The Design of a Woman, Part 1 | Clarifying Gender Confusion

Selected Scriptures

    As I prepared to address you, I came across an insightful article written by a woman named Erin Davis. It was entitled, Why I’m Sick of Women’s Conferences. She began her article with this complaint, was what she said, “There is a message I hear at most women’s conferences and young women’s conferences that needs revisited. I heard it spoken from almost every stage, I sat near this spring.” And she had, by the way, she had attended eight conferences in just three months.

    She knows what she’s talking about. She goes on, “The message sounds something like this. ‘You’re beautiful, you’re valuable, you matter.’ What’s my beef with a message that warm and fuzzy? It’s not the message that women most need to hear.” She goes on, “When we allow women to walk out of our conferences and churches, feeling better about themselves, but less dependent on Christ, we are doing them a disservice. Women don’t need fluff. We need the meaty truth of the gospel straight from the Word of God. We don’t need messages that turn our focus toward ourselves. We need messages that pry our eyes away from our needs, our wants, our desires, and toward Jesus and his calling, that we serve others. Simply put the message that every woman needs is the gospel; without it, we’re just spinning our wheels.” Well said, Erin. Don’t you agree? What a good word. But I want to look at Erin’s complaint from just a slightly different angle. Why is it that the speakers at the majority of women’s conferences feel the need to tell women, you’re beautiful, you’re valuable, you matter?

 Why don’t they believe that they’re beautiful? Why do they doubt their value in God’s eyes? Why do they struggle with mattering, struggle with issues of significance? Those three words, beauty, worth, significance. Certainly those are important messages for women. And certainly God cares for women that they do display true beauty, understand true worth, live lives of true significance. So why must those messages always be emphasized? Is there some new challenge causing women to question their beauty, their worth, their significance?

This is really a primitive temptation. And it traces its origin all the way back to the Garden of Eden, goes all the way back to Genesis chapter 3, in fact, turning your Bibles to Genesis chapter 3 And I want to show you that original lie. This is the lie that so many women believe. Even Christian women struggle with this temptation. We understand this, which is why so many women’s conferences, feel the need to assure women that they are beautiful, they are valuable and they are significant.

Look at Genesis chapter 3, and it’s in verse 4, I want to direct your attention because into a world of concrete straightforward evidence of God’s goodness and wisdom, into a world that was governed by God’s clear revelation. The first question mark, written on the pages of Scripture comes from the mouth of that ancient serpent, when he asked this question, “Did God actually say?” When he slithered up to the woman that day, Satan was there to sow seeds of doubt, in her mind about God’s word, and then, about God’s character. Does God actually have your best interest in mind? Or is he withholding something from you?

Look at Genesis 3:4, “The serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you’ll be like God, knowing good and evil.'” So on the dark canvas of doubt that the serpent painted a new picture of reality for the woman, and then he stepped back. And he let her ponder that new vision for just a bit. Eve, she has no information besides this, and what she’s learned from her husband. She has no new information. She has no further certainty, she has nothing but the serpent’s vision casting, she came to a new conclusion about all the things she’d been taught thus far.

Look at verse 6 “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise,” She’s just speculating at this point, isn’t she? She has no idea of this. But “She took of its fruit and ate. And she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.” And that was it. That’s where everything changed. They had transgressed, violating God’s clear command, incurring instant guilt, experiencing instant death. The spiritual separation from God and they felt an immediate sense of shame.

All of a sudden, separation, suspicion, shame, division. Women would perpetually struggle with this very same primitive temptation, to escape God’s design and intention and then to usurp the role, the man. Look at Genesis 3:16, “Your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you.” Conflict, dividing the most intimate union. For those designed is helpmeets, designed to learn and to work to submit, to build, women face this perpetual temptation to be like God, knowing good and evil, redefining right and wrong, women will be tempted to work for and build a new vision of reality.

With that in mind, I’d like you to turn back a few pages to see what God originally designed for women, Genesis chapter 1, to see how he originally created them. We don’t want his good and perfect, wise and gracious intentions to be ignored any longer. We’ve heard enough of the sadness caused by the departure from God’s good design. So we want to get back to the truth. Okay? What I want to explain from the text, what I want to actually commend to you is a calling that’s higher and greater and more beautiful than any deceptive fantasy that the devil can spin.

