Male and Female in God’s Image

Dannah Gresh: The Bible says you and I are created in the image of God. And in some mysterious way, our design as male and female has something to do with it. Here’s Mary Kassian.

Mary Kassian: One of the things that my husband and I seek to do is to live out who we are as male and female, but who we are in our marriage, even, as an image and reflection of God. We’ve found over the years that people have been attracted to Christ because they have been attracted to what they see through us in our relationship, what they see in us individually. We are the image, we are the picture of God that draws them to Jesus. They go, “Wow, that is so attractive! Wow, that’s amazing! Wow, that’s beautiful! I want that.”

Dannah: This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, coauthor of True Woman 101: Divine Design, for September 16, 2021. I’m Dannah Gresh.

Nancy: I know something about you, Dannah. That I think our regular listeners are not going to be surprised to hear.

Dannah: What's that?

Nancy: This is the statement, that you really love your grandbabies.

Dannah: That is definitely true!

Nancy: In fact, if you ever run into Dannah, she will more than likely pull out her phone to show you a cute photo or two or 300 of Addie and Zoe, her twin granddaughters.

Dannah: You bet! You want to see one now?

Nancy: Sure I do, but why don't you save it for later.

Here’s my point: Every chance she gets, Dannah is showing pictures and telling stories about those sweet, little girls because she loves those precious twins. I think that’s just a little picture of the purpose for which God created everything. He wants to show off His glory at every possible opportunity. God designed everything we can see in this world to show off His amazing glory, His majesty, His splendor.

Dannah: But of all the amazing things God made, the only being He created “in his own image” was man. “Male and female He created them,” it says in Genesis chapter 1.

Nancy: Yesterday, we heard the beginning portion of something our good friend Mary Kassian shared for a documentary called “In His Image.” It's produced by our friends at American Family Radio. Mary's helping us see how mankind's creation as man and woman, with all of the design differences God included, was actually something good and, well, it’s another picture of His amazing attributes And we find out later in Scripture, it's critical to understanding the whole redemption story.

Dannah: If you missed that episode of Revive Our Hearts, you can listen to it through the Revive Our Hearts app, or by visiting ReviveOurHearts.com.

Nancy: When we left off yesterday, Mary was taking us through that creation account in Genesis chapters 1 and 2. You might want to open your Bible there. She's showing us some of the God-created design differences between men and women. As you listen, remember: different isn’t bad. In fact, these differences are good because God designed them that way.  

Let’s continue now with Mary Kassian.

Mary: The woman was created from the man, drawn out of his side. I think that has significance, because we are told in the New Testament that that is the basis of a woman respecting her husband. I think of a general for male and female, just a respect and just an attitude of not looking down on—respect your beginnings. Don’t look down on them.

That’s something that I told my son when he went off to play NHL hockey. I said, “Don’t you ever forget where you came from!” I think that’s the thing that women are told in the New Testament: Don’t forget that there’s this relationship, that you were drawn from men, and that the reason you exist is because he existed first. That’s important for you to have an attitude of deep respect for that and an attitude of respect for men in general.

I think it’s so easy for women nowadays to disrespect men, to disrespect manhood, because we see sin, we see how sin has broken men. We become cynical, and we think that we’re better than men. So this is a really important reminder, for us to respect that and to remember that.

The fact that woman was created from the man also in the New Testament is the basis for a woman respecting the oversight and the guidance and the spiritual direction, the headship, of her husband in the home. That’s an important point. Paul refers back to Genesis, back to creation. He goes, “Because you were created this way, because God made you this way, this has implications, and this means something for the way that you do house, for the way that you do life. It means something for the way that you interact as husband and wife as a married couple.”

Genesis talks about that God sets about to create a helper for the man. That’s a really interesting phrase, because the woman was created for the man. Again, Paul refers back to that creation term in the New Testament to say that there are implications for manhood and womanhood, because woman was created for the man. I think that begs the question, “What does that mean, to be created for the man?” Does that mean we’re created for him to use and abuse as he wishes? Is that we’re created as a helper mean that—what do we help him do? What does that mean? Do we have to pick up his socks, do his laundry, cook his meals? Is that what it means to be a helper?

