Biblical Womanhood: Bearing God's Image
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Culture wars: “What is a woman?”
Unsaved culture is primarily interested in answering this question at the level of biology. A woman is an adult female, who has XX chromosomes.
The Bible’s answer to this question is far more significant! God’s Word has a far better answer to the question, “What is a woman?” than merely a biological one.
How does the Bible answer the question, “What is a woman?”
To answer that question, I want to ask and answer 7 related questions and find our answers from the Scriptures.
Using these questions I want us to think about true Biblical womanhood. And true biblical womanhood is inescapably linked to the theological idea of bearing God’s image.
Why is bearing God’s image such an important theological truth to understand?
Why is bearing God’s image such an important theological truth to understand?
Two important terms to understand:
Essence: that is your very identity. Who you are. Who you were made or created to be.
Existence: How you live you life. How you live in such a way that brings fulfillment, joy, and satisfaction.
Biblical worldview:
Essence (Identity) determines Existence (Authenticity)
Humanistic worldview:
Existence (Authenticity) determines Essence (Identity)
If you get the order of essence and existence reversed, then you are worldly in your thinking!
Why do so many people root their identity in their preferred brand of sexuality?
Because they have bought into the lie that their existence (what makes them feel unique and happy and authentic) is what determines their essence (identity). That is a sad way of thinking, and it leads to sinful and wicked views of humanity.
“The simple answer is that sexual desire has emerged in the last one hundred years as a primary category for understanding our identity. In biblical times or in ancient Greece, sex was regarded as something that human beings did; today it is considered to be something vital to who human beings are.” — Carl Truman, Strange New World
The Biblical view is that your essence, your identity, the way you were created by God leads to your existence. Your existence (the how and why you are human) is determined by your Creator. God created your essence, He made your identity and that and that alone must be the driving factor of our existence.
Any view of man that considers some “aspect of the human being to be ultimate, apart from any dependence on or responsibility to God the Creator, each of these anthropologies is guilty of idolatry; of worshiping an aspect of creation in place of God. If, as the Bible teaches, the most important thing about man is that he is inescapably related to God, we must judge as deficient any anthropology which denies that relatedness.” — Anthony A. Hoekema
Doxological purpose for creation
36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.
This doxology (along with many other doxologies in the Bible) captures the key purpose for which God created the world—for his own glory. The three prepositional phrases in this verse describe the comprehensive scope of God’s purpose.
“From Him” explains that God is the creator. God made the universe and everything in it.
“Through Him” explains that God is the sustainer. By his eternal power and wisdom, God sustains the universe and directs its course.
“To Him” explains that God himself is the goal of creation. This “purpose” use of the preposition reveals that the universe is inherently God-centered. He is the first and last cause of “all things.” This theological reality cannot be overemphasized. A God-centered approach to theology radically affects how one understands and applies Scripture. The doxological conclusion of Romans 11:36, “To Him be the glory forever,” summarizes the proper response all creation should have toward the one true God.” —Douglas Brown
Why is bearing God’s image such an important theological truth to understand?
Because our essence (identity) determines our existence (authenticity).
Christian- This is your essence- you were made in the very image of God. You were made from him, through him, and to him. You were made for God’s glory. This is your essence. And your essence determines your existence. That means that what makes you feel unique and happy and authentic was coded into you by your Creator. And if you don’t allow your essence, your identity, the fact that you were made in God’s image to determine how you live an authentic and happy life you will end up in utter disaster.
How do women bear the image of God?
How do women bear the image of God?
Both men and women were created equally, in terms of their value/essence, as image bearers of God.
26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
“Let us make man...”
Man: אָדָם, adam- (541 x’s in the OT)
“The Hebrew word adam, however, may also mean man in the generic sense: man as a human being. In this sense, the word has the same meaning as the German word Mensch: not man in distinction from woman, but man in distinction from nonhuman creatures, that is, man as either male or female, or man as both male and female.” —Hoekema (12)
“in our image, after our likeness”
Image: tselem, has a root meaning of “to carve” or “to cut.”
This word could be used to describe the carved likeness of an animal or a person- such as a statue.
18 Then all the people of the land went to the house of Baal and tore it down; his altars and his images they broke in pieces, and they killed Mattan the priest of Baal before the altars. And the priest posted watchmen over the house of the Lord.
“When it is applied to the creation of man in Genesis 1, the word tselem indicates that man images God, that is, is a representation of God.” — Hoekema (12)
Likeness: demuth, has a root meaning of “to be like.”
likeness n. — similarity in appearance, character, or nature between persons or things.
