Local Church: Symbols Used To Communicate Truth in the Gathering

Our Father, we draw near to Thee this evening, and we would acknowledge that we are always needy, and there are always those who are in some desperate need of Thy mercy and of Thy help. We would think of this time and commit him to Thee. We pray that he may have a response of heart to hear Thy voice when his physical heart is experiencing, and we just think of the great need that is present and pray that Thou might draw near.

We think of this, we commit her to Thee, a very different need, and yet one that also could be very dangerous for her. And so we cast her into Thy tender mercies and pray that Thou might grant Thy blessing and help, and help for the family. Our Father, we would recognize that each one of us need Thy strength, need Thy presence.

We need Thy wisdom and guidance. We pray that we may gain from Thy Word daily, and that we might be drawn closer to Thyself to be enabled to walk more in fellowship with God. We seek Thy help upon us this evening as we open Thy Word, and that these meditations that we have been going through relating to the assembly and its functioning, that we might appreciate these principles and learn to value them in their proper relationship to the Lord Jesus.

We ask then that Thou might be with us and give help this evening in our Savior's name. Amen. Let's turn please to 1 Corinthians chapter 11.

1 Corinthians chapter 11. Now we're going to read the first 16 verses, and we're going to look at the truth of headship as it is given to us in this passage. 1 Corinthians chapter 11, starting at verse 1. Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ.

Now I praise you, brethren, that you remember me in all things and keep the ordinances as I deliver them to you. But I would have you know that the head of every man is Christ. The head of the woman is the man, and the head of Christ is God.

Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonoreth his head. But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered, dishonoreth her head. For that is even all one as if she were shaven.

For if a woman be not covered, let her also be shorn. But if it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be covered. For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God.

But the woman is the glory of the man. For the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman, but the woman for the man.

For this cause ought the woman to have power or authority on her head because of the angels. Nevertheless, neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man in the Lord. For as the woman is of the man, even so is the man also by the woman, but all things of God.

Judge in yourselves, is it comely that a woman pray unto God uncovered? Or does not even nature itself teach you that if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him? But if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her, for her hair is given her for a covering. But if any man seem to be contentious, we have no such custom, neither the churches of God. Now verse 17 begins to look at the subject of the Lord's Supper.

And if I have time to make a few comments about that tonight, I will try to do that as well. And you notice that verse 17 says, now in this that I declare unto you, I praise you not that you come together, not for the better, but for the worse. For first of all, when you come together in the church, I hear that there be divisions among you, and I partly believe it and so on.

Now, the reason that I drew attention to verse 17 is that from verse 17 down, there are a number of times that expression is emphasized when you are gathered together or when the church is gathered together. And so what we have just read from chapter 11 and verses 1 to 16 is really, you might say, the foundation for the following section that goes all the way through to the end of chapter 14. And we've been looking a little bit at that in the previous nights.

And so one of the questions is, what context are we to see these first 16 verses? Is this just the assembly meetings or the official assembly meetings, or is it a slightly wider sphere than that, or does it cover all of a Christian's life so that it would cover your home and family prayers and a woman's personal praying and so on? These are questions which trouble some people, and hopefully we can express it as it belongs in the passage. Now, why am I taking this up? Well, I'm really thinking of the idea that a local assembly is proclaiming truth by symbols. The whole chapter is centered around using some very, very simple, simple symbols.

You can't get anything more simple than just a head covering, a hat, or not having a hat, or having your hair short, or having your hair long. Those are pretty simple things. And when it comes to the Lord's Supper, bread and wine, very simple, ordinary things that are taken and used to portray some very important truth by these symbols.

Now, I'm sure you know that a generation ago, basically in all the churches, the women wore head coverings, and now they don't, and we still do. And so are we just behind the times, or are we doing it for the right reason? Are we doing it because this is the Lord's will, and there's a very valuable truth that is being presented by it? Now, someone could say, well, really, what difference can it possibly make? So we need to think, first of all, about the idea of a symbol. What value is there in symbols? And really, symbols can have great value, especially when they're used to represent a relationship, or represent a commitment to a relationship.

