Okay. The image is the soul (mind/will/emotions). God has a mind/will/ and expressed his emotions.)
God is male/female
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Here you are closer to the mark. God is spirit and His offspring are spirit. Spirit gives birth to spirit.
I don't know who told you that mercy, compassion, helping and healing are 'feminine' functions. They are not, just as being angry or aggressive or assertive are 'male' functions. These things are all attributes of spirit that have nothing to do with 'gender' and everything to do with their source-- again, they are spiritual attributes.
Wick Stick
Well-Known Member
I think you are over thinking this. Any time the Father, son or Holy Spirit is refrenced in scripture it is always in the masculine. God is above male and female as a Spirit and as God.
I suppose that one could perhaps make the connection that...God the Father...God the Son...so maybe the Holy Spirit would fill that bill as wife? He does say in scripture that anybody who bad mouths the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven! Thevery same reaction that many men have when their Wife is insulted. So, I dunno. But it's probably none of our business. And since scripture uses masculine pronouns for all 3...I'll stick with respecting that.
It's more than a supposition. The image we have been given as a means to understand it clear. God is depicted as male-- the Father who seeds the woman who conceives and her seed (egg) receives His water (sperm) and offspring are produced through her seed fertalized by Him..... ALL in spirit. Spirit gives birth to spirit.
All things above are reflected below and the physical reality is a reflection of the spiritual reality. There is no falseness. It isn't one way above and something completely different below. If you want to understand those things above, then consider the way things work in a physical sense.
A man seeds a woman and she conceives and bears a child. Flesh gives birth to flesh.
Adam is (made in) the image of God. If you want to catch a glimpse of the unseen One, look at the visible image of Him.
Look at Adam. Lord of all the earth.
BlessedPeace
Well-Known Member
What a strange discussion, at least to me. It would never have occurred to me that the concept of male or female would apply to the transcendent Creator who is Spirit, Light and Love. Yes, the Bible indicates God "fathered" Jesus, and Jesus used the term "Father," but I at least have never thought of these as anything other than useful anthropomorphisms. The Jews and Jesus existed in a thoroughly patriarchal culture where essentially everything of consequence was viewed from that perspective. If Jesus had been the Daughter of God, His ministry would probably have never gotten off the ground. As I think of God, the concepts of "male" and "female" simply don't apply. To call God "male" would seem to me to place a limitation on a Being who transcends all limitations. Actually, I find the most useful image of God to be the Being of Light reported in so many Near-Death Experiences! It's personal, a "being," but simply an effable Spirit of Light and Love.
As I think of God, the concepts of "male" and "female" simply don't apply. To call God "male" would seem to me to place a limitation on a Being who transcends all limitations. Actually, I find the most useful image of God to be the Being of Light reported in so many Near-Death Experiences! It's personal, a "being," but simply an effable Spirit of Light and Love.
He created us in his image. Man and female. That’s God given soul.
We are talking about traits that are expressed from God. He is masculine, and feminine because me he created us in his image, to be able to have his traits. It’s the Holy Spirit that leads to us to being humble, forgiving, loving, toward others. That’s not a trait most males have.
Jesus was very much the Son of Man. But he also expressed feminine traits along the way, compared to the brutal ways of man in stoning the prostitute to death.
Yeah.
Talking about traits.
Talking about traits Darby. God is masculine in every trait as he is feminine. It’s his expression. Wouldn’t you say?
MA2444
Well-Known Member
I think you're both right. Scripture doesnt say spirits are without gender it just says they dont get married. But on the other hand, God dont need gender to create or procreate or anything. Being Spirit means He lives on a higher plane of existance than biological creatures do so would laugh at that idea of creation the biological way!
Sexual procreation may be the highlight of a mans life on this planet, but When we go to heaven we will also be living on a higher plane of existance wherein a boring day there would easily outshine our best day here doing anything. It's not that hard to imagine being a being that doesnt have a sex drive!
That isn't what it means, which is the problem with relying on one's own interpretations rather than the best scholarship. The late Dr. Michael Heiser and others have shown convincingly that what it means is that humans were created to be God's "imagers" - representatives - on earth, to exercise dominion over the earthly part of creation. Even those who read it literally generally understand it to mean that we are in God's image in terms of capacity to reason, love, etc. I have actually never heard anyone suggest there was a sexual component - that Adam and Eve represented the male and female aspects of God, which strikes me as absurd. God created male and female among all creatures in the earthly realm for procreative purposes, not to demonstrate that He is both male and female.