I think not. I think that what it means in here to be created for the man, to be a helper for the man—first of all, to be created for someone means that a woman is a highly relational being. A woman draws her identity from relationship in a way that man does not. Men draw their identity from work in a woman does not; women draw their identity from relationship. Women are highly relational; they are drawn to connection, drawn to intimacy, drawn to relationship. Men are also, but in a different way. I think women are drawn to relationship. We see that when women go to the washroom. We go to the washroom to relate and to connect and to interact. We often draw our sense of identity from our relationships more than we do from what we do. We do also from what we do, but more so from our relationships.

Also, it begs the question, what was woman created to help man do? I think the answer to that question is what women were created to be a helper in terms of fulfilling man’s ultimate goal, which is to bring glory to God. So, woman plus man glorifies God, helps Him glorify God in a way that man could not do were he to be alone. Woman plus man glorifies God, brings God glory in a way that man cannot do by himself. Woman plus man in a marriage relationship produces fruit, it produces children, it creates life. One could say that the New Testament equivalent of that is Christ plus the Church produces life. It produces new life, it produces new children for the family of God. So woman was created as a helper to help man glorify God. She was created for man, and that means that she’s a highly relational being. She’s the relater, responder that has a soft spot in her heart that yearns to be filled. That’s who God created woman to be when He created her for relationship.

God created woman to be a helper fit for him, and that term “fit for him” is also really interesting, because it means like, corresponding. It’s almost like mirror image, as in like opposites. She’s equal, and yet she’s not exactly the same. She’s corresponding to him. I think that’s where the term “complementarity” comes in. She complements him, that a woman bears the image of God fully and completely in who she is as a woman; a man bears the image of God fully and completely in who he is as a man. A woman doesn’t need a man in order to be an image bearer of God. She’s not a half image bearer, she is a full image bearer. Yet there is a complementarity.

I always like to use the illustration of camera angles, because it’s the same image. It’s the full image, and yet different angles that male and female will bring to the table of the image and the glory of God.

If we truly understood the value that God places on us in terms of being image bearers of the Almighty God, I think that we would live differently. I think that we would treat each other with far more love and kindness and respect; that men would treat women with much more respect, that women would treat men likewise with more respect; that there would be a sense of awe that we are image bearers of the most holy God. There would be a lot more reflection, perhaps, care given in terms of the way we live.

If I truly believe that I am bearing the image of God, that my life is to tell the story of God, and that stepping into that for me brings me wholeness and joy, then I would live differently. I would treat people differently. I think that that would make an incredible impact in the world.

One of the things that my husband and I seek to do is to live out who we are as male and female, but who we are in our marriage, even, as an image and reflection of God. We’ve found over the years that people have been attracted to Christ because they have been attracted to what they see through us in our relationship, what they see in us individually; that we are the image, we are the picture of God that draws them to Jesus. They go, “Wow, that is so attractive! Wow, that’s amazing! Wow, that’s beautiful! I want that.”

That’s the way to change the world, is by living out who we are as image bearers of Christ. That will make an impact in our communities, in our cities, and in our nation.

When God brought Eve to Adam, the woman to the man, Adam breaks into this amazing poem. He just goes, “Oh, wow, this is bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman, for she was drawn from man.” It’s interesting that he names her and that she is happy about that. Nowadays, women wouldn’t necessarily be happy about that. It would be, “Well, I’ll name myself, thank you very much.”

But I think that the first male and female, before the entrance of sin in the world, really intuitively knew how to respond and relate as men and women, male and female, and that when Adam provided this initiative, that she just was glad about it, and she responded to it. They weren’t pulling in opposite directions, they were pulling in the same direction. He did what he did as the man, she did what she did as a woman, and it worked to provide this unity and this oneness. It was an amazing unity. They weren’t pulling in opposite directions, they were one, and I think that that also was created to reflect and image the oneness of the triune God.