Now, I happen to wear a wedding band. When I got married, I didn't have a wedding band. I think we were 25 years married when I got this one that my wife got for me, because back in the time when I got married, it was kind of frowned upon for a man to wear a wedding ring.

I would say today that it's a significant enough symbol to be worth wearing. What does it represent? It represents love. It represents commitment, faithfulness to a relationship.

And it's especially valuable when my wife isn't with me, when we're apart from each other, and we are wearing this symbol of our commitment to each other. When she's with me, well, it's kind of obvious we're together, but it's nice to have a symbol of our relationship, of our commitment to each other. And of course, there's many other symbols in the Scriptures.

The Lord spoke about the symbol of the rainbow, a commitment that he wouldn't flood the earth again, destroy the earth with a flood. The Jews, the people of Israel, had the ritual of circumcision, and that was a sign of a covenant relationship with God. And of course, when you see someone in a uniform, a police uniform, you identify that person as being a member of the police, and it carries a significance, or someone in the armed forces, and so on, a badge.

It represents, in that case, authority, and a jurisdiction of authority, and so on. And so, symbols can have great significance. Now, of course, there's a limitation on symbols, in that a symbol cannot guarantee that you are genuinely what it represents.

It cannot guarantee faithfulness in a marriage. It cannot guarantee faithfulness in a covenant relationship. And Israel is accused, in Romans chapter 2, of continuing on with the signs of the covenant, but their hearts were far from God.

And so, we need to remember that caution, even as we seek to fulfill some of these very simple, and yet profound, symbolic acts and symbols that we use in spiritual testimony. Now, it's obvious when you in the Old Testament, and then you look in the New Testament, there's a great contrast in the number of outward symbols and rituals. The Old Testament worship was filled with different kind of symbolic acts and rituals, whereas the New Testament, there's virtually none.

And so, that doesn't mean it's not important anymore. It just means that the ones that are chosen by God to be used today must be very significant. And so, does it matter if you get baptized or not? What is baptism? Baptism is a symbolic act that represents what happens when a person gets saved, that you have become united with Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection, and that you now live to obey him as your Lord in a new life.

That's Romans chapter 6. That stands at the beginning of our Christian pathway, that commitment to Christ, that identification with him through a symbolic act. And now, as we function publicly in our service, there are these basically two sets of symbols that are given to us in 1 Corinthians chapter 11. Now, I'll try to be simple in this.

I guess if I was honest, it can't be anything but simple. Although, a chapter like this, I was almost getting a little bit of a chuckle as I was reading it, because it's like a tongue twister by the time you get down through the end of this, because it just seems to be going around and around and around, doesn't it? And so, I'm going to just express to you that what this is portraying, there are really two corresponding symbols that are being addressed here. One is in the natural realm, or by creation, and the other is in the spiritual realm, or by redemption.

And it's maybe significant that he starts with the spiritual realm in redemption. He starts with Christ as head, and the relationship that we now have with God, in which there is, in verse 3, the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is the man, and the head of Christ is God. And so, you have, in the natural realm, you have a man with short hair.

And I've got shorter hair now than I ever have, and I won't get into the details of that story. But in the natural realm, my head is, it's, you know, you could say it's faintly covered, but it's got short hair. My wife has long hair.

It's an obvious distinction, if you saw us together. And in the natural realm, that portrays a headship and a submission to headship. The headship of man as being made in the image and the likeness of God, or who is the image and glory of God, and the woman being the glory of the man.

In redemption, in the spiritual realm, again, I don't have to do anything. I just stay as I am, without any hat on my head, with my short hair. And a sister who has already got her head better covered than I do, she has another covering that she puts on top of that natural covering.

