Jesus, I will follow you.

Hey! :) The Bible has a lot to say about the nature of God. God is personal and emotional. In fact, in the phrase, “God created mankind in His image,” it is generally accepted that the characteristics that distinguish us from other animals are those that reflect the nature of God. If the Bible were referring to only physical characteristics when it states that man was created in the image of God, it would not say many of the things it does about His nature. For example, the Bible states that both males and females are created in the image of God. Unless God were a hermaphrodite (having both male and female sexual organs), this phrase could not refer to purely physical characteristics. In addition, there are numerous other verses in the Bible that describe God as having non-human physical characteristics, such as feathers and wings. Should we think of God as being an overgrown chicken? Certainly not! God is so unlike humans that the Bible often paints word pictures to give us a glimpse of what God is like.

In Isaiah 46:3 God says, “Listen to Me, O house of Jacob, and all the remnant of the house of Israel, you who have been borne by Me from birth and have been carried from My womb.” John Calvin comments on this verse by writing “God has manifested himself to be both Father and Mother so that we might be more aware of God’s constant presence and willingness to assist us”. Later in Isaiah, God says to His people: “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you!” (Isaiah 49:15). In Calvin’s commentary on this verse, the great orthodox theologian writes, “God did not satisfy himself with proposing the example of a father, but in order to express his very strong affection, he chose to liken himself to a mother, and calls His people not merely children, but the fruit of the womb, towards which there is usually a warmer affection.”

If the male (not the female) is created in the image of God in an unmediated fashion, and the female bears God’s image only through the male, then females will be taught that their identity will only be found in a man, not God, and thus…

• (1). Females should always be under a ‘protective covering’ of a man, either a father or a husband just as men need God’s protective covering.
• (2). Females should never lead, rule or govern anything but only serve and support the males who were designed to rule as God rules.
• (3). Females should be subordinate to the authority of men in the same manner Jesus is eternally subordinate to the authority of God the Father, and even if that authority is abusive at times, the woman should always remain compliant and submissive.
• (4). Females should always find their identity and self-worth in the men that God has given to them (fathers and husbands), with home-making and child-rearing being their focus and never working toward any career or identity outside the man’s home.
• (5). Females were designed by God to be recipients of the leadership, service, and authority of males, and for females to view oneself as equals to males in the home or in the church is rebellion toward God.

WHICH IS ALL WRONG.

Together, men and women make up a composite image of the living God. Individually, we are incomplete, partial, and lacking something in our personality. One of the reasons God gave us marriage state (a God-plane relationship) is to learn how the other half of the God-image behaves. We learn from our mate’s traits and characteristics of the opposite sex in order to become complete God-beings.

Part of this process—incredible as it sounds—involves the male incorporating Godlike feminine (not effeminate) characteristics such as tenderness, mercy, and patience. Similarly, the female needs to learn or adopt masculine (not tomboy or butch) characteristics such as strength, assertiveness, and decisiveness. If we make a thorough search of the Scripture, we would find the masculine and feminine traits of God equally distributed. Ironically, if gender-neutral advocates had their way, these delightful differences would be blotted out.

Space permits elaboration on only a few from each list. We see ample and abundant masculine traits in the Bible: strength, power, decisiveness, aggressiveness, provider, ruler, and leader. Feminine traits are also abundant: beauty, grace, mercy, tenderness, caring, and affectionate. In order to qualify as members of God’s Family, both men and women need to incorporate all these characteristics into their personalities.

God might be a ‘He’ in the Bible but non-Hebrew-literate individuals do not always know that in Hebrew language, grammatical gender is NOT an indicator of actual gender. Hebrew nouns have grammatical gender. Each object is masculine or feminine. There are no gender-neutral pronouns in Hebrew, i.e. there is no equivalent of the English “it”. Everything is a “he” or a “she”. The spirit of God Ruach Elohim (Genesis 1:2) is a feminine noun. So is the Shekhinah - the Presence of God.

Take for example the word “animal” —hayyah in Hebrew. Hayyah is a feminine noun. Therefore, by the rules of Hebrew grammar, whenever people speak of a hayyah, they have to refer to it as “she”. This does not indicate that the animal in question is actually female.

Since the titles for God in the Hebrew Bible (Elohim, El, Adonai) are masculine nouns, God is called “he”. A book sefer is a masculine noun too. So a book is also called “he”. God is no more male than a book is male.

Gender is a core essence for human beings. Everyone comes into the world either male or female and it is impossible to remove oneself from the perspective of one’s gender. However, gender is based in the biological and not in the spiritual. By projecting gender onto the image of God, man is in essence creating God into the image of man and not the other way around.

God is neither male or female.

Hope that helps!

Blessings<3

-Sarah