Masculine & Feminine: The Image of God

For years, I’ve felt frustrated by the ideas surrounding what it means to be masculine or feminine. So many teachings in the church rely on stereotypes to define these ideas—and that bothered me, because many of those stereotypes don’t fit me. Often, I felt like I had to suppress or change who I am in order to fit what it seemed I was supposed to be as a woman.

I found it easier to talk with men about theology than to discuss homemaking with other moms. I felt like so many of the women I knew were content with family life, but I wanted more—and I felt guilty for that.

Now, years later, I know I’m not alone in that. I’ve since met many women who feel a similar dissonance around our cultural understanding of male and female characteristics. And I’ve met men who feel this way too—who feel like they don’t fit the church’s ideals around what it means to be masculine.

Because of this dissonance, some people have argued that there are no inherent differences between men and women apart from the obvious biological differences. But that didn’t sit right with me, either. Femaleness and maleness are more than just biology—but how to understand or define that felt very elusive. How many of the traits we often define as masculine or feminine are a result of nurture (the way we are influenced from childhood by cultural expectations), and how many are truly a result of God’s innate design? I spent years internally wrestling, reading anything I could find, and most of all, asking God to help me understand.

Over the last few years, I’ve settled into what feels like the beginning of an answer on this topic. I still have some questions, but I have enough clarity that I am ready to write—not because I think I have it figured out, but because I know so many people also have questions about this. So many people feel like they don’t belong when the church starts talking about masculinity and femininity, and that shouldn’t be. We need to look deeper, and that begins with a return to our original design in Genesis.

1. God’s image is both masculine and feminine.

First, we need to recognize that when God decided to create beings to carry his image, he created a man and a woman to represent him together. In other words, God’s image is both masculine and feminine. Both masculine and feminine find their true definition within the image of God. Before the Fall, Adam and Eve fully represented God’s image, and thus, he commissioned them to fill and subdue the earth together.

2. Masculine and feminine are not defined by biology.

Second, since masculinity and femininity find their origin in the nature of God, we need to acknowledge that they are not defined by biology. I think many of our misunderstandings around masculinity and femininity stem from defining them biologically as male or female rather than as two parts of the image of God. Our representation of God as his image is not about our body parts or our sexuality. Our image-bearing is much deeper than that. Thus, when we talk about masculine and feminine, we are referring to the deeper human reality of representing the image of God.

3. All humans contain both God’s masculine and feminine traits.

Third, because masculinity and femininity are not defined by biology, but by God’s image, we can begin to recognize that every person contains varying degrees of both God’s masculinity and God’s femininity. That is what gives us his image. We see this in Jesus, who clearly demonstrated traits we would define as both masculine and feminine during his life on earth. (See Matthew 9:36; 14:14; 19:13–14; 23:37; Luke 7:13; John 11:33–35 for some times when Jesus demonstrated traits typically viewed as feminine within our culture.)

Typically women have stronger feminine traits and men have stronger masculine traits, but that is not always the case. As Denise Jordan says, “The balance of masculinity and femininity within each person is not easily defined or pigeonholed. Every person is created by God with his or her unique balance of masculinity and femininity.”(1)

What’s important to recognize is that putting men and women into rigid stereotypes has alienated those who do not fit them. For some, it has caused great confusion. All this changes when we view masculinity and femininity not as male and female, but as two aspects of God’s image.

Masculine and feminine complement each other. We see this in the way that male and female bodies complement each other, but this complementary nature also exists within each person. Our masculine and feminine qualities create an internal balance within us.

All of this frees us to be individuals created as unique carriers of God’s image who don’t need to fit cultural stereotypes. It also points us to the bigger reality of God’s design for humanity. God created men and women as an expression of his nature—both the masculine and feminine—to fill and subdue the earth together.

After the Fall, men and women began to strive against each other rather than work as a team. Then Jesus came to remove the curse—including the power struggle between men and women. Within a highly patriarchal culture, Jesus saw women as humans—as equally valuable, strong, brilliant—and he purposely elevated them.

No matter the voices that want to tear women down and “put them in their place,” Jesus’ voice is stronger, louder. And he’s calling each one of us—men and women alike—to step into the fullness of our image-bearing identity. He’s calling us to embrace both the masculine and feminine heart of God deposited within us so that together we can represent him accurately to the world around us.

Endnote

 1. Denise Jordan, The Forgotten Feminine (The National Library of New Zealand, 2014), 32.

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