The Text:
1Co 11:3 But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God. (KJV)
1Co 11:3 However, I want you to realize that Christ has authority over every man, a husband has authority over his wife, and God has authority over Christ. (GW, God’s Word translation)
1Co 11:3 But I want you to understand that Christ is supreme over every man, the husband is supreme over his wife, and God is supreme over Christ. (GNB, Good News Bible)
1Co 11:3 Now I want you to know that Christ is the head over all men, and a man is the head over a woman. But God is the head over Christ. (CEV, Contemporary English Version)
My Comment:
In this case I mean by “Anti-Trinitarians” the Arians of the fourth century. Unfortunately, some contemporary and well-known Evangelical theologians, at least for a time (1970 until 2016), unwittingly fell into the same kind of error in their understanding of 1 Corinthians 11:3 as the ancient Arians did of passages declaring the Deity of Christ.
My Discussion:
My issue is that I have seen some modern Evangelical theologians object to cross reference Bible study. Some Evangelical theologians believe that the historical Creeds and Confessions of the Church must be our guide when it comes to establishing correct doctrine. I agree that the Creeds can help to confirm the accuracy of our understanding of Bible doctrine, but I affirm that the Bible is the final authority and that correct doctrine can be established or determined by a careful study of the Bible.
I have now completed my reading of a book which highlights an aspect of the Nicene Creed which demonstrates a major error several Evangelical theologians (including Wayne Grudem and Bruce Ware) have fallen into in their (mis)interpretation of 1 Corinthians 11:3. The book is:
Giles, Kenneth. (2017). The rise and fall of the complementarian doctrine of the trinity. Cascade Books.
The error is to use 1 Corinthians 11:3 as the basis for asserting the eternal subordination of the Son.
1Co 11:3 But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.
The error is to claim that just as women are to be in submission to their husbands, so Christ is eternally subordinate to the Father.
This error borders on Arianism, a heresy condemned at the Council of Nicaea. The Nicene Creed is accepted by nearly all Christians.
I basically agree with the author’s theology.
On the specific issue of the eternal subordination of the Son, I believe he is correct. I believe he is correct that the doctrine of the eternal subordination of the Son is based upon a mistaken reading of what the Bible teaches.
Giles cites in Chapter One from the creeds and confessions:
The Athanasian Creed says: “In this Trinity none is before or after the other, none is greater or less than another, . . . the three persons are coequal”; all three are “almighty” and “Lord.” The Belgic Confession of 1561 says, “All three [are] co-eternal and co-essential. There is neither first nor last: for they are all three one, in truth, in power, in goodness, and in mercy.” The Second Helvetic Confession of 1566 says that the “three persons [are] consubstantial, coeternal, and coequal,” and then it condemns those who teach that any divine person is “subservient, or subordinate to another in the Trinity, and that there is something unequal, a greater or less in one of the divine persons.”[1]
In Chapter Four, Giles states that the “Athanasian Creed emphatically excludes hierarchical ordering. It says that in this Trinity “none is before or after, greater or lesser, all are co-equal.”[2]
Giles is not correct when he affirms such matters cannot be settled by reference to the content of the Bible alone.
He may be among several writers on hermeneutics who also make the claim that studying the Bible by means of consulting cross references is a very mistaken means of learning what the Bible teaches.
Giles states in Chapter Four:
Alister McGrath concludes that Arius got the Bible wrong because of his “proof-text” approach to “doing” theology. He says,
One of the outcomes of the Arian controversy was the recognition of the futility, even theological illegitimacy, of “proof-texting”—the simplistic practice of believing that a theological debate can be settled by quoting a few passages from the Bible.
Athanasius got it right, says McGrath, because he looked for “The overall pattern disclosed by these texts.”[3]
Since I have authored/edited three major Bible study works of cross references (The New Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, 1992 & 2023; Nelson’s Cross Reference Guide to the Bible, 2007; The Ultimate Cross Reference Treasury, 2016), I suspect I may know more about their use from long use and careful study than they do.
Perhaps they are confusing “proof-texting” with “cross reference Bible study.” There is a difference! I would think that most careful students of the Bible know that “Scripture interprets Scripture” and that “The Bible is its own best interpreter.” I like to express this as “The Bible is a self-interpreting and self-correcting Book.” It is self-correcting in that if you are mistaken in the interpretation of a particular verse, passage, subject, doctrine in one place, by further study you will likely encounter things that “don’t fit,” such that you must change or correct your interpretation of what you first thought you understood.
I firmly disagree with his claim that no one can come to firm doctrinal conclusions using the Bible alone. He believes we must be guided also by the great creeds of the past as the settled voice of the church which instruct us how the Bible must be read.
On this issue I do not disagree with the support for the correct view of the Trinity he documents from the Creeds.
Giles states that Athanasius, by taking into account the broader scope of Scripture content, was able to formulate (by what I call the “Rule of Necessary Inference”) a hermeneutical rule that “that made sense of all of Scripture and guaranteed the full divinity of the Son, our Lord and Savior. What this rule lays down as a hermeneutical principle has been followed by all catholic theologians across the centuries, is that not everything said of the Son in the New Testament can be read back into his triune life in eternity.[4] Some comments relate only to his self-chosen temporal subordination in his coming down from heaven and to the limitations he accepted in becoming fully man for our salvation. This rule demands that we make a contrast between the Son’s earthly ministry “in the form of a servant,” what Reformed theologians call, his “state of humiliation,” and his heavenly reign as Lord and King, in all might, majesty, and authority, what Reformed theologians call his “state of exaltation.”[5]
[1] Giles, K. (2017). The rise and fall of the complementarian doctrine of the trinity. Cascade Books.
[2] Giles, K. (2017). The rise and fall of the complementarian doctrine of the trinity. Cascade Books.
[3] Giles, K. (2017). The rise and fall of the complementarian doctrine of the trinity. Cascade Books.
[4] Giles, K. (2017). The rise and fall of the complementarian doctrine of the trinity. Cascade Books.
[5] Giles, K. (2017). The rise and fall of the complementarian doctrine of the trinity. Cascade Books.