Is God A Man (Male) Or A Woman (Female)?

Last updated on: September 2, 2015 at 4:24 pm by Jack Wellman

Is God A Man (Male) Or A Woman (Female)? 2015-09-02T16:24:52-05:00 Jack Wellman

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God is described in the masculine in the Bible but is God truly male or female? How can we know?

Like the Angels

When Jesus was asked about whether there’ll be marriage in heaven or not, He said “For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven” (Mark 12:25) and He told them who were trying to trap Him “you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God” (Mark 12:24)? Angels have masculine names like Gabriel and Michael but that doesn’t mean that they are necessarily male in the human sense. Angels are neither male nor female because angels cannot procreate. God never created them with this capacity. Only men and women have this ability which is why God told them to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth” (Gen 1:28). The fact is that angels are spirit and some are commanded to minister to those who are saved (Heb 1:14) so the question is this; is God like the angels or is God a male? Or is God a female?

The Masculine

The Bible is written in the masculine gender in many places and often uses masculine terms to describe God or His activities. For example, when God is the pronoun, the Bible talks about “his everlasting power and divinity” (Romans 1:20) referring to God as a He. Even in the first book of the Bible, it says “This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day when God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. He created them male and female, and he blessed them and he named them Man in the day when they were created” (Genesis 5:1-2). There is no place in Scripture where God is referred to as being in the female gender but in every place it is always the male gender. This does not mean that God is a man. Only Jesus became a Man but He was also God. Paul wrote “And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Phil 2:8). Jesus, as an infant, “was circumcised [and] he was called Jesus” (Luke 2:21). God is a male in Jesus because Jesus was both God and Man, therefore, Jesus is a male but He became Man and entered into the flesh and Jesus as “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). Jesus, “being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Phil 2:8).

Why does it Matter?

It does matter whether God is male or female because truth matters. We cannot make human reasoning or assumptions about the attributes of God outside of the only source for truth and that is the Bible. The Bible clearly gives us the masculine of God as a He and there are no exceptions at all, anywhere in the Bible. Some translations have been written that are gender neutral but never is God’s gender translated into a genderless rendering in Scriptures; at least in any accurate translations. We must believe what the Bible says for all else is simply human speculation but the Bible never speculates on the gender of God. He is and has been and always will be referred to in the male gender and Jesus is actually both the male gender in the human form but also God.

Conclusion

The most important thing I can tell you is that you must repent of your sins and that means you must turn away from them and forsake them and then place your trust in your only hope of eternal life and of course, that is Jesus Christ (John 3:16-17). There is no speculation about how to be saved. As Peter said, “there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12), period!

Article by Jack Wellman

Jack Wellman is Pastor of the Mulvane Brethren church in Mulvane Kansas. Jack is also the Senior Writer at What Christians Want To Know whose mission is to equip, encourage, and energize Christians and to address questions about the believer’s daily walk with God and the Bible. You can follow Jack on Google Plus or check out his book Teaching Children the Gospel available on Amazon.

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