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Back in March 2022 Katanji Brown Jackson was in her senate confirmation hearings. She had been nominated to the Supreme Court of the US, where she now sits. In the hearing a senator asked Katanji Brown Jackson, “Can you provide a definition for the word 'woman'?” Jackson responded, “I can’t.” The senator said, “You can’t?” Jackson said, “Not in this context. I’m not a biologist.”
But USA Today reported on this exchange. And they said, actually, biologists can’t help you here. They can’t answer that question either. The conclusion by USA TODAY was, “Scientists agree there is no sufficient way to clearly define what makes someone a woman.”[1]
Yet, this was disingenuous. If you asked her, “Did you marry a man or a woman?”, she would confidently say, “A man.” And if you asked her, “Are your children boys or girls?”, she would confidently answer she has two daughters.
Ironically, in the words of NPR, National Public Radio, and in dozens of news outlets, her nomination was supposedly historic because she was nominated as “the first black woman” on the Supreme Court (June 30, 2022[2]).
In one NPR article the author refers to Jackson’s “husband” and “two daughters.” The author didn’t spend a single word defining what she meant by calling Justice Jackson a “woman.” She didn’t explain what she meant by referring to Jackson’s male spouse as a “husband” or referring to Jackson’s female offspring as “daughters.”
Apparently the author believed she knew and her readers knew what a man was and what a woman was. And it was so obvious there didn’t need to be one single word of explanation.
I think this is true of Jackson as well. She has two beautiful daughters and seems to love them very much. My guess is, when she went to the ultrasound and asked for each of them, “Is it a boy or a girl?”, no biologist was called into the room.
The ultrasound tech and Justice Jackson knew: a boy has boy parts and a girl has girl parts. So, does this baby have boy parts or girl parts?
This whole episode illustrates that sin complicates. Sin doesn’t simplify things, it complicates them.
Biological sex and gender are actually pretty simple things. For almost all ultrasounds of babies, if the picture is clear enough, you can tell if it’s a boy or a girl. A boy has boy parts, and a girl has girl parts.
But sin complicates. There is the way that sin brought a curse to this world, so not all bodies work or have the parts they’re supposed to have. I mean in the womb. In the womb this can happen. That’s because we live in a fallen world.
But then sin complicates by rejecting God’s design and God’s truth. Sin tries to redefine reality. What God defines as a man, sin tries to define as a woman. What God defines as a woman, sin tries to define as a man.
Series: Right from the Start. What were things like at “the start”? What has been true of our world “from the start” of it? This morning we’ll look at “the start” and what it has to teach us about gender.
Sermon: (1) Defining Sex and Gender; (2) Back to the Garden; (3) The View from the End; (4) Living East of Eden
Prayer
“Male and female” refers to distinct biological sex and also includes the larger category of gender. In terms of biological sex, a man has male reproductive parts and capacities, and a woman has female reproductive parts and capacities. There is a profound union and complementarity implied in these roles. All of us are here because a man and a woman gave a part of themselves to form us, and then a woman carried us for months until she delivered us.
No matter gets talked about or announced, this union of a man and a woman is the only way for a baby to be born. And it is only a woman who can carry and deliver a baby.
This fundamental truth of biology isn’t just a physical reality. There’s meaning in it.
Our biological differences point to other realities. This is where the word “gender” can be a useful word. Being a man and being a woman are about more than reproduction and who physically has the baby. Gender includes biological sex, but it includes more.
Dr. Jordan Steffaniak of the University of Birmingham in England.
Sex: Biological features of a person such as chromosomes, sex organs, and hormones
Gender: Social features of a person such as norms, positions, performances, phenomenological features, behavioral traits, self-ascriptions, and roles
— Dr. Jordan L. Steffaniak, “Saving Masculinity and Feminity from the Morgue”[3]
These ideas of Sex and Gender aren’t where the controversy lies. The controversy lies in how flexible or fluid they are. And in how connected they are.
Can I change my biological sex or gender? And then, is my biological sex able to be different from my gender?
There’s a lot to say on this topic. This week and next.
Now we want to begin to unpack sex and gender biblically. We start in the Garden of Eden. Why? Because in the Garden there’s the reality of sex and gender without any distortion or confusion from sin or sinful thinking. After the fall there’s a brokenness that makes seeing clearly very difficult.
Read Genesis 1:27. As we’ve mentioned, note that word “created” (bara’). A special verb that lets us know this is a special act of creation. Amidst all the other acts of creation, this is a special act of creation.
“Male and female he created them,” and then immediately Genesis 1:28:
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.” (Gen 1:28)
Once Adam is made:
15 The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. 16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” (Gen 2:15-17)
But then a “helper fit”:
Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” (Gen 2:18)
All the animals are paraded before Adam. Adam in a focused and intentional way accomplishes this task. But no helper is found.
Verse 22 says that God took Adam’s rib and “made” it into a woman. The word for “made” is literally “build” (Heb bānāh). Used for building altars and even the tower of Babel.
He simply speaks galaxies and all animals into existence. He “formed” the man dust and breathed life into him. But then he started with Adam’s rib and then “built” a woman to be a precise complement to the man. That verb speaks to even more intentionality and time and care than in previous acts of creation.
You can see that in our reproductive parts, that a woman is a “helper fit” for the man. But it’s true in so many other ways as well.
And then the divine institution of marriage:
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. (Gen 2:24-25)
By the time we get to the end of the creation accounts, our understanding of sex and gender has come a long way.
A man and woman are physical complements—and relational complements. They are distinctly two, but these two are to become one. By becoming one they produce children, but there is also a powerful physical unity even when a child is not produced.
