God's Gender (& the Trinity)

I have been thinking a bit recently about God’s gender. I have some tentative thoughts. I do want to stress that they are tentative and may very well be completely wrong – do argue with me if necessary!

The Problem

Basically, we Christians know that both genders are made in the image of God. Genesis 1:27 reads:

So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.

We also know that we use male gendered language (“He”, “Father”, “Son”) to talk of God. While the Bible does use female-style metaphors for God, it doesn’t talk about “Our mother in heaven”; nor does it ordinarily call God “she”. These two things appear to be in tension.

Some people attempt to get out of it by claiming that calling God “He” was the only real option in a patriarchal culture. However, this seems pretty weak. Plenty of patriarchal cultures in the ancient world had religions focused around one female god. I really don’t think that we should be seeking to replace biblical language about God with anything else.

If there’s anything at all we have no right to do, it’s to worship God in a way He hasn’t commanded or revealed himself to be. So I feel distinctly uncomfortable about calling God “she” without biblical support. But I feel much more uncomfortable about implying that men are especially made in the image of God – which is in effect saying that men are better than women; more divine and therefore more human.

In the case of two persons of the Trinity, the language is very explicitly male. God the “Father” is male; God the “Son” is male. In both case, they are “He”; things they own are “His”, etc.

The Holy Spirit is a bit vaguer – just as usual in the Bible (for whatever reason you might want to give.) Basically, the Bible normally – but not always – follows the rules of grammar when talking about the Spirit. Hebrew and Greek are a bit like most modern languages (e.g. German), where words have genders – so the word for “table” or “book” might be masculine of feminine – you might say “she” about a book rather than “it” and it doesn’t have anything really to do with – I understand that you get odd things like a “teacher” might be a masculine word, even if the specific teacher is a woman – it doesn’t have much to do with gender, even though the language is gendered.

In the Bible, the Spirit is normally dealt with according to the gender of the word “spirit” – in Hebrew, the word “spirit” is female; in Greek, it is neuter. Therefore, in general, the Spirit is talked of as “she” in the Old Testament, and “it” in the New Testament. However, that’s not universally the case; the Bible might adopt another word (e.g. “another counsellor” is masculine), and some parts of the New Testament break the laws of grammar to call the Spirit “He” rather than “it”, presumably because the Holy Spirit is not an “It”, He is a person. So in the Old Testament (where what is a reference to the Trinity is perhaps a bit vaguer anyway), the Spirit is a “she”; in the New Testament, the Spirit is an “it” or a “he”; but it’s unclear how much the “she” and the “it” are important, when it’s just the way the language works that they end up like that.

So we have three persons – two are identified as male, one is either identified as male or of “questionable gender” (!) – but this seems to be a blatant contradiction of any belief that women are equally the image of God. If women are equally the image of God, they must equally reflect God. If they equally reflect God, then God must be equally female to male.

I really hope at this stage, everyone sees my problem here. I hope you see why I don’t want to take the easy way out and either say “oh, male language about God is just culture” or say “yeah, God is more male than female” – I’m pretty sure both are unworkable, and both seem fundamentally wrong.

The Solution

I’m pretty darn confident that what I’ve said above is true – that there does appear to be a tension here… what I’m not so sure about is the solution. I do want to present a tentative solution, but please do feel free to blast me.

What I want to suggest as a solution is that God is presented in these male terms in scripture primarily because that is most appropriate to the way he relates to us. However, the relationships within God – I want to argue – are not entirely like that. The Father has “male-like” roles; the Son has “female-like” roles. (Obviously the relationships God has are not identical in any sense with human gender roles. Nonetheless, it .)

I believe that there are differences in gender in how human couples do, or should, relate. I’m not sure what the differences are – but I can’t see any way of saying they’re not there. Men take, or should take, one role; women another. There are different views about what this role is, and I don't want to get into that, but there is something there. There is something about the male-female relationship (at least within marriage) which is similar to relationships within God. I don’t want to claim that everything is similar, but that there is something that is similar.

