Joining the Story

The Place of Women in God’s Great Plan

IN THIS CHAPTER, I will explore the various ways in which women can join the story both by finding women at the heart of the narrative and by dwelling on the significance of the symbolism of a Jewish male Savior and the implications of this for women. As I have already mentioned, reading books on the stories of women will highlight for anyone how prominently women feature in the life of Jesus and how much more central they are to God’s story than might first be supposed. Here, I will focus on the role of women in the salvation story as told in the New Testament in order to demonstrate how women play a crucial role in the saving of humanity and how the coming of a fully human, male Savior was only made possible through the participation of a woman. This, in turn, affects our understanding of how the Bible portrays women in leadership roles as we see examples of how and where women, and not men, are chosen by God to fulfill his purposes for humanity. In other words, despite the fact that there are twelve male disciples, we see that it is often women and not men, in certain circumstances, who are given an apostolic function. We will begin with Mary, the mother of Jesus.

MARY THE MOTHER OF JESUS

Protestants are sometimes nervous about emphasizing the role of Mary in the salvation story. This might arise from a desire to safeguard the unique status of Jesus as Savior, which comes as a reaction to certain traditions that imply that Mary is some type of co-redeemer with Christ. If we open a door to celebrating or elevating the role of Mary, might we run the risk of compromising the Christ alone dictum of the Reformation? Christ alone saves and rescues humanity, and he alone should be worshiped. However, once we are confident in this truth and how to live this out, we are a poorer church if we cannot acknowledge the central role of Mary in the salvation story and what that tells us of God’s attitude to women.

The early church fathers are not usually remembered for their mutualist views! However, they saw the role of Mary in the salvation story as theologically rich for what it tells us of our relationship to God and him to us. Augustine writes, “The Lord Jesus Christ, having come to liberate human beings, including both men and women destined for salvation, was not ashamed of the male nature, for He took it upon himself; or of the female, for he was born of a woman.”1 I believe that pastorally these claims speak volumes to women, who so often live under a shadow of belief that what they are as female somehow carries shame. One of my favorite pieces of writing on Mary is Tertullian’s On the Flesh of Christ. Again, Tertullian is not known for his positive views of women in general. He is famous for describing women as, among other things, “the devil’s gateway,” which, in my opinion, makes his unstintingly positive appraisal of Mary’s role even more surprising. In this treatise, his determination to make the point about Jesus as fully human leads him to make some powerful claims about the role of Mary in the forming and nurture of Jesus. In doing so, he highlights God’s willingness to involve a woman as a central figure in the story of salvation.

My experience over the years of attending church has been that Christmas is not often seen as an opportunity for preachers to dwell on the reality that God, in Christ, inhabited a woman’s womb and subjected himself to the visceral process of a human birth with all the mess of bodily functions, female care, and emotions. I find that usually preachers tend to dwell on other themes. Tertullian, however, embraces the gritty themes of childbirth by way of making the point that Jesus was really and truly human, and to do this he is not at all squeamish about God’s engagement with Mary’s body. He writes,

Pray, tell me, why the Spirit of God descended into a woman’s womb at all, if He did not do so for the purpose of partaking of flesh from the womb. For He could have become spiritual flesh without such a process—much more simply, indeed, without the womb than in it. He had no reason for enclosing Himself within one, if He was to bear forth nothing from it. Not without reason, however, did He descend into a womb. Therefore He received (flesh) therefrom; else, if He received nothing therefrom, His descent into it would have been without a reason, especially if He meant to become flesh of that sort which was not derived from a womb, that is to say, a spiritual one.2

Jesus is made of her, not just in her. He is made from her and not just through her. Mary is not simply a receptacle of the divine, housing him, as it were. She supplies his humanity from her own body. Her blood forms him, her food nourishes him, her breasts feed him. Tertullian even has a fairly lengthy explanation of the link between the physical process of pregnancy and childbirth to the production of milk.

But if the Word was made flesh of Himself without any communication with a womb, no mother’s womb operating upon Him with its usual function and support, how could the lacteal fountain have been conveyed (from the womb) to the breasts, since (the womb) can only effect the change by actual possession of the proper substance? But it could not possibly have had blood for transformation into milk, unless it possessed the causes of blood also, that is to say, the severance (by birth) of its own flesh from the mother’s womb.3

He carries on proving his point making the connection of Jesus’ birth to Old Testament prophecies. How else would Jesus be connected to the line of David through Mary unless the baby was truly hers, albeit born of the Spirit? This physical connection to Mary is the basis of the story of salvation, the proof that our own flesh, our souls and bodies, can be redeemed and cleansed and resurrected—and this through a woman.

