the sacrificial, passover lamb which. according
to Exodus 12. was to be a male lamb of one year's age {also: the
scapegoat and the goat of the sin offering for the yearly Feast of
Expiation were males. Leviticus 16). We mention here also the
fact that the Christ himself. to whom all these masculine types
point. assumed his human nature in the masculine mode of
human being. and we mention finally the fact that Christ chose
as his apostles only males.
We are. of course. aware that there are arguments made that
these last two items were mere divine accommodations to the
patriarchal social forms of the time and that had Christ come as
a woman his mission would have been correspondingly less
acceptable and less effective.21 Quite apart from the fact that his
mission was rejected rather consIderably as it was, this argument
is one self-serving of a prior feminist interest and the,refore is
lR
unwilling to take seriously the actual facts of the salvation
history. Similarly, the argument that if the masculinity of the
apostles is significant, then the Jewishness of the apostles must
likewise have similar abiding sIgnificance fails to recognize that
while Jewishness is not a constitutive feature of human being,
maleness and femaleness is constitutive of human being. Again,
we are dealing here not with contingencies but with elemental
features of human existence.
Does the masculinity of Jesus have anything to say to us
about the question of the ordination of women? Does the pastor
represent the person of Jesus in a way which creates an ecclesial
proprIety which is transgressed should a woman be placed into
the office of Word and Sacrament? From the Lutheran Confes-
sions we are aware of the view that the pastor represents Christ's
person. For example, in the Apology, in the article "On the
Church", Melanchthon discusses the question of the validity of
sacraments administered by unworthy ministers. He writes that
sacraments administered by such ministers are true sacraments
because "they do not represent their own persons but the person
of Chrtst. because of the Church's call, as Christ testifies, 'He who
hears you hears me' (Luke 10: 16]."'22 The reference to Luke 10
makes it vtrtually certain that the confessor thought of the
minister as the voice of Christ rather than any kind of physical
image of the Savior. In the words of the minister one hears the
words of Christ, and. therefore. the one who hears must receive
in faith the very spoken words of the minister. We, of course.
recognize and confess this same view.
But now we inquire after the meaning of the masculine form
of Jesus' humanity and how this migh t in fact relate to the Pauline
injunctions that only a man may be a pastor. Is there something
about the masculine character of the pastor whIch is fit and apt
to represent the position of the l.()rd in the conununity of hiS
saints? There are those, of course, who think that the very
question evinces an inadmissable Romanizing tendency. That is
certainly not the intent. I have tried to indicate why it appears in
terms of the Bible's own thought and form that such a
question. especially in light of contemporary discussion, is de-
manded. even trthe answer is yet to be clearly adumbrated. But
to allay any reSidual fears. we do not suggest that there is
anything given to the ordained rnin1sterwhich bestows upon him
some ontologIcal capacity whereby is effected "an approximation
to Christ as mediator and redemptive head of the Ch urch. '"23 If the
pastor in the midst ofthe congregation is able in some natural way
to represent Christ by virtue of his masculinity, it will not be
beca use of something added to him by ordina tion or consecration.
Christ redeems nature. making nature itself to be the bearer of the
things of the Spirit. Therefore. any such natural representation
will exist by virtue of the fact that God so willed to order creation
19
such that it presages in itself the consummation of the Holy Spirit
in Christ and His Church. Or as Susannah Herzel has said, the
creation is "prophetic material'", for it pOints to some future which
is more complete. 24
There are many voices, and by no means only radical ones,
which believe that the maleness of Christ has no significance,
neither in the matter of who may become a pastor nor even in the
matter of the Savior's redemptive work. I would like to refer to
three worthy proponents of such a view. make to each a short
response, and then briefly develop my own thoughts. Professor
Eric Gritsch. referring especially to Robert Jensen. writes that
when Jesus called God "Father". he did not address a male God.
Jesus' historical reality-as the revelation of God-transcends
such and other designations into a genuine sphere of God-talk
which no longer reflects the suspicions and broken relationships
of sinful human creatures. The Gospel frees us from feeling guilty
abou t the use of imperfect language and analogies which we need
to express praise and thanks to the God who justifies the
ungodly.25 To this we must simply say that in the New Testament
the historical reality of Jesus-as the revelation of God-does not
transcend the designation of God as "Father" and move us into "a
genuine sphere of God -talk." Rather, it is precisely the historical
o reality of Jesus' humanity ,which reveals. not just God, but God
as the Father. and therefore the name of "Father" becomes the
Name addressed by those who. as Paul says in Romans 8, have
received the Spirit of the adoption of sons (v. 15: pneuma
huiothsias). The God-talk of the Bible remains in every case
concrete. creaturely. and historical. It does not fly off into some
"genuine God-talk". and I suspect that this is so because the Bible
does not believe that the things of creation need to be transcended
for God to be rightly and truthfully spoken.26 Nor is this point
vitiated by the fact that in the present age the things of creation
bear the brokenness of sin. It is in the revelation of the Christ in
the flesh. in his concrete humanity. that we see. in faith and in
hope, the consummation of that given in the beginning.
Pastor George Murphy. in the article mentioned above,
adduces a Christological consideration to argue that it is wrong
to think of the pastoral representation of Christ only in masculine
terms. He refers to the claSSical Christological doctrine of the
anhypostasis of Christ's human nature. According to this doc-
trine, the flesh of Christ has no independent or autonomous
personhood apart from the incarnation of the Word of God. In the
incarnation. however, that flesh which possessed no personhood
of its own received personhood by its assumption into the Person
of the eternal Word of God, the Second Person of the Trinity.
Therefore. concludes Pastor Murphy, that humanity assumed by
Christ is that humanity common to both men and women, and
both can equally, therefore, represent Christ.27 Murphy is
certainly correct in the view that the Christological doctrine of
20
Chalcedon. especially those aspects most beholden to Cyril of
Alexandria. understood the tenn -flesh"-the Word became flesh-
to be a generic tenn referring to human nature as a whole. Christ .