Or, to put it another way, of the following persons:

A. God the Father
B. God the Son
C. Male Humans
D. Female Humans

A is “male” in relation to B; C is male in relation to D. Both C and D are “female” in relation to A and B. Whatever this metaphorically “female” quality of relationship is, BCD have it in relation to A, C&D have it in relation to B, and D has it in relation to C. Similarly, metaphorical “maleness” is possessed by A in relation to BCD, B in relation to CD, and C in relation to D.

This has nothing to do with ontological greatness. A and B are ontologically equal with one another; as are C and D. In other words, they’re equal in being. However, A and B are both ontologically superior to C and D. This “maleness” and “femaleness,” whatever it is, has nothing to do with how great one is; the fact that A/B are greater than C/D is because of something else entirely.

According to this, God is both male and female within himself, but it makes sense why the Bible always uses male language (“He”, “Son”, etc) to talk about Him – He is acting that way in relation to us.

There is some biblical evidence for this. In the Old Testament, there are a few figures who we find out in the New Testament are OT revelations of Jesus. One is “the word” - who is neuter, per grammar. Another is “Wisdom” – who is portrayed in Proverbs as a woman in whom God (the Father) delights, etc.

We also see what seems to me to be a pretty explicit exposition of this in 1 Corinthians 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.”

Head is obviously not meant to be taken literally here (as in, it is not a physical head). It’s not used often in Greek as a metaphor, but when it is it can mean several things – it might mean what we might metaphorically use “head” for (i.e. in charge), or it might mean head as in something like “source”, or something having a certain kind of preeminence. Each of those options would have interesting consequences for how one would define the gender roles, but I don’t want to make claims about which one is right. The only point I would like to make is that this passage pretty explicitly says that A is "head" of B, B is head of C, and C is head of D – as I have argued above.

However, I do propose this tentatively as a more widespread way of understanding God’s gender, and would be very eager to be contradicted and argued with so that I can think through this better.

Thought's on Tom Wright:

I am currently reading Tom Wright's book, "Justification: God's Plan and Paul's Vision", and have just come across something which has greatly intrigued me. Throughout the book, Wright is basically asserting that protestantism, especially the Calvinist tradition (which I identify with), has misunderstood justification - what we basically believe is "getting there", but needs a few correctives from Wright. One of the main issues he has with us is the idea of "imputed righteousness" - of us receiving the righteousness of Christ.

The thing I'm confused about is that he seems to affirm what I mean by imputed righteousness. On page 134, Wright writes of Jesus:

2: He has become for us 'righteousness': that is, God vindicated him, like a judge in a lawcourt finding in favour of one who has previously appeared condemned, when he raised him from the dead. God vindicated him as his own son, the Israel-in-person, the Messiah, anticipating at Easter the final vindication of all God's people in their resurrection from the dead. Those who are 'in Christ' share this status, being vindicated already in advance of that final vindication. (In other words, it is not the case that Paul is suggesting here that Jesus Christ has perfectly obeyed the moral law and thus possesses in himself 'moral righteousness' - that would be to change the meaning of the word entirely at this point - which can then be 'credited' to those who are 'in him'. Jesus was not a legalist! That was not why God gave the law in the first place.)

Which sounds almost exactly the same as what I've always meant by imputed righteousness (there are a few differences from my theology there, but not about the meaning of "imputed", but about how Jesus acquired the righteousness we get, and justification's relationship with final judgement.)

However, he later clarifies that this (and three other points he makes in this list:

In othger words: a wonderful summary of a great deal of Paul's theology - but not a ringing endorsement of the Reformed doctrine of 'imputed righteousness.'

My question is this: Who is it that misunderstands the reformed doctrine of imputed righteousness - Wright, or me?

Chapter 2 draft 1

This is a Wordle image of the second chapter of my book, which I wanted to share with you:

"Make the cross your theology, and test everything by it" - Mike Reeves

Firstly, Revd. Dr. Mike Reeves (UCCF theology advisor, and probably the best bible teacher I've ever heard) has given three excellent talks on the cross, which I've found online would warmly commend to anyone - especially the first and last one, although the middle one isn't bad.

Secondly, Dave Bish has posted two interesting posts on the dangers of emotionalism and dry intellectualism, and the relation of each of them to actually living a life of faith. Well worth a read.