These two words used together tell us that humanity is a representation of God who is like God in certain respects.
Humanity is the pinnacle of God’s creation! No other part of God’s creation was designed by God in this way. Only humanity bears the image and likeness of God. Only humanity is a representation of God who is like God in certain respects.
Now, we must go on to v. 27
27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
Both men and women were created equally, in terms of their value/essence, as image bearers of God.
Ladies you were created by your Creator to be a representation of God who is like God in certain respects. This is your essence. This is your identity. And if you don’t understand this, life get’s out of whack real quick!
How do women bear the image of God? You bear God’s image because God designed you to represent Him and be like Him in certain respects.
Do women image God exactly the same way as men? Or is there a difference in the way women image God?
Do women image God exactly the same way as men? Or is there a difference in the way women image God?
27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
We must notice the close juxtaposition of “God created man in his own image” and “male and female he created them.”
What does this wording of this text mean for our understanding of man?
1). Both male and female are fully created in the image of God. That means that men and women are equally valuable in the eyes of God. Men and woman both equally were created to bear the very image and likeness of God. One is not better than the other.
2). In order for God’s image and likeness to be revealed in humanity both male and female are required and necessary. Without a fellowship between men and women God’s image is not complete.
God created both male and female in His very own image. Male and female are equal in terms of their value or their essence before God. And yet, both male and female are necessary if humanity is to image God fully and completely.
Why?
Why do we need both male and female in order to represent God and be like God in certain respects?
Because while men and women are created equal in terms of their essence- we are both fully image bears of God.
God made men and women different in terms of their function.
28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth- this implies a functional difference between men and women. I believe part of what it means to image God is to exercise dominion over creation. You cannot fill the earth and subdue it without both men and women. Both are required, exercising different functions, in order to bear God’s image in exercising dominion over the earth. Not only filling the earth, but exercising wise dominion requires both. The function of the man and the function of the woman were designed by God to compliment one another.
We also see this functional difference later in Genesis 2.
18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”
19 Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name.
20 The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him.
21 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh.
22 And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.
Here we see an intention design by God for the woman. He created women in a unique way. To be a woman is part of your essence (your identity), and that essence was designed and determined by God. One of the fundamental designs of the essence of being a woman is to be a helper.
18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”
I will make a helper FIT / SUITABLE for him
Fit- “corresponding to” or “answering to” Lit. “a help answering to him.”
“The words imply that woman complements man, supplements him, completes him, is strong where he may be weak, supplies his deficiencies and fills his needs. Man is therefore incomplete without woman. This holds for the woman as well as for the man. Woman, too, is incomplete without the man; man supplements woman, complements her, fills her needs, is strong where she is weak.” Hoekema (77)
Men and women are equal in terms of essence. Both men and women are created in the image of God and therefore have equal value. However, God designed men and women to be different from one another in terms of their function.
God designed women to be a helper for men. Being a helper sometimes is looked down on in our culture, but this idea does not carry with it the implications of diminished worth or status.
4 and the name of the other, Eliezer (for he said, “The God of my father was my help, and delivered me from the sword of Pharaoh”).
20 Our soul waits for the Lord; he is our help and our shield.
5 Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his God,
Helper is a functional term, not a demeaning one. Just like God at time comes along side of us and helps us, so the role of the woman in relationship to her husband is that of a helper. She was made for him.
Where does this difference come from?
Where does this difference come from?
8 For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. 9 Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man.
7 Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.
Weaker vessel-
1). Could mean that God made women physically weaker than men.
2). Could also mean that women are weaker in terms of their function. Equal in essence, different in function. Why weaker vessel? Functionally God gave men the function of leadership.
12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. 13 For Adam was formed first, then Eve; 14 and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.
What is the reason Paul gives for why women cannot be pastors in the local church? Because of the creation order! Adam was formed first, then Eve. Who decided to do it that way? God did!
Why is it important to know and understand the different ways women image God from the ways men image God?
Why is it important to know and understand the different ways women image God from the ways men image God?
God determines the question “What is a woman!” He created into women a functional difference from men. One of the those functional differences is that men are to take the role of leader, specifically in the church and in the marriage relationship, and women are to take the role of submission to that leadership.
Weaker does not mean inferior!
24 Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power.
25 For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.
26 The last enemy to be destroyed is death.
27 For “God has put all things in subjection under his feet.” But when it says, “all things are put in subjection,” it is plain that he is excepted who put all things in subjection under him.
28 When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all.
What determines our existence? Our essence determines our existence. Our essence is determined by our Creator. God made us male and female. And God made both male and female in His image and after His likeness. Ladies God made you to represent Him, God made you to be like Him in certain respects.
