Honest Questions: Why Does God Care About My Sexuality and Gender? (Genesis 2)
This question carries with it a lot of emotions. Our gender is connected to our sense of identity, and our sexual behaviors are considered private. I want to acknowledge up front that our topic for today is very personal. The question portrays God as intruding in our personal affairs. Our culture promotes a perspective on gender and sexuality that emphasizes individual autonomy and freedom from outside controls. We are encouraged to define our own gender and explore any sexual behavior that may bring us delight. The Bible confronts this ideology head-on. It speaks of God as our loving Creator who has designed our bodies to experience the beauty and delight of sex. Essentially, there is a battle for control. Who has the right to determine the best path for human flourishing, God or us?
The reason God cares about our sexuality and gender, which the question implies, is because He created us to experience joy. God wants us to find value in our biological gender and happiness in our sexual behaviors. The Scriptures speak of the beginning of the human story as the place where we can discover God's beautiful design for our gender and sexuality. I want to explore the start of the human story with you today to show you how God has designed our genders to complement each other and experience sexual intimacy.
Big Idea: We are interdependent, not independent or interchangeable. In the beginning, we see the creation of both genders. The first man and woman are portrayed as being united and different. Their equality of worth does not make them interchangeable. Adam is not Eve, and Eve is not Adam. They function differently as male and female and are equally made in the image of God. They were not designed to thrive independently of each other but were made for each other. Unity and diversity are the key themes presented to us in the first chapters of Genesis and are the foundation for building a biblical understanding of gender and sexuality.
First, I would like to show you that both Jesus and Paul used the creation story as their foundation for understanding gender and sexuality. Jesus is the center of Christianity, and His teachings are recorded in the four gospels, which make up close to fifty percent of the New Testament. Paul was one of the primary leaders in the first-century church, and his writings make up about twenty-five percent of the New Testament. Jesus and Paul are the most influential voices in Christianity, and they referenced Genesis 2 as the bedrock for understanding gender and sexuality. When Jesus was asked a question about divorce, He replied by citing Genesis 2:24.
Matthew 19:4-6, “He answered, ‘Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.’”
When Paul taught the church how a husband and wife should relate to each other, he also cited Genesis 2:24.
Ephesians 5:28-31, “28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, 30 because we are members of his body. 31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”
Genesis 2 is not just a description of what happened in the past but also a prescription of what should take place in the present. This chapter in Genesis is not just a story but a pattern for us to follow. Let’s look at some verses in the first two chapters of Genesis to discover the pattern God wants us to pursue.
Genesis 1:26-27, “26 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.” 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”
In these two verses, we see the interdependence of the genders in an interesting way. Their interdependence reflects God’s trinitarian nature. The Bible teaches that there is one God who exists as three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God’s plurality of personhood is expressed in the plural pronoun “us” in verse 26. “Us” can not refer to God’s conversation with angels because humanity is not formed in the image of angels. This is not just an expression of divine deliberation, God talking out loud to Himself. We have an example of God’s inward deliberation in Genesis 18, but the pronoun used in that case is singular, “I” (Genesis 18:17)
The “us” is an expression of the trinitarian conversation concerning the creation of humanity. God desired to make humanity in His image. Humanity was designed to reflect God; part of that reflection is the plurality of persons. In verse 27, the “image” of God language is directly followed by mentioning the creation of two genders. God is Father, Son, and Spirit. Humanity is male and female. The community of humanity reflects the community in God. The persons of the Trinity are not interchangeable or completely independent. They are unified and distinct. Our genders are meant to be unified and distinct. We are interdependent, not independent or interchangeable. Genesis 2 gives a fuller account of the creation of humanity and amplifies the unity and distinction of the genders.
Genesis 2:18-25, “Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” 19 Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. 20 The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. 21 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. 22 And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. 23 Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” 24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. 25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.”
What God said about Adam and Eve shows how He saw them as interdependent, needing each other. When God saw that Adam was alone, He declared that this was “not good.” The appraisal of something being “not good” breaks a pattern that started in Genesis 1. In Genesis 1, God declared seven times that the things He created were “good.” Man's loneliness is the only thing declared to be “not good” in all of God’s creation. This is not a reference to Adam's moral character but rather his inability to achieve his divine purpose alone. In Genesis 1:28, God commissioned humanity to “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.” Adam can not be fruitful and multiply on his own. I also believe he can not properly subdue or have dominion over creation alone.
God's reference to Eve as Adam’s “helper” also communicates her interdependence. She was created to support Adam in fulfilling God’s purpose for humanity. We should not understand this description as conveying a sense of inferiority in Eve. She is not less than Adam because she is his “helper.” The word translated as “helper” is often used in the Old Testament to describe God’s support of Israel (Exodus 18:4, Psalm 70:5). God is not inferior to His people. God’s words here describe a distinction in roles without the mark of inferiority. God’s description of Adam and Eve shows us that he created humanity for community, and the apex of that community is the family. The family is not the only place we find community, but it is the high point of human intimacy. Men and women are interdependent.
