Last week we talked about how to love trans* people the way Christ loves people. You can read that article here. God loves people by affirming who he designed them to be, and that’s the most loving thing we can also do. Our culture is currently encouraging people to affirm however they feel about themselves, even if it contradicts obvious biological design and function. Here’s what we learn from the Bible about your body, the origin of gender, and why it’s such a beautiful thing.
1. Your body is God’s exquisite gift to you; it is not an accident.
Humankind is not the product of an evolutionary accident, and your body is not playdough that’s malleable to your personal wishes. If there’s anything molecular biology has taught us, it’s that our bodies and brains are the most sophisticated pieces of biological/technological machinery in the universe. You are the thoughtful design of a loving creator, and your body is engineered with exquisite care and dignity.
Human life is exceptionally intimate and precious to God (Genesis 2:7). Ephesians also calls us “God’s handiwork” (2:10).
The psalmist (139:13-16) exalts in this:
“For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed body.”
2. Without your body, you cease to exist.
You experience the world through your body; it is essential to your life, and without it, you don’t exist. Furthermore, you can only experience the empirical world through your body. Your body interprets external data in the world; it is not the originator of those truths. The traditional Judeo-Christian teaching believes in life after death, but it is in conjunction with a resurrected body. Our soul and body are mysteriously fused together.
“God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed, he gives its own body. Not all flesh is the same: People have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another, and fish another...so will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body” (1 Corinthians 15:38-39; 42-44).
3. Your body is sexed male or female.
Your gender is inseparably fused to your biological body. Maleness and femaleness come preloaded. “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27).
When we talk about sex-gender, we’re not talking about social roles: something you do or don’t do, or activities you like or don’t like. Maleness and femaleness are the celebration of God’s image stamped into your body-being. There’s something essential and infinitely valuable about God’s nature that he has shared in the hardwiring of both sexes, and it’s not a mistake. There are 6,500 ways males are different from females. Sex is written on every cell of the human body. Just because a woman or a man has sexual organs removed, or just because they pump random amounts of the opposite-sex hormone into their body doesn’t somehow convert them to the opposite gender. Everything in their muscular, cardiovascular, neurochemical, skeleton structure, organ design, and sensory performance reflects this anatomically gendered difference.
4. There is no superior sex.
Gender roles are man-made and not God assigned. Every command God gives to mankind in Genesis 1, he gives to men and women together. “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” Men are not superior creations to women. Women are not superior creations to men. Women are not afterthoughts of God’s original creation. They were created distinctly so that the man would see his dependence upon the woman (i.e., Genesis 2). Indeed, the word used to describe the woman— “helpmate” is also used elsewhere to describe the Holy Spirit coming to rescue his people. Far from being inferior, the woman is quite literally a companion rescuer to the man. Both men and women have inherent and unique worth and are designed to complement and rely on the other; they lead and rule over the earth together.
5. God designed maleness and femaleness to reveal himself—your sex/gender reveals God.
Your sex/gender is not an inconvenient fact about you. It is God’s celebration within you. He shares a vital aspect of himself with you and makes you in such a way that you can commune with an essential aspect of himself.
I believe a large majority of the reasons people struggle with gender identity are the social expectations we’ve created about what it means to be a man or woman, or the wounds we’ve caused in people through sexual trauma (or early exposure), or the destructive actions and words that have caused people to feel like their gender is not safe, good, or beautiful. At the core of each of us is a longing to be accepted exactly the way we are. I can confidently embrace what is true about me because God celebrates the good he created in me.
6. Gender and sexuality reveal God!
[Christopher West writes a wonderful book, Fill These Hearts, from which I’ve taken most of the remaining content directly.]
"Every living thing in creation is designed to reproduce. Every plant, every tree, every shrub, every blade of grass tells the story of a seed that found purchase in fertile soil." Nature is cascading with life. The union of masculinity and femininity, in a way that reproduces life, is infused all over the world. We were all born through the union of man and woman. God is not embarrassed about your body or your sexuality. It is his bold proclamation that he is a God of life.
Observe carefully how life is produced out of the union of two people who are different from each other yet compatible. Mankind, more precisely male and female, unite together, and in this union and reproduction we project the image of God into the world. The book of Ephesians (5:31-32) tells us God wasn’t just looking for a good analogy to describe himself; he invented marital union and reproduction to dramatize what is true about himself.
The Genesis 2:24 statement captures this truth, “That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh. Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.” “Our bodies are designed to make visible what is invisible, the spiritual and the divine.” “Christ is the one who ‘left father and mother’ to give up his body for his Bride, so that the Church might become ‘one body, one spirit’ with him.”
Man’s body makes no sense by itself. A woman’s body makes no sense by itself. Together they reveal a greater mystery. God is infinitely other than, and different from creation. Yet he does not hold himself back from us. His desire is to unite with creation. The marriage of divinity and humanity is what this is all about. God is a Bridegroom, different yet compatible. The greatest Bridegroom unifies with his creation and produces life. John records the mystical words of Jesus, “On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you” (John 14:20).
Isn’t it fascinating how, “the Bible begins and ends with marriages—the marriage of Adam and Eve is the high point of the creation story in Genesis, and the marriage of the New Adam and the New Eve, Christ and the Church, is the high point of the redemption story in the book of Revelation.” The first human words capture the longing for union. And the final human words capture the Bride’s desire for the coming of the Bridegroom (Rev 22:17,20).
Summary:
God loves your sex/gender. It is his gift to you and the body through which you experience union with him. Your sex/gender is his metaphor to declare his glory and goodness. It should not surprise us that there is a war for the truth over our identity and gender because the enemy of God is constantly making war on God's truth and his image in the earth. Your body tells God’s story. Are you living according to your feelings and confusion about who you are in the universe, or are you choosing to tell the truth about God’s design for cosmic union? He wants you to know his life and peace, but you have to trust in his truth about his design for your body.
Tags: truth, love, listen, sex, gender, body, confusion, scriptures, evolution, female, male, therapy, transgender, god's design, gender-affirming care, no accident
