1 Corinthians 11:11-12

“If, however, the woman is not without the man, neither is the man without the woman, in the Lord; 12. for as the woman is of the man, even so is the man also by the woman; and all things of God.”

The subordination of the wife to her husband is tempered in Christ by the oneness of the spiritual life which they both draw from the Lord. The one is not without the other, and that evidently as believers; there is community of prayer between them, the constant exchange of spiritual aid and active co-operation. The words in the Lord refer not to God, but, as usual in the New Testament, to Christ; the mention of God only comes later, in 1 Corinthians 11:12. It does not seem to me that there is sufficient reason for finding here, with Holsten, an allusion to the softening which the gospel has introduced into the wife's subordination, as it was laid down in Genesis; the reason alleged in 1 Corinthians 11:10 rather carries us back to the order of nature which is recognised and sanctioned by the gospel.

The order of the propositions followed by the T. R., contrary to the great majority of the Mjj., is evidently mistaken.