For as the woman is of the man. — An appeal to the original act of creation proves the truth of the previous statement of the interdependence of the sexes. If already (1 Corinthians 11:7) the fact of woman’s having been taken out of man was used as an argument to prove her subordination, there is now coupled with that fact of the origin of woman that other fact of the perpetual birth of man from woman, to show that there is a mutual relation. The first woman was made out of man; therefore woman is dependent on man. Every man has been born of a woman; therefore man is not independent of woman. In the Greek the word rendered “of” represents a finite act — the word rendered “by” a continued process.
But all things of God. — Thus, as usual, St. Paul completes the thought by tracing all up to God. The mediate processes of their origin may differ, but the source of their being is common — they, and all beings, and all things, and the sequence of all things come of God. (See 1 Corinthians 8:6; Romans 11:36; 2 Corinthians 5:18.)