New Testament Considerations

by Reginald H. Fuller

From Pro and Con on Ordination of Women
Report and Papers from The United States Anglican-Roman Catholic Consultation, Cincinnati, June 1975.

This paper deals with four of the questions raised at the special consultation on ordination of women — specifically questions 3, 4a, 5b, and 12 — in the light of critical study of the New Testament.

(3) Does the use of male terms (brothers, sons of God) in the New Testament perhaps suggest the paradox that in Christ women too have achieved those rights which were restricted to males under the patriarchal system?

Personally, I don’t think the New Testament thought in such categories as “patriarchal system.” What it saw happening was the eschatological transcendence of all historical distinctions, and that in Christ male as well as female (Gal. 3:38) had entered into a relationship with God previously unknown. Hyiothesia is not merely the inclusion of women into a status previously enjoyed exclusively by males, but a totally new relationship for both male and female, produced through the eschatological Spirit released by the saving work of the Messiah (Gal. 4:6f.; Rom. 8:14-16). The value of these references lies especially in the fact that they indicate that Galatians 3:28, which speaks specifically of the transcendence of sex distinctions in Christ, is not restricted to the moment of baptism, but refers to a new status, entered upon at that moment, but enduring until its consummation at the parousia (Rom. 8:17) .

(4a) Is the fact that the Word of God became incarnate as a male theologically significant for an understanding of the presbyterate or episcopate?

The words used in the New Testament to affirm the incarnation do not stress the male sex of the incarnate One, but his humanity. Here are some of the principal incarnational texts :

Galatians 4:4. “God sent forth his son, born of woman, born under the law.” Here the stress lies not on the maleness of the Son, but upon his sharing of the common human lot of birth and that of a particular history, that of Israel.

1 Corinthians 15:45: “The last Adam became a life-giving Spirit.” “Last Adam” here is Christ. This corresponds to the first Adam, who is referred to earlier in the same verse not as aner but as anthropos. That means that the theologically significant factor about both Adams is not that they were males, but that they were human, and each respectively the head of a humanity, the one created and fallen, the other eschatologically redeemed.

Philippians 2:7, “having taken the form of a slave (servant).” The majority of commentators take this is an allusion to the suffering servant of deutero-lsaiah. If this is correct, then the emphasis is not upon the maleness of the servant, but upon his obedience. Kasemann, however, interprets doulos here to refer to human bondage to the powers of evil. He argues that the reference to obedient servanthood would come too early in the hymn. If this interpretation be accepted it is even clearer that there is no stress upon the maleness of the redeemer, but upon his sharing the common lot of humanity.

Romans 5:12-21. As in 1 Corinthians 15 so here the contrast between the primal and eschatological Adams is throughout presented in terms of the humanity in which disobedience or obedience took place, not of their maleness. The word used for both is anthropos and not aner.

Colossians 1:15-20. Vs. 19: “In him it pleased God that the whole fullness should dwell bodily” (or it pleased the whole fullness to dwell in him bodily). The word denoting the incarnation here is soma, body, which is common to both the male and the female.

This passage is interesting because the adverb somatikos, “bodily,” suggests the scandal of particularity. Note that when a New Testament writer wishes to stress this scandal he emphasizes not the maleness of Jesus, but his concrete humanity.

Hebrews 2. “Since then the children have partaken of flesh and blood, he too similarly shared the same things, in order that he might through death destroy him who had power over death.” (Vs. 14)

Flesh and blood are here the locus of the power of death, the territory over which death rules. “The children” (humanity, both male and female) are under the rule of this enemy, since by sharing flesh and blood they are located in his territory. So the Son had to invade this territory to defeat death, and did so by partaking of flesh and blood, our common humanity. There is no stress here on the maleness of Jesus. What is soteriologically significant is his humanity since humanity, not maleness, is the territory over which death reigns.

Hebrews 10:5. “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire but a body you have prepared for me.” This is a citation from Ps. 40 (39 LXX) and is applied to the Christ. The noun “body,” like the adjective “bodily” in the Colossians passage, denotes what is common to humanity. Here it is the locus of obedience or disobedience. In Christ’s case it was the locus of obedience: Lo, I have come to do thy will (7, 9). This “will” was the offering up of himself as a sacrifice. The emphasis in the term “body” is not on its male sex, but upon its instrumentality for obedience, so that the perfect sacrifice should be offered.

1 Timothy 3:16. “Who was manifested in the flesh.”

John 1:14. “The word became flesh.”

1 John 4:2. “Every spirit which confesses Jesus Christ as having come in the flesh is of God.”

“Flesh” in these passages denotes humanity in its weakness, its concrete historicity. The flesh denotes, in John 1:14 as Hoskyns loved to say, the whole visible, observable history of Jesus of Nazareth. The stress here is not on his maleness, but upon his concrete historicity.
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An examination of the terms used in reference to the incarnation in the New Testament shows that all of them (birth, anthropos, slave, body, flesh and blood, flesh) refer not to Jesus’ maleness as such, but to his humanity. It is this humanity that is soteriologically significant, for humanity is the place of bondage to the powers, the place of disobedience or obedience, not maleness as such. If it were merely maleness that Jesus assumed that would have been irrelevant to his soteriological task.