These verses and the surrounding chapters also show us that Adam and Eve are not interchangeable. They perform different actions and have different responsibilities before God. Adam named all the animals and Eve. Eve did not participate in the naming of creation. In Genesis 1, only Adam is mentioned as receiving the divine command to not eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. In Genesis 3, when humanity falls into sin, Adam and Eve are treated differently. Even though Eve sinned first, God called on Adam first to give an account of what happened. In Romans 5, Paul spoke of Adam as being responsible for humanity at large. His fall, not Eve’s, resulted in sin and death spreading to all of humanity. Both Adam and Eve are cursed for their disobedience, but their punishments differ. God gave different responsibilities to Adam and Eve as male and female, which were meant to complement each other.
The unity and diversity of the first couple were intended to set the pattern for all of humanity. Verse 24 makes this point clear when it refers to a man leaving “his father and his mother and” holding “fast to his wife.” Clearly, this does not reflect Adam’s actions since he had no father or mother to leave. Moses wrote this verse to teach the people of Israel that this was the pattern of human relationships they were supposed to follow. One man joined to one woman, forming a new family. This forms the biblical understanding of gender and sexuality. God created men and women who are different from each other, made for each other, and meant to be united in marital commitment to only each other.
If the unity, diversity, and commitment of the genders described in Genesis 1 and 2 are God’s design, why do we have desires that conflict with this design? We all have desires that conflict with this design. Whether we have lusted after the same gender or the opposite gender, we would all confess to lusting after someone at some time in our lives. These desires are not a part of God’s design but rather a result of sin. Sin has broken our desires. We still see the beauty of God’s design in our desires, but now, as a result of sin, our desires also reflect brokenness. We get a hint of this when God describes the relational strife that Adam and Eve would experience after the fall.
Genesis 3:16, “To the woman he said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you.”
This is not a description of a happy marriage. God foresaw marital strife and conflict for Adam and Eve. We should understand Eve’s “desire” and Adam’s “rule” in a negative sense. This is how these two words are used in Genesis 4.
Genesis 4:7 says, “If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it.”
God was instructing Cain in this verse to battle against sin. Surely, it is not a good thing to have your marriage described with the same words used to describe one’s battle with sin. Eve’s desires and Adam’s were corrupted by their fall into sin. The New Testament also links our fall into sin as affecting our sexual desires.
Romans 1:26-27, “For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; 27 and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.”
In the verses before these in Romans 1, Paul wrote about humanity rejecting God’s truth, and these verses highlight how that affected humanity. Rejecting God’s truth has caused us to be consumed by passions that are contrary to what is “natural.” Natural relations are those that reflect God’s design for one man and one woman to be united in marital commitment.
God’s design was for the genders to be interdependent, not independent or interchangeable. His design is the pathway to our greatest delight. Humanity will flourish when it follows the path laid out by its Creator. Unfortunately, our desires are not a reliable guide to our ultimate joy. Our desires reflect the beauty of God’s design and the brokenness of sin. The only way to discern beauty from brokenness is by God’s Word.
Whether you are a follower of Christ or still exploring Christianity, we can all agree that there are desires in us that are not good. We all can admit that it would not be wise if we carried out every internal impulse we had. If you are skeptical about this point, consider the following question. Is there anyone in the world doing something wrong, even though they believe it’s right? If you answer yes to that question, you are admitting that there is an objective standard of right and wrong and that our personal opinions and feelings cannot have the final say on what is right and wrong.
A moral line needs to be drawn, and our desires are not the best at determining where that line is. So, who decides where the line is drawn? The Bible teaches that God is the one who draws the lines. He is the one who determines the moral boundaries for our actions. As Christians, we must trust Him as the one who draws the lines and, in doing so, protects our joy and doesn’t diminish it. We must admit that our desires and God’s design don’t match up often and won’t until we are with Him forever in heaven.
Every one of us must face the challenge of trust and the burden of broken desires. God has promised us victory and transformation when we trust in Him, but that doesn’t completely diminish the burden of broken desires. I want to encourage you today to pray a simple prayer this week. I want to ask you to pray every day this week, “God help me delight in your design.” May God help you delight in your wife or husband. May God help you delight in your biological sex. May God help you delight in saving yourself for sexual intimacy until marriage.
Life-Level Application
Head: Read Romans 2:12-16 and 3:10-20. Based on these two passages, how do our desires (hearts) reflect the beauty of God’s design and the brokenness of sin? How does this perspective help us rejoice in the goodness of humanity and yet see the need that all humanity has for redemption?
Heart: Read 1 Corinthians 11:2-3 and Ephesians 5:22-33. How does the relationship between a husband and wife reflect the relationship between the Son and the Father in the Trinity?
Hand: Read Romans 5:12-21. How has Adam’s sin affected humanity? How does this effect show the different responsibilities that God gave to Adam and Eve in the garden? How does Adam's responsibility set a pattern for all men?
Habit: In what ways do you struggle with delighting in God’s design for gender and sexuality? How can you lean on others to help you with this struggle?