God's gender

These are my thoughts. I'm not the final authority. Read this and work out your own answers. There, that's my disclaimer. Happy reading.

If God is everything, then does that mean that he is both genders as well? If he is both genders, then why do we mainly refer to him as a him? If God is female, does that change what I've been taught about women leading? These are all valid questions. I would have to do a ton more research to answer those questions with any semblance of authority. For now I will only concentrate on supporting evidence for God being both male and female. There seems to be a shift in gender between the testaments. He takes on feminine attributes in the Old Testament while in the New Testament he takes on more masculine attributes.

This is not to say that God is exclusively feminine in the Old Testament. We see several instances in the Old Testament of God's masculinity: God is "strong and mighty" (Ps. 24:7ff), God is a "punisher of the wicked" (Gen. 18:25). We also see, however, that there are many instances in the Old Testament where God is given feminine attributes. The writers describe God as a seamstress in Genesis (he made clothes for Adam and Eve); a mother in Isaiah 46:3 ("you have been borne by Me from birth"); a mother in Deuteronomy 32:18 ("...and forgot the God who gave you birth"); compared to a nursing woman in Isaiah 49:15 (as a woman forget her nursing child..."); compared to a mother bear in Hosea 13:6-8 ("...like a bear robbed of her cubs"). The bonus would be Matthew 23:37 where Jesus likens himself to a mother hen gathering her chicks.

In contrast to this feminine theme in the Old Testament, in the New Testament we see what appears to be a stark shift in gender assignment when referring to God. One of the first (and perhaps the most noticeable) difference we see is that God is rarely referred to alone or directly. Most of the time we read about Jesus rather than God. Jesus repeatedly refers to God as "father" (John 16:28- "I came from the Father...", John 6:57 - "...Father sent me...", Matthew 6:9 - "Our Father who is in heaven..."); Jesus is the son of God (1 John 5:10, 2 Corinthians 1:19, Mark 5:7). From my research (not exhaustive by any means) it seems that the hundreds of masculine pronouns used to describe God are meant to employ the secondary definition in much the same way as "man" or "mankind" can be used to refer to all of humanity and not just the males.

We are created in God's image. Understanding that God is not physical, what does this mean? Certainly we are not tiny carbon copies of God. God doesn't have a penis nor a vagina. What it means is that in the same way that God is a spiritual being, so too are we with the exception that our spirits are clothed with physical bodies crafted from the dust of the earth (Genesis 2:7). God's gender doesn't change the basis of my salvation. I file this topic in the category of "interesting but not crucial to understand." I hope this has been at least slightly interesting to you. You asked me a question and I wanted to be sure to answer with due diligence. Thanks for asking me and reading this far.