What does it mean that a woman should cover her head because of the angels (1 Corinthians 11:10)?

There are some practical consequences in the exhibition of this order of things upon the earth. If a man pray or prophesy having his head covered, he dishonors his head; in itself a very small thing surely, — in that which it signifies not small at all. Everything depends upon the truth which is in it, or the error. The head covered for him is, as we see directly, the place of subjection taken. The woman covering her head does not profess to be the head. The head is covered with her, if she takes her place praying or prophesying; that is, as we see clearly, where it is a question of the assembly, — not necessarily as gathered, however, where her place in connection with others, therefore, is in question. If she prays or prophesies, although this prophesying was by a higher power than that of nature, — by the Spirit of God, and thus asserting for her her full rights as one in Christ, equal rights with any other, — yet if she prayed or prophesied with her head uncovered, she dishonored her head. Everything that is out of its place before God, is dishonored. If we exalt ourselves, it is our own dishonor. It is one and the same thing, therefore, he says, as if she were shaven. Why not let the woman cut off the hair which nature has given her? Plainly she has it in a way that man has not. You say, perhaps, if she has the hair, let that be enough, it is what nature has given her, let her wear that. But the wearing of the hair is not of necessity at all the owning the truth which is in it. The covering of the head owns for her, on her part, the truth which is in that testimony of nature. She is giving heed to the testimony when she covers her head. Thus the man ought not to have his head covered, because he is, in a direct way, as one may say, the image and glory of God, His representative upon the earth. The woman is the glory of the man.

All this has reference, of course, to present display. It is not a question of what is final, what is heavenly, what is eternal. It is God's order as He has instituted it, and which we are bound to respect. There is meaning in it also, and we shall suffer if we refuse it; but the point here is, the order of creation. Thus, if we look hack, the man is not of the woman. The man did not originally come from the woman. On the other hand, the woman came from the man, — not the order of things now, as one may say; but that is what God showed us at the beginning. Nor was the man created for the woman, but the woman for the man. The man was created first, and it was not good for him that he should be alone. The woman was created in view of this need, — a woman for that very reason why not another man? Just because, as another man, there would, not be really the same help found. He needs that which, while a symbol of the dependence of the creature rather than the independence given in a sense to man, would appeal to him by that very fact, and to his heart as one dependent on him. In every way, however, the woman (not, the individual as such, but as woman) is for the man; and "for this cause," he says, "the woman ought to have authority upon her head," — the sign of authority, — "on account of the angels." The angels are the witnesses of creation. They have seen from the beginning what God did.; They are acquainted with His thoughts with regard to man, and we are a spectacle to the world and to angels and to men. Thus, then, the woman is to heed these angelic spectators.

The apostle is not speaking of wearing the sign of subjection at all times, but I believe it would be very comely. "For this cause ought the woman to have power on her head because of the angels," v. 10. She is therein a spectacle with all present to the angels, and angels ought not to see disorder among Christians. The whole subject is modesty, and order, and comeliness, and things in their right place. Therefore the woman ought to have power on her head on account of the angels, that is, the sign of subjection to her husband. Angels should learn something in the church.

As to the "image of God," in verse 7, "image" is something that represents another, and so a man represents God, though certainly he has failed to fill it up. The image of Jupiter was not necessarily like Jupiter, but it was made to represent him. So man keeps the place, though he has fallen in it - the same place in which God put him. He was made sinless, but beside that he stood as the centre of an immense system: no angel was that, no angel was the one single centre of a system all around him. Adam was. And indeed to be that is just what men are driving at in one form or other in the world, and in the church, and in Christendom. If Adam had remained, all his family would have been looking up to him. Here man is spoken of as "the image and glory of God" and in James "made after the similitude of God." But he is not in likeness now.