I want you to hear God’s call for you as a woman, whether you’re married or unmarried, the call is the same and it’s the highest calling you can pursue. If you embrace God’s calling for you, as a woman, if you pursue it, his plan for you will cause true beauty to shine forth in your life. His calling will demonstrate the true value of your life. It’ll satisfy your God given longing to do something truly significant with your life. Ladies, this is what God intends for you. It’s what he’s intended for women since the very beginning. And any other vision of femininity is a deception, and a distraction that will leave you sad and frustrated with a life that squandered, chasing a satanic lie.

First point is this, you can jot this down in your notes if you’d like, the first point. The true glory of the woman, the true glory of the woman. The true glory of a woman is this. She is an image bearer of God, and she is a co-regent with man on the earth. You know what I mean by co-regent? I mean, co-ruling, co-king, if you will, she’s the queen. Her glory is to reflect God’s glory. And that speaks of a beauty and a value and a significance that is far surpassing anything that any other person can offer, doesn’t it? What higher calling could the world offer than that?

Take a look there at Genesis 1:26 and 27. Look what it says 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.”

Notice in verse 26, God said, “Let us make man in our image and let them rule.” Man, singular, refers to mankind and mankind is made in the image of God. But then God uses the plural when he speaks of the co-regency. Ruling together over the created world. This verse presents this first couple as co-equals, partners, a team. But then in verse 27, we see God distinguish them from one another. “God created man,” singular, “in his own image. In the image of God, He created him,” singular, “male and female, He created them,” plural. Both persons here, man and woman are image bearers of God.

Each one capable of representing God’s communicable attributes, that is things like his righteousness, his patience, his love, his mercy. They were created to reflect his glory in that way, perfectly. Not only that, but each one had the rational capacity to know God’s incommunicable attributes as well. That is things like his self-existence, his immutability, his infinity, his eternity, his omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotence. They could know those things as image bearers, they possessed rationality, they possess an ability to learn, to understand, to apprehend truth and comprehend it on some level.

So baring his communicable attributes, and then apprehending the greatness of his incommunicable attributes, men and women, together, share the intellectual and emotional capacity to worship God in all of his glory, and all of his splendor. They’re co-equal as image bearers of God. What a high calling. Together, God, assigned them a task, look at verse 28, “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, birds and every living thing that moves on the earth.'”

Men and women, they’re not only equal by virtue of being image bearers, they’re also equal in their God given task, to exercise joint dominion over the earth, they’re to rule together as co-regents over all creation. Exercising a delegated authority from God. Obviously, cooperation here is implied. Obviously, things like mutual respect and mutual appreciation, this is implied as well; men and women, equals in every way, but at the same time, they’re also different, aren’t they? Male and female, two different terms.

And this is an initial clue right here, in the very beginning, Genesis chapter 1, it signals a difference in role, it signals a difference in function, living as image bearers of God, it wouldn’t look exactly the same, right? Living and ruling as co-regents, it would not be conducted in exactly the same way and that’s what we see, when we turn the page to Genesis 2:4. Go ahead and look at Genesis 2:4. This brings us to a second point: The distinct role of a woman. The distinct role of a woman to put it simply, to put it plainly, and biblically, the role of the woman is to be a helpmeet.

A helpmeet, all women, whether married or unmarried, they’re designed by God to be helpmeets. Now, I want to stop there for a moment and define the word. That word helpmeet, it’s kind of come down to us from generations past, and it’s become more to us like jargon that we think we understand, but don’t always take the time to define, right? So we would be well served here to slow down, get a handle on this term, helpmeet.

   Look ahead to Genesis chapter 2, verse 18. And do you see the word helper in that verse or something like that? That’s where the word helpmeet comes from. But it’s comes from the older King James Version of the Bible. The King James Version translated the verse this way, it said, “And the Lord God said, it is not good that the man should be alone, I will make a help meet for him.” So I will make him a help, comma, meet for him. Meet, meaning suitable, not meat, meaning edible, it’s  M E E T. We don’t talk like this any longer, do we?