. the Word. did not unite to Himself only one individual but united
to Himself the entire human race.28 Nonetheless. one ought not
overlook the fact that the ChalcedorUan Fathers developed their
Christology in the light of the requirements of so teriology. Christ
as the Savior of all must bear the humanity of alL Nevertheless.
as post·Chalcedonian diSCussion indicates. the Fathers were
alive to the dangers of conceIVing the humanity of Christ in some
PlatOniC fashion whereby Christ's humanity was some kind of
abstraction and in no way a specific humanity. That would be the
worst kind ofmonophysitism. a virtual denial orthe true human-
ity of Christ. The Fathers who interpreted Chalcedon were
equally of the opinion that Christ was a concrete human figure.
The fact that Christ had assumed "human nature in general" did
not exclude the fact that he was human within the specificities of
a distinct human person. and that would have included Christ's
reality as male.29 Therefore. while it was not an expliCit feature of
post-Chalcedoruan discUSSion. the maSCUlinity of Christ was
impliCitly asserted.
Finally. there is the recent book by Adrian Hastings, Profes-
sor of Theology at the University of Leeds. who likewise argues on
the basis of the incarnation of Christ. specifically referring to the
words of the Nicene Creed that the Christ was made "man". homo
in the Latin and anthropos in the Greek. both terms meaning
"generic humanIty." Hastings argues: the issue is "whether God
in being incamaUonally particular does or does not mysteriously
break through the bonds of any and every limitation thus
imposed. If the male/female wall of binary division remains
operative. any more than the Jew/Gentlle wall of binary division,
then not all is assumed. not all is redeemed."3O Again we need to
say that while the generic humanity of ChriSt was afilrmed by the
creeds of the Church in order to assert the universal. all-
encompassing salvific work of the Savior. the specific character
of Christ's humanity was never denied. other than perhaps by
those of an Apollinanan or Monophyslte bent. But in Hastings too
we see the antipathy of many toward the particularities and
concretions of creation. Hastings notes no difference in the
distinction between male and female and the distinction between
Jew and Gentile. That one is a created distinction. present
inherently in the organic unity ofhuman1ty. while the other is a
contingent distinction which has arisen within the movement of
history Is apparently of no matter to Professor Hastings. Rather.
he sees in both distinctions ~alls of binary division." When that
language is applied to the distinction of male and female. there is
to be noted an unmistakeable Manichaean negativism toward the
c~eation as such. While making much show of being conversant
WIth patristic Christology. Hastings is oblivious to the fact that the
-
21
Fathers asserted as an essential element of their Chnstology that
Christ was the new Adam and as such the Head of a new
humanity. a new humanity which, to be sure. encompassed all
human beings. both male and female.
In our own reflections we wish to advance two arguments.
(1) In discussion concerning the continuing relevance of gender
the relation between the "order of creation" and the "order of
redemption" often arises. Many think that the "order of redemp-
tion." transcending and transfOrming the "order of creation."
presents a different configuration of human existence all-to-
gether. Many others. and here I would classify most Missouri-
Synod Lutherans. thinkofthe "order of creation" as the implanted
will of God in the structure of things and as such it is the
expressIon of God's immutable will. The "order of redemption. ,. on
the other hand, constitutes a new existence in a new world
brought by Christ. and this existence is determined by grace. This
is. in fact. the very posturing of these two "orders" in the 1985
CTCR document. ""Women in the Church." Here, to be sure. the
"order of creation" is said to be sanctified and hallowed by Christ's
work. There is between the two "orders" a relationship of contlnu-
ity (the first is not destroyed in the second. but continues as
sanctified in the second). Yet, one searches in vain in the CTCR
document for any organic relationship between the "order of
creation" and the "order ofredemptlon" whereby the purposes of
God for the world in Christ are already enVisioned. presaged. and
prophesied In the "order of creation" itself. I have already referred
to the striking phraseology of Susannah Herzel's that the creation
is "prophetic material" pointing to some greater and more com-
plete future. Along that same line. I would like to suggest that the
creating activity of God and the redeeming actiVity of God are not
two qualitatiVely distinct ways of the divine working. but that they
are organically related. The way God works creattvely (and this
(:from the beginning) and the way God works redemptively are not
intrinsically different but are united in intention and purpose.
Perhaps one can express the POint like this: the redemptive work
of God brings the creative work of God~ presently under the alien
dominion of sin and death. to its intended purpose and goal. If
this is the case, then the "order of creation" Is not transformed in
the "order ofredemptlon" but Is rather illUminated in the "order
of redemption". We perceive the "order of creation" most clearly
in the "order of redemption." That Chr1st, the Head of the new
humanity, was male was Dot due, therefore. to some requirement
to maintain the "order of creation." It is not that Christ was a male
human person because in the "order of creation" God had given
. headship and authority to the man. Adam. Rathe!,', God who
created h umank1nd in order that He might have communion with
it in and through His Word gave the headship of humanity to the
man. Adam. in view of the eschatological goal of humanity which
is Christ and His Church. Because in the final purpose and telos
of God for the world the man Jesus Christ was to be the Head of
his Body. the Church (which relates to Christ as Bride to
Bridegroom). God in the beginning gave Adam to be head to Eve.
As Paul says ... the head of woman is the man" (I Cor. 11:3), and
"Adam was created first (or perhaps "as the first"). then Eve" (I
Tim. 2: 13). This makes perfectly good sense of two passages of
Paul. The first we have already clearly implied. Eph 5:23-33. As
is evident in this passage, Paul is implicitly appealing to the
creation story of man and woman in Genesis 2. This passage
intimately combines the creation of Eve from Adam, the recogni-
tion of Adam that the woman is "bone of my bones and flesh of my
flesh." and the unity they have together as "one flesh" in the
marriage bond. That Adam possesses "headship" within this "one
flesh" of the marriage bond is clear. However. in Ephesians 5
Paul's point is not that Christ's love for his Bride. the Church. is
patterned after what was to be the case between Adam and Eve
in the Garden. Rather, it is in view of Christ's love for hiS Bride,
the Church. that husbands are to love their wives and that wives
are to be subject to their husbands as to their head. The true
marriage was not that marriage in the Garden. The true marriage
is that between ChIist and the Church. All other marriages
(including that frrst one in the Garden)-and this is true the more
marriages are blessed by love-are faint images and icons of that
Marriage of the Lamb :with his Bride. the Church.