Part of your essence is the functional role of submission. Submission does not mean inferior! The Son of God Himself subjects Himself to the Father, that God may be all in all. When you lovingly submit to your husbands you are fulfilling your functional role of bearing God’s image. Men we cannot bear God’s image alone. Ladies you cannot bear God’s image alone. We need both men and women to bear the image of God.
Our culture tends to deny and despise the functional differences between men and women. As Christians we should instead celebrate our functional differences. It is our functional differences that allow us to image our Creator and bring Him glory!
Refutation: Does that mean that only marriage people can experience what it means to be truly and fully human?
- Perhaps marriage pictures and illustrates more fully than other human institutions the interdependence of the man-woman relationship. But it does not do so exclusively.
- Jesus was not married, and he is the ideal man. Jesus perfectly imaged God.
- What about in the life to come? Matt. 22:30 there will not be marriage.
Therefore, the man-woman relationship in Gen 1 and 2 implies the need for fellowship between human beings in general. Man needs woman and woman needs man, but men need other men and women need other woman. Without that kind of fellowship humanity is incomplete. Man and woman cannot image God in isolation. Humanity needs the fellowship and stimulation of others. We are social beings. Man cannot be truly human apart from others.
How does fellowship with other humans help enable us to be truly human?
It helps us determine our strengths and weaknesses. It is only in fellowship with others that we can grow and mature.
It helps us fully develop our potentialities.
7 But we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children.
What kind of relationships encourage this kind of human potential?
Family, school, church, vocation or profession, recreational friendships, etc.
People of different nationalities, different backgrounds, different level of education, different callings and professions than our own.
It is not good to only have social fellowship with others “of our kind.”
What significant factors keep women from imaging God properly?
What significant factors keep women from imaging God properly?
How many of you know the hymn, “Come, Ye Sinners, Poor and Needy”?
Come, ye sinners, poor and needy,
weak and wounded, sick and sore;
Jesus ready stands to save you,
full of pity, love, and pow'r.
Come, ye weary, heavy laden,
lost and ruined by the fall;
if you tarry till you're better,
you will never come at all.
What keeps women, and men, from imaging God properly?
The fall. What happened to the image of God within humanity at the fall?
Adam and Eve were created perfectly in the Image of God. They functioned sinlessly and obediently as God’s image bearers.
Then came Genesis 3, then came sin, and the curse: in short what we call the fall. Humanity fell into sin. Humanity was curse with a sin nature. What did the sin nature do the image of God?
The image of God was not lost or annihilated but it was perverted. The image of God was still present in its structural sense (man’s gifts, endowments, and capacities were not destroyed at the Fall), but the functional sense of the image was lost. Man now used these gifts in ways that were contrary to God’s will.
The functional design of biblical manhood and womanhood has been corrupted by the curse.
The functional difference between manhood and womanhood were originally designed by God to be mutually beneficial. Both headship and helping were intended by God as very good, and were complimentary to each other. God designed man and woman for each other, but because of the corruption of sin these functional differences are now opposed to each other.
16 To the woman he said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you.”
Ladies, I want you to see how sin has corrupted the God designed function of helping your husband. God tells Eve, because of the curse of sin, instead of helping your husband now your desire will now be for mastery over your husband.
The word “desire” here is a desire for mastery. The same word is used of Cain and Able in Gen 4:7.
7 If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it.”
Just as sin desired to have mastery over Cain, so the woman, tainted by sin, desires to have mastery over her husband.
That is how sin has affected the ladies, but men we are not exempt from the corruption of sin either.
16 To the woman he said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you.”
God is not saying that male headship is part of the curse. God’s design, as we have seen, has always been male headship within the marriage relationship.
What God is saying is that now because of the curse instead of man exercising benevolent headship, husbands will instead seek to dominate and abuse their wives. Their rule will become tyrannical. Men it is important to understand this, whenever you become domineering or abusive toward your wives you are not reflecting God’s design for leadership but rather a sinister perversion of it.
God created men and women functionally to be different from one another. He designed us with functions so that we could bear the image of God and bring God glory. God designed the difference in function between men and women to complement and help one another. Then sin came, the curse came, and the image of God within us was marred, it was tainted, it was ruined by the fall. Now, instead of complementing and helping, instead we oppose and abuse each other.
How can women overcome these obstacles?
How can women overcome these obstacles?
The only answer is the gospel! Why is God’s image marred within us? Because of the curse of sin. What is the only power that can undo the curse of sin? It is the power of the gospel!
Let’s look at just a hint of how the power of the gospel removes the effects of the curse.
