God and Gender

​“So God created man in His own image; male and female He created them.”  Genesis 1:27
 
                This sentence is the “go to” verse for Christians who seek to push back against the radical gender philosophies in our current culture.  It is a sound and concise piece of scripture.  First and foremost, we are made in the image of God.  This separates us from all other creatures on earth.  We are more than our basic biological urges.  We are made to fulfill a higher purpose.
                To say that we are made in the image of God does not mean we are exact physical replicas of him.  A child is an image of his or her parents.  And while children typically bear a physical resemblance to their parents, they are not identical copies.  But children do possess the attributes of their parents and these attributes go beyond the mere physical.  They include mental, emotional, and spiritual capacities.
                Society’s current hyper-focus on sexual preferences and gender identity has created a great contradiction.  In the name of self-affirmation, humans are actually unleashing a plague of self-degradation.  In its wake are psyches marred by depression, bodies scarred by gender reassignment surgeries and souls that are empty because they have sought fulfillment apart from the will of God.
                We are free to live out our “truths” but we are not free to escape the consequences when they turn out to be nothing more than vain self-delusions.  Humanity has a long tragic history of tossing aside the map of life provided by God and choosing its own ill-fated path.  The result has been millennia filled with suffering, pain, and death.
                God’s plan for humans was founded on two genders.  The book of Genesis provides greater detail beyond the verse quoted at the beginning of this post.  In chapter 2 we learn that Adam, the male, was made first.  However God quickly realized that his creation required further refinement.
                “And the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him’.”  Genesis 2:18
                “And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place.  Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man.”  Genesis 2:21-22
                “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”  Genesis 2:24
                God knew that Adam required companionship to be the completely fulfilled being that he wanted him to be.  Notice that God did not make another male to be Adam’s companion.  God was seeking to provide Adam with a companion that complemented and completed the attributes he already possessed.  In order to do this, God created another gender – the female gender.  The description of removing a rib is likely the ancient writer’s best effort to describe what was likely an advanced scientific procedure to use Adam’s DNA to create Eve.
                In this we see God’s plan for balance when creating the foundation of human civilization.  The male gender was incomplete.  Even if it could be reproduced through cloning, this single gender was incapable of building a thriving civilization.  The female gender was required to complete the recipe for a successful civilization.
                Whether it is same-sex marriage or transgenderism, the common theme is the same – the destruction of the foundation upon which human civilization was built.  These movements have been successfully marketed (and I use that term intentionally because there has been a deliberate and concerted effort to mainstream these ideologies) under such banners as “love is love”, but in truth this is nothing more than a Satanic propaganda effort to corrupt the image of God and prevent its reproduction.  Those words might sound harsh, but how else can one characterize such an aggressive effort to undermine the will of God?
                But this article is not intended to cast judgment on individuals who engage in such behavior.  We all rebel against God’s will in our own ways.  No one is without sin and it is for that reason that Jesus Christ died and rose from the dead to redeem us and give us the hope of eternal life.  The point of this article is to help clarify this controversial topic from a Christian point of view, so that fellow Christians can understand its theological and societal implications.  When behavior that opposes and undermines the will of God becomes normalized and celebrated within a nation, the foundations of that nation will crumble and its fall will not be far off.