A few weeks ago, Pastor Jonathan asked me to preach on race, gender, and sexuality. I considered a number of passages that teach on these subjects and I settled on Gen. 1:26-28. As you’re going to hopefully see, this passage has a great deal to teach us about race, gender, and sexuality.
However, the more I considered it, the more I realized that I had to be very careful about how I treated the text. Because it would be very tempting to treat it as if it were primarily about race, gender, and sexuality, as if that was the main point that the text is trying to make. And that’s incorrect.
Let me give you an illustration. My 11-year-old son loves video games. He would gladly spend 8 hours a day playing video games. And then he’d spend the remaining 16 hours watching Dude Perfect videos and playing online chess. As a result, my wife and I have to limit his screen time fairly strictly. He gets an hour per day, although we sometimes give him extra on special occasions.
Imagine that before I left for this trip, I wrote him a note. What’s the very first question he’d ask about my note? “Do I get extra screen time?” And he’d skim over the text until he saw the words “screen time” or “video games” or “YouTube.” And if I called him from the airport and asked “Did you read my note?” He’d say, “Yes! I get an extra 30 minutes of video games this weekend!” And he’d be correct.
But.
The note was not primarily about screen time. It was about how much I loved him and how much I’d miss him.
But all he could think about was screen time. Because he was fixated on a subject that was very important to him, he missed the main point of the note.
This illustration should serve as a caution about how we approach the Bible, especially when it comes to hot button issues that our culture is obsessed with, like race, gender, and sexuality.
All of us approach the Bible with certain questions. We want to know “what does the Bible teach about money?” Or “what does the Bible teach about parenting?” Or “what does the Bible teach about work?” It’s great to turn to the Bible for answers to these questions. However, the biblical authors were answering different questions when they wrote inspired Scripture. Consequently, when we approach any passage, we want to start with the questions that the authors themselves were addressing. We don’t want to impose our categories or our questions on the text.
Consequently, I’m going to basically preach two sermons this morning.
First, I’m going to explain what the text of Genesis 1:26-28 says on its own terms. What is it trying to tell us? Only then will I explain what Genesis 1 shows us about race, gender, and sexuality. And I’ll separate this theological application into three parts: “Race, Gender, and Sexuality in the Beginning,” “Race, Gender, and Sexuality after the Fall,” and “Race, Gender, and Sexuality in the Kingdom.”
So what question is Gen. 1:26-28 trying to answer? It’s not primarily answering the question: “what are race, gender, and sexuality?” It’s primarily answering the question “What is Man?”
What Is Man?
Our passage is taken from the first chapter of the Bible, which gives us a big picture of God creating the entire universe: v. 1 “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” Note that in Genesis 1:2, the earth is “formless and void.” Over the course of the six creation days, God forms and then fills. He forms different domains on Days 1-3 and then fills these domains in Days 4-6. On day one, he separates light from darkness. On day four, he fills the heavens with sun and moon. On day two, he separates the waters above from the waters below. On day five, he fills the waters with fish and the skies with birds. On day three, he separates the sea from the dry land. On day six, he fills the land with animals. And his creative activity culminates in the creation of the first human beings Adam and Eve.
Given that background, let’s read verses 26-28:
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 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.”
What does this passage teach us? It shows us at least five things: Man is a creature, Man is a divine image bearer, Man is a vice-regent, Man is male and female, and Man is under God’s blessing.
Man Is a Creature
First, man is a creature. Read v. 26: “Then God said, ‘Let us make man….'” God is the subject in each of the sentences in this passage: God said…God created…God created… he created…God blessed…God said.” This is the refrain throughout the entire chapter. God is the creator. In the beginning, there was nothing. Then God made everything. Why does that matter?
It matters because it means that we are creatures, not the creator. We are the servants, he is the master. We are the clay, he is the potter.
How should this truth affect our posture towards God?
Imagine that I decide that I want a duck pond. My daughter loves ducks, I’m sure she’d be thrilled. But I want a duck pond in my living room. So I draw up some plans. I’m going to tear out the floor. I’m going to rearrange the drains. I’m going to install a skylight so the ducks can fly in.