The man says, “This is bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman, for she was drawn from man.” Those words for man and woman are really interesting. It’s like a play on words in the Hebrew. It’s ish, isha. There’s a sameness about it, and yet there’s kind of a difference about it as well.

The word ish, for “man,” the root of it comes from the word “strength,” whereas isha comes from softness or vulnerability, kind of a softer kind of root to that word. I think that the man saw and identified in the names things that he saw and identified as subtle differences in terms of male and female. Man brings a strength to the table. Not to say that women aren’t strong (I believe that women are to be very strong in the right kind of way), but a woman brings a softness and a responsiveness to the table in terms of womanhood, in a way that differs from man.

I think that we see these differences reflected even in our physical bodies, and even in the act of sex. We see these differences in terms of initiation and movement towards and responsiveness reflected bodily in terms of who God created male and female to be.

I think that those bodily differences are also ontological differences that are reflected in the naming of man and woman and in the essence of who we are as male and female.

The woman was created in the garden, and that’s also very interesting. Man was created out in the wild, woman was created in the garden. She was created already in a place where there was oversight and there was protection and there was provision. I think that God wanted His final piece of creation, the woman that He loved so dearly, to always be protected, always to be provided for, to be looked out for. I think that there is nothing worse or more heinous to the heart of God than when women are abused and assaulted and taken advantage of. I think that God wanted His women to be in a safe place and to be in a place of wholeness and to be in a place where they were cherished, just as Christ cherishes the Church, that He wanted His girls to be cherished. Created in the garden is a bit of a reflection of that.

Also, I think being created in that place in the garden also indicates that the woman has a unique connection to the home in a way that the man does not. He was out, he comes in, and he’s out. Now, that doesn’t mean that a woman doesn’t work or leave the home, or that she’s the one that does all the housework, or that the husband doesn’t do housework, or that it’s not cooperative in terms of looking after the home. But I think that woman has a connection to create a home and to create a nest. Woman is, in a sense, the maker of the home, lining the nest with feathers, so to speak. She has the capacity to do that. She has the capacity to create a welcoming space, to create a space where people can come and feel nourished and nurtured, and that relational space where the family could come into that space and just be nurtured relationally and be looked after and be cherished. I think a woman has a unique connection to the home in that way and a unique capacity that way.

Incidentally, I think that every woman is given a home, even if a woman is not married. If a woman is single, she is also given a home, and she also has that unique capacity as a woman to be a mother and to mother and to nurture those in her sphere of influence. If it’s a volleyball team, if it’s colleagues at work, if it’s neighbors—whoever it is, I think that a woman has that capacity in terms of who she is. God created her to be, to be a homemaker for them and to provide a home and an environment conducive to growth, where she can welcome people in.

In Genesis 2 we see a lot of details about the creation of male and female, where the creation of the male differed from the creation of the female. The male was the firstborn, God created him out in the wild from the dust of the ground, put him in the garden, gave him the responsibility to work for on behalf of someone else, and to protect, to keep the garden, to work and to keep the garden. He gave him spiritual instruction. He wanted him to exercise oversight over what was going on in his sphere of responsibility, in naming the animals. 

Then, when He created woman, He created woman from the side of man. He drew her out of man instead of creating her from the dust of the earth. I think that’s an important distinction, that she was created that way. She was created for the man. She was created to be a helper, to help the man glorify God. She was created to be a helper to the man; she was his perfect counterpart, who was to image God and to bring glory to God alongside and with the man. She was created to respond. She had this natural sense of amenability. Adam named her; she was amenable to that. She was happy to work in cooperation with the man. And she was created in the garden, in a place of safety and protection.

There are so many differences between male and female that we see in the creation account. I think that those differences are not inconsequential. Those differences also have an ontological cast to them, that they reflect who we are as male and female—not in the specifics of exactly what we do, but in a general sense of identity of who we are. I am a woman and that means that I am not a man, and man is not a woman, and that God has created these ontological differences and stamped them onto our very beings.