There are three creation stories of the creation of humanity in the Bible. The first is that humanity is made in the image and likeness of God. The second that a human is formed from the dust of the earth and woman is taken from man: she is flesh of his flesh. The third is that humanity is reborn through a Savior, who is born of a woman, and he is flesh of her flesh. When God chose to come to earth, he chose the hiddenness of a woman’s womb. When God chose to take on flesh, he chose to take this flesh from a woman. When God chose to appear, he chose to come as a baby, entrusting himself to a woman’s body to be born and to a woman for his care and nurture. Through a man, God reveals himself to us, and through a woman, God makes the connection to humanity. There is no doubt that in the ancient world, this represents an elevated status for women. In addition to this, women see something in the chosenness of Mary (albeit in a unique fashion) of how God might also choose to use them. She stands as a symbol of a female life submitted to God and then used by him in the most powerful and world-changing way possible. Mary stands in the great line of prophets, judges, and leaders of Israel, appointed by God to fulfill his purposes first for his own people and from there to the whole of humanity. This is, of course, nothing but an apostolic role.

THE DISCIPLES OF JESUS

As we read the Gospels, we come across numerous interactions of Jesus with women. I will not reproduce a list here. I wish to highlight from these interactions the role of women as disciples, patrons, and witnesses. These three roles in particular demonstrate the spiritual authority and responsibility that was conferred on women by Jesus. Commentators on the Gospels commonly point out that although the twelve apostles were men, Jesus surrounded himself with women disciples as well. R. T. France writes, “In the cultural context of the time it was perhaps inevitable that men should form the inner circle around Jesus, but Luke 8:1-3 suggests that that inner circle was not very sharply distinguished in practice from the wider group of companions among whom women were prominent.”4 Luke tells us that Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Susanna, and many other women accompanied Jesus on his mission and funded him out of their private means. Jesus chose women as traveling companions, disciples, and patrons of his mission. A patron was at least one’s equal, but as with anyone who funds another’s endeavors, there is also a sense of indebtedness on the part of the beneficiary. Jesus and his male disciples placed themselves in a position of dependency and indebtedness on these women, as Paul later did in his relationship with Phoebe. In addition to this, the fact that they were in his inner circle gives them a place of great standing.

In exchange for funding the mission and accompanying Jesus, the women were not there simply to carry out the domestic chores (although I strongly suspect they did that as well!). Kenneth Bailey identifies four texts that are significant to our understanding that Jesus also chose women as disciples. First, we find that the word disciple in a feminine form (mathētria) is used to describe Tabitha or Dorcas (Acts 9:36). Second, Bailey cites the occasion Jesus is told that his family is outside and wants to speak with him. Jesus replies, “‘Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?’ and pointing to his disciples, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother’” (Matthew 12:46-50). It seems a simple point, but as Bailey points out, in a Middle Eastern context, women would only have been mentioned if they had been there. This clearly indicates to the reader that the people in front of Jesus whom he calls his disciples were a group of men and women. Third, Bailey notes the remarkable nature of Jesus having women traveling with him among his group (as I have already mentioned), and fourth, he cites the occasion in Luke 10:39 where Luke tells us that Mary “sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching” (ESV). Bailey writes, “In Acts Paul describes himself as having been ‘brought up at the feet of Gamaliel’ (Acts 22:3). To ‘sit at the feet’ of a rabbi meant to become a disciple of a rabbi. So Mary became a disciple of Jesus.”5 The women mentioned here, as well as the many others who are not named, were on Jesus’ training program as disciples. They too were being prepared to be thrust out as laborers in the harvest field. So while the Twelve had an important symbolic role, they were not in a role of authority over the other female disciples, but like the women they sat at Jesus’ feet.6