But do you know what makes a big difference? Whether I own my house or whether I just rent it. If I own my house, I can basically do what I want. Duck pond in the living room? Sure. Hot tub in the kitchen? Weird, but ok. Batcave in the basement? Whatever Bruce Wayne, knock yourself out.
But if I’m just a renter, it’s a different story. I can’t do what I want anymore. I have to respect the wishes of the owner.
That’s all of us. We’re all just tenants. God is the landlord. We are not our own. We are living rent-free in God’s universe.
Why does that matter? It matters because it changes how you view your relationship to God and to his commands.
Let’s say my wife and I are invited to dinner at a friend’s house. We come inside and the host says “please take your shoes off. We take our shoes off when we come inside.”
And I reply “I’ll certainly consider it. Please give me a list of reasons that you do not wear shoes indoors. Rank them in order of importance and I’ll look them over. When I’m done, I’ll probably have a few objections and if you can rebut them successfully, I will remove my shoes.”
My wife would pull me aside and say “honey, you’re embarrassing me. You promised you wouldn’t do this again.”
So what was the problem with my response? Aside from being weird. The problem is that it’s not my house. When you’re a guest in someone else’s house, you simply do what your host tells you to do.
So let me ask you: Is that how you respond to God and to his commands? Is that how I respond to his commands? Do we just obey? Or do we demand that he justify himself first?
Of course, God’s rules are good and righteous. Of course he has reasons for everything he commands. But at the end of the day, we obey Him simply because He’s our Creator and we’re living in his universe.
Man Is a Divine Image Bearer
Second, also in verse 26, God says “let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” This is the doctrine of the imago Dei. Every person, male or female, young or old, rich or poor, healthy or sick, Black, White, Hispanic or Asian, bears God’s image.
Being made “in God’s image” doesn’t mean that God is like us physically, that he has two arms and two legs or that he gets hungry. Rather, it means that human beings are “like God” in the sense that we share in some of his attributes in the ways that other creatures do not. Humans are rational. Humans are relational. Humans are creative. Humans can speak. Humans can make choices.
Think about how this doctrine should change your posture toward other people.
Look around: you are standing in the presence of people who bear the divine image. From the tiny baby, to the elderly Alzheimer’s patient in hospice, we bear God’s image and that image confers dignity and value on all of us.
Do you live that out? Do you treat everyone, even your enemies, even those who despise you, as if they bear God’s image? When you feel worthless, do you remind yourself that you bear the image of your perfect, holy, loving, powerful Creator?
Man Is a Vice-Regent
Third, man is God’s vice-regent. He acts as God’s representative over creation. God made man to rule. Verse 26: “And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
Yes, we were made to serve. But we were also made to rule. God says “let them have dominion.” The pronouns in this passage are important. Here, God is referring to both man and woman, Adam and Eve: “They are to have dominion… over all the earth.”
Does that mean that we can do whatever we want to it? Can we pave paradise and put up a parking lot? No. Remember, we are just stewards of what ultimately belongs to God. Our job is not to destroy or replace nature, but to cultivate it. To care for it. As it says in chapter 2, Adam was commanded to “tend” the garden. His rule was not to be abusive; it was to be a blessing.
A garden is actually a perfect illustration of this relationship. A gardener doesn’t destroy nature. He doesn’t replace the grass with Astroturf. He doesn’t cut down all the trees and put them in a tree museum. Rather, he plants, waters, prunes, and nurtures. He imitates His creator in bringing order out of chaos.
Tim Keller once observed that this is how every Christian should think about his job. You are not ultimately just “creating shareholder value.” You are bringing order out of chaos, whether you’re changing diapers, cleaning bathrooms, teaching students, repairing drains, or writing contracts.
Is that how you view your vocation? Do you go into the office on Monday thinking “I can’t wait until Friday”? Or do you say “I am glorifying God by having dominion over the earth, by bringing order out of chaos, and by serving my fellow man”?
Man Is Male and Female
Fourth, v. 27, God made man male and female. There’s so much here that we can only touch the surface.
We already noted that the command to have dominion over the earth is given to both the man and the woman. However, this is even more clear in verse 28, when God says to them (plural), “Be fruitful and multiply.” Think for a moment about that command. That’s not something Adam can do by himself. Eve can’t do it by herself. Only man and woman together can fulfill his command.