When you go off the rails at the outset, you never get back on. I remember a law professor talking about the interpretation of statutes: "READ THE DEFINITIONS FIRST!" Non-lawyers who dive straight into statutes typically make fools of themselves because they don't understand how the terms are being used. To interpret "made in His image" as "male and female" strikes me the same way.
That’s what I understand when I read scripture, perhaps you have a different take. But that’s what I just get from reading it. You are more than welcome to disagree.
The problem is, the best biblical scholars disagree with you. (Heiser was a massively influential OT and Semitic language scholar: Dr. Michael Heiser - Biblical Scholar | Author | Semitic Languages Expert )
Here is John MacArthur, about as influential an evangelical as there is. Nothing about male and female.
Sure, we are all entitled to our own understandings, but I try to make mine informed understandings.
I don’t have to care what biblical scholars has to say. I trust God to help me in understanding what he has put forth by the hands of Moses. If it leads me to hurt others, then that is something I need to change. But I don’t see anything wrong with what I have stated.
Wick Stick
Well-Known Member
Please provide the book, chapter and verse saying that spirits have no gender.
You can't. It doesn't say that.
Wick Stick
Well-Known Member
Ronald David Bruno
Well-Known Member
@MatthewG
"There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus."
GAL. 3:28
There is no sex in heaven, nor marriage!
Being created in the image of God means, He gave us a mind, emotions, volition, creativity and attributes of His. He made man and women differently. As they say, we are wired differently - for a purpose. We possess varying degrees of God's image. He divided His attributes in such a way for male and female to attract to, complement and need eachother, as opposite poles of a magnet. As couples, we often feel as one, united, complete, as two halves are joined together. This of course was purposed by God so that we would have love, attraction, desire for eachother, join together, marry and procreate.
This design and function of ours will not be the same in heaven. Our new bodies will not be the same. Each of us will not have gender designed roles with varying levels of God's attributes. We will be perfectly balanced, mentally, emotionally and volitionally. Instead of "two becomes one", individually we will be complete. There will be no attractive features to stimulate those earthly natural desires towards eachother we now have ... no yearning to be completed by someone else.
Our strengths and weaknesses (even our flaws) are necessary here on earth to live and flourish and also to suffer, toil and die in this sinful world. And so we were equipped that way to deal with the challenges in life, in our work, our familes, raising kids, with key male and female roles. Our heavenly nature will be somewhat different, not needing to be equipped in the same way. So we will be more balanced like God, perfected, complete.
"There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus."
GAL. 3:28
There is no sex in heaven, nor marriage!
Being created in the image of God means, He gave us a mind, emotions, volition, creativity and attributes of His. He made man and women differently. As they say, we are wired differently - for a purpose. We possess varying degrees of God's image. He divided His attributes in such a way for male and female to attract to, complement and need eachother, as opposite poles of a magnet. As couples, we often feel as one, united, complete, as two halves are joined together. This of course was purposed by God so that we would have love, attraction, desire for eachother, join together, marry and procreate.
This design and function of ours will not be the same in heaven. Our new bodies will not be the same. Each of us will not have gender designed roles with varying levels of God's attributes. We will be perfectly balanced, mentally, emotionally and volitionally. Instead of "two becomes one", individually we will be complete. There will be no attractive features to stimulate those earthly natural desires towards eachother we now have ... no yearning to be completed by someone else.
Our strengths and weaknesses (even our flaws) are necessary here on earth to live and flourish and also to suffer, toil and die in this sinful world. And so we were equipped that way to deal with the challenges in life, in our work, our familes, raising kids, with key male and female roles. Our heavenly nature will be somewhat different, not needing to be equipped in the same way. So we will be more balanced like God, perfected, complete.
BlessedPeace
Well-Known Member
As I said, the Bible is my source.
God is spirit. God has no gender. ("He is not a man that he should lie")
See? I can.
Bible Q&A: Is God male or female?
If God made male and female in his image, what does that make God?
www.biblesociety.org.uk
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