WOMEN AS WITNESSES

The final significant role for women in the Gospels is as witnesses, which again contributes to our understanding of their status and calling, as they are seen to fulfill an apostolic function. Marianne Meye Thompson makes the point that the Gospel of John makes an interesting case study on the role of women among the disciples.7 First, she points out that there are two prominent men in the Gospel: Simon Peter and “the disciple whom Jesus loved” or “the beloved disciple.” Peter is commissioned to care for Jesus’ own sheep, to carry on the work of the shepherd. In the Roman Catholic tradition, he is seen as both the founder and the head of the entire church, as a representative of Christ. The beloved disciple’s role is delineated in a different way but is equally representative of Christ. He is “twice designated as ‘the one who is bearing witness’ to Jesus and to the significance especially of Jesus’ death and resurrection.” Meye Thompson makes the point that Jesus himself is a witness to the truth, and she goes on to note “the roll call of witnesses in John is long,” including “John the Baptist, the Spirit, God the Father, Jesus’ own works, Scripture, Moses, his disciples, and the Samaritan woman. Others not specifically called ‘witnesses’ nevertheless speak the truth about Jesus, including the blind man who was healed, and Martha.” All the Gospels tell stories of the witness of women to Jesus, but as Meye Thompson points out, John has a few that are unique to his Gospel:

Jesus’ encounter with his mother at the wedding in Cana (ch. 2) and his entrusting her care to the beloved disciple at the foot of the cross (ch. 19); the Samaritan woman at the well (ch. 4); the interaction with Mary and Martha when he raises Lazarus from the dead (ch. 11); Mary’s anointing of Jesus’ feet after the triumphal entry (ch. 12); and the particularly poignant appearance to Mary Magdalene at the tomb on Easter morning (ch. 21).8

Crucially, for our exploration into the role of women in the Bible, there are two proclamations that belong in the mouths of women in John’s Gospel that confirm their role as witnesses to the truth. However, our preconceptions shape our reading of the text, and here we see a stark example of how this works. Most Christians are taught at some point about the significance of Peter’s confession of Christ. This is the moment when Jesus turns to his disciples and asks them, “Who do you say that I am?” and Peter replies, “You are the Christ” (Mark 8:29 RSV). It is a watershed moment in the Gospel where the reader shares in Peter’s apprehension of the truth about Jesus, which is declared to Jesus, to the disciples standing around them, and to us as readers. We know that Jesus himself does not refute or deny his confession. Peter’s statement stands as a sign with multiple resonances. There is a similar moment in John’s Gospel, in Jesus’ exchange with Martha, but historically few people have focused on or celebrated Martha’s remarkable response to Jesus, which is her confession. It is also a confession of faith that comes at a devastating and enormously challenging time in Martha’s life. Martha, having just lost her beloved brother (which she believes would not have happened if Jesus had been with them and made an effort to come earlier), hears Jesus’ promise to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die.” He then questions her in her grief, “Do you believe this?” “Yes, Lord,” she replied, “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world” (John 11:25-27). This is an astonishing exchange and confession of faith and hope in the face of great suffering, and it is so often overlooked in the preaching history of the church.

Meye Thompson points out that in addition to these stories, “Mary Magdalene first speaks the words, ‘We have seen the Lord!’” which is “the characteristic Easter confession in John.” Many make the point that the testimony of women was not admitted in a court of law, and thus it is sometimes not included in accounts of the resurrection events, a notable example being 1 Corinthians 15:5. I have even heard others try to argue that the women’s testimony was only for the brothers, the disciples, who were then to proclaim the resurrection to the world. How they can miss the message that the Gospel writers place the testimony in the mouths of women with the result that they are entrusted for all time to proclaim the truth about Jesus, not in private, not only to other women, not to children, but to the world through the Scriptures, is quite beyond me. The men’s rejection of the women’s testimony and faith remains in the Scriptures to their shame, the women’s words and their witness are recorded for all time for all who have ears to hear.

However, it is not simply the nature of God himself or the inclusion of women in the salvation story that affirms the full inclusion of women into the work of God in the world. The most powerful message of a new identity and status for women, men, and children alike comes through Paul’s understanding of the new life that is conferred on the believer through faith in and baptism into Christ.

BAPTIZED INTO CHRIST

It is not just evidence of how God works in and through the lives of women that should encourage women to believe that God is willing to appoint women to leadership roles. One of the most compellingly positive aspects of the Christian faith for women, which lies at the heart of the message of salvation, is the message of inclusion in the person of Christ through faith in him and baptism. We turn now to the idea of salvation through a male Savior and how that speaks (or not) to women.

I hope that I have demonstrated that the maleness of Jesus does not speak of the maleness of God in any essential fashion. In addition to this, many other aspects of our salvation story tell us of the place of women in God’s great plan. Furthermore, we should not assume that the maleness of Jesus in itself automatically makes it easier for boys or men to identify with God. How men and women relate to one another is a complex science, and depending on our background, experiences, sense of self, and many other factors, we cannot assume that men relate best to men and women to women. This is far from the truth. We should acknowledge at the beginning of the discussion, therefore, that a male Savior may pose problems for some men and be immaterial or even helpful for a number of women, but nevertheless, more classically, it is cited as a potential stumbling block for how women might see themselves as included in the salvation story.

