Question 3
Why did God create humanity as male and female (Gen. 1:26)?
One key question of the 21st century is what does it mean to be human. According to Gen. 1:26, God created two biological and anatomically distinct sexes, male and female. God created male and female with complementary biological and anatomical distinctions. (The details of their creation are given in Genesis 2). These distinctions are God’s gift. When God evaluated His creation as a whole, including human maleness and femaleness, He declared that it was very good. Moreover, male and female together are the image of God; male and female equally bear the image of God as originally created. Male and female together, with their complementary divinely created distinctions, are designed to give a fuller picture of the character and nature of God.
Male and female together as image bearers demonstrate that God is a relational and social being. Also, maleness and femaleness constitute the objective, verifiable, biblically sanctioned, anatomical and biological distinctions that are the basis for marriage (see Mark 10:2–9).
BY Dr. Winfred O. Neely
Dr. Winfred Neely is Vice President and Dean of Moody Theological Seminary and Graduate School. An ordained minister, Winfred has served churches across the city of Chicago, the near west suburbs, and Senegal, West Africa. He is the author of How to Overcome Worry (Moody Publishers) and a contributor to the Moody Bible Commentary and Moody Handbook of Preaching. Winfred and his wife Stephne have been married for forty years and have four adult children and nine grandchildren.