What is a Woman?

Genesis 1:26-27; 2:18, 20-22.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on May 08, 2022, Mother's Day.

[Note: There is no audio available for this sermon.]

We will take a break from our series in the book of Acts in order to focus on mothers today.

It has come to my attention that there are some people who do not know what a woman is.  Since, moms are first women, it is important for us to understand exactly what a woman is.  Now, if these were just kids who couldn't define what a woman is, then we could rest at ease.  However, these are full-grown adults who have graduated from our "best" universities that are having a hard time defining what a woman is.  We have reached a point in our society where the definition of woman is essentially: you will just intuitively know it if you are one.

Of course, the halls of academia and the philosophers of our age are purposefully breaking down the clarity that God has built within His creation, within reality.  For them, there can be no “mothers” in the future.  Only professionals can perfectly create and train the next generation.  Only smart people can know how many kids we actually need.  It is humorous that, for all of their great wisdom, God did not agree with them.  Instead, He made man and woman as we really are.  In general, He gave the power of creating and raising children into the hands of moms and dads, and not to professionals.  This intelligentsia is currently muddling the definition of men and of women (similarly to how they have been muddling the definition of family and marriage) to the point that men can now be considered women and even mothers.  However, this is just a transitional stage.  The end game is to destroy the whole concept altogether.  Men, women, boys, girls, families are all doomed by the purposes of the current intelligence running this planet.

Let’s go back to the beginning in order to understand what a woman is.

An essential part of imaging God

Humans are unique among all living things on this planet because we were created in God’s image and likeness (Genesis 1:26-27).  The Image of God, or in Latin the Imago Dei, is the essential difference between us and all other things.  Though evolutionists try to make man just another animal, it really doesn’t pass the sniff test.  There is something essentially different about humans and the Bible calls it the Image of God.

Throughout Genesis, we should recognize that the Hebrew word “Adam” starts out as a descriptor and only later becomes a particular name.  It can be used to mean the name Adam, or it can mean “a man,” or it can refer to “a human,” even “humankind.”  We should be careful reading maleness into the word in verse 26.  God did not say, “Let’s make Adam in our image…”  It is being used indefinitely and should be translated a “a man,” or “a human.”  Older translations that simply put “man” are using it to essentially mean human.  It is interesting that God states His intention to make “a human” and then the next phrase is “let them have dominion…”  Chapter one of Genesis pictures the individual and plural aspect of humans altogether.  It is not until chapter two that we are given an expanded look that emphasizes the maleness and femaleness of men and women.

We should note the plural aspect that is connected to God both in this verse and throughout the Bible.  It makes sense that God would design humans with a plurality, if we are to be made in His likeness.  Image and likeness are most likely being used as synonyms.  However, the word “image” is more of an external resemblance.  Whereas, “likeness” has a more abstract sense to it.  The image of God is not only connected to the male, but rather to humans.  The imaging of God is something that men and women have individually, but also as we operate together.

Women, you were made in the image of God in a unique way.  You must reject this androgynous notion where we work to erase all the differences between men and women.  To do so is to attempt to erase God’s image within us.  Women image God in ways that men cannot, and we image God together in ways that we cannot alone.  Your greatest value is not in being married or in having children.  Your greatest value is being an imager of God.

God’s purpose was to give humans dominion over the earth.  This too goes back to the image of God.  Just as God exercises dominion over the heavens, humans would be His representatives upon the earth.  The way in which we exercise such dominion is important.  We either rightly reflect God’s image in our dominion, or we image something other than God.  We are not to destroy the earth and its animals, and yet neither are we to elevate them above ourselves.

For today’s purpose, notice that it is both men and women who are to have dominion over the earth.  It pictures a side-by-side dominion of two beings, who are in the image of God, working together in one accord.

Verse 28 gives another command to humans (men and women).  They are to be fruitful and multiply.

This involves the sexual aspect of a woman and a man.  The woman, Eve, would also become Adam’s wife.  Together they would begin to populate the planet.  By the way, Adam and Eve had many children beyond Cain, Abel, and Seth. 

However, fruitfulness and multiplying are about more than reproduction.  What would God think of a family that had 20 kids, but never taught them the way of the Lord and how to be a righteous person like the one pictured in Psalm 1?  I doubt that he would say that they had done a pretty good job.

Fruitfulness would connect to how they tended the garden and how they exercised their dominion as they increased numerically.  Were they a blessing like a fruitful tree, or were they a curse like a poisonous berry?  Does life flow in our wake, or does death and suffering follow us all the days of our life?  Physical fruitfulness should be paired with the greater fruitfulness that is in harmony with the God we are to image.

In light of this, mothering is one part of what women do, and the birthing of babies is only one component of giving life to our children.  We should recognize that, in general, men and women pair up and marry.  Many of those go on to have children.  However, even Jesus recognized that not all are called or “given” to be married, and “given” to have children.  Matthew 19:12 says, “For there are eunuchs who were born thus from their mother’s womb, and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven’s sake.  He who is able to accept it, let him accept it.”  Jesus points out that there are congenital reasons why some people don’t marry in adulthood.  There are also times like kings and masters who have control over another person’s experience in life.  Lastly, Jesus recognizes that some people choose to be single for the sake of doing God’s will.  Like Paul who counseled Christians to give thought to the single life, Jesus recognizes that some can “accept this.”  A woman does not have to marry and become a mother to have value.  Those things are valuable, and moms need to know that as a wife and as a mom they are of great value.  However, those valuable things are on a greater, foundational value of being an imager of God.  Single people who never marry or have children have not fallen short.  Rather, they have chosen a path that only a small percentage are able to choose.  Even the single among us are able to participate in being fruitful upon this planet in both natural and supernatural things.

Genesis 2:18-22 pairs the concepts of aloneness and help.  Adam would be alone if it were not for the woman Eve.  God did not choose to give Adam a petri dish and the knowledge of how to create another “man.”  He gave Adam a woman.  She would help him in the gargantuan task of imaging God, being fruitful, and subduing the earth.  She was God’s answer for his aloneness.  Notice that God let Adam experience aloneness before he let him experience the help of the Lord.  This is another aspect of being in His image and separates us from the animals.

It is easy to think of Eve being a helper as a subclass.  The term in Hebrew is ezer and is seen in names like Eliezer (My God is Help) and Ebenezer (Stone of Help).  It is always used in the context of great need.  When Israel was under military threat, they needed help and were tempted to look to the Egyptians or others to be their answer.  All throughout the Bible, Israel is counseled to look to God as their help, and not other people, other nations.  Here are several examples.  Deuteronomy 33:26, “There is no one like the God of Jeshurun, Who rides the heavens to help [ezer] you, and in His excellency on the clouds.”  Psalm 146:5, “Happy is he who has the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the LORD his God.” 

The woman is to be God’s help to do something that would overwhelm the man who is alone.  She is representative of God’s help.  It doesn’t come in the ways that we would create, but in a way that God creates.

The woman also represents humanity as a helper to God.  Christ and the Church are described as the Mystery that marriage is representing.  In a strange way, humanity is the helper that God has created for Himself in a display of His wisdom.  He who is the ultimate source of any Help creates a helper for Himself.

These things are all at the core of what a woman is, and is the foundation of what every mom is.  May God help us to honor the mothers in our lives and help them to image God as we all should.