The presbyterate and episcopate exist in order to set before men and women this soteriological work of Christ. They do this by the ministry of the word and sacraments. It is these, in the New Testament, not the person of the minister, still less his sex, that exhibit Christ’s redemptive work. From a New Testament perspective it is hard to understand all the personal symbolism that is being claimed for the ministry. If personal symbolism enters into it at all, in Paul’s case it is in connection with his apostolic sufferings, as in the Peristasenkataloge in 1 and 2 Corinthians (see especially 2 Cor. 4:7ff.; 11:22ff.). A recent exegete, E. Guttgemanns, has said that Paul regards his apostolic sufferings as “epiphanies” of the cross of Christ. Such a line of thought would be far closer to the central message of the New Testament than the novel claim that the maleness of ministers is an epiphany of Christ! This is not merely a development beyond the New Testament but a development that has no basis in the New Testament doctrine of the incarnation.

(4b) Is the fact that the Twelve were all males theologically significant for an understanding of the presbyterate and episcopate?

The Twelve are significant because they were chosen to be with Jesus that he might send them forth to preach (Mark: 3:15). This sending forth involved that they should engage upon the functions of the shaliach.

He who receives you
receives me ,
And he who receives me
receives the One who sent me. (Matt. 10:40)

No doubt in first century Jewish society maleness was a necessary qualification of the shaliach, but the shaliach passages do not call special attention to this fact.

An early logion (Matthew 19 :28) speaks further of the Twelve as seated on twelve thrones, judging (i.e., ruling) the twelve tribes of Israel. Again, in this function of eschatological regency it would be taken for granted that the Twelve would be male, but no special attention is called to this by the texts.

The Twelve were the first (after Cephas) to receive an appearance of the risen One (1 Corinthians 15:5); and they became the leaders of the earliest post-resurrection community. Again, there is no doubt that the Twelve would have to be males. That would be taken for granted. But again (Corinthians 15) calls no particular attention to that fact, either.

In one passage, however, maleness is specified as a qualification for membership of the Twelve. This is in the narrative of the choice of Matthias (Acts 1:15-26). In verses 21-22 we read: “So one of the men (andrôn, i.e., males) who have accompanied us…must become with us a witness to his resurrection.” While this would not be taken today by critical scholarship as a verbatim report of what Peter said on this occasion, the words No doubt in first century Jewish society maleness was a quoted appear to come from pre-Acts tradition. The reason for this is that the definition of the office of the Twelve (witness to the resurrection) conflicts with the typically Lucan definition in the middle of verse 21 of apostleship as witness to the historical Jesus from his baptism to the ascension, and accords with the interpretation of apostleship in 1 Corinthians 15:5, a pre-Pauline tradition, and in Paul himself. Thus the antiquity of andrôn is assured. Why is special attention called to maleness as one of the qualifications for candidacy? The context shows clearly that it is because the person to be selected is to function as a witness. In Judaism males only were competent to give witness. By its very nature, however, this passage cannot serve as an all-time precedent for the church’s ongoing ministry.

For the Twelve belong to the eph-hapax of the Christ event. Their characteristic function (primal, underived witness to the Christ event) cannot in the very nature of things be passed on to any successors. This point has been made abundantly clear by New Testament scholarship since Dix’s article in the Apostolic Ministry, ed. K. E. Kirk (1946). It is impossible to draw a direct line of continuity between the Twelve and the second century presbyterate and episcopate. The real continuity between them is that the presbyterate and episcopate bear witness to the Christ event which is derived from the witness of the Twelve, is based upon it, and reproduces it. It is hard to see that the male sex of the Twelve has anything (from a New Testament point of view) to say about the maleness of the presbyterate and episcopate in the church today.

(12) Would having women preside at the eucharist, which is a sacramental anticipation of the kingdom of God, be an eschatological sign of the unity of male and female in God’s kingdom, where there will be neither marriage nor giving in marriage?

It is clear that in the New Testament the eucharist was regarded as an anticipation or sign of the kingdom of God. To regard women eucharistic presidents as part of that sign would be going beyond what the New Testament did. The question would be, is this a legitimate development? Is it more a legitimate development from the New Testament than the other considerations of a symbolic nature which have been advanced in 4a and b above?

Personally I would think that it is, since it takes up a central New Testament doctrine (viz., the eschatological nature of the eucharist). But this is a personal opinion, not a certain implication of New Testament exegesis.
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SOME PERSONAL OBSERVATIONS.
There was much discussion at the Consultation on whether the ordination of women to the presbyterate and episcopate would be a matter of doctrine or discipline. The general conclusion seems to have been that it is a disciplinary matter with doctrinal implications. In this connection it is worth noting that the Preface to the Book of Common Prayer of the Protestant Episcopal Church makes this statement:

In every church, what cannot be clearly determined to belong to Doctrine, must be referred to Discipline; and therefore by common consent and authority, may be altered, abridged, enlarged, amended or otherwise disposed of, as may seem most convenient for the edification of the people, according to the various exigency of times and occasions.

From that statement I would conclude: 1) that the question of women’s ordination, not being clearly a question of doctrine but only a question with doctrinal implications, is referrable to competent local authority, in the case of the Protestant Episcopal Church, that being the General Convention; 2) since it must be done by common consent and authority, this means decided according to accepted procedures of that body; 3) this would seem to deny the right of any individual bishop or diocese in the Protestant Episcopal Church to proceed to the ordination of women on their own.