From Creation to Consummation: Men and Women as Coregents

This article was originally published in French at TPSG.

After a Saturday afternoon visit to the shopping mall, I followed my college boyfriend around the parking lot, looking for my “missing” car. It took twenty minutes to finally locate it. No big deal, right? Except for one thing: I knew exactly where my car was the entire time, but I hadn’t wanted to point it out. I feared it would be unsubmissive of me to direct us to the vehicle. After all, I had been taught that men lead, and women follow.

 

Submission and Leadership

This story has come to mind many times in recent years as I have revisited the question of gender roles in the Church. Did God create all women by nature submissive and all men by nature leaders? This is the dominant narrative of many within the complementarian camp. The clearest New Testament passage on submission, however, is Ephesians 5, which is specifically in the context of marriage. Paul clearly states that wives are to submit to their own husband, and not to all men in general (Eph. 5.22).

Not only that, but the very verse I just alluded to does not contain the word “submit” in the original language. It is implied from v. 21, which calls believers to mutual submission, and which sets the context for the rest of the passage. Paul’s injunction on husbands, moreover, is far more demanding than that on wives. For Christ’s work of salvation began not at the cross, but at the incarnation, when he humbled himself and made himself a slave (Philippians 2:7). And throughout Christ’s earthly ministry, he not only modeled, but also taught on what true leadership entailed. Consider Mark 10.42-45:

And Jesus called them to him and said to them, “You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

That is the kind of leadership Christian husbands are called to – self-less love, self-denial, sacrifice. So, when we reduce submission to “women’s work,” we miss the bigger, more beautiful picture that the Bible paints on this subject.

 

Core Values of Complementarianism

“Woah, woah! Slow down!” you may be saying, “You’re sounding a lot like an egalitarian!” But hear me out. I hold to three important distinctives that define complementarianism: 

1. Husbands are called to servant leadership in their home (Ephesians 5.21-33).
2. The office of elder is reserved for qualified men (1 Timothy 3.1-7, Titus 1.5-9).
3. The Sunday morning preaching event when the Church is gathered for corporate worship is reserved for qualified men/elders (1 Timothy 2.12). 

Note, however, a couple of clarifications:

1. The office of elder is not open to all men. The qualifications for elder are by nature demanding and narrowing.
2. All believers are under authority.

In other words, both men and women are to submit to the ruling elders of their local church. And all believers, including elders, are to submit to their employers in the workplace, as well as to the governing authorities instituted by God. I don’t believe most complementarians would disagree with these assertions. But the problem is that, too often, the only time many pastors preach on submission is while addressing the topic of marriage, or worse, of biblical womanhood. And when that is the case, Christian men don’t learn to humbly serve and follow because they were taught that they were all born to lead. And our sisters never exploit their God-given leadership gifts when they are taught that they were born to follow and submit.

The term “complementarianism” and the movement that accompanied it were born in response to what many perceived as the rising tide of Second Wave feminism. And their concerns at the time were legitimate, considering the movement’s focus on sexual liberation, abortion on demand, and transgender rights. At its genesis, complementarianism upheld, at its core, the three main tenets I mentioned above. 

 

Men and Women from Genesis to Revelation 

The challenge we face today is that the term “complementarianism” has evolved to include a number of assumptions derived from culture, not from Scripture. I plan to address these in future articles. For now, however, I would like to consider God’s design for men and women in light of Creation and Consummation. After all, one of the ways we understand any story, be it secular or sacred, is by examining its beginning and ending, and considering the common links that point us to the main idea of that story.

Creation: In the beginning, God created man and woman as equals. Yes, Adam was made first. But that did not make him ruler over Eve. By that logic, the animals were superior to Adam because they were created before him! Moreover, in Genesis 1:26-28, the Cultural Mandate was given to both the man and the woman.

26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”   

Note that both the man and the woman together are to:

1. Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.
2. Subdue the earth and have dominion over every living thing.

What the text does not say is that women are to be fruitful and that men are to have dominion. God’s plan from the beginning was that our first parents rule over the earth together, as equals, as his coregents. (For other (ungendered) Scriptural references or allusions to the cultural mandate, see Ps. 8:6-8, Jer. 29:1-9, Acts 17:26, Matt. 28 :18-20).

Consummation: The Scripture offers this great eschatological hope to the believer: One day, we will all reign with Christ.

9 And they sang a new song, saying, “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, 10 and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.” (Revelation 5:9-10)

Did you catch that? The saints, men and women, are called a kingdom and priests, who will reign. I do not claim to understand what such a position will entail. I won't even get into the details as to the precise identity of these saints, depending on one’s view of end times. What I want to point out is that no distinction is made in regard to gender in this and the many other passages that speak of the eschatological reign of believers (See Revelation 2:26, 20:4-6, 20:4-6, Daniel 7:18, 27, 2 Timothy 2:11-13, 1 Corinthians 6:2-3).

So, we see that both at the creation and in the consummation, men and women share joint governance over God’s creation. The question that raises, therefore, is this: If in the beginning, God created man and woman to reign together, and if his plan for eternity is that men and women rule together, what place should women have in the Church of Jesus Christ in the meantime? Did the Lord Jesus Christ expect women to sit on the sidelines and await the eternal state? I’m convinced the answer is a resounding “No.” 

A Distinction Between Elder and Leader 

Is it possible to uphold the assertion that the office of elder is reserved for qualified men, while also seeing a place for leadership for gifted, qualified women? How do we distinguish between church leadership and church eldership? Does the New Testament require that only elders lead? Or are deacons and deaconesses also called to help lead the church? Because many in the Church today use the terms leader and elder interchangeably. But I would argue that while all elders must be leaders, I don't believe all leaders must be elders. And I am not convinced that the NT looked at deacons as mere servants with no authority/leadership in the church. The use of the term throughout Church History bears witness to this. 

 

The Picture of the Church as a Nuclear Family 

Needless to say, I believe our churches need women as well as men in positions of leadership. Not just over the groups they're responsible for (women over women, women over children), but also giving input as decisions are made that affect the whole body. I find the analogy of the nuclear family a helpful one in this regard: In a Christian home, mothers and fathers have shared leadership over their children, and their children need the balanced perspective that comes from that symbiotic relationship. But when men lead the Church with little input from women, there can easily be gaps in their service to their sisters (and brothers). A church led by only men could be likened to a single parent family, with a dad to lead but no mom to partner with him. This is not God’s plan for the nuclear family, and I would argue that it’s not his plan for his Church, either.

I realize this article may raise more questions than it answers. I hope to explore these questions in future articles. My desire is not to cause division, but rather to go back to the Scriptures together and consider anew what they have to say. I invite you to come along with me, and I welcome your input along the way.