And so, what is being emphasized here is that what is in the realm of redemption that we are expressing, particularly in the assembly, relates to Christ being head, but that it has a natural or creatorial counterpart that it corresponds to. So, in the spiritual realm, the symbolic head covering of the woman expresses, and I'm going to just express this in this way, and I'm going to expand on it later, the submission of the church, whereas the uncovered head of the man is expressing the headship of Christ. In the natural realm, the natural covering, or the long hair of the woman, of submission to and as the glory of the man, and the uncovered head of the man, short hair, the headship as the image and glory of God.

So, he starts out by praising them in verse 2. He says, I praise you, brethren, that you remember me in all things and keep the ordinances. The word ordinances here is often translated as traditions, and most of us have developed kind of a bad taste in our mouth for the word traditions. We're supposed to not have traditions.

Well, some traditions are actually good. The word itself just simply means something handed on or handed down from a teacher to the pupil, or from generation to generation, something that is being handed on to be kept and to be maintained. So, we have family traditions and so on and so on, and we don't necessarily want to throw them all away.

The main thing to consider is, has this come from God? The Lord challenged his audience. He says, you now keep your own traditions above the word of God. If there's one thing that we need to take stock of is not to allow our own traditions, even as assembly practice, to overshadow and supersede the word of God.

That's what the Pharisees did, and they got a long ways away from God. But here he's praising them for that, but then there must be some area that he is trying to gently draw attention to. He says, but I want you to understand this.

Now, let me just go carefully over verse three, and you'll notice that it's not in a perfectly descending or ascending order. If he was doing it in a descending order, he would have started with God and would say, well, God is the head of Christ. Christ is the head of every man, and man is the head of the woman.

Or if he was starting in an ascending order, starting with the woman, but you notice he doesn't do that. He sandwiches the headship of the man over the woman. He sandwiches between two other headships.

So as a result, the Lord Jesus becomes the example for all of us. He is the example when it comes to headship, and he's also the example when it comes to submission. So whatever ideas that come into your mind when you start looking at this concept, remember that the Lord Jesus is in this double kind of relationship.

And when he says the head of every man is Christ, there's two different words in the New Testament for man. One, the word anthropos, which we get our word anthropology and all those kind of philanthropy and so on. That's a word that means man in general, mankind, humankind.

And it can cover both of us, male and female. Whereas the word that is used here is a different word, which is normally used in contrast to specify male and not female. So he is saying here, the head of every man, of every male, is Christ.

So why shouldn't we wear some kind of a head covering then to represent our submission to Christ? Wouldn't that make sense? Why is he saying the head of every man is Christ? The head of the woman is the man and the head of Christ is God. Now, I want you to focus on Christ here. How is he being presented? He's not being presented in his eternal sonship, in his deity to us.

He is being presented in his manhood as risen from the dead. So this is looking at Christ today as a man who is exalted in heaven. He has been exalted to be head over all things.

Now, if I was going to take up this subject as a complete subject, I would start somewhere else other than 1 Corinthians 11. I would start in Ephesians 1 or Colossians 1, where we learn that in the bigger picture, Christ is exalted to be head over everything, all realms. So what does it mean to be head over? It's almost identical to the word Lord.

Head, Lord. There's a slight difference in emphasis when you get these two terms, but they're very much similar, very similar. It is an authority over, and Christ, as the risen one, has replaced Adam, who was the original head, who rebelled against God who was above him, and as a result, plunged all of humanity under the curse.

And so we are living among a race of people who have fallen from their inherent dignity as those who are to be in the image and glory of God, but Christ has restored it. He has redeemed us back to God. And so this is looking at Christ in manhood who is in this relationship to God that he is head over every man, and then God is the head of Christ.

And in between, we have this expression, and the head of the woman is the man. So then he has declared this foundational truth. And so this symbolism then is a declaration that we believe that the Lord Jesus is not only the Son of God, but he is the man who has redeemed us back to God and is now head over all of humanity.

So then why are the men who are under his headship not supposed to wear some kind of a head covering? It flows from creation and then in redemption, the fact that we are standing in for someone who is absent. When you get the word image that we find out in verse seven down, what does that really mean, an image? Well, if you were used to the French language, you would say, well, that's a picture, l'image. When I'm with Becky, I don't go walking around holding her picture because she's there.