The second passage is Rom. 5: 14 where Adam is explicitly
called ·the type of the One who is to come (has estin typos tou
mellontos). Here we see more explicitly yet that what transpired
in the Garden was in view of that perfect speaking of God when
the Wordhimselfwould become man and be. as the Second Adam.
also the perfect Adam. Adam in himself was prophetic; he pOinted
toward the Christ who was to come as the man Jesus. It is utterly
erroneous. therefore. to think that the "order of creation" has been
overcome in the ·order of redemption." for it was in view of the
"order of redemption" that the "order of creation" itself was
ordered the way it was. The "order of creation" is not merely
sanctified and hallowed in the "order of redemption ... The "order
of creation" comes to its own completion. to its intended goal and
end in the ·order of redemption".
(2) Finally. we tum again to the fact that in Paul's discussion
of the relation between man and woman the story of the creation
of man and woman in Genesis 2 is foundational. Adam was
~reated first; then Eve (I Tim. 2: 13). Paul's language in I Cor. 11:8
IS more vivid and more instructive: "man Is not from woman. bu t
woman from man" (gyne ex andras) . . Adam Is the source of
woman'S being: she Is bone from his bone and flesh from hiS flesh
(ostoun ek ton osteon mou kai sarx ek tas sarkos nou; Gen. 2:23
l..XX). Adam does not, therefore, relate to Eve merely in terms of
a temporal sequence: he was first and she was second. Rather.
23
-
he relates to Eve as one who has a posture, a position, a vocation
vis-a-uis Eve, a vocation which earlier in I Corinthians 11 is
indicated by calling the man "the head" of woman (v. 3). What
"headship" in part means can be discerned in Col. 2: 19 where
Christ as "Head" is the One "from whom" (ex hou) the whole body
(here. the Church) is nourished and receives its growth. Being
"head" includes the notion (at least in Biblical usage) of source
from which another's being. life. and sustenance is derived. Not
inSignificantly. therefore. Paul can deSignate Jesus as "the last
Adam" who became "'a life-giving spirit" (l Cor. 15:45). Adam is
the one from whom Eve's life is derived and to whom Eve relates
as to the source of her life. That such derivation does not involve
essential inequality is clear: Eve, coming from Adam. relates to
him as "bone from his bone and flesh from his flesh." Yet. this
relationship of equals is not a relationship of independent and
autonomous equals. It is a relationship of equals which has its
own intrinsic and organic order and which is not given to
interchangeability and mutual reciprocity.31 It is a relationship of
equals established in and through the creating of God and
consists in the bestowal of the self of one upon another and the
corresponding receiving by the other of the one's self-giving.
Adam relates to Eve as the one who gives of himself to her. Eve
relates to Adam as the one who receives Adam's self-giving.
This relationship of giving and receiving between Adam
and Eve relates to fundamental differences between the Biblical
creation narrative and the pagan creation accounts of the anCient
Near East. First of all. in creation accounts of the ancient Near
East .(such as in the BabylOnian Enuma Elish) human beings are
created to be servants of the gods. However. in the Genesis
account. God creates mankind and gives to it the bleSSings of a
good earth and dominion over the earth. God creates mankind in
order to be Servant to it. As Creator God gives to His creatures all
those good things they need for this body and life. Already in
creation. therefore. God is Lord precisely in His servanthood. He
is Lord in His bestowal of life. both in the giving and in the
sustaining of life.
Secondly, ancient creation myths frequently derived the
existence of the earth from female deities. These deities were
usually nature I harvest deities and were the symbolic representa-
tions of the mysterious force of the life and fecundity of the earth.
The natural cycle of springtime and harvest was understood to be
divine, and the natural potency and fertility of the earth were
rttually dJvinJ..zed. the gods and goddesses being portrayed as
frankly sexual beings who lusted. mated. gave birth. and were the
fathers and mothers of the creatures they procreated. In such a
view the rhythms of the goddess and of reUgious life were governed
by repetition. by times and seasons. Being governed by the
repetition of the seasons these goddess religions had no function
24
ing concept ofthe future nor of divine purpose. The idea o1'a divine
Mother. therefore. is associated with the idea of a divine earth.
The distinction between God and the creation is compromised,
and the notion of God's transcendence is lost. But with the loss
of the distinction between God and the world there is the
corresponding loss of the ideas of divine grace (God wills to love)
and ofhope (in divine purpose and in the possibilityofnewness).32
In view of such pagan ideas the theological structure
implicit in naming God "Father" begins to be evident. We should.
however. be aware of the important fact that the questionofGod's
"Fatherhood" and the question of His masculinity are entirely
distinct. The Church has always been aware of the divine
prohibition given in Deut. 4:15-16: "Since you saw no fonnon the
day that the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst ofthe fire.
beware lest you act corruptly by making a graven image for
yourselves, in the fOIm of any figure, the likeness of male or
female." The pagan nature religions surrounding ancient Israel
found their opposite in the Old Testament worship which e..x-
cluded the depiction of God as either male or female. It was. in
fact. against the heresy of Arianism that the Church most clearly
detailed its belief that the Triune God is transcendent to all
creaturely categories. including that of male and female. The
Christian Church does not worship a male god, nor does it
worship a female goddess.33
This does not mean. however. that the Christian does not
worship God the Father and God the Son. For very decidedly the
Church does worship God the Father and God the Son. The
prophets and the apostles and the Church have simply been
careful to remove God from any notion of father as a physical
progenitor. God's fatherhood realizes itself apart from any
motherhood. Therefore. while God is Father, there is no reality in
God's being which can properly bear the desIgnation "Mother".
This fact is espeCIally evidenced by the language and narrative of
the New Testament. but it is by no means absent in the Old
Testament. Every Semitic religIon In the ancient Near East. with
the exception of Israel. had goddesses. One indication of this is
the practice of giving personal names which conSist of a god's
name plus the word for "father", "mother", "brother", "sister". For
example, from Babylon one finds the name. Urrun1-Ishtar "my
mother is Ishtar", or Samas-abi "my father is Samas". However.