But the main thing I wanted to post on was the cross, as you might guess from the title. I had an interesting conversation the other friday with (name), (name), and (name), about Steve Chalke and penal substitution. I don't actually remember much of what the conversation was about - it was in a very loud place. However, it has made me think a lot recently, as I've realised I've been reading far too little on the subject past few months, so I've started trying to correct that.

That, combined with the fact that it is good friday, have reminded me that I have not updated this blog for ages, even for "Cross Friday". Initially that was because my computer became all broken and busted - since then it is simply because I have largely forgotten.

Anyway, I figured good friday might be a good day to buck the trend.

Just the quote in the title makes me think. For example, one particular thing I've been thinking about - I just heard that I've been accepted onto a Christian internship in parliament, and I am thinking - what does the cross say to my political views? (This article raises some interesting questions on evangelical christian politics, well worth reading.)

So basically, that post said very little, but managed to link to lots of good stuff. Which is nice.

Cross Friday - Justificiation

Apologies once more for the lateness of this post - I fear this may become a running pattern. One of the downsides of knowing people is that they sometimes wish to do things with you on fridays, leading to this being postponed. I met up with old housemates last friday and this got postponed in the process.

This week I wanted to have a little think about justification. No doubt most, if not all, of my readers, will be familiar with the idea that Jesus was justly punished in our place, for our sins, so that God could be both just in dealing with our sins properly, and also merciful in not holding us accountable for our sins. I expect that in a future week I'll look at that properly, and respond to a few of the more obvious objections.

But one outcome of this is part of justification. Justification is often described as God treating us "just as if I never sinned" - the beggining of that phrase being similar to the beginning of "justification." It's God's forgiveness of our sins and treating us as if they were not there.

This is gloriously true, but it's not the whole truth. The greek "justify" is literally a verb form of "righteous", meaning something like "righteousify", i.e. "declare righteous" or "make righteous". In our culture, "righteous" sounds a bit stuck up - perhaps "declare to be good" or "make morally good" gives us a better feel of what it should "feel" like. But the basic point is this - "justify" means not just "forget about the sins", but also "treat you like you've done something".

The bible is clear that in our baptism, we are baptised into Jesus' death and resurrection. As a result of this - we're drawn into the relationship within the heart of God. We share in Christ's death, and thus our punishment is taken and our sins forgiven. But what's more than this - we share in Christ's obedience to death - as well as his other righteous acts - and thus we share in Christ's positive righteousness, and the new life which comes through his resurrection.

That fact makes me realise one thing - it should excite me a whole lot more than it actually does.

Cross Friday - Packer on Penal Substitution as a "model"

In What did the Cross Achieve? The Logic of Penal Substitution, J.I. Packer's magisterial lecture/booklet on Penal Substitution (the doctrine that Jesus died for our sins), Packer says the following about penal substitution as a model ("model", for Packer, is something that communicates truth about God - but remembers that it cannot communicate the whole truth - and which Packer states is basically the only way we can talk about any aspect of God):

It will by now be clear that those who affirm penal substitution offer this model not as an explanatory analysis of what lay 'behind' Christ's atoning death in the way that the laws of heat provide an explanatory analysis of what lies 'behind' the boiling of a kettle, but rather as a pointer directing attention to various fundamental features of the mystery - that is, according to our earlier definition, the transcendent and not-wholly-comprehensible divine reality - of Christ's atoning death itself, as the New Testament writers declare it. Most prominent among these features are the mysterious divine love which was its source, and of which it is the measure (cf. Rom. 5:8; 1 John 4:8-10; John 15:13); the mysterious necessity for it, evident from Paul's witness in Romans 8:32 that God did not spare his Son, but gave him up to death for us, which shows that, he being he, he could not have saved us at any less cost to himself; the mysterious solidarity in virtue of which Christ could be 'made sin' by the imputing to him of our answerability, and could die for our sins in our place, and we could be 'made righteous' before God through faith by the virtue of his obedience (cf. Rom. 5:17-19, 3 Cor 5:21 [sic]); and the mysterious mode of union whereby, without any diminution of our individuality as persons, or his, Christ and we are 'in' each other in such a sense that already we have passed with him through death into risen life. Recognition of these mysteries causes no embarrassment, nor need it; sicne the cross is undeniably central in the New Testament witness to God's work, it was only to be expected that more dimensions of mystery would be found clustered here than anywhere. (Indeed, there are more than we listed; for a full statement, the tri-unity of the loving God, the incarnation itself, and God's predestining the free acts of his enemies, would also have to come in.) To the question, what does the cross mean in God's plan for man's good, a biblical answer is ready to hand, but when we ask how these things can be we find ourself facing mystery at every point.

