Scripture Introduction
Matthew Henry wrote of the first woman: “She was not made out of his head to rule over him, nor out of his feet to be trampled upon by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected, and near his heart to be beloved.”
That reminds me of the Sunday School class in which the teacher explained how God created everything, including human beings. Six-year old Stevie was transfixed by Eve’s creation from one of Adam’s ribs. Later in the week, his mother noticed him lying down as though he were ill, and said, “Stevie, what is the matter?”
Little Stevie answered: “My side hurts; I think I’m going to have a wife.”
The beginning of boys and girls. Three paragraphs in Genesis 1 and 2 help explain what it means that man is male and female.
[Read: Genesis 1.26-31; 2.4-8; 2.18-25. Pray.]
Introduction
The cover of the January, 1992 issue of Time Magazine pictured a boy and a girl and the shocking revelation: New Studies Show That Men And Women are Born Different. They could have saved research money by consulting Mother Goose. The old poem recognizes that boys and girls are not the same:
What are little boys made of? Snips and snails, and puppy dogs’ tails, that’s what little boys are made of.
What are little girls made of? Sugar and spice, and everything nice, that’s what little girls are made of.
But for Time Magazine it was a breakthrough because decades of feminist dogma insisted that differences between boys and girls resulted from social pressures rather than from something deep-seated and personal. The article said that according to the feminism of the 1970s, “Once sexism was abolished the world would become a perfectly equitable, androgynous place, aside from a few anatomical details.” Time interviewed Jerre Levy, a professor of psychology at the University of Chicago, as typical of the change that came over the new feminists. She said, “When I was younger, I believed that 100% of sex differences were due to the environment.” But when she had a baby of her own, she realized that her toddler was a girl baby, different from boys, and she concluded: “I’m sure there are biologically based differences in our behavior.” (Levy has not reached a Biblical answer, but at least she understands that nature as well as nurture is involved.)
Elisabeth Elliot gives a Biblical perspective in her essay, “The Essence of Femininity” (Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, 394): “Feminists are dedicated to the proposition that the difference between men and women is a matter of mere biology. The rest of us recognize a far deeper reality, one that meets us on an altogether different plane from mere anatomical distinctions…. It is unavoidable and undeniable, yet in the past couple of decades earnest and high-sounding efforts have been made in the name of decency, equality, and fairness, at least to avoid it and, whenever possible, to deny it. I refer, of course, to femininity—a reality of God’s design and God’s making, his gift to me and to every woman—and, in a different way, his gift to men as well. If we really understood what femininity is all about, perhaps the question of roles would take care of itself.”
What especially intrigued me about Elliot’s perspective was her experience with people in the jungles of South America. In that remote location, far from the social experiments and activism of “educated” feminists, men and women knew they were different: “The femininity of woman was a deep-rooted consciousness of what she was made for. It was expressed in everything she did differently from men, from her hairstyle and clothes (if she wore any) to the way she sat and the work she did. Any child knew that women wove hammocks and made pots and caught fish with their hands, cleared underbrush, planted crops, and carried by far the heaviest loads, while men chopped down trees and hunted, caught fish with nets and spears, and carried no loads at all if there was a woman around. Nobody had any complaints. These responsibilities were not up for grabs, not interchangeable, not equal. Nobody thought of power or prestige or competition.”
Those last three words are significant in the current climate of gender confusion: power, prestige, competition. Conflicts over both the roles and the meaning of male and female are not fundamentally fights about the strength of women, the empathy of men, or whatever trait is desired; sooner or later they become fights over whether we will fulfill God’s calling as women or men, unique and special each one. Girls and boys are different, not merely biologically, and not simply due to the environment in which they were raised. God made us male and female, each good and beautiful, each necessary and different, each bearing his image, each uniquely equipped for our responsibilities.
Paul K. Jewett reaches different conclusions than I do on the role of women in the church; nevertheless, he correctly observes (Man as Male and Female, 172): “Sexuality permeates one’s individual being to its very depth; it conditions every facet of one’s life as a person. As the self is always aware of itself as an ‘I,’ so this ‘I’ is always aware of itself as himself or herself. Our self-knowledge is indissolubly bound up not simply with our human being but with our sexual being.”
How do we understand male and female? I’m glad to tell you that boys are not made of puppy dogs’ tails. We have a better revelation, the word of the maker, and I see three applications which, when received by faith and put into practice, will benefit us, honor God, and bless those with whom we share the privilege of image bearers of God.
