Implications of Image: Part IV
Transgenderism; 01/07/2024; Remsen Bible Fellowship
Text
Genesis 1:27, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”
Introduction
That verse from Genesis one has served as the basis for this mini series considering the implications of the image of God. How does this truth, that human beings are created, male and female, in the image of God, come to bear on some of the questions and controversies of the 21st century, of today? That’s what we’ve spent most of the past month considering. First, we saw that being made in God’s image means that each human life is of immeasurable value and worth. We thought last week about how that inherent dignity of humanity, along with God’s intention for marriage to be a fruitful union, should shape how we think about questions of abortion, birth control, and technologies like IVF. Human life is valuable and a gift - we should act accordingly.
Second, a clear implication of being made in God’s image is that God determines who we truly are - life is not about determining your “true” self for yourself. True life comes from embracing who God created you to be. And part of who God made us to be is expressed through our biological sex - through the very form of our bodies. “Male and female he created them.” We considered how this should shape our understanding of sexuality a few weeks ago: God's word restricts sexual activity to the monogamous marriage of one man and one woman. Homosexuality in particular is called a sin, not because it crosses an arbitrary line, but because it contradicts the very shape of how God ordered the human body and human relationships.
But here is another question: what if you don’t feel at home in your own body? Most of us have heard some form of the following statement, either in person or through the media we consume: “I am a woman trapped in a man’s body.” In his book, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, historian Carl Trueman seeks to help his readers understand how our society went from a place where that sort statement would seem like complete nonsense - it wouldn’t have been comprehensible 100 years ago - to being a statement that, whether you agree with the truthfulness of it or not, you have mental categories for understanding. You know what someone who says, “I’m a woman trapped in a man’s body” is trying to communicate. How did that come to be?
The short answer is this: we have come to believe that we are our own gods. We think we can transform our bodies in any way our minds desire. While 100 years ago those concepts would have been laughable to nearly anyone, medical technology in the form of surgeries and hormone therapy has made these beliefs at least plausible. If I feel like a woman, why shouldn’t I pay a doctor to make me look like a woman and pump me full of estrogen?
But following over half of a century of human experiments, the plain truth is beginning to make itself clear: the mental problems and false teaching about human nature that can lead to gender dysphoria and a real sense of not “feeling at home” in your body, are not solved by mutilating bodies or pumping people full of hormones that don’t serve a genuine medical purpose. Countries in Europe are realizing the lasting and irreversible damage caused by this fool-hardiness and are starting to scale back on so-called “affirming care” - even as we in the United States keep plowing ahead at full speed.
The Truth doesn’t move
But you’re not here for social commentary. What does the Book say? How do Christians respond to a world that has gone mad? Do we scream at the darkness? Do we give into despair, thinking there is nothing we can do? No. This sermon makes one central assertion, and suggests two clear consequences of that assertion for how Christians ought to live.
Here’s the central claim: reality does not change. Truth does not change. No matter what craziness any given society embraces, the truth as we find it in God’s two books: the created world and the written word, does not change. Biology is stubborn and immovable. XX chromosomes and XY chromosomes really do determine who is male and female. Your gender really is tied - permanently - to your biological sex. The world may embrace the idea that we have become gods and have ultimate control over our bodies, but our bodies know better. God has made himself known in his creation. So don’t feel crazy when you look out at the world, and all you see are men and women - not 74 different genders. There really are just two.
And be comforted: God didn’t stutter when he said the same thing in writing. “Male and female he created them” really is as simple as it sounds. God created our bodies to conform to a gender binary. Are there, this side of the fall, birth defects and abnormalities that can cause confusion? Of course. But those are exceedingly rare; and one good rule of thumb in life is to not build principles based upon exceptions to the rule.
So, if the truth on this subject, “male and female he created them”, is really as simple as it sounds - and that truth is unchanging - how do Christians respond to a world which is running away from that truth?
Tell the Truth
The first thing to Christians should do in response to the world’s craziness is pretty straightforward: tell the truth. That doesn’t mean be arrogant, and it doesn’t mean be a jerk. It does mean, though, to refuse to participate in lies. So if someone hands you a list of preferred pronouns that contradict their biological gender, politely refuse to use them. If Harry wants you to start calling him Sally, tell him you cannot in good conscience do so.