among the Hebrews there are many names in whIch "father"
occurs, but there are none in which "mother" occurs, From the
Hebrew names we may mention Abijah ('"Yahweh is my father")'
Joab (,"Yahweh is father"). Eliab ("El is father") and Ablel ("father
is El").34
How central the fatherhood of God is to Biblical understand-
ing is indicated by God's choosing of Abram to be the progenitor
of the chosen people. In the midst of a culture which possessed
25
numerous female deities God calls Abram, which means "exalted
father" or .. the father is exalted", It is to Abram that God chooses
to make His promises of redemption for the nations. and in so
doing God changes Abram's name to Abraham "father of many
nations":
The Lord appeared to Abram, and said to him. "I am God
Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless. And I will make
my covenant between me and you, and will multiply you
exceedingly, ... Behold, my covenant Is with you, and you shall
be the father of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your
name be Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have
made you the father of a multitude of nations. I will make you
exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you. and kings
shall come forth from you. And I will establish my covenant
between me and you and your descendants after you through-
out their generations for an everlasting covenant. to be God to
You and to your descendants after you· (Gen. 17:1-7)
God makes His fatherhood known by choosing a man to be
-father" of many. But what is important to note is that God's
fatherhood is indicated by His free and gratuitous election of
Abraham. and in him of Israel. God related to Abraham as a
distinct Other who. while free and possessing transcendent
autonomy (-God AlmJghty"). chooses to focus and to direct His
love to a particular people and on behalf of a particular people. By
making covenant with Abraham. God in effect adopts Abraham
and his descendents and makes them His own. And this God does
without any corresponding divine motherhood. God'sfatherhood
is indicated independently of any cooperating participation by
another. God litera1lymakesAbraham and his descendents to be
His sons.35 It is this prevenient, free. and willing making of a
people that we term grace (see Deut. 7:6-8). PrecIsely as the God
of grace is God "Father", Graciously, as a father. God takes
Abraham out of the nations. the tribes, and the families of the
earth and makes Abraham himself to be a nation in that Abraham
becomes father in the stead of Him who is Father. Abraham is
released from the earthlytles of blood and family relationship and
is oriented toward a future not determined by earthly bonds but
by the everlasting covenant of grace and mercy in which God
everlastingly chooses to be the God of Abraham and his descen-
dents.36
It is in the election of Israel that God the Fatherbecomes, in
Abraham. Father to the people of Israel. And this thematic is
central also to the message of the New Testament. For example,
the Prologue of the Gospel of John makes clear that the people of .
God are not made by means of a natural, sexual fatherhood. but
by the will of God: "to all who received him. who believed in hIs
26
name, he gave power to become the children of God: who were
born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man.
but of God" (John 1: 12-13). Similarly. Paul indicates that the
Christian is the child of Abraham by faith and that therefore the
Gentiles. and not only the Jews. have access to the grace of the
Gospel (Romans 4). That God the Father becomes our father
through the free and gracious adoption of us in Christ is nicely
sunnnarized in Rom. 8: 15. which refers to our baptisms: "For you
did not receive the Spirit of slavery to fall back into fear. but you
have received the Spirit of sons hip bywhom we cry 'Abba. Father'"
(aUa elabete pneuma huiothesias en hoi kratzomen abbi ho patar) .
The Greek word translated wsonship" really means wadopted as
son" or "placed into sonship". In our baptisms into Christ.
therefore. we receive the Holy Spirit whereby we are made sons of
the Father (by the Father's gracious adopting of us) and for that
reason we call God "Father", It is not incidental. therefore. that
in the earliest commentaries on the Lord's Prayer the introductory
words "Our Father" were explained by language reminiscent of
Christian baptism (Tertullian. Cyprian).
Now what does all of this have to do with the maleness of
Jesus? As we have noted. against the subordinationism of
Arianism the Church Fathers frequently asserted that true and
proper fatherhood belongs to God alone.37 However. fatherhood
is proper to God because He eternally generates the divine Son.
This generation of the Son from the Father is not a generation on
the basis of will. That would be the position of the Arians. and
moreover such a generation of the Son from the Father would be
like the creaturely begetting of a son by a human father. Rather.
the eternal generation of the Son from the Father involves what
is sometimes called a "communication of essence" whereby the
Godhead of the Father is imparted to the Son so that the Son is
"of one substance with the Father" (NiceneCreed). It is. therefore.
in the Son that the Father. so to speak. moves out of Himself and
resides in another. It is the Son who bears in Himself the Father.
As is well known. it is New Testament witness that the
eternal Son of the Father became flesh in the person of Jesus
Christ (John 1: 14). The significance of this is that in the human
person of Jesus Christ the heavenly Father comes to us. The
divine Father declares His will to be our Father in the person of
His incarnate Son. It is the man Jesus who bringS the heavenly
Father to the world. Or. in the striking words of Irenaeus (c. 180
AD.). "all saw the Father in the Son; for the Father is the invisible
of the Son. but the Son the visible of the Father."38 Such remarks
are in strict agreement with the words of Jesus himself: "He who
has seen me has seen the Father .... Believe me that I am in the
Father and the Father in me" (John 14:9-11). Now the Father
reveals Himself in the incarnate Son. that is. in the specific
humanity which the Son assumed into Himself. That concrete
humanity was, however, a male humanity. And it is evident why
that was so. Within the order of creation it is in fact the male
member of the human race who may, as God wills it, become a
father. The male human being alone has the natural capacity to
be a father. Within the human order, therefore. it is the masculine
image which is naturally apt to connote fatherhood. Indeed, a
feminine image is naturally unsuited as an image and indication
of fatherhood, for a woman can not by nature be a father.
Nevertheless. it was precisely the purpose of Christ's incarnate
life, death, and resurrection that He bring the Father and restore
us again as children of the Father. It was in view of the very
purpose of Christ's redemptive cOming, therefore, that He took
upon Himself a male humanity. Christ's being a male was not
accidental. nor was it mere accommodation to patriarchal cul-
ture. As the eternal Son of the Father, who bears in Himself the
Father's divine essence. He came to a sinful and mortal humanity
in order to communicate and to give to the world that which He
Himselfpossesses, namely. the relation of Son to the Father. And
this relation of Son to the Father Christ gives in and through His
humanity. The flesh of Christ was not merely some abstract.
passive human "stuff' which Christ took on and assumed. It was.
so to speak, the active envisagement of the Father. The flesh of
Christ was. and is. the means by which the divine Father becomes
Father for us. Christ in His concrete humanity remains the
means by which the Father moves out of Himself in order to make
us sons in His Son. the new and second Adam. Christ's flesh is
not merely a dumb instrument. but it is itself flesh of the Word and
therefore it speaks. "Here is your Father. Whoever sees me sees
the Father. for I and the Father are one." The flesh of Christ is the
active source of that new life which the Father gives by begetting
us anew. as John 1: 13 speaks of it: '"Whoever believed in His
name. He gave power to become the children of God; who were
born. not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man.