1. We Must Celebrate God’s Goodness in Making Mankind Male and
Female (Genesis 1.26-31)
By verse 26 of Genesis 1, God finished everything which would form the habitat of the last creature, the culmination of creation. God has made all things, and all are good. But we are surprised by a change in language. This creature does not appear by divine fiat: “Let there be”; he and she are created after divine counsel: “Let us make.” But there is more!
Divine counsel: “Let us make,” combines with divine character: “In our image.” This is NOT another zebra or poinsettia or binary star. Oh yes, each of those is fantastic, but the glory of humanity excels exponentially. Nothing else partakes of the divine nature. No other creatures looks and thinks like God. No one else rules in his stead.
Now Moses bursts in song, for some truths are too wonderful for prose. That which cannot be defined by science or delineated in significance must be painted with poetry:
So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
Profound truth hides behind those simple words:
1) God uniquely created mankind—we come from God.
2) God’s image makes mankind unique—we resemble God.
3) God placed his image in male and female—we display God’s glory equally as boys and girls.
The competition, disagreements, and discord between men and women is sometimes referred to as “The Battle of the Sexes.” But despite cultural pressure to disrespect and devalue the other, faith in God’s goodness requires that we celebrate our creation as female and male. Both boys and girls have:
• Souls that will never die;
• The ability to be holy and righteous;
• Minds which think God’s thoughts after him;
• Wills to chose what is good and beautiful;
• The commission to rule over creation; and
• The desire to be holy and happy in the presence of God forever and ever.
The world would not be a better place without men. Life would not be more fulfilling without women.
Karl Barth thought the sexual difference itself was the image of God. He was absolutely wrong; nonetheless, sexual differentiation is an aspect of the image of God in us. God is not male, not female, not both. But character traits distinct to ladies are that way to reveal God’s nature. Likewise, there are traits typically unique to men that alone show us God’s character. Let us reject the unbelief of the world, which claims that “Men are from Mars, and Women are from Venus.” We are both from God, and only together reveal the fullness of his nature.
2. We Must Treat One Another As Equal In Image, Honor, and Glory (Genesis 2.4-8,18-22)
Some had supposed that Adam alone is made in God’s image, directly from God’s hand, while Eve is inferior, since she is made from Adam’s side. Others react by agreeing with the old “joke”: “When God finished creating Adam, he stepped back, scratched his head, and said, ‘I can do better than that!’” Maybe you heard of the English professor who assigned students the task of punctuating these six words to make a true sentence: “Woman/without/her/man/is/nothing.” Supposedly, the men all wrote: “Woman, without her man, is nothing.” All the women said, “Woman! Without her, man is nothing.”
We chuckle because we all, at times, have been frustrated by trying to understand and appreciate those with a perspective different from ours. But note well two things God says.
First, men and women are made to complement one another. Before the Protestant Reformation of the 1500s, the Roman Catholic church taught that marriage was primarily for procreation and, therefore, could be annulled if children had not been born. Protestants, however, correctly emphasized the blessing of companionship, even over procreation and proper sexual relations. Our statement of faith, The Westminster Confession (24.2), makes the first purpose of marriage: “The mutual help of husband and wife.”
This is clear from Genesis 2.18, the only negative in creation: “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” The two key words are “helper” and “fit for.” The Bible most commonly uses the word “helper” to describe God. So here is high honor indeed—Eve acts like God as she helps her man. While the responsibility of rule as God’s regents belongs to both Adam and Eve, the privilege of imitating God as helper is especially granted to women. I am tempted to think that God grants Eve a greater degree of his image and glory. Other texts prohibit that conclusion; nevertheless, here is high honor.
The other word, “fit for” says the woman is both different from man and a perfect match. They are not the same; but they correspond. I grew up playing baseball. When winter arrived, we prepared our gear for a few months of storage. We took the glove, oiled it down, placed a baseball in the pocket, and tied the glove tight around it. And when we opened her again in the spring, the glove had been fit for a baseball. God fitted the woman to the man. We are made to complement one another, together able to fulfill our calling.