Verses 8-10. "For the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man," etc. The large space devoted by the apostle to this subject implies both the moral value of this question in the sight of God, and the degree to which a false idea of spiritual liberty had tended to work confusion in the Church. He would have us remember and hold in honour the order of God's work. The man was neither of nor for the woman Without him she would not have been, and of his substance and for him she had been taken, and was formed. There was, moreover, a further reason why a woman should wear outwardly a symbol of subjection. God's angels are unseen but interested witnesses of what is passing among men. Especially are they the watchful attendants of the heirs of salvation;7 and as the calling and election of the Church is the subject of their wondering and delighted study,8 so are they also the attentive observers of the order and demeanour of God's children in His house. Angels are, both here and hereafter, connected closely with the Church of God. Already we are come, as partakers of the heavenly calling, to their innumerable company;9 and even as they are represented in the Apocalyptic vision as encircling the redeemed in heaven,1 so are they God's appointed watchers of His chosen, while accomplishing their pilgrimage towards the promised rest.2

To understand fully the allusion here made by the apostle, we must call to mind the descriptive character which belongs to angels in the word of God.3 Perfect subordination, and a ready obedience to the voice of their Creator, distinguish the unfallen angels from those who fell, and kept not their first estate. Now the power which establishes true order in God's Church, is the same all-quickening Spirit which garnished the heavens, and set the elect angels in their appointed spheres. These, then, whose very nature is order, ought not to see disorder in God's house. But such must be the effect on them of any practical derangement of the relation which they know to have been established from the first between the woman and the man.

“For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God” (v. 7). As such he represents God and God is to be, not covered, but prominent. “But the woman is the glory of the man” and the glory of man is not to be prominent. For in creation the man was not from the woman, as has been true subsequently, but the woman from the man, as Eve was taken from Adam's side. She was created for the man, for God had said it was not good for man to be alone. This was God's order in creation and therefore the woman should have the sign of authority on her head, that is, that she is under authority to her head, the man. It is added here, “because of the angels.” Angels are vitally interested in the order God has prescribed in His creation and they care as to whether both man and woman are obedient.

They were not to pray without having their heads covered. To decide this question, simply of what was decent and becoming, the apostle lays open the relationship and the order of the relationship subsisting between the depositories of God's glory and Himself, and brings in the angels, to whom Christians, as a spectacle set before them, should present that of order according to the mind of God. The head of the woman is the man; that of man is Christ; of Christ, God. This is the order of power, ascending to Him who is supreme. And then, with respect to their relationship to each other, he adds, the man was not created for the woman, but the woman for the man. And as to their relations with other creatures, intelligent and conscious of the order of the ways of God, they were to be covered because of the angels, who are spectators of the ways of God in the dispensation of redemption, and of the effect which this marvellous intervention was to produce. Elsewhere (see note below) it is added, in reference to the history of that which took place, the man was not deceived; but the woman, being deceived, transgressed first. Let us add — from the passage we are considering — that, as to creation, the man was not taken from the woman, but the woman from the man. Nevertheless the man is not without the woman, nor the woman without the man, in the Lord; but all things are of God; — and all this to regulate a question of modesty as to women, when in praying they were before the eyes of others. The result — in that which concerns the details — is that the man was to have his head uncovered, because he represented authority, and in this respect was invested (as to his position) with the glory of God, of whom he was the image. The woman was to have her head covered, as a token that she was subject to the man (her covering being a token of the power to which she was subject). Man however could not do without woman, nor woman without man. Finally the apostle appeals to the order of creation, according to which a woman's hair, her glory and ornament, showed, in contrast with the hair of man, that she was not made to present herself with the boldness of man before all. Given as a veil, her hair showed that modesty, submission — a covered head that hid itself, as it were, in that submission and in that modesty — was her true position, her distinctive glory. Moreover, if any one contested the point, it was a custom which neither the apostle nor the assemblies allowed.