One of the places we need to begin is to ask ourselves, What is our starting point for our understanding of the Christian life? or perhaps put another way, What is our understanding of the starting point of the Christian life? The way we answer this question will determine the answers to many of our other questions. For me, the starting point of the Christian life is an unqualified trust in the power of Jesus’ death and resurrection to save humanity from sin, a trust that comes to individuals through grace and by faith. Once that trust in Jesus has been born in us by the Spirit, then our baptism signifies our willingness to commit ourselves to God, to submit to the lordship of Jesus, and to identify ourselves not just with the church but as the church. It is the public affirmation of where our allegiances lie. It represents dying to our old self and living anew in Christ as we participate in him. This new life in Christ is marked by freedom: freedom from sin, freedom from hate and unforgiveness, freedom to love, freedom to receive love, and freedom to become a new creation in Christ and in his body, the church. The Christian life is marked, therefore, by hope. This is not just an eschatological hope (heaven when we die); it is rooted in the concrete changes that come about here and now because of a new identity in Christ. This hope is held out to the whole of humanity regardless of race, sex, or worldly status. The covenant hope of belonging to God as his people that first lay with the Jewish nation flowed out through Jesus to the rest of humanity.

In Ephesians 2, Paul addresses the reality of this new existence in terms that were right at the heart of his calling as apostle to the Gentiles. He speaks of “one new humanity” in Christ, where the Jew and the Gentile become one in Christ and where the dividing wall of hostility is brought down once and for all. With this reference, Paul brings to mind the temple walls that segregated Jew from Gentile. He reminds the Gentiles in Ephesus that at one time they were separated from Christ, without “hope and without God in the world,” and adds, “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ” (Ephesians 2:12-13). Peace between the two hostile groups is won through the cross of Christ and in his body. Jew and Gentile join together to form the new temple of God built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with “Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone” (Ephesians 2:20). He concludes, “In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are being built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God” (Ephesians 2:21-22). Paul is the one God himself appoints as the apostle to the Gentiles (Acts 9:15), and this calling drives all that he does in his mission. This theme of the new humanity and the inclusion of the Gentiles on an equal basis emerges again and again in his letters. What is crucial for our understanding of the gospel is that he extends this full inclusion to women, to the poor, and to slaves as well.

N. T. Wright in his book Paul and the Faithfulness of God begins with an extended study of Philemon, spelling out the impact of the gospel on slaves and freedmen. Wright explains, “The whole letter is both an expression of, and an exhortation to, the central Pauline theme of koinonia,” by which he means fellowship and partnership.9 More than this though, Wright describes this little letter as evidence of Paul’s “profoundly revolutionary” theology. Wright claims that it shows us that Paul is attempting to initiate a “social and cultural earthquake” or rather that he thinks this earthquake has already begun by “God’s action in the Messiah.”10 Wright describes a radical theology with concrete social implications. Real relationships change and take a different shape. So in the case with Philemon and Onesimus, master and slave, they are now beholden to worship together as equals and to treat one other like brothers. Philemon’s household will no longer function as it used to and every member of the household will have to adjust to how Christian masters and slaves should behave with one another. What presumably will cost Philemon in terms of pride in having to forgive Onesimus will only benefit Onesimus, the runaway slave.

We see a similar impulse in 1 Corinthians 11:17-34, where Paul excoriates the rich Corinthians for stuffing themselves and getting drunk at the table of the Lord’s Supper while leaving the poor to go hungry. Over this issue he tells them that this is not for the better but for the worse, or that their meetings are doing more harm than good! (v. 17). “Do you show contempt for the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing?” (v. 22). Paul tells them instead to care for one another, especially those in need, “so then, my brothers and sisters, when you come together to eat, wait for one another” (v. 33). Where the Corinthians are still maintaining social distinctions and segregation at the meal table, Paul warns them in no uncertain terms that these distinctions of superiority and inferiority based on worldly status have no place any more in the Lord’s Supper.

