Genesis 1:27. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
There is only one God ordained division in humanity. It’s not rich and poor, educated and uneducated. It’s not a racial division or cultural division. It’s not even Jew and Gentile. It’s male and female.
Why in a poem about God creating us in his own image would the author make a statement about gender and gender difference? What on Earth (literally) does that have to do with God? Everything.
What this verse tells us is that God can only be fully imaged when there is a union of male and female. Not only are both male and female made in God’s image, but without both male and female humanity cannot image God in his fullness. Why does God need both a male and a female to express his image and likeness? Because God is both masculine and feminine. Notice I didn’t say that God is both male and female. God does not have a body therefore he is not a sexual being. Male and female are identity words. They are what a person is – either male or female. This is true down to the cellular level.
But masculine and feminine are descriptor words. Each contains a whole array of positive attributes that come with being masculine or feminine. And God is all of these attributes. He is masculine in his character – he is a strong responder. And God is feminine in his character – He is a nurturing receiver.
We might ask, couldn’t God have just created people that are both male and female, all in one body? Why didn’t he do that? Why divide humanity into two genders like he did? The answer is love.
Look closely at Genesis 1:27 again. Notice how the verse moves us from the singular him to the plural them. First, God created him alone, Adam. But in creating him, God was also creating them. This is revealed in Genesis 2 when we see that the woman was inside of the man. Do you remember the story? God put Adam to sleep and then he “split the Adam” taking Eve from Adam’s side to create two out of one. So, yes, in a sense, God did create a single human that was both male and female. But that was “not good.” That’s why God split this single person into two – for love.
This same truth also applies to God himself. Yes, God is one, but God is also three in one (Father, Son, Spirit). This is necessary for God to be able to love and for him to be Love itself. God is both “same” and “different,” and so are we as humanity. We are all the same – human – and yet we are also different – male and female. This is how we image God as male and female and it is what makes our love possible.
Speculate with me for a second. Could Adam have learned to love if it was just him and God alone in the Garden? Maybe not. Why? Because how can Adam sacrificially love a God who can receive nothing from his creation? How do you love a God who is completely self-existent and does not need anything, including our love? You love him by loving someone who does need love. You love someone that you must sacrifice for in order to love. For men that’s women and for women that’s men. Isn’t it true that the hardest people to love are those that are least like you? Again, for men that’s women and for women that’s men. And yet that’s who God put us in the Garden with – the opposite sex. This God-ordained division in humanity was meant to require love, sacrificial love, love that must give and receive in order for humanity to even continue to exist.
What does it mean that we are male or female? It means we were made to love. Love the “different.” Love by giving and by receiving, thus completing a “Trinitarian-like” cycle of self-sacrifice.
Questions: How can you learn to love from the opposite sex? How might you celebrate the union of male and female in the church? In society? In the family?
To Live is Christ 