but of God." Since God so created the human race that it would
be the male member who can be father. to be male is by revelation
the proper mode of the incarnate Son who brings and manifests
the divine Father. 39
And now. fmally. we come to the relevance all of this has for
the Office of the Public Ministry. for the question ofthe ordination
of women into it. and for the question of women performing those
functions which are distinctive of the Office of pastor. We begin
with the assertion of the Augsburg Confession that the Office of
the Public Ministry is the office of the preaching of the Gospel and
the administration of the sacraments.40 It is important to note
that this assertion of the constitutive functions of the pastoral
office comes immediately after the article on Justification through
faith (Art. 4) which is itself Intimately connected with the article
on the Person of Jesus Christ (Art. 3). When. however. the
28
Augustana begins to speak of the Office of preaching and the
sacraments. it says, "In order that we migh t obtain this U ustifying]
faith. the ministry of teaching the Gospel and administering the
sacraments was instituted." That is. the Office of preaching and
administering the sacraments is instrumental in the granting of
justifying faith to the believer in which we have the new life of the
Holy Spirit. The preaching of the Gospel and the administration
of the sacraments are the means whereby Christ Himself comes.
and it is the pastor who preaches and the pastor who administers
the sacraments who is representative of Christ and who speaks 0
His voice. But as we have noted. Christ does not come only to
bring Himself. He came in the flesh and He comes in the
preaching of the Gospel and in the administration of the sacra-
ments as the One who brings the Father. The pastoral office is
that office which God has placed in His Church and by which and
through which He continues to engender sons of God. For those
who hear the preached Gospel in faith and for those who receive
in faith the Body and the Blood of Christ given and shed for them
for the forgiveness of sins, God continues to be "Father" in the
Christ who speaks and gives Himself. Just as it is the person of
the incarnate Son who in His male humanity cOllll1lunicates to us
the Father's grace, so also it is proper and right-and this in terms
of the whole salvific economy of God from the beginning-that the
human instrument of the Father's grace in Christ, in the concrete-
ness of male humanity, be an image of the incarnate Image of the
eternal Father.
We need to reflect upon the inner and organic connections
which bind the speaking of the Gospel and the administration of
the sacraments to the inner life of the most Holy Trinity. The God
who is Trinity has not kept Himselfhldden from us, but for us and
for our salvation has made Himself mown in the coming of the
Son. The movement of the Father outside Himself whereby He
imparts His very being to Another. namely the Son, finds its
analogue in the creation of Eve whereby the bone of Adam's bone
and the flesh of Adam's flesh was imparted to Eve. And as the
diVine Son is a distinct Other, and yet an equal Other, so also was
Eve a distinct other, and yet an equal other. We see the selfsame
economy in the movement of the Father in Christ toward the world
whereby Christ, as the new Adam, became a "life-giving spirit"
and brought to pass the new Eve, which is the Church. And we
see finally the selfsame economy in the movement of the Father
in Christ by means of preaching and the sacraments. whereby
children of God are engendered by grace through faIth. Where the
pastor forgives our Sins. where the pastor preaches the Gospel.
and where the pastor gives to us the Body and Blood of Christ.
there the heavenly Father. who wills that we be His children.
graciously and alone makes us to be His children, or, as Paul says.
children of Abraham by faith (Romans 4). In the context of the
pastoral office a male pastor remains the apt representative of the
29
Father's grace whereby all. male and female alike. hear the words
of Christ and become the Bride of the Groom.
As illustrative of the above position we take a couple of
contexts from our Lutheran liturgy. First of all. we adduce the
confession and absolution of sins:u At the beginning of the
worship service. the people say. "If we confess our sins. God. who
is faithful and just. will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all
unrighteousness." It becomes immediately clear who "God" really
is when the pastor continues. "Let us then confess our sinS to God
the Father" (italiCS added). It is. then, to the Father that the
people confess their sins, . and this is further indicated by the fact
that the confession of sins which follows concludes with the
prayer that God will forgive. renew and lead us "for the sake of
your Son." When. therefore. the pastor, upon the confession of
the people, speaks the words of forgiveness, it is clear that he
o speaks the Father's forgiveness, which,. to be sure. has been
mediated through tlre>"Son~and the Holy Spirit. The pastor.
standing "in the stead of Christ", stands for the Father ..
Secondly. we take a look at the prayer spoken at the
conclusion of the celebration of the Lord's Supper.42 The prayer
is addressed to "God the Father, the fountain and source of all
goodness. who in lOving-kindness sent your only-begotten Son
into the flesh". and the prayergtves thanks to God the Father that
"for [Christ's) sake you have given us pardon and peace in this
sacrament." From this language it is clear that the prayer regards
the ultimate Giver of the sacrament, that is, of the Body and Blood
of Christ, to be the Father. It is the Fatherwho for us and because
of our sins gave His Son up unto death. Here then also it is evident
that the pastor who administers and gives the Body and the Blood
of Christ in the sacrament ought be representative of the Father
who gives His Son for us.
To conclude we take note of the thought of two theologians
who. although taking a different emphasis than we have taken,
yet conclude that the ordination of women is improper or at least
unWise. Regin Prenter, a Danish Lutheran theologian. has
argued that the prohIbitions of Paul (against women teaching in
the Church) are not merely commandments which are culturally
determined and may not have lasting relevance. They are
commandments "which intend to preserve the right and pertinent
tradition of the Gospel. "43 They are sImilar to the commandments
of Jesus, such as the command to baptize, or to "do" the Lord's
Supper. or to evangelize. Such ·commandments of the Gospel"
("Gebote des Evangeliums") command the ways in which the
Gospel properly is carried forth or preserved within the Church.
30
Since the Gospel. argues Prenter, is a unity of the event of
salvation history and its application through means. the external
form of the means is not left to us but is given tousfrom the salvific
history.44 The commandments of Paul concerning the role of
Christian women in the Christian worship assembly arejust such
"commandments of the Gospel." Paul speaks commandments
which are analogous to Christ's commands to baptize and to
celebrate the Lord's Supper in that they intend, like Christ's. to
order the continuing life of the Church in such a way tha t the
reality of the Gospel and the new life it engenders is sustained and
maintained. Concerning the institution of the means of grace,
argues Prenter, one may not merely regard them as activities and
therefore believe that only their form is binding upon the Church.