An interesting quote - and one which I want to think more about. Anyone agree/disagree and want to give reasons?

(Also, note that due to taking too long this post is not on late friday night, but very early on saturday!)

The Cross displays God's Humility

I was quite busy on Friday with my parents coming up and other stuff that perhaps I will blog about later when I feel more like it, so I didn't post this then. However, it had been ready. I want to look at the supreme humility of Jesus revealed on the cross, and begin to look at some of its implications.

At the cross, we see the supreme humility of Jesus. Philippians 2:5-8 shows us the enormous humility that Jesus showed in going to the cross. In order to save us from our sins, He abandoned His rightful glory in heaven, and became a human being. In becoming human, He accepted all that that means, and died - and died in one of the most humiliating ways imaginable. For a greek, crucifixion was terrible because it was something that only serious criminals had to face (and even then, not always, e.g. Roman citizens were exempt). For a Jew, it was even worse, because the Old Testament says that someone who hangs on a tree is cursed by God (which Jesus was - as no doubt we'll explore in the future).

The cross displays Jesus' humility. Of that I have no doubt. This means a number of things.

1. Jesus places our good above his dignity. Philippians 2:5-8, where Jesus humbles himself by becoming man and going to the cross, is used to show that we should share the mind of Jesus. In what respect should we share the mind of Jesus? In that we should "do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others." (Philippians 2:3-4)
2. Jesus states in John that he does not seek his own glory (John 8:50). The cross is the most visible example of this. Jesus shows that He loves us and His father above his comfort and glory.
   
3. Equally, though (and here is an awesome paradox), while the cross is the place where Jesus' humility and lack of concern for His glory is most shown, it is also the place where His glory - the greatness of who He is - is most profoundly shown (at least for those who God has revealed it to.) We read this in John 17:1, where Jesus prays that as his hour (of crucifixion) comes, God would glorify Him. This would appear to contradict the above point, were it not for the fact that Jesus goes on to explain that this is only so that "the Son may glorify you", the Father. Jesus does not seek His glory for its own sake, but He does seek it out of love for the Father.
4. This has interesting consequences for our understanding of the glory-seeking of God the Father. The role of the Son is to reveal the Father, and we can know nothing of Him without looking through the Son. The Son is the exact imprint of the Father's nature (Hebrews 1:3), so presumably the Father is like the Son in this respect. However, scripture refers to the Father seeking His own glory. The Father could do so for any number of reasons, of which I can see two which seem to both be at least part of the truth, together.
1. One reason could be that He seeks the good of the church, and this is true, but cannot be the whole truth, as (for example) Ezekiel 36 contains statements that God does things not for the sake of Israel, but for the sake of His name - ie his glory.
   
2. Another could be that he is seeking the Son's glory out of love - this is certainly part of the reason, and is certainly true, and is my preferred main explanation for this. I'll blog later on exactly how strongly we can biblically talk about it, as I would like to comment on this post and subsequent discussion - and hopefully will do at some point. Am, however, unusually busy at the minute. One thing I would say, though, is that it is clear both that the Father seeks the glory of the Son (e.g. John 8:50), and that the structure of trinitarian relationships with the world mean that we cannot glorify the Son other than by glorifying the Father through the Son - we can't really do it in any other way.
   
5. One thing that is clear, though, is that whatever reason there is for the Father seeking His own glory, it is compatible with His fundamental humilty and love. The Father is reflected fully, wholly, and gloriously in the Son - and therefore is like Him in His humility and love.
   

