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Reverting for a moment to an earlier observation, we remember that in the Gospels the
Image of Caesar was tolerated, but that in the Revelation it had assumed such
blasphemous pretensions that it had to be entirely abolished. The degradation that is
manifested among kings and rulers, has taken place in individual man, and while at the
moment "the powers that be" are permitted by God, the ideal toward which all history
moves, will be that day when "all rule and all authority and power" shall be subjected
beneath the feet of Christ, and when the Son Himself voluntarily submits, that "God may
be all in all". The fact that this will be a moral realm, necessitates a long process of time
for its attainment. Creation with its innocence gives place to conscience. The Patriarchal
rule is followed by the reign of law. The Kingdom of David faintly foreshadows the
reign of Christ. In this process the original purpose of man's creation is kept in mind.
The new world that came into being after the Flood was not allowed to forget that man
was made in the image of God:
"Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of
God made He man" (Gen. 9: 6).
We must however leave these outlying phases of the subject, and turn our attention to
the doctrinal features that are characteristic of the references to `image' in Paul's epistles.
The first reference to Paul's epistles which must be studied, appears on the surface to
contradict the testimony of Gen. 1: 26, 27. It reads:
"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" (I Cor. 11: 3).
In Gen. 1: 27 we read:
"So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He . . . . .
THEM" (Gen. 1: 27),
and in the book of the generations of Adam we have the additional statement:
"Male and female created He them; and blessed them, and called THEIR name
Adam, in the day when they were created" (Gen. 5: 2).
Now whatever interpretation we may have accepted regarding Gen. 1: 26, 27, we
have proof positive that the Adam of Gen. 5: is the Adam of Gen. 2:, who was the
husband of Eve and the father of Seth (Gen. 5: 3). We also know that Adam was created
first and alone (Gen. 2: 7, 18) and that his wife was `built' from a `rib', or preferably a
cell taken from Adam while he slept, which occasioned the exclamation of the man upon
the presentation of the woman:
"This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman,
because she was taken out of man" (Gen. 2: 23).
In the creative purpose, Adam and all his posterity, whether male or female were
given dominion over the works of God's hands. All were blessed, and all received the
command to be fruitful and multiply. Does I Cor. 11: 3 ignore this patent fact? No, it
looks at the matter from another angle. It grants all that may be said as to the oneness of