In the Image of God: Male and Female

Today's Reading

Read Genesis 1:26-28: "Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.' So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them."

Then read Genesis 2:18-25, where God creates woman from man's side, and the man exclaims: "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh."

Reflection

Before we can talk about sexuality, we have to talk about creation. And before we can talk about creation, we have to understand what the Bible actually claims about who we are.

Genesis makes two staggering assertions. First, every human being — without exception — is made in the image of God. This is the foundation of all human dignity. It is not earned by moral performance, not contingent on sexual behavior, and not forfeited by sin. Every person who has ever lived, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity, bears the image of the living God. Any Christian ethic of sexuality that forgets this has already gone wrong.

Second, Genesis presents the creation of humanity as male and female as part of God's good design — not an afterthought, not a social construction, but an intentional feature of what it means to be human. The man's exclamation in Genesis 2:23 is one of sheer delight: finally, a counterpart, a complement, someone who is like him and yet gloriously different.

C.S. Lewis reflected on the intersection of body and spirit in human sexuality: "The sexes are the point at which the animal life of man and the spiritual life of man most obviously intersect." For Lewis, this meant that sexual difference is not merely biological — it carries meaning that runs deeper than anatomy.

Tim Keller argued similarly that "God made us male and female as complementary partners in his image. These are not social constructs but creation gifts." The traditional Christian view does not begin with prohibition but with celebration: the body is good, sexual difference is good, and marriage between man and woman is good.

But we must be careful. Some Christians have turned sexual difference into a rigid hierarchy that Genesis does not support. The text says both male and female bear God's image equally. The helper God creates is not a subordinate — the same Hebrew word ezer is used of God himself elsewhere in the Old Testament. The creation narrative affirms both equality and difference, and the church has not always held these in balance.

Going Deeper

As you begin this plan, sit with the goodness of creation before rushing to questions of fallenness. God looked at everything he had made — including embodied, gendered humanity — and called it "very good." What would it mean to approach every conversation about sexuality from a posture of gratitude for God's creation rather than anxiety about cultural change?