By the way, I am trying to make my blogposts sound less like theological treatises. Although I often think about these topics a lot before I write them, I don't edit them so thoroughly that I'd want them to be seen as of the quality of theological treatises. I'd also like them to be readable - unlike far too many theological tomes.

Cross Friday - Stott on the Cross and Evil

One of my Christmas presents from my parents was John Stott's "Why I am a Christian" from my parents. Like pretty much anything by Stott, this is an absolute gem. In his chapter on the cross, he comments rightly that "In any balanced understanding of the cross, we shall confess Christ as saviour (atoning for our sins), as teacher (disclosig the character of God) and as victor (overcoming the powers of evil)", thereby disarming those who would seek to make those three facts about the cross stand against each other as opposing theories rather than complimenting facts.

After this, he comments on the fact that the cross has something to say about the problem of evil.

"Why am I a Christian? One reason is the cross of Christ. Indeed, I could never myself believe in God if it were not for the cross. It is the cross that gives God his credibility. The only God I believe in is the one Nietzsche (the nineteenth-century German philosopher) ridiculed as 'God on the cross'. In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it?

In the course of my travels I have entered a number of Buddhist temples in different Asian countries. I have stood respectedfully before a statue of the Buddha, his legs crossed, arms folded, eyes closed, the ghost of a smile playing round his mouth, serene and silent, a remote look on his face, detached from the agonies of the world. But each tim after a while I have turned instead to that lonely, twisted, tortured figure on the cross, nails through hands and feet, back lacerated, limbs wrenched, brow bleeding from thorn-pricks, mouth dry and intolerably thirsty, plunged into God-forsaken darkness.

The crucified one is the God for me! He laid aside his immunity to pain. He entered our world of flesh and blood, tears and death. He suffered for us, duing in our place in order that we might be forgiven. Our sufferings become more manageable in the light of his. There is still a question-mark against human suffering, but over it we boldly stamp another mark, the cross, which symbolizes divine suffering.

'The cross of Christ ... is God's only self-justification in such a world' as ours."
- John Stott, Why I am a Christian, pages 63-64

(The final line quotes P.T. Forsyth's "The Justification of God.")

Christmas and a learning disability home

I work with adults with severe learning disabilities, to the point where none of them can talk and only one of them can even speak vaguely (and even then doesn't really understand what she's saying). As you'll no doubt expect, this has been a very interesting experience. It's been quite thought provoking being around people who are a lot less powerful than me, who have relatively little that they can contribute to the world economically, and whose minds frankly just don't work properly. Several of them have been abandoned by their parents, and spent many of their years in a disabled home, meaning that they've also been significantly deprived relationally. They're as much people as you or I - but they don't seem to understand some things that to me seem very basic facts.

In fact, this experience led me to think about a number of things about what it means to be human, and what grace means, as I am around some of the most obvious examples of the brokenness of humanity. Although I don't think all of the residents are particularly unhappy (though a couple are), I would really hate to be like them. I would find it an enormous affront to my dignity to be fed by other people, to be showered by other people, and simply to be unable to think and learn in the way I can now. And that has a rather obvious application to Christmas.

In the incarnation, Jesus took on almost all of the weaknesses that my residents have, as he became a baby. Babies are something we have a category of how to relate to in our head, so we don't necessarily realise quite what that would have been like to experience. It would have been no less a weakness and an indignity than becoming one of my residents. Jesus chose not to use his attributes of omnipotence and onniscience - and instead chose to live out life with the limits not just of humanity, but of a human baby.

Not only did he live with the limits of a human baby, but of a broken human baby. The residents at my work are broken by the consequences of the fall and of sin in a rather obvious way - their learning disability. But while from our perspective that seems a particularly broken humanity, all human beings are very deeply broken. The effects of sin have gone deep into our minds and our souls. The fact that this has happened to all of us may immunise us from realising its severity, but it does not mean that it is not severe from God's point of view. Jesus did not sin, so he did not become a sinner, but he did become a human being that had been broken by sin - just by other people's sins, rather than His own. While for us, this might not seem like a huge thing, Jesus knew what humanity was really supposed to look like, and therefore saw our humanity was broken.

