Is the Woman the Image of God?

 As you may know, if you've been here long, I do not believe that all people are the image of God. All people are made to function as the image, which is the means through which God creates human life and preserves it in the world, but people have fallen from that position and can only be restored as such through the image of the invisible God, Jesus Christ.

But a further question in a day when genders are so confused is needed. Are women individually the image of God? What I mean by this is to ask whether even Christian women, who are restored to Christ, the image of God all by themselves? I will answer by saying, Yes and No.

The woman is not the image of God in Genesis 1:26-27. God makes the man as His image and likeness and then restates that God creates man, male and female. The text does not restate that the female is the image as well. Some could argue that this is assumed by her identity as a part of mankind, and this is part of what I want to say, but often this is misunderstood.

The text states, 

And God said, "Let Us make אָדָ֛ם as Our image, like Our likeness, so that they will have supremacy over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the herbivorous animals, over all the earth, and over every small creature that creeps upon the earth." So God created הָֽאָדָם֙ as His own image, as the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

The way the text reads the אָדָ֛ם "man" is what God intends to be His image. Now, it seems clear from the text that the woman is identified with the group designated with his categorization. "Man" is both male and female, but it is the image that is identified as "man" or "mankind." In fact, the English expression "mankind" captures this quite well. There are males who are men, and there are females who are associated and identified with men. The males are man. The females are a kind of man, like a man in that they are also human. We are simply given nothing concrete to suggest this as much as a hint that the author means here to place women as the image of God along with men only because she is associated with him, not individually or separately. We see that, although the man is called the image explicitly, the role of the image given in 1:28 cannot be accomplished without the woman. It is her participation in his role that allows him to carry out the command to be fruitful and multiply and reverse the emptiness of the chaotic world in order to turn it into a world inhabited by other covenant human beings.

Genesis 2 brings this out much more clearly. The man is made by God in 2:7 as a Mespotamian priest makes an idol. This idol is then put into the sanctuary so that it can work against chaos and toward ordering the world around it (v. 8). It does this by cultivating its environment to be a livable space. What it cannot do, however, is thwart the chaos of a humanless world and so it cannot complete the mission to order the world by being fruitful, multiplying, filling up the earth, subduing it, and ruling over it. Hence, the man is the image but he cannot accomplish his role without a helper.

What this means is that the woman is not the image by herself, but the man, although the image, cannot completely function as the image in order to carry out the primary task assigned to him by the deity. God wishes to create through the man in order to reverse the chaos of the humanless world but He has not made the man capable of doing this on his own. Hence, He brings the animals to him to show that another animal will not work as a helper in this task as none can procreate humans with him. Finally, the woman is made to participate in this task with him, and so becomes a part of the image of God as God works through their one flesh union to create new life.

What this means is that the woman is not the image of God by herself. The man is made to be the image of God and given the woman so that he may now fulfill the task of being the vehicle through which God creates human life. 

Now, this may be a bit shocking to many who merely assume that all men are the image of God because they think "image of God" means "human." Of course the woman is human, but that is not what the phrase means. It refers to an image in the ancient Near Eastern world, an image in a temple, an idol, if you will, that functions as a physical vehicle through which a deity fights chaos in the physical world. 

What this means, therefore, is that the woman can only become the image of God if she is united to a man who is the image of God. Apart from that, she does not become the image. Now, it needs to be said that all who are in Christ are now united to the One who is the image of God, so that she partakes in His image-bearing in that sense; but in the Genesis sense of the term, the one the Apostle Paul references in 1 Corinthians 11, she only does this by participating in the male-female relationship. Hence, Paul says, 

For a man ought not have something hanging down from his head, since he is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man. For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. (vv. 7-9)

Notice that Paul argues that men should not have something hanging down from their head because they are the image of God. If he also thought the woman was the image of God this would make no sense. Instead, he argues that the woman is the glory of the man, distinguishing between them as one who is the image and one is the glory of the image. This seems to express a participation on the woman's part in the man's role as the image but that she does not have a separate identification of being that image by herself. She was created to help him complete his role and hence was made for him. Paul ties this to the fact that she is the man's/the image's glory/visible beauty. She allows the image to shine in physical terms which corresponds to the fact that she allows the image to function/produce life in practical terms.

Augustine sees all of this and states that "the apostle Paul does not attribute the image of God to her" and that “. . . the woman together with her own husband is the image of God, so that that whole substance may be one image; but when she is referred separately to her quality of help-meet, which regards the woman herself alone, then she is not the image of God; but as regards the man alone, he is the image of God as fully and completely as when the woman too is joined with him in one.” (On the Trinity, 12.7.10)

He also notes that this is in reference to her help as the one who allows him to procreate.

“I don’t see what sort of help woman was created to provide man with, if one excludes procreation. If woman is not given to man for help in bearing children, for what help could she be? To till the earth together? If help were needed for that, man would have been a better help for man. The same goes for comfort in solitude. How much more pleasure is it for life and conversation when two friends live together than when a man and a woman cohabitate?” (De Genesi ad literam (The Literal Meaning of Genesis) 9.5.9)

This tells us two things. 1. That the woman is made to be in a subordinate role to the man because she is not the image herself. She has been created to help him fulfill his role as the image, and in doing so, she becomes one with the image, thus participating in it. 2. That the woman, although subordinate, is also the most precious creation ever made in the eyes of the man who was incapable of fulfilling his role without her. 

This is the foundation of true biblical patriarchy. The woman is made to be subject to the man but he is to cherish her above all things. Through her willingness to take upon a subservient role she saves humanity from oblivion and the man from futility. She is not the image by herself but she is indeed his glory. A man who misunderstands this and treats her poorly merely because she is subject to him has misunderstood biblical patriarchy. She is the greatest gift he will ever receive as she has completed the missing piece needed to complete his primary task in the world. 

Now, of course, the inevitable question will always be, What about single people? I would say three things to this. 1. All Christians, male or female, single or married, are united to Christ and participate in the image of God through Him. He Himself is the image because He has joined in the procreation of every Christian human being by extending their lives into eternity, restoring them to God for their eternal preservation upon the earth, making the couple's act of filling up the earth temporarily an eternal filling of the earth, thwarting chaos forever and completing God's goal in Genesis 1 by forever turning the humanless world into a human-filled one. 2. Although procreation is the foundational act of the image, it is not the only act of the image. Single Christians can war against chaos and work toward the filling of the earth by preaching the gospel, preserving the lives of other covenant people through charity, etc. In this, they become spiritual fathers and mothers and function as God's images together (again, I would argue that this task is primarily for men but women participate in it by helping the men, not by removing themselves from under the male authority of the church). 3. Likened to this is that one can have spiritual children through discipleship and hence partake in a spiritual fatherhood and motherhood as Paul does (1 Cor 4:15). Again, this discipleship should take place with male leadership as women are in submission to their elders and participating in their ministry of discipleship, not their own.

In conclusion, I leave you with this little poem.

A bird sung to God and said to Him, "I cannot reach the sky."

God replied back, "I know little bird. I'll give you wings to fly.

Wings are not a bird, You see, but what is a bird without wings?"

And so, we praise the Lord above who gifts us for all good things.