This is a most characteristic specimen of the apostle's dealing with a point of order. He deduces the solution from first principles involved in divine dealings from the beginning. It is an admirable way of settling questions, not by mere abstract authority, even where the highest lay, but by conveying to others the ways of God in creation and providence, which drew out the admiration as well as submission of his heart. It is no question of new creation. There difference disappears. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. But here on earth there is a relative order established of God; and as the man is woman's head, so the Christ is the head of every man, and God is the Christ's head. It were still more perilously false to use these words to disparage Christ than to turn aside their force to deny the subjection of woman to man. The Christ is viewed as such, not in His own intrinsic personal glory, or in the communion of the divine nature, but in the place He entered and took as the Anointed. God therefore is the head of the highest; and as woman is bound to own the place given her by God, so is man to fill suitably his own assigned relationship. The principle is applied to correct some christian women at Corinth who outstepped the limits of propriety. The apostle puts the entire case, and even a man's mistake as to it, though it would appear that it was as yet a question of the other sex. For a man to have his head covered would falsify his witness to Christ; so for a woman not to be. It is not argued on grounds of habit, modesty, or the like, but of the facts as revealed by God. It would be the sign of authority taken by the woman, of authority abandoned by the man. A woman without a veil is like a man, without being really so. It is to renounce, as far as the act goes, the subjection she owes to man; it is one and the same thing as if she were shaven. Let her also be shorn, says the indignant servant of the Lord; but if either be shameful for a woman, he adds, let her be covered. (Vers. 2-6.)

There is a still further opening of the ground as to man and woman in the verses which follow. "For man indeed ought not to have his head covered, being God's image and glory; but the woman is man's glory. For man is not of woman, but woman of man. For also man was not created on account of woman, but woman on account of man. On this account ought the woman to have authority on the head on account of the angels. However, neither [is] woman without man, nor man without woman, in [the] Lord; for as the woman [is] of the man, so also [is] the man by the woman; but all things of God." (Vers. 7-12.)

Thus the apostle points out man's standing directly as God's image and glory: woman is man's glory, having no such place of public representation for God. Whatever she has relatively is essentially mediate and derivative. Creation is the proof, not of course the ordinary course of things since. It is impossible, therefore, to form a right estimate without looking to the beginning. If verse 7 then refers to the origination of man and woman respectively, verse 8 sets forth the making of the woman for, and subsequently to, the man, as grounds of woman's subordination to man. It is easy to see that, where creation is denied, or even ignored, men naturally reason and labour for their equality. But there is another consideration, which only faith could admit — the testimony to divine order which should be given by man and woman to those spiritual beings whom scripture declares to have the most intimate connection with the heirs of salvation. (Compare 1 Cor. 4:9; Eph. 3) "For this reason ought the woman to have power on the head on account of the angels" — a sentiment entirely mistaken by the mass of commentators, who have gone off, some into degrading thoughts about bad angels, others into lowering the word to the sense of the righteous themselves, the christian prophets, the presidents of the assemblies, the nuntii desponsationum or persons deputed to effect betrothals, or mere spies sent there by the unfaithful.

So also the expression, "authority on the head," has given rise to endless discussion. To have authority on the head unquestionably means to wear the sign of it in a covering or veil. On the other hand, in verses 11, 12, the apostle is careful to insist on the mutuality of man and woman, denying their independence of one another, affirming God the source of them respectively, and of all things.

Further, he appeals to the sense of propriety grounded on the constitution of both man and woman. "In your own selves judge: is it becoming that a woman uncovered should pray to God? Doth not even nature itself teach you," etc. If it be as natural for man to have short hair as for woman to have long, is it not a revolt against the nature of each to reverse this in practice? God's creation must govern where the word of His grace does not call to higher things, and this could not be pretended here.

For if the woman's head is not covered, it is the same as if she were shaven. For it is in the very nature of things that God has given her long hair, to indicate the fact of her subjection to the headship of man; and if she refuses to use a covering to acknowledge this on her own part, then why not also reject God's testimony to her subjection by shaving her head? But of course it is a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven. Then let her be covered. Surely it is no burdensome bondage for a woman who loves the Lord to simply put on a head covering at times of prayer or prophesying.

Verse 7 indicates that the important matter is that God's glory should be manifested, not the glory of the man. Man is said here to be "God's image and glory," that is, that he represents God who is in fact revealed in the Person of Christ. "But the woman is the glory of the man;" and this glory is not that to be displayed: indeed it is her very glory to be in lowly subjection that seeks no public place.

