Is God a Man?
Is God male or female?
“The sexes in each species of being… are always true equivalents — equals but not identical” said the Christian preacher Antoinette Brown Blackwell. According to the Christian message, this is certainly true of humans – men and women are created equally in God’s image (Genesis 1:27).
However, gender equality between people implicitly raises another question: What about God’s gender? Is God male or female?
The question itself reflects a deep truth about human connection: For us to be in meaningful relationship with someone, we need to see them as relatable. The question of whether God is male or female raises important and interesting questions about what God is, who God is, who we are, why we are here. Perhaps most importantly, it points us to how God wants to relate to us.
What is God?
The Bible is clear that God is neither male nor female in a biological sense. He is ‘spirit’ – meaning that God does not have a gender in the way that human beings do (John 4:24, 2 Corinthians 3:17).
So, put simply, the answer to the question of whether God is male or female is relatively simple: No. God exists most fundamentally in the metaphysical realm.
God is the creator of the universe and all within it. However, unlike other fictional gods thought up through human history – like the Greek and Roman gods of the ancient world – the Christian God was not made or formed in the universe. The Christian God transcends the physical universe, existing eternally and primarily in the spiritual realm, not the physical. God does not by nature possess the things that distinguishes human males and females: differing chromosome compositions. These gender distinctions are found throughout God’s creation, but not in the Creator.
We are made in God’s image. God is not made in our image.
This can all sound a little technical, sterile and even mechanical. However, there is more to the story. God is beyond gender, but is not beyond relationality or relatability.
God as Father
While God exists primarily as spirit. God is also a person – in fact, God is three persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. This is how God reveals himself to the universe He created and this is how God describes Himself through His word – the Bible. You’ll notice from the preceding two sentences that as we unpack more about God and his personalities, we begin to use male pronouns and nouns that correlate with maleness: He, Him, Son, Father etc.
This reveals something important about God. While ‘He’ is spirit – neither male nor female – He regularly chooses male metaphors and images through which to personify himself. This is not because He is more male than female, but because using the metaphor of Father, is how God primarily wants to be thought of by people. He wants us to relate to Him as a child would their father. He wants a relationship of love, trust and closeness with us. He wants us to understand how he feels about us. And while this is simply not possible to fully understand using human language or human metaphors, the ideal relationship between a child and a loving, caring, compassionate, kind, strong and sacrificial father at least gives us a glimpse of God’s heart and his disposition towards us. Accordingly, God’s first self-disclosure to humanity – evident in the Bible – is as a Father.
Masculine references to God throughout the Bible – such as Father and King – are anthropomorphic analogies used to describe to us something of the heart and nature of God, and how we should relate to Him. They are not literal, but they are important.
However, it’s also worth noting that throughout the Bible, there are several examples of God self-describing Himself using characteristics and traits that are traditionally considered more feminine than masculine. These include metaphorical descriptions of God as a loving mother (Isaiah 66:13), a nursing mother (Isaiah 49:15), one who gives birth (Deuteronomy 32:18), a woman in labour (Isaiah 42:14), and a hen gathering her chicks (Matthew 23:37 and Luke 13:34). Above all, these examples show that the limitations of human language, imagery and even gender are insufficient to properly describe the heart of God. Accordingly, God’s personification as a Father (with other sporadic uses of maternal and feminine imager) is intended not as an indicator of gender, but in order to help us better understand and relate to God.
God as Son
To further God’s central project of restored relationship with people, the greatest act of self-disclosure that He engaged in was stepping into the world as a person. When He did, he chose to do so as a male – Jesus Christ. The Bible is silent on why He chose to come as a man and not as a woman. Usually, when the Bible is silent on something, it is because God does not consider that thing of central relevance to what humankind should take note of.
However, it should be noted that there is a difference between God’s self-disclosure as a Father in scripture – which is primarily metaphorical – and God’s self-disclosure as a Son, Jesus Christ, which is both metaphorical and literal. The metaphor holds on a few different levels here. Fathers biologically pass on much of their nature to their sons. So it is with God the Father and God the Son, Jesus. The second member of the Trinity stepped into the world, lived, died and rose, as a human male.
However, the more important thing for us to note is not so much Jesus’ gender, but the fact that Jesus is God. The two most important things about Jesus are his divinity and his humanity, not his gender. If God’s metaphorical self-disclosure as a Father throughout scripture, was for the purpose of humankind better understanding and relating to Him, then God’s literal self-disclosure as a person stepping into human history takes this project of relatability between God and humankind, to an astonishing new level.
God is Love
In our age of Artificial Intelligence, digitalisation and technocratic prowess, much is being made about whether men and women can transcend the historical limits of our species – whether we can become like gods: Homo Deus. However, the transformative beauty of the Christian message is anchored not on the nature of men and women nor whether God is male or female, but in the historical fact that God stepped into the world as a human to redeem and restore humankind.
God is beyond gender, but He is not beyond relationship, relatability and love. God is our loving Father. God is a person – Jesus Christ. And God is at His core, relational, compassionate and kind.
While God is not male or female in the way that humans are, He uses both male and female imagery, metaphor and reference points to help us understand aspects of His heart, mind and disposition toward us. He does this in order to enliven us to his heart, his purpose and his ultimate plan for our flourishing. That is, to be in loving relationship with Him and with each other.
Resources
Some possible video resources that might be helpful as supplementary material:
Video: ‘How Does Jesus Revolutionise Attitudes Towards Women?’, theocca.org
Video: ‘Is the Holy Spirit a “He,” “She,” or “It,” male, female, or neuter?’, gotquestions.org
Video: ‘Does God Have a Gender? Dan Paterson
Learning More
OCCA The Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics was established in 2004 to raise up the next generation of evangelist-apologists. By 2021, around 350 emerging evangelists from around the world had studied on the OCCA one-year programme. This course equipped each of them to share and defend the gospel message and to come alongside others to help them with their intellectual objections and heartfelt concerns about the Christian faith. Subscribe to our weekly newsletters to see our latest articles from our team of speakers.
Max Jeganathan