-Does God Have a Gender?
Q: Does God have a gender?
A: No
Gender is a physical characteristic and God is not a created physical being with flesh and blood but a spirit being outside of time and space (John 4:24, Luke 24:39).
Nevertheless, even though God does not have a gender as such; the conversation continues as a factor of human language and a description of relationship. Since God really has no gender, some have concluded that it really doesn’t matter what pronouns or gender specific language one might use in identifying God. While ‘it’ may sound too disrespectful for worship, in that line of thinking, ‘God the Mother’ is just as good as ‘God the Father.’ Better yet, since it supports the feminist movement and is more in tune with our modern Western culture.
However, I believe that we should be careful to use designations for God that are clearly supported by scripture.
First. The Bible should be recognized as the best and most authoritative source for identifying who God really is. Christianity is a revealed religion. So let’s review what we can find in the scriptures.
Many in favor of using feminine designations for God point to the scriptural passages which use feminine metaphors for the Divine (Isaiah 42:14, Isaiah 46:3, Isaiah 49:15, Isaiah 66:13, Luke 15:8-10). So there are scriptures which indicate that God’s personality may include some characteristics which are normally associated with women.
However, there are also scriptures referring to God as a ‘rock’ (Psalm 18:2), a ‘lion’ (Hosea 11:10), a ‘bear’ (Hosea 13:8), and as a’ bird with wings’ (Psalm 91:4) just to name a few. So anthropomorphisms and metaphors of God in the Bible are better understood as evidence for character and personality rather than gender.
Fact is, in the scriptures God is most clearly and consistently named and referred to using masculine pronouns and language.
Second. I believe as Christians we should continue to honor the designations Jesus used during his lifetime. Jesus consistently referred to God using masculine names and pronouns, particularly ‘Father.’
Some have pointed out that he did refer to God once as a woman looking for a lost coin in Luke 15:8-10 but that was actually a teaching parable. But no one would say in a similar passage that Jesus was really calling himself a female chicken (Matthew 23:37 or Luke 13:34) when he refers to himself as a ‘mother hen’ trying to gather together the folks in Jerusalem.
Third. All of the nations and cultures surrounding ancient Israel and Judah featured goddesses even though all of them were patriarchal societies. If the identity of God was merely a function of culture, the ancient Hebrews would have joined the rest of the world by adding a feminine deity to their worship.
However, the Hebrew prophets consistently condemned the inclusion of any goddesses in the homes and the worship of their people. Culturally it would have been a natural response to at lease emphasize a feminine nature of the One True God to combat the problem but that never really happened. Though there is some evidence related to the ‘Spirit of God’ that we will explore later.
Fourth. Traditional Christian Trinitarian theology should not be ignored since the doctrine was formed by carefully analyzing every single scriptural reference to the identity of God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. The Trinity is the defining doctrine of God accepted by all major Christian churches and denominations. So I believe it should be included in the discussions since a number of different issues are raised in the process.
-God The Father: The first person of the Godhead was consistently called ‘Father’ by Jesus Christ. Since he had a natural mother- Mary and the scriptures identified him as the ‘Son of God,’ it was natural for him to refer to God as ‘Father.’ But the scriptures go beyond that mere convenience. There really are no references to ‘God The Mother’ in the New Testament. So I don’t see how it can be supported by Christians without appealing to ambiguous and possibly misapplied Old Testament metaphors.
In later Catholic traditions, Mary is called the ‘Mother of God’ but never is elevated to divine status herself. However, I will concede that I have no real problem with Christians using a more generic reference to God as a ‘Heavenly Parent.’
-God The Son: Jesus Christ is fully God but lived on earth as fully a man so it is difficult to see how the second person of the Godhead could ever be successfully identified as a female.
There is no way that Jesus Christ can ever seriously be identified as such. One has to totally disregard the Gospel record and his life as an actual man in history.
-God The Holy Spirit: The third person of the Godhead offers the best scriptural evidence for some kind of a feminine identity. The Hebrew and Aramaic word for ‘Spirit’ is feminine. So all the way through the Old testament feminine language is assigned to the Spirit of God (at least 74 references). Also the divine personification of ‘Wisdom’ in Prov. 8:12-31 is feminine. Add to that the fact that Jesus probably spoke Aramaic, so there is some real scriptural support for a possible feminine identity for the Spirit of God and a scriptural basis for the inclusion of the feminine in the Godhead. This should not be a complete surprise since God created humankind in his own Image; ‘male and female he created them’ (Genesis 1:27).
However, a feminine identity for the Holy Spirit is not supported in the New Testament. In the Greek language ‘spirit’ is neuter. But all the way through the NT all of the pronouns referencing the Holy Spirit are masculine and plus several titles (Paraclete, Comforter) applied to the Holy Spirit are also male. Add to that the fact; that in the Septuagint (ancient Greek translation of the OT) all of the references to the Spirit of God are also neuter and do not reflect the possible feminine designations of the Hebrew and Aramaic.
So looking at the evidence in the Biblical languages used throughout the Bible does not completely resolve this issue for us.
Summary
-God does not have a gender. But gender designation may none the less be useful as a factor of language identifying personality and relationship.
-The Bible should be recognized as the best and most authoritative source for identifying who God really is.
-Anthropomorphisms and metaphors in the scriptures are evidence for character and personality but not necessarily gender.