We know, we hope, that even the most committed hierarchicalist will affirm that men and women are equal before God. This much we all agree on. The gospel of Christ, however, opens up a new way of relating, one in which power and authority in real relationships function in a whole new way. What his own society naturally endorsed, which was a hierarchy with free, wealthy males at the top, is overturned in Christ. This new in Christ existence has a profound impact on the community of believers and was meant to have been noticeable to those coming in from the outside. See how these Christians love one another. In this context Paul wrote Galatians 3:26-28, driving home to the Galatians that baptism into Christ meant that there is now no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female. The point is that he believed this should have had visible results in the way that they worshiped together. John Barclay’s work on Galatians—Paul and the Gift—emphasizes the radical nature of Paul’s teaching and practices for the early church and stresses that Paul overturns and challenges social expectations of honor and status. This speaks powerfully to us of the radical nature of Paul’s perspective.

In his study of Galatians, Barclay writes,

The distinction between circumcision and uncircumcision . . . is boldly declared irrelevant (5:6, 6:15), while the baptismal formula of 3:28 asserts that other kinds of duality are insignificant in Christ (“there is neither etc. . . .”). Ethnic, status, and gender differentials are here considered unimportant for those who have “put on Christ,” as if the new polarities created by the “good news” have rendered invalid the social binaries and hierarchies normally taken for granted.11

He goes on to describe Paul’s rejection of and distancing from the system whereby honor is derived from status. “This dissolution of the normal systems of honor has enormous significance in the construction of community, as will become clear in 5:13-6:10. . . . Where honor and worth are recalibrated by the truth of the gospel, communities can disregard traditional hierarchies of status, and the (‘worthless’) poor can be accorded countercultural attention (2:10).”12

Barclay connects the heart of the gospel to the abolition of hierarchical systems of worth and privilege rooted in ethnicity, gender, or social status.

They are therefore drawn into an association of mutual recognition that is blind to ethnic evaluations, as to other differentials or worth (3:28). To reinstate a Jewish rule of sociality would be to condition this association by a differentiating norm that is not derivable from the “truth of the good news.” In fact, the good news is good precisely in its disregard of former criteria of worth, both Jewish and Gentile: the gospel stands or falls with the incongruity of grace. This is the logic that 2:15-21 proceeds to expound.13

He then goes on to expound the connotations of the phrase “new creation,” which, in his view, “stretch well beyond individual conversion, gesturing to a cosmic refashioning awaited in the future (cf. 1:4).” Crucially for us, he believes this cosmic refashioning to have concrete implications in the here and now.

But in context the primary focus is the social novelty of communities that disregard former boundaries by discounting old systems of worth. The “new creation” is indifferent to traditional regulative norms and generates new patterns of social practice: it is instantiated among “those who walk by this κανών” [rule] (6:16). In this context, circumcision is neither valued nor denigrated: the circumcised are neither superior nor inferior by being so marked.14

And he concludes where we began the discussion, that those who are in Christ are marked by freedom in which there is hope. “As [Galatians] 5:13–6:10 will show, Paul is conscious that the new communities fashioned around Christ need to be as free from the quest for honor as they are free, in the Spirit, from the dominance of the Torah (5:1, 13, 18). In both respects, this freedom is founded on the capacity of the Christ-gift to remold existence around a cosmos-shattering event (6:14).”15 If Barclay’s observations on Paul are true, it is no wonder that women, slaves, children, and the poor flocked into these new Christian communities. I began chapter one by opining that one of the reasons for the deep attraction and appeal of Christianity to women is rooted in a profound instinct that they are not really excluded after all, despite what outward circumstances tell them. This is precisely what Barclay is describing.

There is nothing that we can do about the fact that humanity is offered salvation through a God-man, just as there is nothing we can do about the fact that this man was a Jew, that he was unmarried, and that he lived a long time ago. In an important way, in all his particularities, Jesus of Nazareth was unlike the majority of the entire human population that has ever existed. The majority of human beings are not young Jewish men from first-century Palestine. He was then, and is now even, representative only of a minority. And yet it was in this particular instantiation of humanity that God chose one man to represent the entire human race. There are numerous reasons for this, but the one I want to focus on is what Jesus represented in this minority figure. Jesus of Nazareth stands for the one the Jews believed had all the honor and privilege before God—the free Jewish male. That women, slaves, and children were set free to identify with a free Jewish male in the temple of God, communicated to them that they too held the place of highest honor in the closest proximity to God. In the reordered temple that is the body of Christ (the church), there are no longer any physical or spiritual barriers between Jew and Gentile, slave and free, male and female. The gathering of Christian believers was the one place where they could hold their heads high and, crucially for our understanding, participate on an equal footing. This means that the church of those who have been baptized into Christ is a gathering of equals in every respect, regardless of how society circumscribes the relationships between them outside of the church.

