THE WOMAN’S HONORABLE POSITION*
by Abraham Kuyper
What is now the Scriptural position which the Lord appointed for the woman? See Genesis 2:18. It does not say that Adam or an angel spoke, but that God Himself spoke: “lt is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a help meet for him”.
She shall be a help. But in verse 24 we read, that a man “shall leave his father and mother, and shall cleave unto his wife”. Here the woman is the one in the center. Center of married life. The man does not draw her, but she draws the man. Two factors. That is how the balance goes up and down. The balance, and in this balance the harmony, the kind of differences that must be looked for.
It is remarkable, that we read that after the fall the man does not say, “the woman whom thou gavest me”, but “the woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat’. Here we hear of the independence of the female position, but also how she poisoned it.
It can never draw our attention too much, to remember that from this moment the process of helper was not in the man, but laid down in the woman. It is not so that Holy Scripture would lose sight of the honorable position of the woman. Man who fell by being deceived, receives punishment in curse and in hard labour, working in the sweat of his brow, against thorns and thistles of the earth. The enmity with the world of demons is not set with the man, but with the woman.
Not the seed of the man, but the seed of the woman shall bruise the head of Satan. Salvation shall come from the Seed of the Woman. It can be seen in Bethlehem. Joseph is there, but Mary as woman is the central figure. The woman deceived the man in paradise and he fell, and so in Bethlehem it is the woman who may bring forth the Holy child.
It can never be said, that the position of the woman in Holy Scripture, is what she became in the sphere of paganism. The position of women in Scripture is generally highly elevated. So elevated, that at times it is difficult for us to reconcile this with her being the cause of the fall.
At the law-giving at Sinai the woman as mother is equal with the man as father, and they are equal as parents that must be honored. With Ada and Zillah begins the oppression of the woman in pagan life, but in Israel she unconditionally retains her position of honor.
That is why even today among the Jews the woman remains in harmony with her talent and task. To compare the ideal housewife in Israel, as she is pictured in Proverbs 31, with how the Greeks saw her, feels how much higher the woman stood in Israel. Only, the ideal woman cannot be found in the gate. That is where we find her husband. She shines as rubies, as we read in verse 10, but in private, not in public life.
Christ also spoke about the position of men and women, and taught us the distinction between both as result of God’s holy ordinance as we learn from the Word. “Did you not read”, Jesus asked the Pharisees, ‘that He who made man in the beginning, made them man and woman?” (Matt. 19:4-6). Not identical. Not only a twofold variation, for the variations of the man are altogether different than the variations of the woman. No, as two kind of man. The one kind man and the other kind woman.
That is how Christ established the principal differences, just as it is written in Genesis. But that difference does not reach further than this earth.
In eternal life man is man, and nothing but man, and the difference between men and women has vanished. We read this in Matth. 22: 24ff. We read there, that he Sadducees asked Jesus, whose wife she would be in heaven, when she had been married to more than one husband. Jesus answers by saying first of all, that theirs was a foolish question, “Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God”. Jesus teaches that in life eternal, there will be no difference between men and women: “For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven”.
The differences are gone. In body and soul, man shall not be men and women in heaven, but shall be one and nothing than man. Not in the heavenlies, but only in life on earth the distinction between men and women has significance.
The apostolic witness further explained this declaration of Jesus. All considerations, as if the distinction between the kinds of people, after this life would continue, must be refuted. That is why we read in Col. 3: 11, that in eternal life there will not be, “Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncireumcision, Barbarian, Secythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all“, The absence of earthly distinctions between men and women is also applied in Gal. 3: 28, “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”.
As could be expected, those zealous for the emancipation of women, appeal to the above, to open the door to the conviction, that under Christ this old-fashioned difference is no more of any account. We know to what cruelty this has led under Jan van Leyden during the 16″ century. Anabaptism that views God’s ordinances for earthly life as abrogated, was here the guilty one.
However, we must agree, there was a cause for being deceived. When in Christ this difference is abrogated, one could claim that in the church there cannot be two kinds of believers, and no twofold task, one for the man and one for the woman. In that case why can the woman not be preacher, elder and much more, just like the man? Are not man and woman one in Christ? That is how they did things in Corinth. And what does the Apostle say of this? He earnestly tells them, “Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law”.
Note, it does not say, that they must be silent only in the church of Corinth. But it is general. “the women must keep silence in the Churches”, in the plural (14:33).
The Apostle makes a rule for all of Christianity. As long as we are here on earth, the difference between men and women will remain, and also the rule that the man is head of the woman, and the woman must submit to the man. (See Eph. 5: 22; Col. 3: 18; 1 Peter 3: 1). That is why this distinction in kind makes a difference concerning the offices. Women shall not be preachers or elders, she may only be deaconess (1 Tim. 5: 9). Even to the office of deacon she could not be chosen unless she was 60 years old. It was to be a woman whose motherly task had come to an end.
For those who bow before the authority of Scripture, there is no uncertainty. Even in the area of the Church, the distinction between man and woman remains until the day of death. Also in the Church this difference in kind, the difference concerning the offices remains. Concerning what we learned from Holy Scripture about the by God willed position of the woman, the strength, the calling and the honor of the woman can be found on the inside of human society, and it comes to the outside only when there is a task, where the man is not equal to the woman. She does not preach; she does not become an elder; but she is chosen to the office of deaconess 1 Tim. 5: 9, (English Bible has taken, the Dutch has chosen).
In the book of Revelation the woman has an elevated position, much higher than in the pagan world, but she remains in her own area, and does not force her way into the public arena, in as far she would then be behind the man as inferior. Where she performs, she must be able to do so in undefiled honor, fully able to perform her task. Man great in his area, she in hers.”
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* Bron: Geneem en vertaal uit ‘De Eerepositie der Vrouw ‘(Kampen: Kok, 1932), hfst. 6, beklemtonings bygevoeg.
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