One must also consider the office which administers the means
of grace and the fonn in which it was instituted. "If the history of
salvation and the means of grace are something historically given.
then they must be continued [in the Church] in the same way in
which they were historically given."45 In this view, therefore. the
fact that Christ gave the command to baptize and to celebrate the
Lord's Supper to his apostles is not indifferent to the question of
who may properly administer the sacraments in the on-going life
of the Church.
The second theologian is James I. Packer, a prominent
evangelical theologian with English roots. In a recent article he
summons the evangelical community to rethink its somewhat
precipitous rush toward the ordination of women into the
presbyterate (roughly corresponding to our pastoral office). He
presents four arguments. 1) The Reformation prinCiple of the
a~thOrity of SCripture includes the idea of the sufficiency of
Scripture. Yet. despite the clear affirmation of women by Jesus,
the New Testament nowhere indicates that women functioned as
presbyters. Obedience to the SCriptures seems to indicate that it
is unwarranted to introduce a practice in the exercise of the
presbyteral office which is not indicated in the sufficient Scrip-
tures.
2) Packer's second argument is that Christ is the true
minister in all Christian ministry, and that the words and acts of
Christ's ministers are the "medium of his personal ministry to us."
Packer's comments at this point are worthy of quotation.
"Since the Son of God was incarnate as a male, it will always
be easier, other things being equal, to realize and remember
that Christ is ministering in person jf his human agent and
representative is also male... Stated structures of ministry
should be designed to create and sustaIn with fullest force faith
knowledge that Christ is the true minister. Presbyterallead-
ership by women, therefore, is not the best option. That one
male is best represented by another male is a matter of
31
common sense; that Jesus' maleness is basic to his role as our
incarnate Savior is a matter of biblical revelation", To mini-
mize the maleness shows a degree of failure to grasp the
space-time reality and redemptive significance of the Incarna-
tion; to argue that gender is irrelevant to ministry shows that
one is forgetting the representative role of presbyteralleader-
ship,"46
It is of especial interest that an evangelical theologian of Packer's stature
makes this kind of argument, for it is sometimes claimed that such an
argument, for it is sometimes claimed that such an argument represents
a Romanizing tendency or is mere speculation. Those who make such
claims may wish to take Packer's exhortation to heart and to think again
about the implications of the doctrines of creation and of the incarnatipn
for the reality of the Church and its life as a renewed humanity,
3) One cannot rightly ignore the significance of gender. Male and
female are set in a ·nonreversible relation" in which leadership responsiblity
is given primarily to the man. Since presbyters are set apart for
authoritative leadership. it is most proper that ·paternal pastoral over-
sight .. be reserved for deSignated Christian men.
4) The example of Mary as a supreme model of devotion and of
developing discipleship, is final proof ofthe"non-necessity of ordination
for a woman who wishes to serve the Father and the Son, and of the
significance that can attach to unordained roles and informal minis-
tries."
A concluding word: In matters of faith it is always a question of
faithfulness, not of sight. The dis tinction of male and female and the
Biblical model for their mutual and complementary, but nonreciprocal
relationship Is a datum of revelation and must therefore be held by the
perception of faith. That Christ is the Incarnate Son in whom we come
to know the Father and to be known by the Father is similarly a datum
of revelation and recognize thIs only by the Spirit. And finally that Paul
is an apostle of the Word who was entrusted by the Word to speak of the
Church and to found the Church upon his apostolic testimony and
activity. that too is of faith. But because all of these things are of faith
and not of sight. because they are of God and not of the world, they are
easily forgotten and lost when the Church no longer with the reqUisite
rigor nor with the requisite creedal interest finds it necessary to think on
these thlngs. A -know-nothing" henneneutic which finds itself satisfied
'when expliCit and particular prohibitions are wanting in SCripture47 will
not be competent to inquire after the inner and organiC relation between
word and act, between what the incarnate Word did and what the Church
must do to be faithful to the Gospel. It remains the unavoidable task
of the Church to inquire after its practice and to lay bare the theological
and evangelical dimensions of those it does which are significant for
preserving and making vivid the Gospel of a new creation.
End Notes
1. See Roger Gryson. The Ministry oj Women in the Early Church (Collegeville. MN:
The Liturgical Press. 1976. 19BO), p. 106; Alme Georges Martimort. Deaconesses:
An Historical Study (San Francisco: Ignatius Press. 1986), p. 195.
2. For the full Origen quotation. see Gryson, Ministry oj Women., pp. 28-29.
3. Quoted in Manfred Hauke. Women in the Priesthood?: A Systematic Analysis
in the UghtojtheOrderojCreationandRedemption(San Francisco: Ignatius Press.
1988}, p. 447.
4. CTCR Report "Women in the Church: Scriptural Principles and Ecc1esial
Practice" (September 1985), pp. 14-15.
5. WA 8.424.20-425.6.
6. WA 8.424.30-33: "Ita mulieres Paulus prohibet loqui, non Simpliciter, sed in
Ecclesia, nempe ubi sunt viri potentes loqui, ut ne confundatur honestas et oreio,
cum vir multis modis sit prae muliere idoneus ad loquendum et magis cum
deceat." See also the discussion of John Gerhard concerning the question of
whether women also must be brought into the ministry (Loci Theologic~ Locus 23).
He gives fives reasons for an answer of -No.· Among them: -man has better
judgment. greater discretion and a faster pace than woman"; also, quoting
Epiphanius. -woman is a deceitful sort, prone to error and endowed with humble
intelligence." Here Gerhard gives explanations (rationes) for the presence of Paul's
prohibitions. which explanations are indeed very likely founded upon his own
historical context, and-let us say it forthrightly-an androcentric viewpoint.
Obviously, such argument bears no persuasive power today.
7. Gretchen Gaebelin Hull, Equal to Seroe: Women and Men in the Church and
Home (Old Tappen. NJ: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1987). p. 26.
8. Hull, Equal to Seroe. pp. BOff.
9. Some women who have been honored by this title are Mary Magdalene: the
martyr ThekJa; Helen. the mother of Emperor Constantine: and Nina. missionary
to the Georgians.