2nd-wave feminist Gloria Steinem popularized the saying “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.” Very clever. Very unbiblical. According to the Bible men and women do need each other.
The text itself makes that clear: throughout Gen. 1, we see the divine benediction: “The Lord saw that it was good… The Lord saw that it was good… The Lord saw that it was very good.” But then in Gen. 2:18, we suddenly see God saying “It is not good for man to be alone.” Adam is in paradise, walking with God, but something was still “not good” because he could not find “a helper fit for him,” which can also be translated “a helper corresponding to him” or “a helper suitable for him.”
Now, when we hear “helper” we might think “servant” or “subordinate” but that would be incorrect. For example, the Hebrew word for “help” e’zer is also used of God himself multiple times in the OT. So it can’t mean “servant” or “subordinate.” Gen. 2 also makes this point clear. When Adam sees Eve for the first time, he doesn’t say “Great! A servant!” Rather he says “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.” He even names her “Woman” because he recognizes that she was “taken out of man.” She shares his nature.
At the same time, there is an order to their relationship. Man is created first and woman is created from man. Man names woman, woman does not name man. Woman is called man’s helper, man is not called woman’s helper. The rest of the Bible, both Old and New Testaments, elaborates on these differences, highlighting both a distinction in roles and a fundamental equality of value.
But the major take-aways are that gender is a gift from God and that our gender differences are good, necessary, and beautiful.
Man Is Under God’s Blessing
Finally, God blesses man. V. 28: “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.'”
Think for a moment of the picture we’ve painted so far. Does this match your understanding of religion? Where are the rules? Where are the rituals? Where are the prohibitions? Where is the guilt? If we read on, we’ll see that God gives them just one prohibition: don’t eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But what is his very first command to Adam and Eve? I don’t want to be too blunt here, but it is literally “go make babies.” Lots of babies. God says to Adam and Eve: “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth with your babies. Bring order out of chaos. Tame the wilderness. Tend the garden. Be kings and queens. Go with my blessing, knowing that the Creator of the whole universe is pleased with you and has pronounced you ‘very good.’”
Now we know that this is not the world we live in today. In Genesis 3 we will read about how Adam and Eve rebelled against God. Their rebellion brought sin and death into the world. They were driven out of Eden, their relationship with God was broken, their relationship with each other was broken, their relationship with nature was broken. But, even so, the original goodness of God’s creation remains. The earth is still filled with his blessings, his unmerited love and grace even towards those who reject Him.
Listen to this passage from C.S. Lewis’ book The Screwtape Letters:
“[God is] a hedonist at heart. All those fasts and vigils and stakes and crosses are only a façade. Or only like the foam on the seashore. Out at sea, out in His sea, there is pleasure, and more pleasure. He makes no secret of it; at His right hand are ‘pleasures for evermore’…He has filled His world full of pleasures. There are things for humans to do all day long without His minding in the least—sleeping, washing, eating, drinking, making love, playing, praying, working.”
Is this how you view God? Is he the creator? Are you made in his image? Are you made to rule and reign under his authority? Do you embrace gender as one of his good gifts? Do you see his love and blessing in every joy you’ve ever experienced?
This is the God we meet in Gen. 1:26-28. This is the God who made you and calls you into fellowship with himself.
Race, Gender, and Sexuality In the Beginning
Ok, we’re done with sermon number 1. We’ve explained Gen. 1:26-28 on its own terms. It’s primarily about God’s creation of man. We don’t want to import modern concerns into the text. However, that said, it is appropriate to ask: does the text tell us anything about race, gender, and sexuality? And here the answer is: yes. The text does have relevance to these topics and the Bible does have a great deal to say about them.
First, let’s take a look at race. How does race show up in Gen. 1-2? That’s the neat part; it doesn’t. Adam and Eve weren’t White or Black or Asian or Hispanic. They were just human. And all human beings are descended from them. In Athens, in Acts 17:26, Paul explicitly states that “[God] made from one man every nation of mankind.” So it’s correct to say: “there’s one race, the human race.”