The fact that woman was the soft one, man was the strong one, does not mean that that is all woman is. Woman is also strength, man is also softness. I think that it’s just a sense of a cast of emphasis, perhaps, or priority. We see both of those things in male and female. It’s not a binary, where woman is all soft, man is all strong; but there’s just a difference in emphasis.

The Fall was tragic, because this beautiful, intimate relationship that functioned so well was immediately destroyed. Immediately male and female turned in on each other. I think that was the start of the tearing, the breaking, these differences between male and female that became destructive instead of helpful and useful.

We see that even in terms of the judgment that God placed on male and female, they were sex-specific, which is fascinating. He said to the man, “You’re going to have trouble working. The ground is going to rebel against you. You’re going to be frustrated in trying to make things work.” So the male in terms of his identity, right there, that was directed towards the man. The ground is going to rebel against you; it’s going to bring thorns and thistles out.

The consequences of sin for the woman: “You’re going to have pain in childbearing, you’re going to have this negative type of desire for your husband, and he’s going to be harsh and rule over you.” The whole beauty and symmetry was destroyed. So woman was frustrated relationally, in her relationships with childbearing and relationships with her husband. Interesting, also, that the consequences of sin affect us sex-specifically. Obviously, they affect all of us. The work affects women as well, the relationality affects men as well. But those consequences were directed sex-specifically to male and to female.

So this whole battle of gender and the difficulty that we have in making relationships work, the difficulty that we have in knowing who we are, it all comes because we are fallen and because we live in a world that is just tainted by sin. My heart is tainted by it; my identity as a woman is tainted by it,;my view towards men is tainted by it; my husband is tainted by it. We’re all tainted by sin. That’s the bad news.

But the good news is that through Jesus Christ we’re pointed back to the created order, and we are pointed back to the way things were. We can get a taste of that again—not perfectly, but we can. We can reclaim that. We can reclaim our identity as male and female, man and woman, and begin to live out the beauty of our identity and the beauty and wonder of a relationship that goes back to that one-flesh wonder that was meant to mirror the relationship between Christ and the Church.

Dannah: We’re listening to a helpful exposition of what the Bible teaches about masculinity and femininity from author and speaker Mary Kassian. It’s especially needed in this day, when we’re told you can decide your own gender identity. But as we mentioned in yesterday's episode, we need to be careful. Our traditions and customs don't necessarily define true womanhood or true manhood.

Mary: The cultural expression of gender can change. Men in ancient times wore togas. Men today don’t wear togas, they wear jeans. Women used to wear petticoats, and I’m wearing pants today in this interview. So I think there’s a cultural expression that changes for gender. That expression changes over time, and I don’t think God is much concerned about that. However, I believe that He is concerned that we present ourselves to the world as the gender that we are born to be. I was born to be a woman; I present myself to the world as a woman. That has some cultural implications, but I don’t think that it’s stereotypical. I don’t think we can say that being a woman means that you like frilly, pink things, or that you like cooking, or that you can’t fix a car or race a motorbike. I’m really handy with construction, so I want power tools for Christmas; that’s what I want. That’s not stereotypical, and yet I’m a woman. Just because I build things doesn’t mean I’m not a woman.

A woman once came to me, and she was so excited because she was a dirt bike racer. She was so excited because in my book I talked about, “Yes, you can be a dirt bike racer and still be a woman!” She said that spoke to her so deeply, because so often we think of gender in terms of stereotypes. I don’t think the Bible presents cookie-cutter stereotypes. There’s a vast expression, there’s a whole plethora of interests and expressions and personalities—a whole range of them. We’re not wanting Stepford wives that are cookie cutter and all the same sort of personalities or lose our uniqueness or our giftedness. But I do think that there is something important in terms of the way we present ourselves to the world and the gender that we embrace.

It took me a while to embrace being a woman. I think that that was God’s desire for me to get to that point, to embrace being a woman, and to not only accept it, but to enjoy it. But I am a woman in terms of my personality, my gifts, my interests, and it doesn’t look the same as everyone else. It’s unique to me. The more I submit my heart to God, the more I become who He created me to be. The more I grasp who I am, the more I become me and the more I become (I think) the woman that God wants me to be.

