· Anthropology ·

Lecture Forty Eight:  Created Male and Female

TH330 Systematic Theology I · Moody Bible Institute · Dr. Richard M. Weber

Gen 1:27.  “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”

Gen 5:1-2.  “…When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God.  He created them male and female and blessed them.  And when they were created, he called them ‘man’ {Hebrew adam}.”

I. Gender Issues and Personal Relationships

A. Interpersonal Relationships and the Trinitarian Existence of God

Gen 1:26.  “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, in our likeness…’”

John 17:5, 24.  Jesus prays, “And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.  …  Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.”

B.  The Varieties of Human Interpersonal Relationships

Gen 2:24.  “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.”

1 Cor 7:3-4.  “The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband.  The wife’s body does not belong to her alone, but also to her husband.  In the same way, the husband’s body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife…”

Eph 5:28.  “…[H]usbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies.  He who loves his wife loves himself.”

Rom 7:2.  “[B]y law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage.”

Eph 5:23-25.  “For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior.  Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.  Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her …

II. Equality of Genders in Terms of Personhood and Importance

A. Just as Members of the Trinity are Co-Equal in Terms of Importance and Divinity, So Men and Women Are Co-Equal in Terms of Importance and Personhood

Gen 1:27.  “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”

Gen 5:1-2.  “…When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God.  He created them male and female and blessed them.  And when they were created, he called them ‘man.’”

1. An Objection From 1 Corinthians 11:7

1 Cor 11:7.  “A man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man.”

2. A Response To the Objection From 1 Corinthians 11:7

Note 1 Cor 11:11-12.  “In the Lord, however, woman is not independent of man, nor is man independent of woman.  For as woman came from man, so also man is born of woman.  But everything comes from God.”

B. Equality in the New Covenant

1. Acts 2:41.  “Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.”

2. Gal 3:27-28.  “[A]ll of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.  There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor fee, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ.”

III. Differences in Genders in Terms of Role and Authority

A. Differences in Ministries

1. Differing Roles

“Each member of the Trinity has distinct roles and functions.  Differences in roles and authority between the members of the Trinity are thus completely consistent with equal importance, personhood, and deity.”  (Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, 459)

1 Cor 11:3.  “Now I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.”

2. The Theological Basis for Differences in Roles

a. Order of Creation

Gen 2:7, 18-23.  “The Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.  … The Lord God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone.  I will make a helper suitable for him.’  … So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and closed up the place with flesh.  Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man and he brought her to the man.  The man said, ‘This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called “woman,” for she was taken out of man.’”

“The creation of Adam first is consistent with the Old Testament pattern of ‘primogeniture,’ the idea that the firstborn in any generation in a human family has leadership in the family for that generation.”  (Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, 461)

1 Tim 2:12-13.  “I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent.  For Adam was formed first, then Eve.”

b. Divinely Purposed Role for Eve

1 Cor 11:9.  “[N]either was man created for woman, but woman for man.”

c. Adam Given Task of Naming Eve

Gen 2:19-20.  “Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air.  He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.  So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field.  But for Adam no suitable helper was found.”

Gen 2:23.  “The man said, ‘This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.”

Gen 3:20.  “Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living.”

d. God Named the Human Race “Man,” Not “Woman” or “Humankind”

Gen 5:2 (NASB).  “He created them male and female, and He blessed them and named them Man in the day when they were created.”

e. Male Leadership in Fall and Curse

1 Cor 15:22.  “For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. (Cf. v49)

Rom 5:15.  “… [T]he many died by the trespass of the one man…”

3. The Curse

Gen 3:16.  “To the woman, [God] said, ‘I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children.  Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.’”

Susan Foh, “What is the Woman’s Desire?”, Westminster Theological Journal, vol 37 (1975)

Gen 3:16.  “He will rule over you.”

4. Redemption in Christ Affirms the Creation Order

Col 3:18-19.  “Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.  Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them.”

“New Testament commands concerning marriage do not perpetuate any elements of the curse or any sinful behavior pattern; they rather reaffirm the order and distinction of roles that were there from the beginning of God’s good creation.”  (Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, 465; italics his)

“There is eternal beauty and dignity and rightness in this differentiation in roles both within the Trinity and within the human family.  With no sense of ‘better’ or ‘worse,’ and with no sense of ‘more important’ or ‘less important,’ both men and women should be able to rejoice fully in the way they have been made by God.”  (Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, 465)

B. Mutual Ministries

Acts 2:17-18.  “In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people.  Your sons and your daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.  Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy.”

1 Cor 12:7.  “Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. (cf. v11)

1 Pet 4:10.  “Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others…”