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Does God look like a man or a woman? Is God a male chauvinist? Did
He make women second-class human beings? Whose idea was sex
anyway? This article addresses these questions directly.
ccording to the theol–
ogy of many, sex in
t he Garden is
equated with the
"fall of man"! Sin
in Eden is the in–
dictment of our
protoparents for understanding car–
nal knowledge. Following this theolo–
gy, woman becomes the bane of man,
the cause of his downfall , the thorn in
his side. This theory goes on to indi–
cate that Adam was created fi rst
with Eve sort of thrown in as an af–
terthought!
With theology like that , no wonder
we have the traditional "battle of the
sexes"!
But is that what the Bible really
says and teaches?
On the other hand, sorne of the
fem-libists of today would ·have us
believc that God is the Mother of us
al!. One of the leaders of thc move–
ment, whcn asked how her relation–
ship with God was, quipped:
"She
and 1 have a very fine relationship!"
The Llkeness of God
The seeking of
eq~ality
doesn't really
require the put-down of one to raise
up the other, but rather a balanced
understanding of the way things real-
The
PLAIN TRUTH April 1979
by
Jon Hill
ly are. Let's cheat a little, read the
Book, and find out the plain truth
about women (and men) - in God's
e
y
es.
" In the image of God .. . male and
female created he them." So says the
record of the book of Genesis
{1
:27).
Therefore "in the image of God"
does not demand one sex or the other.
Each is equally "in the image of
God." To be male doesn ' t make one
more in the likeness of God than to
be female- each equally reflects
God.
. Let's reason a litt le. lf maJe and
fema le a re equa lly "in the image of
God," then what is tha t image?
lt
must be what both maJe and female
share in common. Two arms, two
legs, a human body shape, a head
with two eyes, two ears, a nose, a
mouth-and, most important of all,
a
mind!
Not just a brain- A MINO!
Ten toes and an equal number of
fingers j ust about round out the
complement. Color of skin is not a
factor, a ny more than color of eyes,
hair or the bottoms of the feet. A dif–
ferent arrangement of hair, length,
texture or degree of curl alters not
one whit the basic "image."
But what about those embarrass–
ing differences? What about sex?
MaJe reproductive organs are out-
rageously different from female.
Women develop, to different degrees,
mammary glands on the chest that
remain dormant (but obv ious ly
there) on the man. Hair grows on
most men's faces , while on most
women's it does not. Fat, muscle and
bone are arranged in slightly differ–
ing patterns in the maJe and female.
But do any of these differences make
one "in the image of God" and the
other not ? No!
T he generally easily recognizable
differences between the sexes are
physically caused by minute chemi–
cal differences. Modern science has
helped us understand how "fearfully
and wonderfully made" we are, as
David noted in awe in Ps(;llm 139:14.
T here is a great deal of female in
every maJe, and vice versa. Subtle
changes in hormone makeup produce
overt changes in outward appearance
and st r iking differences in the inter–
na) workings of the body. T iny differ–
ences in chemical formulas, prepro–
grammed at conception when each
individual destined to be "in the
image of God" begins its existence as
a single cell, demand time-released
alterations in the bodily construction
that ultimately produce the delight–
ful differences that make us man or
woman .
Neither chemical change makes us
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