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10. We wish to distinguish clearly this task from the search for some 'general
tendency' or 'main thrust' of SCripture which is then used to interpret or even to
critique explicit statements of Scripture, It is a common method of many feminist
writers to gather Biblical data which speaks of spiritual equality, mutual love. and
the like. and then to declare that there is a general thrust in the Bible to level out
all differences and distinctions, especially those based on gender. This 'general
thrust' becomes a hermeneutical tool to void specific Biblical statements, like
those of Paul. of abiding significance. We seek rather to ascertain the theological
structure of the Bible's own witness (one might say the creedal structure of the
Bible) which gives theological content to Paul's exhortations,
11. For a nice discussion of the difference between Biblical theology and
speculation, see Walther Kuenneth, "Schrifttheologie und Spekulation," in: Viva
Vox Evangelit Eine Festschrift fur Landesbischof D. Hans Meiser (Muenchen:
Claudius-Verlag, 1951), pp, 185-95.
12. Letty M. Russell, Household of Freedom: Authority in Feminist Theology
(Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1987), p. 18. Russell speaks oflivtng out of "a
vtsionofGod's intention for amended creation." In an important sense, she writes,
Christian feminists "only have this future" since patriarchal structures as such
that reconstruction of woman's place "requires a utopian faith that understands
God's future as an impulse for change in the present." Russell borrows the phrase
"utopic envisagement" from Beverly Harrison.
13. For example, Paul Jewett admits that he is uncertain "what it means to be a
man in distinction to a woman or a woman in distinction to a man" (Man as male
andJemale: A Study in Sexual Relationshipsfrom a Theological Point oJView [Grand
Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 19751. p. 178).
14. CTCR Report "Women in the Church" (1985). p. 27.
15. Samuel H. Nafzger, "The Order of Creation, or the Creator's Order," Paper
delivered in Minneapolis. Minnesota. October 7, 1989, p. 9.
16. George L. Murphy. "For the Ordination of Women: Lutheran Forum (Advent.
1990).
pp.6-8.
17. For the athnach. see J. Wetngreen. A Practical Grammar Jor Classical Hebrew.
2nd edition (Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1959). p. 21. There is the opinion that
an athnach indicates simply a pause in a verse and no more. However. even if that
is so, the athnach in Gen. 1:21 indicates a pause within a narrative. so that what
comes 'second cannot simply introduce a novum. The "male and female" after the .
athnach indicates the content of -man" before the athnach.
18. We note as well that the duality of male and female is already indicated tn v.
26 of Genesis 1. There God determines to create "man" (adam, anthropon:
singular) In His image and to give ·them" (plural) dominion over the creatures
(Hebrew: radah: LXX: arxetosanl.
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19. In his commentary on Gen. 1 :27b Claus Westermann makes this same point:
"the division of the sexes belongs to the immediate creation of humanity. A
consequence of this is that there can be no question of an 'essence of man' apart
from existence as two sexes. Humanity exists in community, as one beside the
other, and there can only be anything like humanity and human relations where
the human species exists in twos. W. Zimmerli is exaggerating when he writes in
his commentary: 'A human being in isolation is only half a human being.' A lone
human being remains a complete human being in his lonesomeness. What is
being said here is that a human being must be seen as one whose destiny it is to
live in community: people have been created to live with each other. This is what
human existence means and what human institutions and structures show.
Every theoretical and institutional separation of man and woman, every deliberate
detachment of male from female, can endanger the very existence of humanity as
determined by creation- (Genesis 1-11: A Commentary. translated by John J.
Scullion [Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House. 19841. p. 160).
20. Gilbert Bilezikian, Beyond Sex Roles: A Guid.eJor the Study oj Female Roles
in the Bible (Grand Rapids. MI: Baker Book House. 1985). p. 208.
21. Paul Jewett asserts that there was a cultural and historical necessity for
Christ to come as a male but no theological necessity (Man as male andJemale,
pp. 168f.). Similarly, Letha Scanzoni and Nancy Hardesty: "Given the setting of
patriarchal Judaism, Jesus had to be a male (All We're Meant to Be{Waco. Texas: .
1975J, p. 1 n).
22. See Apology 7.29: also Augustana 28.21f.: Apol. 7.47: 12.40.
23. Hauke, Women in the Priesthtxx:l?, p. 336. This book is an extremely helpful
book and with considerable erudition covers a wealth of material, addressing
virtually all aspects of the feminist question: Biblical, historical. philosophical.
sociological. biological. psychological. etc. Yet. on occasion. as in the section of
the priest's representation of Christ. Hauke advances a very distinctive Roman
Catholic viewpoint which is unacceptable. A further example: ibis imaging
relationship [of the priest to Christ] has its foundation in the sacrament of
ordination to the priesthood. through which. in a way that goes beyond baptism
by virtue of its character indelebilis. an ontological approximation to Christ is
realized- (p. 338).
24. Susannah Herzel. lhe Body is the Book. - in: Man. Woman. and Priesthood.
edited by Peter Moore (London: SPCK. 1978). p. 102. When I speak of some
Mnaturat representation. I do not have anything especial in mind other than a
representation that goes beyond that of the -Voice of Christ- and sees in the
physicality of Christ something that connotes the office of the ministry.
25. Eric Gritsch. "Convergence and Conflict in Feminist and Lutheran Theolo-
gies.· Dialog 24/l (WInter. 1985): 11-18.
26. Note how George Florovsky speaks about the relation between the human
word and the divine Word in the Bible: "When divine truths are expressed in
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human language, the words themselves are transformed .... The Word of Gad is not
diminished when it resounds in human language. On the contrary the human
word is transformed, and as it were transfigured because of the fact that it pleased
God to speak in a human language- (Quoted in Deborah Belonick, Feminism in
Christianity: An Orthodox Christian Response [Syosset, NY: 1983], p. 11 f.). The
doctrine of the incarnation detennines the way Florovsky understands the words
of Scripture: the Word became flesh, so that the flesh of Christ was itself Word.
Concerning the Scriptures one might put the same thought like this: The Word of
God became human word, so that the human words of Scripture are Word of God.
We cannot trade this -Nicene- way of thinking about the words and narratives of
the Bible for the -adoptionism" of Gritsch's way of thinking.
