CREATED: MALE AND FEMALE IN GOD’S IMAGE
Who am I?
Why am I here?
What is the purpose of my life?
If you are asking these questions, you are having what is called an “identity crisis.” It happens to many people. There comes a time when everything feels meaningless and you grope and search for a foundation on which to live. Until you rediscover your identity, enjoying life is elusive. Your questions about identity are not isolated. They are echoes of a larger cultural earthquake.
Humanity, especially here in the west, has been suffering an identity crisis on a large scale for decades. In Canada and the US, understanding our humanity and our gender has become one of the most important issues of our times. The questions being asked have to do with what it means to be human, about being male and female. This is where the crisis finds its root: What does it mean to be human?
The answer should be straightforward; the truth is right in front of us, we muse. Yet the concept of truth has been divided into two categories. Francis Schaeffer illustrated this with the picture of a two-storey house. In the lower storey is that which is objectively true and testable – this is the stuff “everybody knows.” In the upper storey we find morality, private, subjective beliefs and feelings and preferences. You could say it’s a division of facts and values.
What we face today is a society that leans towards living in the second storey and ignoring the facts. It’s common to hear, “that’s true for you but not true for me.” What a person “feels” trumps what is empirically true.
But the gospel doesn’t invite us to choose a storey – it restores the whole house. Genesis 1:26-28 lays the groundwork for our identity: who we are and what our purpose is. So, we want to look at three major affirmations in Genesis that emphasize our identity as humans created by God, male and female.
1. We are Created by God (Genesis 1:26a)
The first affirmation is that humans are created by God.
In a culture that ignores God or says, “God is dead,” this is not a universal belief. But in the ancient world everyone believed that humans were created by some divine being or beings. Whether the gods made humans out of mud to be their slaves to do work they didn’t want to do or some god created humans as his toys, humans were made by someone.
Genesis 1:26 states that the One true God who created the heavens and the earth, finished his week of Creation Work by making humanity. This is a theological statement as well as a biological one. In a world that believed in many gods, the Hebrews declared that there is only one God and he is the Creator. He created humans and he blessed them. Three times in verse 27 it says God created us.
Mark Twain would joke that God made humans at the end of his work week when he was tired. Imagine the work of God throughout that week and then concludes with man. Was humankind an afterthought? Adam Ramsey said, “Everything that God had made up to this point – the unique glory of each galaxy; the countless stars, whose names and number are known only by him; the beauty of this world in its original state of pre-curse purity; the creative diversity of every living creature in the sky, on land and in the sea – all of it was a warm-up for the creation of the first two human bodies.” We are the climax of God’s creation, not the last-gasp effort of God to include gardeners in his world.
In our modern world, the common understanding is that nobody created us. We are the product of evolution. But if our origins are ultimately impersonal, then meaning becomes something we must invent, not receive. Humanity thus is the product of a random universe that is slowly dying away.
Do you know what that means? Impersonal origins (no Creator) leads to an invented meaning (we have to make it up) and thus, an unstable identity. Then nothing matters. If nothing matters, you can do whatever you want to do. There is no accountability and there is no meaning to life, so stop trying to find it. So, those of you who want to be free of consequences and desire autonomy, this is the philosophy for you. And yet it’s a bleak reality if you choose it.
That’s where Genesis 1:26-28 offers us hope. It is good news! This text teaches us that there is a Creator God who is all powerful and can create out of nothing! He created us. And he created us to be loved. We have a reason for being: it is to know God; it is to grow in relationship with God. He made us for a purpose… That we are created by God belongs in the lower storey; it is a reality and not a preference.
2. We are Created in the Image of God (Genesis 1:26b-27b)
The second affirmation is that we are created in the image of God. “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…”
What does it mean to be created in God’s image? This is very important because it is in this affirmation that we find meaning in life. Many scholars have wrestled with explaining what it means to be created in the image of God. Does it rest in our abilities to think, to reason, to judge and discern? Is it our ability to communicate or have relationships?
If we say that being created in the image of God is about any kind of ability and if our worth is based on something we can do, what if we can’t do it? This is not just a theoretical issue – it has real implications for how we treat the most vulnerable. If, for instance, image-bearing is about cognitive thinking, we as Christians should have no problem aborting fetuses, because they cannot think.
This is where the two-storey house comes into play. The question of when life begins becomes subjective. Pro-choice advocates tell us that life begins at birth. A Princeton bioethics professor goes further to say that true personhood cannot be assigned to a newborn until it has passed certain tests regarding its humanity. And if it does not pass the test, he says, the child forfeits the right to life. The lower storey – the biological, objective facts are deemed irrelevant to personhood, while the upper storey values determine who we are. If you don’t have those, you aren’t really human.
Being created in the image of God is not about our ability – it speaks to our identity. Who are we?
