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The Principle of Equality
Put
yourself back into Paul's Graeco-Roman world, two thousand years ago. Deep and
fundamental divisions split society. Greeks and Romans were convinced that some
people were made to be free, others made to be slaves. Women were by nature
inferior to men in general, and made to serve their husbands. Even the Jews
agreed to these divisions, believing they were willed by God. They even added
their own: the distinction between the chosen children of Abraham and the
Gentiles.
These
age-old prejudices with their roots deeply embedded in social structures and
contemporary culture could not be eradicated at once. But a man like Paul
clearly saw that Christ had established a totally new reality in which such
distinctions were no longer valid. In Christ people are
‘re-created’.
This
is what Paul wrote:
You have put off your old nature with its practices.
You have
put on a new nature
which is being renewed in knowledge
in the image of its Creator.
In that image there is no room
for distinctions
between Greek and Jew, circumcised and
uncircumcised,
between barbarian and Scythian,
slave
and free.
But Christ is all, Christ is in all.
Colossians 3,9-11
Neither circumcision matters, nor uncircumcision,
but whether
you are a new creature . . . .
For all of you who have been
baptised in Christ,
have put on Christ.
There is
neither Jew nor Greek,
neither free nor slave,
neither male nor female.
For you are all one in Christ Jesus.
Galatians 6,15; 3,27-28
It is
Christ who has restored the original purpose of creation.
Notice that for Paul the new principle is based on baptism. For here Jesus
Christ had introduced a radically new departure. In the Old Testament time only
men were the direct carriers of the Covenant through circumcision. In Jesus'
Kingdom men and women are equal members because they share in Christ through
the same baptism.
In the Old Testament dispensation inequality began at birth.
- Every first-born male 'who opened his mother's womb' had to be
redeemed with a special sacrifice. A girl did not count (Ex 13, 11-16).
- All male children had to be circumcised on the eighth day
after birth. This was an essential condition for belonging to the Covenant,
more or less parallel to our baptism for belonging to the Church. However,
there was no equivalent rite of initiation for women (Gen 17, 9-14).
- All this was tantamount to meaning that God had concluded his
covenant with the men, the 'sons of Israel'. The women participated in
the Covenant only indirectly, through their fathers and husbands.
Again, in Old Testament times, a woman could not act as a full person,
independently, in her own right within religion.
- A religious vow made by a woman was only valid if it was ratified by
her father or husband (Num 40, 2-17).
- Women could not present sacrifices. Their going up to the temple for
worship was voluntary, not obligatory, 'Three times a year all your
menfolk must present themselves before the Lord' (Ex 23, 17).
- The arrangements in the temple of Jerusalem even limited the access
of women to an outside court. Whereas men were allowed to proceed to the
'court of Israel' which faced the sacred precincts containing the altar of
holocausts, women had to stay behind in the 'court of women'.
Paul who was a trained scribe, was very much aware of the revolutionary
changes brought about by Christ's baptism, a sacrament whose effect he
describes at length (Romans 6,1-23). It is significant, therefore, that
he ascribes the fundamental equality between men and women precisely to their
equal participation in that sacrament. Both men and women ‘put on
Christ’.
The openness of women to the full ministerial priesthood is implied in
this fundamental equality. For in the Old Testament, the priesthood had been
reserved to Jews and to the clan of Aaron. With the removal of race and class
distinctions (Greek-Jew; slave-free), all could take part in Jesus’
priesthood. The same applies, in principle, to the gender distinction
(male-female) which, Paul acknowledges, has also been overcome.
If Paul did not admit women to the full ministerial priesthood (as we
understand it today), this was, like in the case of Christ himself, due to the
social pressures that made women subordinate to men.
John Wijngaards
Follow @JohnWijngaards
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