The differentiation of humanity into different nations and peoples doesn’t occur until Gen. 11. At the Tower of Babel, humanity is united in their rebellion against God. As punishment, God scatters the peoples and confuses their languages. According to the Bible, this is the origin of the different ethnicities and nations.
After Gen. 11, the Bible does indeed recognize groups like families, clans, tribes, and nations. But it never categorizes people according to their skin color or puts people into massive buckets like “Black” or “White” or “Asian.” Racial labels like “Black” “White” and “Asian” were not invented until the 17th century, when modern racial categories were wickedly used to justify chattel slavery.
A better category for us to use as Christians is “ethnicity,” which refers to a person’s ancestry, culture, and language and maps fairly well onto the biblical concept of “ethnos,” from which the English word “ethnicity” is derived. For example, the racial category of “White” therefore contains hundreds of distinct ethnicities like French, German, Spanish, Russian, and English, just as the racial category of “Asian” contains hundreds of distinct ethnicities including Japanese, Chinese, Thai, and Vietnamese.
In contrast to race, both gender and sexuality are found “in the beginning” in the very passage we’re studying. They are both part of God’s good creation. In 1:27, God created them “male and female.” And notice what follows in verse 28: the command to “be fruitful and multiply.” The two categories of male and female come together in marriage to produce children.
An important note: due to the influence of queer theory, our culture is increasingly distinguishing “sex” from “gender.” Supposedly, “sex” refers to biology while “gender” is a social category. For example, your sex is specified by your chromosomes and your anatomy whereas gender refers to what kinds of clothes you are expected to wear or what kind of social roles you are supposed to occupy. Thus, queer theorists claim that someone’s biological sex can differ from their gender identity, the social category with which they identify.
But look closely at Gen. 2. Yes, God clearly creates two biological categories of male and female, who come together sexually in marriage to produce children. But this chapter also invokes social categories. Gen. 2:24 says “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” Not the reference to just not biological categories like “man” and “woman”, but to social categories like “mother” and “father” and “wife.” So it’s accurate to say that both sex and gender are God-ordained categories. Consequently, the social category of “gender” should be rooted in the biological category of sex. As a result, Christians should reject the idea that either sex or gender are fluid and can be changed at will.
Lastly: sexuality. The biblical sexual ethic follows directly from a biblical understanding of gender. Marriage is a lifelong covenant between a man and a woman and only within this marriage covenant is sex morally permissible.
Race, Gender, and Sexuality After the Fall
We’ve just finished discussing race, gender, and sexuality in the beginning but the next chapter in the biblical narrative is crucial because we no longer live in Eden. We now live in a ruined world. So how have race, gender, and sexuality been affected by the Fall?
First, as we’ve said, ethnicity didn’t even exist until after Babel. Interethnic strife, war, and oppression quickly followed. Likewise, gender and sexuality were broken by the Fall.
When Adam and Eve are punished in Gen. 3, the curse affected their relationship. God tells Eve: “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.” The interpretation of this verse is contested, but I believe that –in context— it highlights the emergence of a power struggle within marriage. The wife will now desire to rule over her husband and he will now rule harshly over her.
Sexuality is similarly broken. In Gen. 1-2 it was so simple: a husband and wife are married and their joy-filled sexual union produces children. But after Gen. 3, we see chaos and destruction. Adam’s great-great-great-great-grandson Lamech is the first polygamist and boasts about killing men in vengeance. The 7th commandment prohibits adultery. Leviticus 18 is 29 verses long, and has to prohibit men from having sex with their mothers, their sisters, other men, and animals. Why all these rules? Because the Israelites were doing all these things, along with all the nations around them.
The contrast is horrifying. In Gen. 1-2, we’re shown a beautiful, glorious world Created by a beautiful, glorious Creator. We’re given an exalted view of humanity, our place in the cosmos, and our calling as God’s vice-regents.
And then it all falls apart. We have rebelled against God and have earned his curse rather than his blessing. We’ve been driven from Eden and now live in a land marred by thorns and thistles, bitterness and violence. Hostile nations slaughter each other by the millions. Ethnic hatred is rampant. Men and women are estranged from one another. Sexual abuse destroys the innocence of young women and men. Husbands and wives commit adultery, get divorced, abandon their children. Sex is predatory and empty.