A man: Created to be in relationship with God. Created for work. Created to know and follow God’s law—and to teach it. Created to be in relationship with his wife and to have godly offspring.
A woman: Created to be in relationship with God. Created to help. Created to know and follow God’s law—and to teach it. Created to be in relationship with her husband and to have godly offspring.
Our resurrection bodies – 1 Corinthians 15:
42 So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. 43 It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. 44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. (1 Cor 15:42-44)
The point of looking at this passage now is to show that our bodies are not temporary housing for our souls. They are a permanent home for our soul. There is a brief period between our physical death and the resurrection when our soul will “depart and be with Christ” (Phil 1:23; cf Luke 23:43). But this unnatural state will quickly give way to our final state of being a glorified soul in a glorified body.
A body is made for its soul; and a soul is made for its body. It’s true now, and it will be true then.
We can see this in Jesus himself.
Jesus is the forerunner of all those resurrected in him (1 Cor 15:20). There was a clear continuity between his body on earth and then his body as a glorified man.
Likewise, at the transfiguration, there was a clear continuity between Moses and Elijah’s earthly bodies and their heavenly one (Matt 17:1–13). And in Jesus’ parable about the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19–31).
Fellow saints are called “brothers” (Rev 6:11).
The Church and the Triune God in perfect harmony. The Church are the brothers and sisters who are in Christ and then glorified. God the Father. At our glorification, Romans 8:29 tells us we will be fully “conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.”
When we consider the view from the end:
Patrick Schreiner tries to capture the Bible’s teaching on what it means to be a man and a man. His definitions are pretty strong and I think capture a lot:
The fundamental meaning of masculinity is sonship, brotherly love, and potentiality toward paternity. The fundamental meaning of femininity is daughterhood, sisterly love, and potentiality toward maternity.
— Patrick Schreiner, “Man and Woman: Toward an Ontology”[4]
Schreiner simplified:
A man: Before God to be a son, a brother, a father
A woman: Before God to be a daughter, a sister, a mother
This a really helpful summary to see manhood and womanhood in the Garden and in the new creation. And even now “Living East of Eden.”
Between Eden and the new creation, though, what do we find? Most of the Bible relates to this time between the beginning and the end. It relates to life east of Eden. Remember, after the curse, God sent Adam and Eve outside the Garden. A gate on the east side of the Garden. They were told to go out that gate and not to return.
We live east of Eden.
What about gender east of Eden?
Two and Only Two Genders:
From the beginning of creation, “God made them male and female.” 7 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife.” (Mark 10:6-7)
Jesus is teaching thousands of years after creation and divides us into “male and female” still.
And then the apostle Paul:
1 Timothy 5 confirms this:
1 Do not rebuke an older man but encourage him as you would a father, younger men as brothers, 2 older women as mothers, younger women as sisters, in all purity. (1 Tim 5:1-2)
A man can be “older” and “younger,” a woman can be “older” and “younger.” But they are still men and women.
And in the Bible’s commandments and examples, we see ways we are to live according to our gender.
In 1 Corinthians 11:3 and Ephesians 5:22–33 we are told that a husband is “the head” of his wife and his home.
Paul tells the Corinthian men to, “act like men, be strong” (1 Cor 16:13).
But Paul will also tell men that as they live out their strength, “do not provoke your children to anger” (Eph 6:4). And to husbands, “do not be harsh” with your wives (Col 3:19).
Peter tells women to be like “the holy women who hoped in God” in the Old Testament (1 Peter 3:5).
Be like Sarah when she was trusting in God. Be like Ruth. Be like Esther.
The Bible also teaches that we can live in ways not consistent with our gender.
There is such thing as a cross-dressing:
“A woman shall not wear a man’s garment, nor shall a man put on a woman’s cloak, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD your God.” (Deut 22:5)
There is such a thing as sexual immorality involving same-sex activity:
You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination. (Lev 18:22)
But these moral choices don’t change the fact there are only two genders.
And then east of Eden there is the reality that our bodies can be broken and our souls can be very sick and confused. We can get to the point where it becomes almost impossible to see reality with any clarity at all.
That’s why we need God’s Word to see through the confusion.
Once again our triads:
A man: Before God to be a son, a brother, a father
A woman: Before God to be a daughter, a sister, a mother
Maybe you’ve heard the ground is level at the foot of the cross. That’s true. But it’s also true that the ground is level outside of Eden.
Outside of Eden, we all need grace to KNOW and LIVE OUT our callings as men and women made in the image of God.
Men need grace to be strong but not domineering. To be faithful sons of God, brothers in Christ, physical and spiritual fathers.
Women need grace to be life givers and not those who can tear down their homes. To be faithful daughters of God, sisters in Christ, physical and spiritual mothers.
Where do we find that grace?
Whatever your family was or is, there’s grace in the family God has made for us.
Whatever your experience is being a man or woman, there’s grace in our heavenly Father who redeems and transforms us.
Prayer and closing song
[1]https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/health-wellness/2022/03/24/marsha-blackburn-asked-ketanji-jackson-define-woman-science/7152439001/
[2]https://www.npr.org/2022/06/30/1108714345/ketanji-brown-jackson-supreme-court-oath-swearing-in
[3] Jordan L. Steffaniak, “Saving Masculinity and Feminity from the Morgue: A Defense of Gender Essentialism,” Southeastern Theological Review 12.1 (Spring 2021), 16.
[4] Patrick Schreiner, “Man and Woman: Toward an Ontology,” Eikon 2, no. 2 (Fall 2020): 68–86.
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