Which is why more modern translations render this phrase, like the Christian Standard Bible, “I will make a helper as his complement.” Not someone who compliments them all the time, tells him how great he is.  Someone who is fitting to him, complements him in every way. The ESV, probably in front of you, “I’ll make him a helper fit for him.” The New American Standard, “I will make him a helper suitable for him.” I like the New English Translation, “I will make a companion for him, who corresponds to him.” That’s the idea right there. A companion who corresponds. I really liked that translation, companion. It does lack the helping idea of the word helper, but it retains the equality idea from Genesis chapter 1, and I really like that, I think that’s appropriate.

The concept of helping is important. The concept of a suitable companion, one who helps, one who corresponds to the man, that’s the idea. We need to ask the question. Help the man do what, exactly? Help him do what? How is she to be helpful? Well, from what we already saw in Genesis 1:26, and 1:28, the woman was created to bear God’s image and to rule as co-regent with the man. So there’s some way that she’ll help the man with that. Hold that idea in your mind for a moment, let’s make a few observations here about the creation of the woman. There’s a lot that we can learn from how God brought the woman into existence, which is going to teach us more about her unique role. We already said in Genesis chapter 1 , the equality described in the text, it’s expressed in unique characteristics.

First, there’s the uniqueness of gender, Genesis 1:27. “So God created man in his own image, and the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” There’s gender there. When God made mankind, when he made human beings, he didn’t make them the same. There’s not one gender. Gender differences in no way, though, imply inequality, not at all. But those gender differences. They are thorough, aren’t they? Differences, we can all see, they’re superficial differences, things we can all see on, by outward observation, but they’re also profound differences, meaning not superficial, but deep.

Things that are undetectable to the naked eye, things like internal functionality, things like hormonal and chemical differences between men and women. Those gender differences, they reveal a divine intention, that there is to be, second thing, uniqueness of role. So not just uniqueness of gender, uniqueness of role. God intended the male and the female to have different roles. That’s exactly what we find here in Genesis chapter 2. And by the way, that is what our world wants to obliterate, get rid of, they want us to think that gender is open to reassignment, redefinition, not so, not so, you cannot get away from XX XY chromosomal differences.

As we’ve already read, the woman, she did not come on the scene right away. God created the man first, Genesis 2:7, and then he created the woman, Genesis 2:21-22. Just to read those verses, quickly, look at Genesis 2:7, this is God creating the man, “The Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.” Then in verses 21 and 22, God created the woman, how did he do that? “The Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man. And while he slept, he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh, and the rib the Lord God had taken from the man, he made into a woman, and he brought her to the man.”

Two creations separated there, by 14 verses, right? There is a 14 verse gap between the creation of the man and the creation of the woman, happen on the same day, the sixth day, but a 14 verse gap. God could have created them together, at the same moment, at the same time, but he didn’t. You ever wonder about that? Why did Adam come first and then Eve later?

Paul told Timothy, 1 Timothy 2:12 and 13. It was partly because of this fact. Adam first, Eve second, created order, that men and not women are to be teachers and authorities in the church. Here’s what he prescribed. “I do not permit a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man.” He’s talking about the local church context. “Rather, she’s to remain quiet for” because here’s the reason “Adam was formed first and then Eve.” You say, “That’s not fair.” Oh, wait a minute. This is God’s design.

Ladies, this is not an indication of first century sexism. This is the Holy Spirit, laying down a pattern in the church and it’s based on a pattern in the God ordained distinctions between the man and the woman. Doesn’t have anything to do with male superiority and female inferiority, that women can’t exercise rules of authority in the church. We already saw that God designed men and women as co-equals, as image bearers of God. This doesn’t have to do with men being logical, supposedly, and women being emotional. Doesn’t have to do with clear headed male common sense versus female gullibility, or any of that nonsense.

This is about God’s sovereign choice. It’s about his choice. He created and designed one person in the human pair to lead and he created and designed the other person to follow. It’s that simple. God intends for these two image bearing co-regents to work together as a team, one will lead and one will follow, and get this, when both of them were created, he put his final stamp of approval on everything he had made, calling it what? “Very good.” Right? From Genesis 1:31.