But when she's not around, it's nice to look at her picture. And if someone came to me and said, oh, who's that? Well, I say, well, that's Becky. Well, she's pretty thin.

She's paper thin. No, that's not literally Becky. That's her image.

And so when God made a creature and placed him over all the creation and designed this creature specifically to be his image, the invisible God created a physical being who was to be the representation of God in the visible realm. Now, that is a dignity that is awesome. It's tremendous.

And so because that man, Adam, to start with, was designed to reflect God, the authority of God, the headship of God, the leadership of God, you wouldn't expect him to have his head covered because he is conveying authority and rule. And so that's what he says then from verse four down, because what he's going to express is that headship is being denied when a man is functioning in the assembly, he's taking part in the assembly, he's praying or he's prophesying, and he has his head covered. He's not representing Christ in this case as he ought to.

So we have a headship that has been lost, but that has been recovered in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so putting it as simply as I can, today as we gather together in the assembly, the Lord Jesus is not here visibly. The men in the assembly carry this responsibility to represent Christ in his leadership, in his authority, in his rule, and in his care.

That is our responsibility. And so he is not to have a covering on his head. But then in contrast, in verse five, it says, but every woman that prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head.

The language that is used here is a very strong language. It means to thoroughly disgrace, to bring to shame. Now, this is where some have had some difficulty in saying, okay, where does this take place? And what is this looking at? If this is the assembly gathering, well, chapter 14 says that the woman is not to speak at all.

She is not to teach. And if she even wants to ask a question, she should ask her husband at home, ask the men of the house at home. And so how does this fit then? Some have resolved the difficulty by saying that in chapter 11, he deals with the problem of the insubordination to headship, and in chapter 14, with the problem of her speaking when she is not supposed to be speaking.

And that's what you will commonly hear. That's the most common teaching and way of connecting these passages together and resolving that apparent conflict. I'm going to suggest a slightly different interpretation, and that is that this relates to the public functioning as opposed to the natural sphere.

And so I would include in this activities such as our Sunday school work, maybe children's meetings or whatever it may be, gospel meetings, whatever may be going on, tent meetings, where it's part of the public testimony. It's under the jurisdiction of the overseers. It's the assembly functioning and work.

And I would see that in this realm, it's not only suitable, but assumed here that the sisters will and could be functioning in speaking or in praying. Now, I know that there are some assemblies where they do not have sisters teaching a Sunday school class because they think it's conflicting with 1 Corinthians 14 or 1 Timothy chapter 2. And I would just suggest that this is recognizing that there is a sphere where it's suitable for a to be functioning. I don't see that what is being said here is that he's not hitting it yet, but he's going to hit it in chapter 14.

Now, most assemblies where I have been involved in will follow this either by interpretation or by application. But I know I've been asked just very recently by someone where this is becoming an issue in the assembly, well, should a sister who's teaching the Sunday school class have a head covering or should she not have a head covering? And my personal view of it is that it's appropriate for her to function in a Sunday school class with a head covering, and that this would cover that kind of idea. So what does he really saying is wrong in this context? He is saying that if she is uncovering her head, she is taking the place of the man, and so then she should have her hair as a man.

That's what he's saying. And then he says, but if it's a shame, and he's again, he's going to come to this at the end of this section, if it is a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, now, what's the difference being shorn or shaven? Well, shorn is using shears or scissors, and shaving is using a razor. That's the difference.

And I don't think there's too much difference in the length. It would be pretty obvious. Now, I don't know, there has been such a revolt in our culture against these natural things that used to be taken for granted.

But I don't know how people think today, when they see a man walking down the street with long hair, or they see a woman walking down the street with no hair at all, just, you know, just shaved right off. But it's assumed here that there is something in us naturally that finds it wrong, that finds it a revulsion towards that. And it's really the obliteration of the distinction between male and female that he's really emphasizing here.

