Request your free, three-month trial to Tabletalk magazine. You’ll receive the print issue monthly and gain immediate digital access to decades of archives. This trial is risk-free. No credit card required.
Try Tabletalk NowAlready receive Tabletalk magazine every month?
Verify your email address to gain unlimited access.
Genesis 1:26–27
“God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (v. 27).
God’s work of creation receives much attention in Scripture. The first two chapters of the Bible detail the order of creation and the Lord’s formation of a garden in Eden, and thereafter references to His work of creation recur throughout Scripture. Although all of God’s work of creation is important, the Bible puts special emphasis on God’s crowning work of creation: His making humanity male and female after His own image.
We see that God’s creation of mankind is the apex of His original creative work in that our Creator pronounced creation “very good” only after He had made human beings on the sixth day (Gen. 1:31). God’s evaluation of creation on each of the preceding five days is simply that it was “good.” This, plus the fact that we are made in God’s image and that Scripture is the story of our Creator’s relationship to humanity, tells us that God regards people as incredibly important. Such importance, of course, comes from how He has made us and chosen to interact with us and not from anything apart from Him.
Genesis 1:26–27 tells us that God made man male and female after His own image. We will consider all that the image of God means for the next few days, beginning today with the truth that the Lord made both men and women in His image. Clearly, then, God created human beings in what we call the gender binary—male and female and only male and female—and our biological sex and gender are identical, given to us by the Lord Himself. God intends that men live as men and women live as women, and any feelings or desires to the contrary must come from the fall into sin. Furthermore, the fact that some rare intersex conditions affect the appearance of genitalia and the manifestation of secondary sex characteristics does not invalidate the gender binary. Such abnormalities are also a consequence of the fall and one reason that the whole world longs for its complete renewal (Rom. 8:19–23). We should have compassion for people with intersex conditions or who believe that their gender does not match their biological sex, but we cannot compromise on the truth of the gender binary.
Our creation as male and female also implies that the Lord has duties and callings specific to each gender. The rest of Scripture explains this in more detail (e.g., Gen. 3:16–19; Eph. 5:22–33). Some of these duties and callings may overlap, but this does not mean that the roles of men and women are completely interchangeable.
Coram Deo Living before the face of God
Some roles of men and women may vary from culture to culture, but some roles are fixed by God Himself, including the husband’s headship in the home and male-only eldership in the church (Eph. 5:22–33; 1 Tim. 3:1–13). We are not allowed to violate what God has ordained in these areas.
For further study
- Genesis 2:4–25
- Genesis 5:1–2; 24
- Song 8:13–14
- Mark 10:1–12
The bible in a year
- 2 Chronicles 29–31
- John 18:1–24