But again, we have to ask that question. Why would it matter that Adam was formed first, and then Eve? God isn’t whimsical about anything. He’s intentional. So he must have had something in mind. Notice what happened during the interval between the creation of the man and the creation of the woman. For the sake of time, I’m not going to read all these verses, but let your eyes scan over verses 8 to, to 20. As I highlight just a few things. First, as you see there, in verses 8-14, Adam, before Eve was ever on the scene, Adam got a tour of his environment. Before the woman was ever created, God gave Adam the lay of the land.

God showed Adam the garden with its trees, which were pleasing to look at, good for food, verses 8-9. He saw the tree of life, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God showed Adam where the garden got its irrigation, its water, he helped him trace that water to its source in verse 10. God took Adam along the major rivers, verses 11-14. And Adam then became the first cartographer, naming the rivers, mapping out the natural boundaries. Along with the way he discovered natural resources. He identified minerals that could be mined from the earth and put to practical use. This is like the birth of engineering. And all of this, before Eve came into existence.

Look at verse 15, “The Lord God took the man, put him into the Garden of Eden to work it and to keep it.” So Adam is the first here to get his work assignments, directly from God. This is how the first couple would fulfill or start to fulfill their Genesis 1:28 calling, “To fill the earth and subdue it.” And get this, Adam learned all of this before Eve arrived. Why? Because God designed Adam, to be the teacher and the leader of his wife.  So God put Adam in a position to succeed, he set him up, he guided him as a pattern for how to lead and teach his wife.

Adam was to be Eve’s tour guide, which would create a special bond of intimacy between them. Just as it had created a bond of intimacy between Adam and God. Along the way, there were some do’s and don’ts. Look at verse 16. “The Lord God commanded the man you may surely eat of every tree in the garden, 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.” So again, Adam learned about this, this danger, directly from the mouth of God, before Eve was ever created. She wasn’t around to hear any of this for herself. She had to hear it from her husband.

God gave Adam life and death knowledge. He gave him knowledge vital for the well being of his wife. God intended Adam to teach his wife, he intended Eve to learn from Adam, and then to submit to his leadership. This concept is repeated and affirmed throughout Scripture. Most specifically, in reference to marital relationships. Paul said, 1 Corinthians 11:3, “I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife as her husband, and the head of Christ is God.” There is an authority submission relationship between husband and wife. Just as I might remind you quickly, there is an authority submission relationship between the father and the son.

When Paul refers here to the intra-trinitarian relationship between father and son, he completely bypasses any sense of human culture, opinion, customs, social convention, none of that has any bearing on what he’s saying here, there is an essential equality between the father and the son, one not, is not greater than the other. At the same time, there’s a distinction between roles, isn’t there? Even the names father and son, reveal a distinction in the relationship. And scripture portrays the distinction in role. The father wills, he ordains, he decrees, he plans. What’s the son do? The son submits to his father’s will; he executes his father’s plans. The son actually rejoices to submit to his father’s will, to practice submission.

Listen, to practice submission for every Christian, Christ like, Christ like, if we submit in our God given roles and God given areas of responsibility, if we practice submission, we’re being like Christ, who submitted to his father in everything. Scripture pictures this clearly, we never questioned it about God, do we? We only question it when we try to apply it to our marriages. Right? Why is that? The short answer is this. Perfect harmony exists in the Trinity. Why? No sin. Right? Perfect harmony existed past tense in that first marriage as well.

But that unity and harmony, the joy, the satisfaction, the mutual honor and appreciation that existed in that first pristine relationship, that was destroyed by sin. It was obliterated. Get this though, the structure remains the same. The order and structure that God designed for creation, for marriage, for the man, for the woman, that was for our good. He didn’t want us to get rid of the model. There’s a bond between the man who leads and the woman who submits to his leadership. There’s a bond that is formed between teacher and student. And that structure, that bond, God intended it to lead to mutual honor, mutual respect, mutual appreciation.

As Adam performs his role teaching and leading, as Eve performs her role learning and submitting. The two of them, they’re drawn close together in intimacy. They’re drawn close together in wisdom and bear fruit together as wise and productive, beneficial co-regents, who exercise dominion over the whole created world. That is God’s design, right there.