This has an impact on how people of different sex, socioeconomic status, and tribal heritage participate in the worshiping community. Given the fundamental message of this theology, that the segregation and boundaries enshrined in Jewish worship have been eradicated in Christ, it must be wrong to reinstate boundaries where one group is excluded from certain aspects of service and worship in Christian worship, the exclusion of women from full participation in all aspects of ministry and service being a case in point.

REDEFINITION OF THE MASCULINE AND THE INCLUSION OF THE FEMININE

Women join an androcentric story, and so do men. But even if we end up saying something like Christianity has a masculine feel, what exactly do we mean by that, and what is it telling us about masculinity? There is little in the Bible that defines and delineates specifically male and female characteristics, temperaments, emotions, or dispositions. Positive and negative character traits appear to be distributed pretty evenly between male and female characters. There are some differences mentioned in dress codes (which we will come to), and I will address Peter’s reference to woman as the “weaker” sex. There is also the reference to the model wife in Proverbs 31, but in general there are few examples of the Bible narratives telling us that women are or should be like this and that men are or should be like that.16

Conversely, the model of manhood we see in Jesus encompasses such a broad range of characteristics that it challenges fixed views of what the essence of masculinity really is. So first we have a challenge put before us in terms of how the God-man defines manhood. But then we also face a challenge over masculinity and femininity when we realize that the destiny of all believers is to become like him and participate in his being.

The early church fathers viewed salvation in participatory terms, developing the idea that the Son of God became like us so that we could become like him and take part in his being. Salvation is not a deal that Christ brokers with God so we can get into heaven. Salvation is the process whereby Christ assumes our human nature, and through his life of obedience, suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension he defeats sin and death and brings it to perfection. By participating in him, in his life, his death, and his resurrection, we too are brought to perfection. We are made like him. We become what we are destined to be. We become perfected and restored images of the divine and participate in the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4). Jesus breathes the Spirit on us anew and recreates us through death to ourselves and new life in him. We are literally reborn, only this time, born into perfection rather than sin and distortion. What we are destined to become is not God, but it is God-like.

This view of salvation sheds new light both on the relationship of woman to Christ and on the being and person of Jesus. Christ as the perfect image of God and the perfect image of humanity bears in his being both the image of man and the image of woman. Despite the maleness of Christ, as the perfect image of God, he also represents all women. It is hard to make sense of this in any literal sense, but in a spiritual sense we could say that what woman is, is in Christ as Christ is in her. In a spiritual sense then, there is nothing in Christ that is other to woman, and nothing in woman that is alien to Christ as they are made for union with one another.

The flesh that he bore represents both the flesh of man and the flesh of woman. The body that he took was broken for man and woman, and the bodies that we bear are healed in him and prepared for eternal life. He comes as the second Adam, and just as we read in Genesis 2 of the symbolism of the first Adam who had woman dwelling in him waiting to be birthed, Christ also bears the image of woman within him. In Genesis 1 the image of God is borne by both man and woman. The perfect image, therefore, represents both, but could not appear as both in first-century Palestine, for obvious reasons. The Son of God took a frail human male body to redeem humanity in the whole of our existence.

The male figure of Christ came to suffer and to give himself up for us. Knowing the depth of our brokenness, Christ came to be broken for us and to bring us to immortality in him. Unless we participate in this brokenness, we have no part of him. Unless we eat of his flesh and drink of his blood, we have no life in us. Those who eat his flesh broken for us and his blood shed for us live in him and he in us, and this life goes on forever and ever (cf. John 6:53-57).

What I, and many others, find fascinating is that this male Savior offers us a unique picture of manhood. This is what God looks like when he becomes a man—at once powerful, authoritative, secure, holy, angry at injustice, and also broken, vulnerable, isolated, and weeping. He is both acquiescent and resistant in the face of violence, but never retaliates like for like. This is a challenge to what is traditionally viewed as masculine and feminine traits. Similarly, Paul, who claims that he imitates Christ, has no shame in describing himself in explicitly feminine terms (1 Thessalonians  2:7).

In addition to this, the identity that we all bear in Christ is often described in feminine terms—the bride. Becoming Christlike defies any of our attempts to describe what this might actually look like in terms of essential male or female characteristics. And so we end where we began, with gendered language for God and for the church that turns out to be symbolic, figurative, and resistant to stereotyped views.

With all this in mind, we will now turn to certain passages on men and women in the Bible and examine how differently they can be interpreted depending on how we approach them in the first place.