And so he says then that in verse 7, a man indeed ought not to cover his head for as much as he is the image and glory of God. I've already been emphasizing this, but I'll just go over this again the uncovered head of the man signifies a declaration that we believe that Jesus is the Christ and that God has raised him from the dead and has made him Lord and Christ, our glorious head. So it expresses that faith in the Lord Jesus.

And in the absence of our head, visibly Christian men are his official representatives here on earth. And then as you see this from verse 7 down, this is going not only in the assembly, but going right back to creation. This was God's original purpose.

He designed and made Adam to be that visible representative of himself. And you notice that there's another word that's attached to the word image here. Verse 7, he is the image that's visible, representing an invisible or absent, but then they have the word glory of God.

What does glory mean? Well, glory is the display, the display of something that is a beauty that is either a character or an ability of some kind, or it may be physical beauty. Like there's a verse in the Proverbs that says the glory of young men is their strength. Well, that's not too hard to understand.

Young men like to show off their muscles and compete with each other to prove who's the strongest. It just doesn't quite, just doesn't seem to be a girl thing, you know, that you go around proving that you're the strongest weightlifter, you know. But for guys, that's par for the course.

If you think you have a chance, you would, you know, show off your strength. The glory of young men is their strength. So in other words, there's some quality or some attribute, some ability, some characteristic that draws admiration, that draws approval.

So glory is that display of something that is good and honorable or beautiful or attractive. So he says the man was designed to be that, not only the image, but the glory of God himself. So the question comes to us, are we fulfilling God's intention? Are we displaying God's character? Are we showing his righteousness? Are we showing his faithfulness? Are we showing his love? The men have been given this great responsibility to manifest the quality and character of the God who rules and yet cares for all his creatures.

What's the connecting word with the woman then? It says, but the woman is the glory of the man. Now you notice the word image is not there in the second part of this. And why wouldn't the woman be the image of the man? Well, very simply, it's because we're here.

You can see us. And so the woman doesn't have to represent the man in some way, but she is the glory of the man. And again, that expresses the fact that in the physical realm, God has granted to the female part of the species to have the beauty.

Now, hope you guys don't get insulted about that or kick me up on it after meeting. But I think the world of advertising, you know, explains it well enough that the beauty is in the woman. Now that's in contrast to the rest of the physical creation, where very often it's the male of the species that is the most colorful or the most whatever.

When it comes to us, God has conferred that honour to the woman. And so then he says from verse eight down, he's giving this intricate relationship between male and female, male and female and so on. And so he says that the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man.

Well, that's going right back to creation. And we have to see it as it's being developed here. And then neither was the man created for the woman, but the woman for the man.

So that's going right back to Adam and Eve and saying, at the creation, God created Adam, he put him in his job description, he set him over the creation, he was supposed to name everything, he was supposed to establish his authority over everything. But he was all alone. He had no one that corresponded to him.

And so the unique way in which God created the woman by taking her out of Adam and then forming her into an independent person and then presenting her to him is unique in all the creative acts of God. And of course, it's not hard for us to see that that was a foreshadowing of the ultimate purpose of God, is that he would bring a man into the world, his own son, who would be the ultimate final leader over everything. And then he would uniquely form a bride for his son, who would share with him the administration of the universe forever and ever, and yet would be in submission to him directly.

So that's what the assembly is supposed to convey, is supposed to express. And so that's behind all of this. Now there's another interesting thing that says in verse 10, for this cause ought the woman to have power, or it's really the sign of authority on her head, because of the angels.

Now I don't know if you notice in verse 10, there's two causes being spoken here, for this cause, and then because of the angels. So it seems like he is, probably the grammar teacher would probably get after him for making a sentence like this. What is the reason? He said that's the reason, and now you say that's the reason.

So there must be a connection between these two reasons. And that is this, that God designed an order. God designed a headship.

And then he says because of the angels. What do the angels have to do with it? Well, all you have to do is go back in the history to the original fall. And by the original fall, I'm not thinking of a garden of Eden, I'm thinking of Satan's fall.

