Rebuttal of the Notion That God Is a Woman

While this question and postulation is nothing new, there appears to be a renewed interest in defining the gender role of God in the culture today. Terms like inclusive language and the removal of gender specific forms are relatively new to our day and age and terms such as gender-neutral phrases have begun to take center stage and this terminology and mind set is invading the church. Somewhat un-ironically, it appears that as we live in a culture where gender-dysmorphia and personal preference reign supreme, and it would only follow that -we not only choose our own gender but assign and create one of our own likings to God, the creator of the universe. So the ever pressing question before us today that will require a Biblical response is: Can God be referred to and conceived of in bot feminine or masculine terms?

Author C. S. Lewis believes that, when God is thought of in feminine as well as masculine terms, this amounts to nothing short of heresy. “Suppose . . . that we might just as well pray to ‘Our Mother which art in heaven’ as to ‘Our Father.’… that the Incarnation might just as well have taken a female as a male form, and the Second Person of the Trinity be as well called the Daughter as the Son. Suppose, finally, that the mystical marriage were reversed, that the church were the Bridegroom and Christ the Bride. . . .

Now it is surely the case that if all these supposals were ever carried into effect we should be embarked on a different religion.” A different religion indeed is what we have being touted before us by one of the most influential musical artists of our day and this cannot be tolerated and must be spoken against. As the Holy Scripture says, “Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

While many defenses can be given to the reason of this, and many volumes of books devoted to this one subject, it may be easiest to look at just one aspect in addressing the question of the gender of God and how He has revealed Himself to us, His creation. He is God and not man (Hosea 11:9) and “as such a being, God exists in and of Himself. He does not have being, He is being, and thus contains within Himself the explanation of His own existence.” We cannot assign gender or roles to God as that is not within our purview as a created being. We can only look to God and see how He has revealed Himself to us and by what terms He has chosen to relate His nature to us in the inspired and infallible Word of God.

The simplest and easiest of these ways to see this, that cannot be clouded by even the most self-enlightened understanding of a musical celebrity, is found earliest in the Old Testament where we find God portrayed as a Father and is specifically called the Father of the nation of Israel:

• Deut. 32:6 – Is this the way you repay the Lord, you foolish and unwise people? Is he not your Father, your Creator, who made you and formed you?
• Isa 63:16 – But you are our Father, though Abraham does not know us or Israel acknowledge us; you, Lord, are our Father, our Redeemer from of old is your name.
• Jeremiah 3:4 – Have you not just called to me: ‘My Father, my friend from my youth,
• Jeremiah 3:19 – I myself said, “‘How gladly would I treat you like my children and give you a pleasant land, the most beautiful inheritance of any nation.’ I thought you would call me ‘Father’ and not turn away from following me.
• Mal 1:6 – A son honors his father, and a slave his master. If I am a father, where is the honor due me?
• In the New Testament the clear message of God entitled as the Father becomes even more apparent as this is the direct name by which Christ, the Son of God, addresses His Father.
• John 14:9-11 – Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. 11 Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves.
• Luke 10:21-22 – At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do. “All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and no one knows who the Father is except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”
• John 1:14 – The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
• Matthew 3:16-17 – As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. 17 And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”

By the titles that God has chosen to reveal Himself to us we can plainly and clearly see that the terms Father and Son carry with them a clear and concise rebuttal to the reference and heresy that “God is a Woman.”