For in creation the woman was made from the man, not the reverse; and she was created for the man. Whether we like it or not, the fact remains that God ordered it so, and nothing can change it. And for this reason the woman ought to have on her head that which signifies her subjection to authority. It is interesting too that angels are introduced as being concerned witnesses of this. They are also members of God's creation, having their own distinct place, - neither male nor female, - but interested to observe how God's order is carried out on earth. This emphasizes for us the fact that there is a unity in God's creation such as should encourage our walking in thorough harmony with its overall order.

The very fact that woman was taken out of man proves her equality with him. She is not his inferior, but his equal, his helpmeet. There is equality, but with it diversity. Woman was made for man and to be with him at his side. God never intended that woman should be an independent creature apart from man, but that she should be associated with him, and that together they should be one flesh typifying Christ and His bride, the Church. Woman never shines more brightly than when fulfilling the object for which she was created, which primarily was to be man's helpmeet.

However, we must notice that the very fact that woman was made of the man indicates that man is her head. This is the deduction which the Spirit of God brings before us in the above quoted verses of I Corinthians 11-"Therefore (in view of her place in creation), ought the woman to have authority on her head, (i. e., a token of the authority of man under which she stands) on account of the angels." The apostle says, "I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man" (v. 3). Because of this divine order in creation, woman is to recognize man's headship and to have on her head the sign of his' authority over her, that is, a covering on her head, especially when she prays or prophesies and when she is in the Assembly (v. 5-10). The angels are to behold God's order in creation and in the Church.

Whereas, in the first part of verse 7 the background is Genesis chapter 1, in the latter part to v. 9 it is Gen 2. There the woman is created to help the man. She is fitted for him in this way because of her likeness to him as formed from him, and not the other way round. Thus is she 'the glory of the man.' With covered head in the exercise of ministry in her particular sphere she would not be displaying the glory of the man inasmuch as there is only one glorious Man - Christ - to be displayed. To pray or prophesy with her head uncovered would be to dishonour her head by, not only taking his place, but also in displaying the wrong man. Therefore, the woman covers her head as a sign to express that she is under authority* and submits to God's order for mankind. Angels, for whom there is no redemption when fallen, would observe the order of God in creation as entrusted to man (cf. Heb. 2:5).

From these Scriptures we see that God has established a certain headship and order which He desires we should recognize and observe. It is not just a matter of custom for men to have their heads uncovered and women to have theirs covered in the presence of the Lord. There is a real Scriptural reason and significance to this order.

God is the head of Christ, Christ is man's head and man is woman's head. Since man is the image and glory of God and Christ is His head, it would be a dishonor and a shame to Christ, his head, if man would have his own head covered when praying and prophesying peaking publicly). Christ's glory is to be seen and covered.

But the woman was created for man and of man and she is the glory of man, therefore her head must be covered when she prays or prophesies, for man's glory must not be seen, especially in the gathered Assembly. Christ's glory and not man's is to be displayed there.

Furthermore, verse 10 says that the woman ought to have authority on her head because of the angels. That is, she should have a covering on her head as a sign of the authority of man to whom she is subject. When a woman wears a covering on her head in the presence of the Lord, it is an acknowledgment that the man is her God-given head. A woman that comes into the presence of the Lord without a head covering shows thereby that she wants to be like the man and that she does not want to take the subject place. She dishonors her head, though she may not be conscious of it. It may be done in ignorance, but this is what it means.

The angels are spectators in the Assembly and they should see God's order observed there. They see order in heaven and in all creation and they ought not to see disorder amongst Christians. The seraphim's cover themselves in the presence of the Lord (Isa. 6:1-3), and they look to see women doing the same in obedience to God's Word. God purposes that "the principalities and powers in heavenly places" might learn "by the church the manifold wisdom of God" (Eph. 3:10, 11). This "wisdom of God" is the mystery of Christ and the Church, which is typified by husband and wife, one the head and the other subject to him (Eph. 5:22-32).