Is God Male or Female?
[et_pb_section fb_built="1" _builder_version="3.0.47" custom_padding="4px|0px|0px|0px"][et_pb_row custom_padding="0px|100px|0px|100px" _builder_version="3.0.47" background_size="initial" background_position="top_left" background_repeat="repeat" _i="0" _address="0.0"][et_pb_column type="4_4" _builder_version="3.0.47" parallax="off" parallax_method="on"][et_pb_image src="https://drwadearnold.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/couple-elderly-man-34761.jpg" _builder_version="3.0.77"][/et_pb_image][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row custom_padding="27px|50px|3px|50px" _builder_version="3.0.77"][et_pb_column type="4_4" _builder_version="3.0.47" parallax="off" parallax_method="on"][et_pb_text _builder_version="3.0.77"]This is the first entry in my Ask the Preacher occasional blog post series. The question is: Is God male or female. It’s a good question since God is most often thought of by Christians, and referred to in the Bible, as male.The terms “Father” and “Son” are obviously masculine in terms of grammatical construction. This is consistent throughout the Scriptures.Spirit of God (ruach) in the Torah (the first five books of the Bible), however, is referred to in the feminine. So, while some aspects of the Trinity are described as exclusively masculine, the Spirit in the Torah is seen as feminine. There are also a few metaphors in the Bible that compare God to women, or God is seen as taking on roles traditionally held by women. These scattered verses should be interpreted as they were intended-as metaphors, not as statements about God's gender. For example, see Deuteronomy 32:18, Psalm 131:2, and Hosea 13:8. In each of these instances, God is metaphorically cast in a feminine role, but nothing can be said directly about God's gender or sex.
In the New Testament, God incarnates Himself as male in the person Jesus. The Holy Spirit is in the neuter gender (as opposed to masculine or feminine). The Holy Spirit in the New Testament is genderless.
The above is barely a thumbnail sketch of the issue, but it does point us in a direction. God has chosen to reveal Himself to us as male. Perhaps this is why the church is referred to as the bride of Christ. At the same time, Christians have acknowledged from the beginning of our movement that God, as a Spirit being that does not have a physical body like ours, is beyond sex and gender (sex being tied to biology and gender being the more recent social construct). God is the perfect expression of all that it means to us to be male and all that it means to us to be female.
How does a masculine understanding of God affect your view of God? Share your thoughts in the comments.
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