The second truth to grasp tightly (in addition to the complementary nature of men and women) is our equality in substance and being. God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, three persons in one being, the same in substance and equal in power and glory, though distinguished in personal properties. Likewise, man and woman are equal in essence, in humanity, in importance, in value, in honor. We in the church should be ashamed that others can rightly criticize us for seasons of chauvinism—through faith we are all sons of God; there is neither male nor female, for we are all one in Christ Jesus.
Yes, the culture pushes to emasculate men and elevate women as the better sex. I am aware that some feminist imagine a world in which all male traits are eliminated. They are wrong. But we do not please God by overreacting and espousing a type of male dominance. Harsh men who imagine they do not need the wisdom and partnership of women are no honor to Christ. Women and men stand before God equal in dignity and glory and image. That does not mean we are the same.
3. We Must Value the Differences In Being and Roles Between Men and Women (Genesis 2.23-25)
Bill Cosby had a comedy routine where he explained that when God brought Eve to Adam, he said, “Wow! Man!” and so she is called, “Woman.” I’m not so sure about Cosby’s etymology. I am sure of this: Adam’s response in Genesis 2.23 is a word-play in Hebrew. My ESV Bible has a textual footnote which explains it perfectly: “The Hebrew words for woman (ishshah) and man (ish) sound alike.” Yes, they sound alike, and just as the word, (Hebrew word) [ishshah] comes from (Hebrew word) [ish], so the perfect companion came from the man’s own side. She is in no way inferior, but neither is she the same.
That is where many find the Bible offensive. Women and men, equal in glory, are not the same and, therefore, do not have the same roles and responsibilities. God wants men to be men, women to be women, and he will teach us distinctions in those roles, if we are teachable and humble.
There is a paradox here which must be accepted by faith. All of the animals came to Adam, but none was suitable. Man can have a form of companionship with a dog, but only on the level of a dog. The woman alone is his equal, a friend on his same level. At the same time, however, Eve is created as Adam’s helper. Adam is not Eve’s helper, and the culmination of creation is not womankind but mankind.
This has profound implications for relations between men and women. For example:
• A husband and wife are to love one another, but do not, therefore, love each other in the same way. The man loves by accepting responsibility for leading their partnership to display the glory of God; she loves by helping him fulfill his call as leader.
• Godly men leave mother and father to find a wife and create a family; godly women remain under their parent’s authority until God provides a husband she can cling to.
• The wise and mature father ensures that his children honor and obey their mother; the wise and mature mother promotes her husband’s authority in the eyes of her children.
J. I. Packer offers a gutsy application: “While I am not keen on hierarchy and patriarchy as terms describing the man-woman relationship in Scripture, Genesis 2.18-23 and Ephesians 5.21-33 continue to convince me that the man-woman relationship is intrinsically nonreversible. By this I mean that, other things being equal, a situation in which a female boss has a male secretary, or a marriage in which the woman (as we say) wears the trousers, will put more strain on the humanity of both parties than if it were the other way around. This is part of the reality of the creation, a given fact that nothing will change.”
4. Conclusion
Working out these implications is not easy, as is evidenced by the trouble we have both in the church and in our homes. We do no service to the cause of Christ by pretending that the answers are simple. Men sometimes imagine that there would be no problems if their wife would just submit. The errors in that view are many.
My study of the Bible and people prompts me to offer two principles as you seek to apply these truths in your own lives and teach them to others (whether your own children or other people who whom you have contact).
Principle 1: We are rarely in a good place when we think our problems are due to the failures of another. When God asked Adam if he had eaten of the tree, his first words were “the woman,” as his finger pointed in blame. So it is today. Many conflicts between men and women are stirred up when we imagine that the problems lie with failures of the opposite sex. God calls us to fulfill our roles much more often than to point out others’ responsibilities.
Principle 2: We are rarely in a good place when we think the solutions are easy. There is profound and moving beauty in a happy home; the smell of harmony brings joy to all involved and attracts those who observe. But such is won by fighting the good fight of faith, not against the spouse of your youth, but against your own flesh as you wrestle with the Lord for his blessing.
Because God made the woman as a perfect fit for man, the blessings of a relationship in harmony are fantastic. But what can be most wonderful is also most terrible when defiled. So the bitterest fights are divorce cases, the worst conflicts are between male and female co-workers, the worst damage occurs when men or women rebel against their nature.
Make it your aim to honor the image of God in every interaction with those of the opposite sex. See the glory of God in them, and you will know the blessing of God on you.
