Gifts of Heaven · Volume 3 · Chapter 431

The head of the man, the woman and Christ

21st December 1847

"But you should know: Every man's head is Christ; the head of the woman is the man; the head of Christ is God. (1 Kor 11:3)

[1] This text is completely natural and easy to understand like no other. You just have to know who and what a "man" is.

[2] The "man" is the polarity of the divine, that is the very highest, namely the culmination point of the divine light. This divine light, however, is Christ, who came into the world as a light, who enlightened the darkness of the world (that is, the people of the world ). But as Christ is a light of light, so the head is also the light of man and is it’s highest, that is, positive polarity.

[3] But a head that is blind and deaf and mute is not a light for the human body, therefore it is also not a supreme positive polarity. It is the same with Christian masculinity! A person is only a "man" when he is a man in the light of Christ or when Christ is man's actual positive polarity – without which light no male person is a real man, but only a hollow figure.

[4] But if Christ is the light of the true man, he is also his "head" (because the head is the light of man). I think that should be easy to grasp with the hands!

[5] And that afterward the man enlightened in Christ is the head or light of the woman, as Christ is the head and light of the man, that gives the nature of things, as the man in himself is the positive pole, that is, the pole of light of the woman.

[6] The fact that God is the head of Christ, of course, seems a little more strange, but it is one and the same relationship.

[7] For "God" or "Love" is in Himself the primordial fire and the primordial light and is therefore also the actual fire and light in the God-man Christ Jesus. Through this light of endless fullness, the "fullness of the Godhead" dwells in Him, Christ, physically, i.e., really, and not only through radiation, as, for example, the sun in a mirror. For in Christ is the sun itself and not merely it’s image!

[8] But like the sun is the head or the light or the positive pole of all other world-bodies, so the divinity as the essential basic Light of all light, as the basic Being of all being, is also the head of Christ, who is the real one most perfect God-man and thus God in all the infinite fullness of this highest concept!

[9] But Christ without God would not be Christ, and God without Christ would not be God, even as man without head is not man, and the head without man is nothing.

[10] And so also the human or man without Christ is not a human or a man. And Christ without humans – who can think that? Would the woman without man be a woman? certainly not! For where there is nothing positive, there can be no negative thought. And where the negative is lacking, there the positive can never manifest itself. Just as, when a man's head is cut off, neither one nor the other can live on for itself, although both possess quite individual functions of life for themselves – so too no man, if he has separated from Me in his heart, can have a life.

[11] I think that this text should now be clear and illuminating to you. But pay attention to it now also after this illumination! Amen.