This is pretty easy for me to say standing here right now. It’s harder when Harry is your nephew or your cousin or your brother. When standing for the truth runs the risk of offending someone it becomes much more difficult to believe and act on the truth. But if what’s True bends according to each situation, is it really true? There are many situations in life - not just around the issues of pronouns and the LGBTQ+ movement, but in all parts of life - where you can be tempted to soft-peddle the truth in order to maintain the peace. You may know that xyz is wrong, but it will just be easier to not say anything, or to pretend to agree with something that you know is offensive to God.
This is what our society describes as “affirming.” That is, whatever someone says, does, or claims, you have the obligation to “affirm them” in “their truth” or “their reality.” But brothers and sisters, that’s not love. There is no such thing as “truth” modified by a possessive pronoun. “My truth”, “your truth”, “his truth”, “her truth”, “their truth” - those are all fictions. There is only the Truth. To pretend otherwise is not a way to be loving, it’s an act of giving up on the other person. It’s a refusal to help them see the truth. I’d say it’s hatred, but might be worse than hatred: because hatred at least implies you care. It may be simple indifference: and how can we be indifferent about the destiny of eternal souls?
Refuse to conform to lies. Don’t ever compromise on the truth. Again, this doesn’t mean you need to go out of your way to pick fights or be a jerk. But when topics come up, don’t be afraid to say what God’s word says. You’re not always required to speak. But when you speak, always make sure that it’s truthful.
Embrace the Biblical Pattern
Openly the biblical pattern of male and female. Part of why the androgyny of our age is so plausible is because we don’t understand the real and substantial differences between men and women. We also fail to understand that these differences mean that we very much need one another. So this can take one extreme in the progressive gender-flattening of the LGBTQ movement, especially the T part of that. But, on the other hand, there has been an extreme reaction among both modern feminists and uber-macho “male influencers” who are probably the dictionary definition of what gets called “toxic masculinity.”
These folks understand that men and women are different (a fact which is apparent to everyone but still not p/c to say), but they take that to an extreme and make it seem like men don’t need women or women don’t need men. And again, what the Bible has to say here is going to stand in pretty stark contrast to those voices.
Men and women have distinct and complementary roles in God’s creation design. At the risk of repeating myself, I just want to drill home again what Genesis 1 & 2 reveal to us about the relationship of man and woman.
Genesis 1:27-28: ‘So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”’
The garden of Eden was the first temple, and Adam and Eve, the image bearers of God, were to represent him - together - in that temple. But then their commission was to extend the borders of that temple to the ends of the earth - to both multiply and fill the earth with image bearers of God, exercising his rule over all of creation.
Adam could not do this alone. Chapter two of Genesis makes clear that among all the other creatures there was no “helper fit” for the man. So God put him to sleep, took a rib from his side, and fashioned the woman.
She was unique. She was like Adam - made in God’s image, equal to him in value, worth, and dignity - and yet she was unlike him, fashioned for a unique role. The basic pattern set in place by Genesis two is the man having a fundamentally outward focus, toward the mission God had given him: the cultivating and keeping of the garden, and taking dominion in the world. The woman was given a particularly relational focus, toward those persons God has called her to help: especially her husband, and then, children.
As I’ve said multiple times now, these two dynamics are not mutually exclusive - the man’s role as keeper is going to require the wisdom of his wife and will require him having enough focus on the relationship to make sure that she is kept and cared for. And the woman will need to understand that the relationships she is focused on need to be strong not as an end in themselves, but in order that the mission God has given to humanity, and to her family, can be accomplished. This is why the Image of God cannot be fully expressed, and the purpose of humanity cannot be accomplished by just one sex. God designed the complementarity of man and woman, and the marriage covenant, to express something about himself that could not be seen or experienced by individuals alone.
So what this means for men is that we need to pursue the same goal that God gave to Adam: take dominion. Have a job, and acquire excellence in what you do. Take seriously the responsibility that you have before God to grow in holiness - to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God. That’s going to require spending time in church to be sure, but also in private prayer and reading the Bible yourself. Take responsibility in your home, caring about the physical, spiritual, and emotional needs of those in your family. And as you fulfill those basic responsibilities, look out toward the church and the community and ask what responsibility you should take there as well. True masculinity is found not by seeking to fulfill or gratify yourself, but in taking responsibility for yourself and others. Masculinity is characterized, as one pastor put it, by “the glad assumption of sacrificial responsibility.”
