The idea that “men are both masculine and feminine and women are both feminine and masculine” is to hold that God did not create anything that was common among both male and female. God created man and He created them male and female. God created mankind, some to be male and some to be female. There are attributes of male and female that are the same because both are human and not because a male is also female and a female is also male. God created us male and female, but he also created us to be mankind (humans). The idea that love requires a male and a female is limiting love to the role of physical sexuality. Love pre-exists physical sexuality. Love is complete and whole without sexual relations. Even the love between male and female does not require a sexual relationship and such a relationship is forbidden unless it is between one man (husband) and one woman (wife).

The finite (limited) human mind has classified some actions and feelings with physical sexuality that has nothing to do with male female roles. Because of our classifications, we then assume that males must also have a feminine side and females must have a masculine side. We start out with a bad idea and carry it out to an irrational conclusion; then we seek evidence to prove our misconception. God created man in His own image. Correct. God created man (mankind) male and female. Correct. Conclusion: God, who is both male and female, created man in His image, so both males and females have to be both masculine and feminine. WHAT? God created a physical male and female; the male He created masculine and the female He created feminine. God is Spirit and those that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. The image of God is Spirit and not physical and has nothing to do with physical sexuality.

John was the disciple that Jesus loved, according to John. Neither Jesus nor John was female, and neither of them was born in the wrong body. Their love had nothing to do with physical sexuality, but was a pure love between two males. Female sexuality is not required for love to develop. Neither is male-on-male sexuality required for love to develop. Love is a product of the Spirit and not of human sexuality. “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” says the LORD. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8-9). A man does not have to take on female characteristics to know a pure love between two men. A woman does not have to take on male characteristics to know a pure love between two women. For pure love to develop mankind must take on the characteristics of God, delivered to us by the Holy Spirit. John was the disciple that Jesus loved, and Jesus was endowed with the Holy Spirit.

Some teach that for a man to understand the bride of Christ, the man must take on a feminine understanding or female attributes. The scripture tells us, “For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels of God in heaven” (Matthew 22:30). Then the understanding of the bride is not the understanding of a woman, but of a relationship with Jesus. The scriptures make use of metaphors, comparing unrelated subjects in the attempt to clarify a subject. Comparing the members of the church to wheat is a metaphor. Comparing our relationship to Jesus using a tree, branch, and vines is a metaphor. The marriage is a metaphor. The church does not marry Jesus at the cross, but in the resurrection; but in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage. If the bride married Jesus at the cross, His death would release us from the marriage. The church is not a widow, but has a relationship with a living Jesus the Christ. The relationship is not a physical marriage, but an understanding of the relationship that God wants to have with the church. Human sexuality is not required to understand the relationship between Jesus and the Church.

“For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body” (Ephesians 5:23). In that there is only one body and one Spirit and one Head in the church; in marriage there is only one body and one spirit and one head. Just as Christ is the Savior of the body, the husband is also to be for his wife. Just as Jesus covers the church with Himself, the Word of God; so a husband should cover his wife with the Word of God. A man cannot save his own flesh and in marriage we are joined as one flesh. The only way a husband can be the savior of his wife is to cover her with the Savior, Jesus the Christ – the Word of God. Does it stand then that a woman has no covering except for her husband? Is the wife not also part of the one body that makes us the church? There is one body and it is not male or female, masculine or feminine. The one body is a living resurrected body. While we dwell on this side of the resurrection, we are male and female, husband and wife – jointly given dominion. Together we are both male and female in the natural. In the Spirit we are neither male nor female and in the resurrection we are not joined in a physical sexual union.

God does not desire to have a physical relationship with the church, but a spiritual relationship. Jesus did not come in a physical (human) form to have a sexual relationship with mankind. Jesus did not come as a man because God required masculine sexuality to be the Savior of mankind. The metaphor of the marriage does not include consummation in the physical. The metaphor of marriage is to be understood in the transference of authority and in the care that God gives to the body. It is also to be understood that the church should be faithful to Jesus, and that Jesus will be faithful to the church. In the physical we understand faithfulness as being sexual in nature, but that concept is limiting true faithfulness. In the spirit faithfulness is an attribute of God and a shield that protects the body. If we bring the mind of Christ into our marriage, faithfulness extends beyond the masculine and feminine relationship. In fact faithfulness in the physical relationship is an extension of love that has nothing to do with our masculine and feminine relationship. In other words, faithfulness is not a masculine or feminine attribute, but spiritual, and as such does not require human sexuality.

God did not create mankind as male and female to divide us into two groups, but so that we could be joined together. God did not create mankind as human to keep us divided into spirit and human, but so that we could be joined together. Male and female being human attributes, we are joined together in a physical relationship. Being created into God’s image, we are also spirit separate from our human attributes as male and female; and we also have a relationship that extends beyond our human nature. If we can only understand our relationships in a human sexual way, then we are confused when we desire a relationship with someone with whom we do not desire to have a sexual relationship. We are even confused by the relationship we have with our spouse that is not sexual in nature; and in a healthy relationship with our spouse there is a relationship that is not sexual. The spirit is not male or female regardless of the physical body that the spirit resides in. That does not change the fact that we may understand spiritual things using metaphors that relate to our masculine or feminine attributes, but God does not limit our understanding of spiritual things by our sexuality.

One major issue with pagan gods was their relationship with humans in the natural. In other words, the stories about the gods taking and trading human females as wives and concubines was one of the down falls of pagan religions. Even rational thinking men, that denied the existence of Yahweh as the One God, knew that the answer was not a god that was as immoral as the humans he sought to rule over. One of the things that attracted the pagans to Yahweh was the fact that He followed the moral code that He asked humans to adhere to. Pagan gods had attributes attributed to humans, namely sexuality. Yahweh did not. God’s relationship as our Father is spiritual, and not one of male or female. In the natural the identifier “man” includes both male and female; while the identifier “woman” excludes the male. While the word man used in the singular refers to a male, the word man is also a plural that includes all of humanity, male or female. That is not the same as saying that the singular man includes both masculine and feminine. It is only in the plural and in the natural that it includes both. In the natural we understand God as our Spiritual Father. In the natural we understand Jesus as our Spiritual Brother. In the natural we understand Jesus coming as a man to redeem both males and females. In the Spirit there is no need of God to be male or female, masculine or feminine. In limiting God to human attributes, we are reducing God to our ability to understand Him in our finite human mind.

© 2008, Tim D. Coulter Sr.