Jesus did more than this, though. He not only became a weak and limited baby, broken by human sin. He also did so from a position of unparalled greatness. Even if he had chosen to become greater than the greatest human being ever - think Superman-turned-immortal-world-emperor (without the Kryptonite weakness) - that would still be an enormous step downwards, something like me becoming a slug or a spider. Think what becoming a broken and weak human baby would be like.

People (includng myself) sometimes look upon a baby in a manger as something tame and cute. In fact, it is something at once quite disgusting, and quite amazing.

It shows how truly humble Jesus is to suffer such an indignity - as well as how passionate he was about the love of the glory of the Father who He did this for. It also shows us how greatly he loved human beings, that he would do this that they could become a church that lived in a peaceful and glorious loving relationship with Him.

And above all, it points towards the cross, where all of this is seen even more profoundly. Jesus' identification with our broken humanity reaches its greatest point and greatest awfulness and awesomeness, displaying the brokenness of humanity and the greatness of God all at once.

The Cross is our Theology

In an attempt to get this blog going again, I'm resolving to try to post every friday (I will call it "Cross Friday" in my keywords section) on some theological topic related to the cross. This may consist of my own reflection, or it may simply be a quote from someone else. I believe this will help me keep a focus upon the cross, which I believe will be helpful for me spiritually. I also believe that if I'm regularly posting anyway, I will be more likely to post at other times.

Since this is the first week, let us look at the importance of the cross.

In 1 Corinthians 2:1-5, we read:

And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

In this passage, we see knowing only "Jesus Christ and him crucified" contrasted with "lofty speech or wisdom." People sometimes misinterpret this passage to mean that we should not think about what we believe - asserting, for example, that irrational ideas are better than rational ones, or that it's better not to care about doctrinal issues other than ideas about salvation, or that it's saying that we should trust our experience over thought and wisdom...

On the contrary, this passage is not attacking thinking. It is making a statement about how and what we ought to think.

In the hellenistic culture the corinthians lived in, phrases like "lofty speech or wisdom" would have made people think immediately of greek philosophers. Philosophy literally means "love of wisdom," and by "wisdom" the corinthians would have automatically think (in a way that's lost on most 21st century readers) "the philosophers" - the specific philosophical schools that are popular at the time. This is also evident from the fact that it specifies "lofty speech or wisdom" - the philosophical schools taught "Rhetoric" as not just a subject, but often the most respected subject. So they were interested not just in specific ideas, but in how one argues those ideas. "Lofty speech" means more (or less) than just saying the right things - it means saying things in the right way. There were people in the ancient world who earnt a living by impressing audiences by wowing people by arguing powerfully for something one day, and then wowing them by arguing powerfully for the opposite thing the next day.

Paul, here, was defending the fact that he didn't look like these philosophers. He wasn't really trying to impress them with "lofty speech" or an appearance of "wisdom". He wasn't following the pagan "high-culture" that was around him, in order to gain a following. Instead, he was preaching "Jesus Christ and Him crucified."

That doesn't mean that all he was saying was "there was this bloke called Jesus, he was the Christ [ie the Messiah], and he was crucified." Rather, he's saying that his understanding of God - and thus of the whole of reality - is centered around and dependent upon God's revelation in Jesus Christ. All through the Pauline letters, we find Paul applying the truth about Jesus and the cross to all sorts of situations and questions. Indeed, we find that all through the New Testament. Paul goes on, straight after these verses, to insist that he does preach wisdom to those who are mature (not a wisdom of this age, but rather a wisdom of God.)

Paul isn't meaning that there's two separate things "Jesus Christ", as well as "him crucified" that he preaches - the two things are one. We can't see Jesus properly without the cross, because it was at the very heart of what Jesus was doing on earth - what Jesus was about - thus explaining its prominence in the New Testament. Equally, just "someone died and rose again" is pretty insignificant unless you know the person.

And out from this truth about Jesus Christ and Him Crucified, we learn all about God. We learn who God is, we learn how we relate to Him, and we learn how we ought to live as a result.

And that's why I've decided to begin "Cross Friday".