God Is Not Male

00:00:00.000 | A couple of listeners have emailed in about a recent episode, episode 267, where you said,

00:00:10.680 | "God is not male."

00:00:13.240 | Can you please expand on this, Pastor John?

00:00:14.980 | Why is it important to stress that God is not male?

00:00:18.280 | Well, let me say what I mean first by God is not male.

00:00:23.880 | I mean that from eternity, God has not had a body, a physical body, and therefore, he

00:00:30.760 | doesn't have male features, facial hair, musculature, male genitals, no Y chromosome,

00:00:38.520 | no male hormones, things like that.

00:00:41.120 | Male is a biological word, and God is not a biological being.

00:00:45.540 | So men and women should not think of God as a man.

00:00:50.320 | Now Jesus, yes, he is a God-man, not a God-woman.

00:00:56.580 | The incarnation never ceases.

00:01:00.120 | Jesus never loses his identity as the God-man, Jesus Christ.

00:01:07.320 | He was male on the earth.

00:01:09.960 | He is now man in heaven, and yes, not woman.

00:01:15.700 | But we should not think of God the Father or the Holy Spirit as men.

00:01:21.680 | They are spirit, not biological.

00:01:24.880 | Now why does this matter?

00:01:26.400 | Well, the first reason it matters is because it's true.

00:01:29.740 | The second reason it matters is because thinking of God as male and thus biological would be

00:01:35.080 | diminishing to God.

00:01:36.580 | God is infinitely above these creaturely distinctions.

00:01:39.880 | And the third reason it matters is because it guards us against drawing wrong conclusions

00:01:51.120 | from these facts.

00:01:54.340 | God is revealed as Father, not Mother.

00:01:57.300 | God is revealed as King, not Queen.

00:02:00.760 | And I'm saying mainly here.

00:02:02.040 | I don't mean that there aren't motherly metaphors for him.

00:02:04.200 | I'm just saying mainly Father, not Mother.

00:02:06.580 | Mainly King, not Queen.

00:02:07.780 | Mainly Lord, not Lady.

00:02:09.400 | In the marriage with the church, Christ is the husband, and the church is the bride.

00:02:15.240 | He's not the bride, and she's the husband.

00:02:17.700 | He installed priests in the Old Testament.

00:02:20.180 | All of them were men.

00:02:21.400 | Jesus comes into the world as a man and not as a woman.

00:02:24.920 | He invests his unique apostolic authority in 12 men, not 12 women.

00:02:30.080 | Now there are all kinds of false conclusions you could draw from those facts.

00:02:36.740 | And saying that God is not male is important because it prevents us from drawing some erroneous

00:02:43.840 | conclusions from God's fatherliness, or his kingliness, or his lordliness.

00:02:51.700 | God has other traits, especially of motherliness, in that list.

00:02:57.740 | And everything—now here it gets really important for the women, so I hope they're listening

00:03:01.900 | carefully.

00:03:03.620 | Everything created in woman that sets her off from man comes from God and reflects something

00:03:13.520 | of his image.

00:03:16.340 | Woman was not modeled on some other God.

00:03:22.660 | There is no other God.

00:03:24.860 | She was modeled on God.

00:03:27.820 | When the Bible says she and he were created in the image of God, it means she is who she

00:03:37.260 | is on the model of her creator.

00:03:42.300 | So it's important to say that God, in his essential divine being—not referring to

00:03:49.060 | his incarnate union with humanity, but in his essential divine essence—God is not

00:03:56.000 | male and God is not female.

00:03:59.980 | Maleness and femaleness are God's creation as biological bearers of masculinity and femininity,

00:04:07.820 | both of which are rooted in God.

00:04:10.580 | Yes, excellent.

00:04:11.580 | Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you for listening.

00:04:15.500 | Tomorrow we will address the question of when is the right time to get married.

00:04:19.580 | Specifically, one podcast listener asks if he and his fiancée should postpone marriage

00:04:24.260 | until they have more money in the bank.

00:04:26.940 | We'll talk about that tomorrow.

00:04:27.940 | I'm your host Tony Reinke.

00:04:28.940 | We'll see you tomorrow.

00:04:29.740 | Amen.

00:04:30.240 | Amen.

00:04:31.240 | Amen.

00:04:31.740 | you

00:04:33.800 | you

00:04:35.860 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

God Is Not Male

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