For women, this embracing of God’s call to image him in a feminine way begins by pursuing that same call to holiness - growing your relationship with the Lord by spending time with his people in worship, time in prayer, and time reading his word. It also means, for the married woman, making your family a higher priority than climbing a career ladder or pursuing external networks of friendship. Neither of those things are wrong, the Bible certainly commends both productive labor and friendships for both men and women. But often women in our culture are encouraged to prioritize career and outside relationships over and above their own husbands and children, and made to feel guilty for valuing home life.
We ought to ask: has misunderstanding or disregarding the real distinctions between men and women led to a happy society? What really leads to human flourishing?
This brings me to the really long conclusion to this sermon, the point of which is this: the only way to real happiness is to read and obey what God says in his word. Our world is desperately searching for happiness. God gives a roadmap to happiness: not in some health-and-wealth-God-will-make-your-life-easy sense, but rather, a simple realization that the one who designed us knows how life is meant to be lived. And we’ll be happier conforming to his patterns than we will resisting them.
Conclusion: Be Happy
One of my favorite books of the Bible is the book of Ecclesiastes. I used to like Ecclesiastes because I thought it was about being depressed and cynical: “vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity” (1:2). Sounds pretty bleak, right? That was catnip for hyper-cynical teenage Will. But I’ve come to realize that while Solomon (the author) does deal with many hard realities of life, the point of the book is actually about how to enjoy the temporary and fleeting life which God gives us under the sun.
In your life, you have two options, and the first is this: trying to find or create meaning. You might look to education, food and drink, cultural achievement, work achievement, sex and romance, whatever. Solomon, being the richest and most famous man of his day, sought satisfaction in all of these places. And here was his conclusion: “I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind” (1:14). If you expect a bottle to make you happy, you’ll eventually realize the bottom of each one is dry. If you look for work to fulfill you, you’ll come to a point of knowing there’s more to accomplish than you’ll ever achieve. If you hope for another person to make you happy, it will become obvious that no human can fill a God-sized hole in your soul. And, to the point of this sermon, if you think you can change your identity and find true meaning, you’re going to eventually find out that all of your problems follow you, no matter how you identify yourself, medicate, or surgically re-arrange yourself. Because your greatest problems are all wound up inside your heart. You are a mortal. A sinner, alienated from God. And as long as you fight against that truth, you’re chasing the wind, and trying to grasp joy like a handful of oil. The first way to live life is to try and find meaning in temporary things, and that doesn’t work.
But the other option is to look to God as the source of meaning, and embrace what Ecclesiastes 12:13 says: your whole duty is to fear God and keep his commandments. That might seem like bad news at first, too, because you know that you often don’t fear God or keep his commandments. But for the Christian, we know the one who did. The eternal Son of God took on human flesh that he might die in our place, bearing the consequences of our disobedience. And he rose three days later, promising resurrection life to all of those who trust in him for their forgiveness and salvation. Further, he sends his Spirit to all of those who so trust in him: giving them the ability to obey his commands, to walk in obedience. Imperfectly, yes, but genuinely.
And a key part of what walking in obedience to God’s commands is this: we accept that our life has limits. There are many things we should not do, because they are sinful. There are even more that we cannot do, simply because we are finite. But an important component of true happiness is found in accepting your limits, and seeking to honor God with the time, the roles, the relationships, and the body that he has you.
“There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment?” (2:24-25).
“Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vain [that is, passing] life that he has given you under the sun, because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going.” (9:9-10)
What Solomon is saying in these passages is pretty straightforward: God gives you one life, and it is a gift from him. Enjoy it - as a gift. Treat these things not as the source of joy (God himself is the source), but enjoy life and work and family and community and sports and music and home baked apple pie as gracious gifts from the hand of your heavenly Father.
How does this relate to our duties to those around us in these confused days? By embracing God’s gift of life with joy, we can demonstrate to the world that there really is a better way. Living as those submitted to God’s design does not mean life in a straight jacket. It means life within the bounds given by our wise and loving Creator’s design.
So we refuse to accept the lies of the world, not because we’re a bunch of curmudgeonly grumpsters. Rather, we are sinners who understand the joy that comes from being forgiven. We know the true life - the abundant life - that comes from being a servant of Jesus instead of a servant of sin.
The Lord Jesus says in John 10:10, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”
Hold the line, stand firm on the biblical truth of what it means to be made, male and female, in the image of God. Don’t blink or feel bad about it. Understand that only in submitting to God’s definition of who we are will anyone find life and joy. And we have a duty to point to that joy. Joy in Christ.