Before Adam and Eve fell in the garden, and revolted against God's authority, there was a revolt in the spirit realm. And all the angels that are still called angels, they were put to the test by a rival arising and leading a revolt against God. And if you take the Revelation chapter 12 imagery of the war in heaven, and of the picture of the dragon with his tail sweeping one-third of the stars from heaven, it's at least suggested that that may imply that one-third of the angels followed Satan in his revolt.

They're the ones that are now called the demons. They were once angels of God. The angels that today observe us are angels who chose in that fateful moment in the spirit realm to stay loyal to God.

In that spirit realm, there was no grace shown. There was no offer of forgiveness, no offer of reconciliation. God did never offer to pardon Satan or his followers.

I'll give you another chance if you'll just come back to me. They rebelled, they are under condemnation, they're under judgment. There is no mercy, no reconciliation.

But now the angels are going to see the same thing happening, another headship, a man in the visible realm and a woman associated with him. She usurps the headship, she takes over, she takes leadership and tragically leads into a downfall. But Adam is blamed as being responsible for that rebellion because he was the one who is the leader before God.

What's God going to do now? Is this race of creatures, are they doomed like those fallen angels? In the wonder of redemption, God comes down to visit and he offers a way back. He talks about the seed of the woman and so we know the story as it unfolds. And so the angels today are observing something that they were not privileged to experience.

Redemption, forgiveness, restoration to relationship to God. And so it would be obvious and this is where I see the terrible incongruity of Christian churches who profess to believe in Christ, to enjoy and rejoice in the redemption that he has brought to us, and yet they have no interest in being submissive to his headship. And obedience is optional.

And this portrayal of headship is treated as being something that's kind of trivial. You might wonder why it's in the Bible. That was a problem in Corinth that has no relevance to us today.

It's amazing how in so many churches this has just been relegated to just a little idiosyncrasy of Corinth, whereas it's actually expressing the greatest reality that we are redeemed, we are being restored to right relationship with God, and that as assemblies of Christians we are now declaring that Christ is head and that we are in submission to him and honoring him. And so that's where the angels come in, as far as I can see. And then verse 11 and 12, he is really balancing what he has been saying about the headship or the authority of the man over the woman, the submission of the woman, by saying that in the Lord we need each other.

We're not independent of each other. We are interdependent and we all are of God. Then verse 13 down to verse 16, this has been some of the more difficult part of it really for many to sort out because it seems like he's already dealt with, you might say, the redemption aspect and then he's looked at by creation.

And then he says in verse 13, judging yourselves, is it comely or is it suitable for a woman to pray unto God uncovered? And so they say, well, where does that fit now? Because you've already moved from the spiritual to the natural, from the redemption to creation, where does this fit then? Is this now in the natural realm or is it in the spiritual realm? I'm just going to suggest that this is just summarizing where he has been coming from in the sections before. And so he is bringing together both realms. And so when he says, is it suitable for a woman to pray unto God uncovered, he is relating this back to the spiritual realm, the assembly realm, as we would say.

And then he says in verse 14, so that's verse 13 is spiritual sensitivity and verse 14 and 15 is natural sensitivity. Does not even nature itself teach you that if a man have long hair, literally if he's long haired, it is a shame unto him. But if a woman be long haired, it is a glory to her for her hair.

And it's really the same word, her long hair is given her for a covering. And so it's important to see this. And when I was growing up and for many years, whenever I heard 1 Corinthians 11 being taught, and it was taught over and over and over again, it was one of those things that were, I would almost call it hammered on.

The emphasis that they always seem to come back to was that a woman should never, never touch her hair. And it should be left untouched. Now for a long time, I have believed that that was not sustainable from the passage, that you couldn't prove that.

It does say long hair, and it should be an obvious distinction between male and female. And just to balance the emphasis, let me just put it this way. Would you consider a man to not have long hair if he trimmed his hair and kept it at waist level? Would you say, Oh no, he doesn't have long hair.

He trims his hair. So it's not long hair. No, you wouldn't.