27. Murphy, -For the Ordination of Women," p. 8.
28. See, for example, the Christologica1 reflections of Theodore the Studite (+826
A.D.) in his Refutations of the Iconoclasts: -For Christ did not become a mere man
(yivlo .. ), nor is it orthodox to say that He assumed a particular man, but rather that
He assumed man in general, or the whole human nature- (tonkathholouaetoitaen
olaenplws~ Refutations1.4: also 3.17: taen katholouphusird.
29. The passage of Theodore the Studite, quoted in note 28, continues with these
comments: -It must be said. however, t..'la.t this whole human nature was
contemplated in an individual manner (taenenatomo theopownenae~, so that He
is seen and described. touched and circumscribed, eats and drinks, matures and
grows, works and rests, sleeps and wakes, hungers and thirsts, weeps and sweats,
and whatever else one does or suffers who is in all respects a man- (Refutations
1.4; also 3. 17).
30. Adrian Hastings, The 7heology of a Protestant Catholic (London: SCM:
Philadelphia: Trinity Press International. 1990), p. 97.
31. One should note 1 Cor. 11:3which says tbatGod is -head" of Christ. Godand
Christ. too, relate to one another as equals, but within a relationship of-begettirig"
and -being begotten-. The Father is Father of the Son. He is not nor can become
Son. The order bespeaks the position of relation one has toward the other.
32. It Is to be noted how often feminist writers expUcitly reject the idea of God's
transcendence as an essential element of a patriarchal point of view.
33. See Ken Wesche. -God: Beyond Gender, Reflections on the Patristic Doctrine
of God and Ferninis t Theology ... St.. Vladimir's 7heological Quarterly 30 (1986): 291-
308. The Arians subordinated the Son to the Father by denying the Son's equal
divinity with the Father. They interpreted the Son's relation to the Father in strict
analogy to the sonship and fatherhood of creatures. Since a human (male} father
is temporally prior to his son and wills to beget a son, so also the Father is naturally
prior to the Son and relates to the Son by will. Indeed, just as a human male need
not be a father bu t becomes a father, SO also God is not Father but becomes Father
by willing the Son. Orthodox trinitarian belief asserts that God is Father in the
eternal generation of the Son who is the true Image of the Father since He
participates in the Father's essence/deity (the -of one substance with the Father-
36
of the Nicene Creed).
34. Abijah (oYahweh is my father") is the name of two wo men in the Old Testamen t.
Other names include Ahijah ("my brother is Yahweh"), Joah ("my brother 1s
Yahweh"), and Malchijah ("my king is Yahweh-), Among Hebrew names there is
no occurence of "my sister is Yahweh" or "Yahweh Is queen-, Paul V. Mankowski,
Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University,
writes: "Of the 55 recorded Hebrew sentence names which are composed of the
name YHWH and a verb, each shows the masculine fonn of that verb" (Unpub-
lished paper),
35. Itis interesting to note that the very words spoken to Adam and Eve "be fruitful
and multiply" (Gen. 1:28) are the words used of God's -multiplying" of Abraham
and making him "exceedingly fruitful" (Gen. 17:2,6). Already in Abraham a new
humanity based upon God's gracious election, that is, upon God's fatherhood,
begins. This new humanity will find its fulfillment and completion in the true "son
of Abraham" (Matt. 1: I), who is also the true Son of the Father. The order of
redemption 1s based upon a fatherhood but withou t a corresponding motherhood.
36. The image of "mother" is incapable of connoting this Biblical idea of grace and
the idea of purpose (eschatology) which accompanies it. The earth is not free in
its giving forth of fruit and harvest. It is in the nature of the earth to bear harvest.
A seed is planted and the earth naturally nurtures the seed and eventually bears
fruit. The earth is not gracious in doing so; it must by its nature do so, So it is
also with woman. When a male seed is implanted in her, she does not will to bear
a child. Her nature is such that she nurtures that seed and eventually bears a
child, and this sometimes quite against her will (as we know from the abortion
debate). It is important to grasp this important point of Biblica11magery and
nomenclature, for in the present context of feminized theology the idea of nurture
is frequently advanced as the equivalent of grace.
37. For example. Athanasius. Orations against the Arfans 1.21: after noting that
among creatures fatherhood and sonship are characterized by serial succession
(a son of a father becomes In tum the father of a son, and so on) and division of
nature he continues, "1bus it belongs to the Godhead alone. that the Father is
properly father, and the Son properly son, and in Them. and Them only, does it
hold that the Father is ever Father and the Son ever Son- (NPNF. 2nd sertes,
4.319); Gregory of Nazianzus, Theoklgical Oration 3.6: -He is Father In the
absolute sense, for He is not also Son; jus t as the Son Is Son in the absolute sense,
because He Is not also Father. These names do not belong to us in the absolute
sense, because we are both and not one more than the other- (NPNF. 2nd series.
7.302], For the creature. fatherhood is a work. a function. But for God fatherhood
is a prinCiple ofbelng. what is called a hypostatic or personal su bsistence of being.
God Is Father; human males may become fathers or not, as they will.
38. Irenaeus, Against the Heresies 4.6.6 (ANF 1.469).
39. It would be false to say that there is something autonomously inherent or
ontologically present in maleness which makes it alone apt to image and indicate
Cod' r.
S !atherhood. As the orthodox Church Fathers were wont to say, God does
37
not pattern H!mself after the creature, but the creature ;5 pal a'" "J ,lIlc r G"~
Human fatherhood is a pale image of the eternal F,:llh!.!rbood which is God'..:;.
What we can say and what we musl say is this; according to His will as our
Creator. God so ordered His creation that it is the male and not the female
who can be a father. And for that rcusor;. ~.lcldcn in the ',I.,rill of the Creator. it
was Christ's male humanity which was tilt: apt and proper humanity for Him
to possess in order for Him to manifest to us His eternal Father.
40. Augsburg Cortfession., article 5 (Tappert. p. 31).
41. Lutheran Worship (St. Louis: Concordia PUblishing House. 1982). p. l58.
42. Lutheran Worship, p. 174 .
. \3. Rcgin Prenter, Die Ordination cler Frauen zu dem ueberiieJerten Pfarramt: der
lurhenschen Kirche. Luthertum 28 (Berlin/Hamburg: 1967). p. 8: "Gebote. welche
die n .. "Chte. die sachgernaesse Ueberlieferung des Evangeliums hueten wollen."
The Gennan word "sachgemaess" which I have rendered with ·pertinent" means
"