There’s a difference between endorsing a stereotype of what the Bible teaches a woman should be and actually getting into the Word of God and asking the Lord, “What does this look like for me? What does this mean for me? Do I have the right heart?”

I found that when I went to the Word of God and read passages where it told me to submit to my husband, that was hard at first. It wasn’t easy. And yet, put into the context of Christ’s loving relationship to the Church, if I am doing what God wants me to do, and He’s doing what God wants Him to do, it creates such a freedom and a unity. You get a taste of the wonder, of the symmetry and the coheir and the oneness of the whole thing that I think God intended.

The danger with focusing so much on differences is that it’s all about the differences instead of all being about the oneness and unity. I think that the point of the differences is that they exist to facilitate the unity and the oneness.

Here’s the best analogy that I have for you. If we study the steps of the dance too hard, we can start tripping over our own feet; whereas, if we just learn to function in the dance, it becomes a thing of beauty and you move as one. That’s the best analogy that I can give you in terms of how the differences between male and female are meant to draw us together and to help us create a thing of beauty instead of stepping on each other’s toes.

I think that’s the point of it. We’re to honor and glorify God as male and female, but not separately, together. There is a fundamental unity and a fundamental equality. There are so many things in Scripture that talk about one another. There’s a fundamental emphasis on one another and doing things together. That’s an important part that we can’t lose sight of. I think sometimes we lose sight of the dance because we’re so focused on the steps of the dance. That’s the danger of focusing so much on our differences, because I think God wants us out there doing the dance as a thing of beauty, and just doing it together. That’s what He created us and He created the differences to bring about.

Dannah: Mary mentioned a Biblical term that is definitely not a popular concept, and I think it’s often misunderstood. Let me read from Ephesians chapter 5. "Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. . . . Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands." (vv. 22, 24)

And from Colossians chapter 3: "Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord." (v. 18)

Mary: Submission is a very difficult word nowadays. It has a lot of negative connotations. I actually like to use the word amenability, where God is calling me to be amenable. He’s calling me to be responsive to my husband’s oversight and headship of our family. When I think of it in that way, He’s calling me to respond to it and support it and pull in the same direction. That means that there’s dialogue. That means that I give my input. That means if there’s something I disagree with that I do voice that, that I express that; because it’s a partnership. I think that God created marriage to be a partnership. He created there to be an interaction.

I think when we think of submission in terms of being quiet, never saying anything, and being an obedient robot, I think we’re thinking the wrong thing. That’s not what Scripture teaches. It teaches that we are to be women in terms of softness and amenability and a responsiveness to our husbands and to men in general, and then to wrestle with that in terms of what that looks like. Because submission means that I do not follow my husband into sin. I am accountable to God first before I’m accountable to Him. It doesn’t mean a blind acquiescence, sort of, “Yes, yes, yes.” It means an intelligent amenability, responsiveness, and receptiveness to following my husband’s lead in our family.

Dannah: Nor does submission mean agreeing to something wrong or quietly enduring abuse. If that’s your situation, I want to encourage you today, as I always do when this topic comes up, to seek out a godly, mature men and woman in your church. If the law is being broken, you need to seek out civil authorities who can help you take the next steps to ensure you are safe.

When sin entered the picture, everything was marred. The beautiful things God created were suddenly stained, tarnished, distorted, and twisted. It’s so sad, isn’t it? 

Mary Kassian says the depth of that pain reaches all the way to the core of who God created us to be.

Mary: We are all broken. We are all sexually broken. We are all broken in terms of our identity. We’re on a journey. God is healing us. I think He’s making us more whole. Some of us that process goes quicker, some of us with deeper wounds, deeper issues, deeper hurts that can be a slow process, and it can be a very, very painful process.