-Patriarchal culture did not necessarily force a masculine identity for God since nearly all of the neighboring nations (also patriarchal) worshiped goddesses.
-The references to God used by Jesus should be honored by Christians.
-Triune references of identity and relationships of the One True God should still be respected since their source was Biblical.
-There seems to be a basis for a feminine identity of God in the Hebrew and Aramaic references to the ‘Spirit’ of God and the personification of ‘Wisdom’ in the Old Testament. However, it is not supported in the Greek New Testament nor by the Septuagint.
-There is also a basis for a feminine side of God in creation since male and female were made in the image of God.
Conclusion:
It is my view that Christians should continue to use and respect the designations that are clearly supported in the scriptures. One might refer to God as our Heavenly ‘Parent’ without any real departure and referencing the ‘Spirit of God’ and ‘Wisdom’ using feminine pronouns has at least some scriptural support. But the idea that God can be called ‘God the Mother’ really has no Biblical support at all and confuses the Trinitarian identities. And finally, a reference to Jesus Christ as ‘Jesa Christa,’ like some liberal ministers in England recently suggested, is just plain ridiculous if not offensive.
Source: https://answersforthefaith.com/does-god-have-a-gender/
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Whistler Blowers, Insiders
This article covers well all the aspects of a ‘debate’, however there should remain very little room for this sort of nuances about the ‘gender of God’. God, the eternal Father is named ‘Abba’ in the New Testament, and Abba, I understand, means ‘Daddy’, which is an unambiguous naming. The Apostle had an exceptional mastery of the language, so no debate is possible. As a now returned traditionalist Roman Catholic who has escaped an quasi-automatic damnation, because of the meandering creative new theology surged after Vatican II, I treat the mere mentioning of questioning the identity of God as a mortal threat to humanity, which mortal threat must be dealt with violence similar to how Jesus Christ chased the merchants of the Temple. This is how any predicator who teaches a ‘Mommy God’ must be rejected!
The New Testament, is undeniably the authority as the author of the article correctly writes. I go further by affirming that it is the final saying, as being the perfection to the Ancient Laws. For example, the Catholic Church relies closely upon the Athanasian Creed, which text has great authority at explaining all about the nature of the Holy Trinity, which explanation includes our human limited capacity to absorb the understanding what is both uncreated and incomprehensible. Both the ‘no beginning and the no end’ as well as the Greek philosopher’s ‘meanings of life’ are reduced to a humble acceptance to facts that surpass our short sightedness as mere…
- – - continuation – - –
… Both the ‘no beginning and the no end’ as well as the Greek philosopher’s ‘meanings of life’ are reduced to a humble acceptance to facts that surpass our short sightedness as mere created beings. That say; returning to the gender situation, there are tangible facts surrounding Jesus, such as His circumcision, which could not have occur if the divine child had been ‘a girl’. Jesus Christ had to be identified as a man by the crowd while He was being stripped of His cloths before being crucified. Jesus Christ, glorified minutes after His resurrection was still a man, since he was misidentified by the Madeleine as being ‘the gardener’ to whom she address: “Sir, please tell me where you put Him, so I may take Him back”.
This particular passage in the gospel is very telling, because the Madeleine, a sinner, knew men. Unlike her sister Martha, the Madeleine was no virgin, and she made no mistake in her glance at ‘the gardener’ as being a man.
If I may tells something about this incident of misidentification by Mary Madeleine. She had been under extreme duress from the moment of her conversion. Imagine what she went thru, first at making herself a spectacle during the banquet of Simon the Pharisee, then during the agony of her brother Lazarus, who she probably embalmed before burial. Then came the resurrections of Lazarus followed immediately by the fleeing in Samaria of Jesus, ‘her beloved Rabouni’, because the Sanhedrin wanted…
- – - continuation & end of comment – - -
… Then came the resurrections of Lazarus followed immediately by the fleeing in Samaria of Jesus, ‘her beloved Rabouni’, because the Sanhedrin wanted to put him to death (due to the dramatic resurrections of Lazarus). Then we had Mary Madeleine by the side of the BVM, Mother of Jesus Christ, St. John and other women at the foot of the Cross. In the mind of the Madeleine, who believed in the incoming resurrection, Jesus was to rise in a similar manner as to how her brother had, that is from an embalmed cadaver being stripped of the embalming bandelettes and been ‘given something to eat’. Poor Mary, feel her disappointment when the tomb was empty! Her human imagination of how the resurrection was to occur became destroyed. The Madeleine became crushed from of this disappointment. This is the explanation of her misidentification of the Risen Christ for the gardener. This extra anecdote is not superfluous, and to the contrary, it explains the nature of the stress felt by the Madeleine. She however saw the Risen Christ as being ‘a man’, and this detail of the gospel should close all debates about the gender of God, since the Son who was, is and will be a man for the eternity called God the eternal Father as His ‘Father’ in his first and seventh word on the Cross, as well as “ELIE ELIE, My God, My God” twice in His fourth word on the Cross because He address to the two other divine persons of the Holy Trinity.
Sing “ a spirit outside of time and space” does not preclude you from having a gender. Or are you the time and space guru that knows better?
Allying God other than male in whose image Adam not Eve was made is from the devil, just like men pushing the pram in the company of their wives.
When we leave this earth we will all be without space and time but we will not leave our fender behind, we’ll except maybe gender benders.
How can anyone fall into that trap, that clap trap, is a mystery to me.