We were created for heaven on earth and instead brought hell to earth.
Is there any hope?
Yes.
Race, Gender, and Sexuality In the Kingdom
The next chapter in the biblical narrative is redemption and it tells the story of God’s inbreaking kingdom. We were created as God’s vice-regents over his Kingdom. Through our sin, we rejected God’s rule and were exiled. But, in the fullness of time, God sent his son to be born King of the Jews. When we turn to Jesus, in repentance and faith, trusting in him as Savior and owning him as our Lord, we re-enter God’s kingdom as his sons and daughters. What we lost in Adam is restored in Christ.
So what do race, gender, and sexuality look in Christ kingdom? They look like Eden restored.
Take race or, more biblically, “ethnicity.” The nations were separated in Gen. 11, at the Tower of Babel. Their languages were confused and they were dispersed. Fast forward to the day of Pentecost, when Jesus’ disciples received the Holy Spirit. Acts 2 describes the scene:
“Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. 6 And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language. 7 And they were amazed and astonished, saying, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language? 9 Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, 11 both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians—we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.”
Do you understand what you’re seeing? Babel is being reversed. Jews and Gentiles from different nations are gathered back to Jerusalem and –despite speaking different languages—are miraculously enabled to hear the gospel being proclaimed to them.
From the very day that the NT church is established, it is multiethnic. Jesus is reversing the curse of Babel. And, in eternity, Rev. 7:9 says that we will gather together with people “of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues,” to worship the God who saved us.
What about gender?
In Gal. 3:27-28 we read “as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slavenor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Here, Paul is not claiming that when you become a Christian, you cease to be male or female any more than you cease to be a Jew or a Gentile. What he is saying is that all people, rich or poor, young or old, male or female, Black or White or Hispanic or Asian, have an equal standing before God. We are all adopted into Christ’s body, the church.
Yes, there are still distinct roles for male and female within the family and with the church. But beneath that there is, as there always has been, a fundamental equality between different genders, and different ethnicities, and different socio-economic classes. In the church, power is used to bless not to exploit. When his disciples were arguing over who was the greatest, Jesus told them “whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” Matt. 20:26-28. Wives are to submit to their husbands out of reverence for Christ and husbands are to love their wives like Christ loved the church. We are to imitate our master in setting aside our own demands for the good of others.
What about sexuality?
In 1 Cor. 6:9-11, Paul writes: “do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”
Listen to that last line: “such were some of you.”
Jesus did what the law could not do: He renews us. He restores us. He puts into us a new heart and a new Spirit. He gives us the power to live out the biblical sexual ethic, to delight in the wife of our youth, to be pure not just outwardly but inwardly.
This is an absolutely crucial point, so let me close with it.
The Bible teaches that God created man. But more specifically, he created you to love and trust Him. You bear his image. You were created to rule under him. He made you male or female. He blessed you and crowned you with glory and honor. He shows you kindness, he provides for you, and fills your hearts with joy.
When some of us hear this, we think: “Ah yes, God’s design is good and true and beautiful. I’m glad I honor him and keep His law and don’t rebel against His commands, not like those degenerate blue-haired progressives.”
Friends, we should acknowledge the beauty and goodness of God’s design. But none of us fully honor him and keep His law. All of us have sinned. Not one of us loves Him as He deserves. Because of our sin, all of us have been exiled from Eden. All of us –no matter how morally upright we think we are– deserve God’s curse, not His blessing.
This is the gospel message and it’s for all of us:
Jesus didn’t come to earth to reward the good and righteous. He came to save sinners. He lived a perfect, sinless life, delighting in God’s design. Then he died a sinner’s death on the cross in our place, bearing the corruption and punishment we deserve. And then he rose from the dead, defeating sin and death once and for all. What was lost in Adam is restored in Christ. He is the King of God’s kingdom. If you repent and trust in him, he will welcome you back from your long exile.
This is the good news of the gospel: not that God blesses and accepts those who have kept his law, but that God blesses and accepts those who have broken it. Repent, then, and believe this good news: “that in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting men’s sins against them.”
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