I would say, if you are struggling with your sexuality and your gender identity, it is worth the struggle to do things God’s way and to try and honor God in that. You may never get to the point where you feel it is not a struggle, and yet all of Christian life is a struggle. Obeying God is a struggle; holiness is a struggle; righteousness is a struggle; saying no to sin is a struggle. I mean, it’s a lifelong struggle! I can experience significant victory in many areas and in many ways, and yet the fact that there’s a struggle doesn’t mean that you’re on the wrong path. The fact that it’s hard doesn’t mean that you should give up. The fact that it doesn’t feel right doesn’t mean that you put your feelings above the Word of God and say, “Well, I’m going to go with my feelings instead of what God says.”

As a Christian, the choice that I have made is to step recklessly and to step with faith into what God says and to say, “Yes, this is what I believe. I believe that this is what God says, and I’m going to honor Him even when it’s hard.”

I think the person who struggles with sexuality, with issues of gender identity or sexuality, I think that that person speaks to the glory and the faithfulness of God. Because that person is saying, “I trust God enough to trust Him with my very core identity of who I am, and I trust Him enough to know that He is God and I am not. I trust Him enough to know that He can bring healing but that, even if He doesn’t, He’s still God, and I will still honor Him.”

It’s like the story of the three guys in the fiery furnace, recorded in the book of Daniel, where he said, “God is fully able to deliver me, O king. But even if He doesn’t, know that He is God.” I think that’s what that person is saying, in terms of, “God is fully able to deliver me, but even if that tarries, even if it takes a long time, even if that deliverance does not come until the day I see Jesus face to face, He will deliver, and I will see it that day. It may not be during my lifetime, but that day will come when I am fully and completely whole, and fully and completely free ,and fully and completely who God created me to be.”

Dannah: Mary Kassian will be back to pray in just a moment. Before that, can I encourage you to get a copy of the Bible study she and Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth wrote? It’s True Woman 101: Divine Design, and together they explore many of these themes you’ve been hearing today. Nancy, tell us a little about that study.

Nancy: True Woman 101 is an eight-week study. You can work yourself through it at a pace of about twenty-minutes a day, five days per week. You can go through it on your own, but ideally, get a group of sisters to go through it with you. Either way, you’ll dig into the heart of true manhood and womanhood, and you'll discover the beauty, joy, and fulfillment of being exactly who God created you to be. 

Dannah: Here in the month of September, we’ll send you your own copy of True Woman 101 as a thank you for your donation of any size to support the ministry of Revive Our Hearts. Just ask for the study on womanhood when you contact us. This month, we are also sending a 5 x 7 beautiful print of one of our favorite phrases from Scripture: "Yes, Lord!" We'd love to include that with the True Woman 101 study when you make a donation of any amount this month. To give, visit ReviveOurHearts.com, or call us at 1–800–569–5959. 

Thanks again to American Family Radio for sharing Mary Kassian's interview with us!

Nancy: Monica Hall walked with the Lord for years. She had served as a pastor’s wife with joy. But after going through miscarriage and conflict in her church, she began to doubt the God she’d been serving so long.

Monica Hall: God, I don’t even know if You love me. I don’t know if it’s true that You are good.

Nancy: Have you ever been in a moment like that? I know I have. We will hear the story tomorrow and find out how Monica saw God’s goodness in action in her own life.

Now, here's Mary Kassian to close today's episode in prayer.

Mary: Heavenly Father, thank You for the gift of gender and sexuality and marriage. Thank You for who You made us as male and female. It’s an incredible thing, it’s an awesome thing to think that we are made in the image of the Almighty God.

Father, I pray that Your truth will pierce the darkness and Your truth will become clear in a world where things are becoming more and more muddy and unclear. Father, I just pray that the message of love and care may come through these words. I pray that each person listening may know that You value them, that You cared enough about them to create them with Your fingerprints on them. You want them not to become something that they are not, but You want to step into who they are. The only way that they can do that is through the power and redemption and wholeness and healing of stepping into the journey of walking with Jesus.

Father, I just pray that this may be a light in the darkness, that it may help straighten some of those crooked paths that we walk on. Thank You for Your love and Your care. Thank You for Your gift of the Word of God to bring us light, to bring us hope, and to bring us back into relationship with You. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Calling you to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ, this is Revive Our Hearts. Find more at ReviveOurHearts.com.