18 And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.
Unveiled face- what does this mean?
Paul is making an allusion to Moses and the people of Israel. In Moses’ day only he could behold the glory of the Lord with an unveiled face. When he came out from speaking with the Lord he would veil his face because the congregation was afraid of the glory of the Lord that shone on the face of Moses.
Paul says that to this day the unbelieving Jews still have veils. What is the veil that Paul speaks about?
12 Since we have such a hope, we are very bold, 13 not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face so that the Israelites might not gaze at the outcome of what was being brought to an end.
14 But their minds were hardened. For to this day, when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away.
Notice- their MINDS were hardened. And then he connects their hardened minds to “the same veil remains unlifted.”
The only way for this kind of veil over their hearts to be lifted is through Christ!
15 Yes, to this day whenever Moses is read a veil lies over their hearts.
Why? Because the unbelieving Jews have not yet turned to Christ. Their hearts are veiled. They cannot behold the glory of the Lord just like in Moses’ day.
16 But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed.
Only when a persons turns to the Lord, only through salvation, is the veil over their hearts removed. Salvation allows the veiled heart to be unveiled so that a person can behold the very glory of the Lord.
17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
One of the benefits of salvation is the ministry of the Holy Spirit. And wherever the Holy Spirit is there is freedom or liberty.
18 And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.
So now, all believers, have an unveiled face, that is they no longer have hard hearts, they no longer have veiled hearts. Why? Because believers have turned to the Lord and Christ has taken away that veil and they have the Spirit of the Lord working in their hearts.
In other words, believers have the spiritual ability to recognize and understand with their hearts the things of the Lord.
Notice with our unveiled faces we are beholding the glory of the Lord. This is a present participle. This is the idea of a continuing and ongoing process of beholding the glory of the Lord. The word beholding, has the idea of looking at oneself in a mirror.
So, all believers, with unveiled faces (that is with proper recognition and understanding), continually behold as in a mirror the very glory of the Lord.
We don’t behold his glory face to face yet, that is for the age to come. By we behold his glory as if in the reflection of a mirror. And what is this mirror?
It is the glory of God as seen in the face of Jesus Christ through the gospel.
3 And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing.
4 In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
What is Jesus called at the end of v. 4? Jesus Christ, who is the image of God. We, men and women, were created in Gen. 1:26 in the image of who? In the image of God! What happened to that image? It was devastated by the fall. God’s image was marred but not destroyed.
Where can we look to see the image of God in all of its perfection? To Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the very perfected image of God. So if we want to restore the image of God within us that has been marred by the fall, then we must become like Jesus. If we become like Jesus that means the image of God within us will be restored to its former glory.
How do we do that?
18 And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.
What happens when we continuously behold the glory of the Lord with unveiled faces?
We are being transformed into the same IMAGE! This is a present passive verb. It is a continuous idea, but the action of the verb is passive. The transformation is being done to us, we are not the ones acting out this transformation. That doesn’t mean that we are not involved! We are the ones who must gaze at the glory of the Lord, but as we do so we are continuously being transformed.
From one degree of glory to another. As we behold the glory of the Lord in the face of Jesus through the gospel we are renewed or restored back into the image of God that was marred or tainted in us because of sin. From one degree of glory to another. This process is a continuing work. And it is all made possible because the the Holy Spirit.
Ladies, your essence was given to you by your Creator. He made you in His image, after His own likeness. You are equal to men in your essence, in your value, yet God made you different in your function. God hardwired into you at your creation a unique functional difference that defines what it means to be a woman. It is this essence that ought to lead to your existence. Your functional differences endowed upon you by your Creator should not be shunned, but celebrated.
You were designed by God to be a helper, to compliment, to support, to follow. Yet, this good design of God has been marred by the fall. Now, what once was easy and naturally has become twisted and hard. God made you the weaker vessel and instead of celebrating that function, your desire is to act contrary to God’s good design.
But God, who is rich in mercy, sent His Son Jesus to rescue you from the fall, and to enable you to have God’s image renewed within you. As you with unveiled face, continually behold the very glory of the Lord through the gospel, God by means of His Spirit transforms you into the same image as His Son. You become changed from one degree of glory to another. And the gospel of Jesus is able to renew and restore His image within you so that you can once again properly represent God and be like God in certain respects.
We all need one another. It requires men and women in fellowship with one another to right represent God to this fallen and broken world.
Ladies, mothers, may you be transformed by the power of the gospel, so that His image is renewed within you. May you represent God and show this world and all of us what God is like. And as we all grow in our ability to accurately image God, may our great God be all in all!