You would say, no, he's got long hair. Go and find a barber or I'll do it for you. It's the length of hair that is the issue, not whether it is trimmed or taken care of in some way.

And so just by the very fact that what for a man is a shame to him at the same time on a woman is a glory to her, shows that God has designed it to be suitable for each in its own short hair for the man, long hair for the woman. It belongs to each and it is suitable. And the opposite is a shame.

So it's very strong language that is used. And so, you know, we don't need to get too complicated in thinking about that idea. God has designed male and female to be distinctly different, to be very obvious.

You know, he shouldn't have to look three or four times to say, well, which is it really? And so, again, from the natural coming back to the spiritual, that in the assembly, the men carry this nobility and responsibility of representing the absent Christ. I almost hesitate to say that because we know he's in the midst, but absent physically, visibly. And so we are representing him in that way.

I think I mentioned it one of the previous nights. When the Lord comes and we are gathered to him, the distinctions today are not going to be there. And I don't know all what that means, but just as I think I mentioned, I forget in what context earlier, there are sisters who will have positions of authority in the kingdom above brethren.

And in the same way, I believe it is only for the present testimony that sisters are in this, what we might think of as being a restricted sphere, where they are not permitted to teach and speak in the public gatherings of the assembly, as we learn in chapter 14 and so on. It's part of a witness to the whole story of God creating, of a fall of disobedience, of a redemption from that. And we are portraying it by this symbolic means.

Now, I don't really have much time to even mention the Lord's Supper as it follows, but just the fact that the Lord has given to us through this section of the scripture, these two great truths, they're really the greatest truths of Christianity. At the Lord's Supper, I'm sure some people, if they were to come in and they don't have a clue what's going on, and they see people passing a loaf of bread around and everybody taking a little piece off, and you do that every Sunday, like what's that all for? It's obviously a symbolic supper, isn't it? And that's clearly emphasized here in this passage. And if you want to have a glimpse of the importance of symbols to God, you just have to think about what is here from verse 17 down, where Paul actually says, if you eat and drink unworthily, you are actually guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.

Now, that's a very strong statement, isn't it? Because that bread and that cup are representing Christ in his sacrifice. Now, I'm sure there are people who have, you know, in their sensitivity, have thought, well, I shouldn't break bread this morning. I shouldn't partake of a cup this morning because I'm not in a good enough condition.

I wish there were more people that were that sensitive that they thought about it. We should think about it. Every time we come together to break bread, we should judge ourselves.

We should evaluate ourselves. But it's not that we should just, you know, okay, you know, for three weeks or four weeks, I won't break bread to do a little bit of penance or something. It's not we are to examine ourselves and having examined ourselves and judged ourselves, then we participate.

It's not intended to be something that, you know, only one or two, you know, out of the congregation will partake because they feel that they're worthy and everybody else feels that they're not. We're not to be in that kind of an uncertainty. That's not what I'm saying.

But this is very serious that when we come together and we are publicly in this way, we are presenting a testimony. That's the language that's used here when it says in verse 26, for as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you do show the Lord's death till he come. That word to show is to proclaim, to proclaim.

And so it is on earth a proclamation going out of his death, of his sacrifice, and of its significance. So in this chapter, and I just have to leave this with you, we are given these simple symbols by which we proclaim that he is the sovereign. He is head over all things.

We proclaim that he is the savior. And so does it matter? Well, it does. It's very precious.

As I mentioned again earlier, symbols are especially precious in the absence of the one that they represent. And so it might seem like such a simple thing to come Lord's day by Lord's day, to have our minds focused upon the Lord Jesus and in the assembly gathering by the uncovered head of the males, the covered head of the sisters, that we are testifying to our faith and our conviction of who the Lord Jesus is today. And as we remember him, that we are bearing witness to his sacrifice and all the blessings that come to us through him.

So may the Lord grant us to treasure, to value this, and to know that when the day comes, when we will see him face to face, he will appreciate our understanding, our apprehension of him, and our faithfulness to him, our loyalty to him in the time of his rejection on earth. So may the Lord grant his blessing.