1 Corinthians 11:4-7 Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonors his head.… I. THE IMAGE OF GOD. Imago is an abbreviation of imitago, something more than imitatio — not as one orange is the likeness of another; it means the copy of an archetype, as, e.g., the sovereign's head on a coin (Matthew 20:20), or the sun's reflection in water. A cathedral in photograph is a copy of a copy; for it is an image of a cathedral in stone, and this again is the image of the original pre-existing in the mind of the architect. God is both the architect and, within due limits, the archetype of man. But the relation between the two consists in something more than similitude, even in affinity of essence. For man is the image of God by virtue of his spiritual nature, which, because of the primal inbreathing (Genesis 2:7), is akin to the Divine. II. HE IS THE GLORY OF GOD. The Divine glory itself is the eternal self-manifestation to the Triune God of His own holy nature. In the Divine counsel of creation this inner self-manifestation was to become an outer manifestation filling all creation. But it was through man, the created lord of the cosmos, the representative of God in the universe, the connecting link between heaven and earth, that the glory of God was to be communicated to the cosmos. As this derived glory was to be the effluence of the self-manifested Divine glory, which is itself the eternal effluence of Deity; so man in his higher nature of spirit, inbreathed into him from Spirit, was created actually the image of God, but in his lower nature of body, moulded from earth, was created potentially the glory of God, i.e., constituted with a possibility, contingent on obedience, of a glorified body and soul and spirit. The design was baffled by Satan for a season. Meanwhile humiliated in body, yet now transformed in spirit, fallen man awaits in faith and hope the unveiling of the "new creation" in Christ and his own bodily assimilation to the body of His glory. (Canon Evans.) Parallel Verses KJV: Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonoureth his head.WEB: Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonors his head. |
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