A Preface to Patriarchy
A Preface to Patriarchy
"For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive." - St. Paul
We’re back with the inevitable patriarchy today. If you didn’t read the last newsletter, I’d recommend doing so before reading further.
As promised, I will be exploring the implications of restoring godly patriarchy in the home, the church, and the civil order. Before we do that, however, we must consider the place of covenant and headship in God’s creation. This publication, then, will serve as a necessary preface to patriarchy.
Headship and Covenant
In considering “father rule” (the literal meaning of patriarchy) in the home, church, and civil order, we must first step back and consider the covenantal nature of reality. Lacking clarity about the covenantal structure which undergirds God’s creation will prohibit a robust and joyful embrace of his patriarchal designs.
So what is a covenant?
A covenant is a binding agreement between two parties which sets forth the rules and obligations that comprise the nature of their relationship. In the Bible, covenant is the means by which God relates to his image bearers and, through them, to the rest of his creation. He entered into covenant with all of humanity in Adam:
The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
Gen. 2:15-17
But like Adam they transgressed the covenant; there they dealt faithlessly with me.
Hos. 6:8
God established his relationship with humanity under a covenant that had just one rule. And even though Eve was the first to eat the forbidden fruit and thereby transgress the command, St. Paul tells us it was through Adam that sin entered the world.
Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.
Rom. 5:12
Why is sin’s intrusion into the world attributed to Adam and not Eve? Because of covenant. God did not tell Eve to refrain from the forbidden fruit; he told Adam. In Genesis 2, Eve is created after the covenant and its parameters were given to Adam. As a human who came from Adam’s side, she inherits the same covenantal obligations, but she does not have the same responsibility that Adam does. He is the covenantal head who represents both Eve and all their offspring. The consequence for his sin, therefore, is not his alone, but falls upon all who are under his headship. Adam sinned, and all humanity descending from him suffers as a result.
But it’s not just humanity that is effected. Man was created to rule over the whole earth, to be the head of creation. Because of humanity’s fall into sin, St. Paul says that “the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Rom. 8:20-21). All creation was effected by Adam’s sin and subjected to futility, to thorns and thistles, to death and decay.
No Head, No Gospel
This arrangement—this covenantal structure involving headship and the imputation of guilt from Adam to humanity, spilling over into curses upon the whole world—seems unfair to us in the hyper-individualistic West. However, consider that, apart from covenant and headship, we cannot be saved. Without covenantal headship, there is no gospel.
But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.
1 Cor. 15:20-22
Just as in Adam we inherit the guilt of his sin and its consequence—death—so also in Christ (the second Adam) we inherit the righteousness of his obedience and its consequence—eternal life.
Imagine that God had created the world without covenant and headship. If Adam was not our head and we were each given the opportunity to fulfill the covenant with God via perfect obedience, then if we succeeded—well and good. But if we failed, as I suspect each of us would, then there would be no redemption. We would stand and fall by our own merits, and another man’s righteousness would not count for us. We would have no head, no representation; we would stand alone. There could be no salvation from sin and death, for the wages of sin is death. And we would all earn that wage.
No head, no salvation.
But God has, in fact, woven covenant and headship into the fabric of creation. He covenants with humanity in Adam (Gen. 2:15-17). He covenants with all creation in Noah (Gen. 9:8-17), with a chosen race in Abraham (Gen. 15:18), with the nation of Israel in Moses and their elders (Ex. 24:7-11), and with the line of kings in David (2 Sam. 7). Because his covenant partners keep failing to abide by their end of the agreement, God promises a new covenant whereby all the failures of Israel and humanity would be heaped onto the Messiah (Isa. 53:5), and in return Israel and humanity would be accounted righteous before God—as if they had faithfully kept covenant all along (Isa. 53:11).
The prophets called this great exchange of sin for righteousness the “new covenant,” and Jesus makes explicit reference to this covenant at the Last Supper:
This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.
Luke 22:20
In other words, his blood is the ratification of the new covenant, the means by which any and all who place their faith in him can stand before God—not guilty under Adam and the weight of their own sin, but righteous under Christ and in the freedom of the sons of God.
Charles Wesley captured well the reality of covenantal headship:
Soar we now where Christ hath led, Alleluia!
Foll’wing our exalted Head, Alleluia!
Made like Him, like Him we rise, Alleluia!
Ours the cross, the grave, the skies, Alleluia!from Christ the Lord is Risen Today
As goes the head, so goes the body. Adam was the head of the human race, and as he went so went we all into the throes of sin and death. Christ is the head of his body, the Church (Eph. 1:22-23), and as he lives forever as the beloved Son of the Father, so do we all who have believed in his name and come under his headship (John 1:12).
Covenant and Patriarchy
Let’s tie this all together. God created the world and chose to relate to it through covenant. Man, as God’s image bearer, was head over all creation. Adam, as the first man, was made head over the human race and given the terms of the covenant—to rule over the earth on God’s behalf and abide by one rule pertaining to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Having fallen into sin, all humanity became guilty in him and was subjected to death, just as all creation was subjected to futility. Various covenants were made between God and his creation, all of which were broken through the failure of the human party in each covenant. But the Son of God became human in order to succeed where the rest of humanity failed, bringing the blessing of his victory to all who move out from under the first Adam’s headship and into the headship of Christ.
There is woven into the fabric of creation a covenantal reality, and this reality—as with all reality—is inescapable. Thus we find covenant in the home (marriage), the church (ordination), and the civil order (constitution). The rules of each are laid out in these covenants, and they have heads and bodies with corresponding roles to play.
Many people try to ignore, dismiss, or deny these covenant realities, but merely end up replacing one covenant with another. It is not whether we will have covenant, but which covenant? Will it be covenant based upon God’s rules, which establish that men and women have certain but different roles and responsibilities in these covenant spheres? Or will it be covenant based upon man’s rules which are always evolving, from “women are equal to men!” twenty years ago to “men can be women!” today. Will we have covenants that embrace true patriarchy—the rule of the Father—or will we have those that do not?
Not whether, but which. We’ll take a look at this as it pertains to the home in next week’s newsletter.
Until then,
Lance
p.s. Find the next installment on patriarchy below.