In the Hebrew, “image” means “statue.” It could be wooden or stone. The word is “icon” and is used for idols. An image of a god in the ancient world was a statue that represented the god. It may not look exactly like the god it represents, but it was recognized by everyone as a reminder of that god’s presence. When a person passed the statue, they believed that the presence of that god was somehow in it.
It was often believed that kings were specifically viewed as the image of a god. Caesar Augustus was believed to be a son of the gods, a representation of their divine presence.
But now in Genesis 1 we see a radical shift in thought, a revolutionary idea. It’s not just the king who is the image of a god, but every human being whom God has created. Every person represents the Living God. To each of us is given this responsibility to rule over the earth and have dominion over God’s creation. Each child in the womb possesses dignity and honor because God has declared it so. Even the person who is in a coma or has severe disabilities possesses this dignity because it is not dependent on what they can do, but on who they are as God’s icon.
If the common understanding of most Canadians resides in the second storey value system – you don’t stand a chance. Genesis 1:26, however, places a high value on every human being. This is what the psalmist recognized in Psalm 8:5-8. Being created in the image of God is a gift of identity and purpose that the world does not offer you. Which storey of the house do you want to live in?
3. We are Created Male and Female…in the image of God
The third affirmation is that God has created us in his image male and female. “So, God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”
We have observed that it is not only the king who represents God on the earth, but every person. Now the radical revelation of humanity continues as the writer of Genesis says that male AND female are created in God’s image. That men and women are equal is taken for granted somewhat in our present day, but for the ancient world this was mind-blowing.
But what makes us male and female? Is it the activities we engage in or the work we do? Men hunt and women cook. But Esau was the man’s man who with his hairy biceps took down a deer with his bare hands. Jacob liked to stay at home with mom and cook. Lydia in the NT was a merchant, a seller of purple cloth – was she less feminine?
In the 1960s boys were not supposed to play with dolls, those are for girls, so the toy companies invented action figures. What are action figures? Dolls! When we impose expectations of play or work on gender, we are adding to the confusion of our times. Cultural stereotypes set aside, maleness and femaleness have nothing to do with an internal sense that disagrees with their biology. For some, this is a simple reality plug – you have no problem with what I’m saying. But for others, they feel like there is a battle with in themselves and they wish they could agree. Many of us have no idea how deep the pain is for those struggling with sexual identity.
But we can see how fractured the truth is today The lower storey – the biological reality is irrelevant. The upper storey where feelings are valued reveals your “true self.” Some years ago, the City of New York released a list of 31 separate gender identities and the number could rise. We live in a culture that wants to blur the boundaries so that we don’t have to accept them.
If God has created us male and female as part of his design for being human, it is no wonder that Satan enjoys throwing humanity into confusion. God gave women dignity in being women and men in being men. We may not all fit the mold of the Viking or the princess, but our identity is found in God’s design.
Herman Bavinck explained it like this: “God is the Creator of the human being, and simultaneously also the Inaugurator of sex and of sexual difference. This difference did not result from sin; it existed from the very beginning, it has its basis in creation, it is a revelation of God’s will and sovereignty and is therefore wise and holy and good. Therefore, no one may misconstrue or despise this sexual difference, either within one’s own identity or in that of another person…”
Who am I and why am I here? Your identity is established in this well-known passage of Creation. We know it so well we may have overlooked its essential truths that we are created by God, in God’s image, male and female.
Dan Darling invites us to join a movement with these words, “Imagine, for a moment, if God’s people began to lead a new, quiet revolution whose foundation was a simple premise: every human being – no matter who they are, no matter where they are, no matter what they have done or have had done to them – possesses dignity, because every human being is created in the image of God. By God’s grace, our churches would change, and our communities would change.”
Anchored in God’s original design for humanity, our perspective – how we see ourselves and each other – is renewed. Your identity – my identity – as a male human or a female human – is grounded in Christ above all. Paul wrestled with his identity as a Jew in a Gentile world and the challenges that presented. He concluded, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me,” (Gal. 2:20).
Some of you hear this and it feels clear and steady.
Others hear this and it feels complicated, maybe even heavy.
But wherever you are this morning, this is where the gospel meets you.
You are not an accident.
You are not a mistake.
You are not left alone to figure yourself out.
You were created by God, in his image, with intention and care. And even where sin has fractured our world—and our own sense of self—Jesus Christ steps in, not to erase you, but to redeem you.
He does not say, “Figure out who you are and come back to me.”
He says, “Come to me, and I will show you who you are.”
So come—not with everything sorted out, not with perfect clarity—but come.
Because your truest identity is not something you achieve - it is something you receive.
AMEN
Sources consulted:
Craig Thiessen, "World Reframed: In the Image of God"
Darryl Dash, "God's Original Design for Men and Women"
Nancy Pearcy's book "Love Thy Body"
Genesis 1-15, By Gordon J. Wenham
