Social Media Statement

This post is in response to a conversation that was started on social media.

Person #1: “If God made you a male, that’s not a mistake. If God made you a female, that’s not a mistake. Saying any different is insulting a perfect creator. Read your word.”

Person #2: “God made you a brunette, yet you are now a blonde. God gave you bad vision, yet you fixed it with glasses. God gave you crooked teeth, yet you straightened them with braces. Trans people change the outside to match the inside like you do. Sit down. Jesus said to.”

Response

Both of these are appeals to the individual in the present and are divorced from the Biblical arguments for male and female creational order. 

Adam and Eve in their created state were individuals, each made with distinct roles, responsibilities, and relational unique attributes. This is all pointed to clearly in Genesis 1-2, and reinforced in the failure of both in their roles, responsibilities, and relationships in Genesis 3. 

I'm not a male because of my inside, or my outside in a vacuum of my own understanding or interpretation of my feelings. I'm male for the same reason my wife is female. God has made humanity as male and female. This created order is specific and God-ordained. Boys are boys, and girls are girls. This is not a result of any desire, perspective, or input from humanity. God’s created order is not changed as a result of the fall. Although the fall has greatly impacted all of humanity, the fall has not somehow changed the created order of the universe. The fall has had tragic consequences, but the fall has not reordered or fundamentally changed how God has made and ordered humanity. We, as humans, are male and female in continuing fashion reflecting the created order of God, albeit now with much suffering and strife due to the fall and our sin (both original sin and our personal individual sin).

After the sin of Adam and Eve, boys are still boys, and girls are still girls. We are now fallen image bearers of God and in need of saving from the utter destruction we bring upon ourselves through sin. By God’s grace, sinful boys and girls can be saved to live forever as redeemed boys and girls. It is God who defines what sin is, God who defines what is needed for restoration from sin, and God who defines the created order of humanity: male and female he created them (Genesis 1-2).

The creator defines the usefulness and purpose of a created thing. Nowhere in the scriptures, by explicit statement, referential idea, or extrapolated consequence has God relinquished His position as creator of humanity. A hairdryer doesn’t have the ability, capacity, or right to say it’s a piano, toaster, or space rocket because it feels that way. The hairdryer was made as a hairdryer for the use, purpose, and pleasure of the maker and owner. God is the maker and owner of humanity. God has created humanity male and female and it is categorically beyond humanity’s ability, capacity, or rights to say otherwise.

To disassociate the pattern of who we are from the created order in Genesis 1-2 is a subtle "unhitching" and disbelief in the continuing pattern of God's creation in the human race. We are made male and female, anything besides this is a result of the fall - note - that includes varying folks who are born with various physical handicaps, disabilities, or malformations. A proper biblical understanding of God and humanity brings dignity, honor, and value to those who struggle physically or mentally as a result of the fall. As God-fearing believers, we can see the dignity, love, and wonder of God’s handiwork in our friends, family, and acquaintances who suffer from various effects. We see that the effects of the fall are tragic, and we recognize by God’s grace that even those marring effects do not remove God’s image from our fellow suffering humans. These things are horrific and sad results of original sin and the fallout effects of it. Those fallout effects do not negate God's created order for men and women. 

The entire argument in both of these above quotes is individualistic, post-modern, wisdom of the world gobbledygook. Reject that junk friends and brothers and sisters. God has made us male and female, not as a result of our biology, or psychology, but because in creation God has made humanity in this fashion. This is why I believe so firmly that these worldly means of argument is an attack on God’s created order. To make any appeal to our choices, our feelings, our desires, or any “disconnect” between our “inward” and “outward” selves is an appeal to who we are far after we’ve been created! God has created us male and female, the effects of the fall do not change what God has already accomplished and ordered in creation.

Please note arguing in this fashion, appealing to the Biblical pattern of God's created order, completely cuts the legs out of any argument relating to biology, or psychology. Our feelings and even our physical features are not justifying factors for us to alter God's created pattern for us. 

To address the issue of outward appearance such as hair changes, makeup, and attire, is entirely different as they are appeals to the present individual person, rather than the created order. In Genesis 1-2, we are not given cultural prescriptions regarding how men and women are to distinguish themselves in attire. That pattern of distinctive male and female-created beings is repeatedly reinforced, observed, and even praised throughout the Old and New Testaments. When men and women treat one another as less than fellow image bearers, made as male and female, there is great trouble due to a distortion of the created order. Inward realities of God’s created order are then reflected in outward appearance. Outward appearance is upheld and honored for both women to dress as women, and men to dress as men. 

Contrary to some, this does not mean that women in every culture must wear a single piece of cloth akin to a dress or toga. Nor does this mean men are to wear heavy cloaks akin to kilts or capes. There are some that seem to think the cultural dress code of their own preference ought to be universal. Thank goodness God is not so close-minded or narrow as some of us! The scriptures speak well of men dressing and behaving as men, and women dressing and behaving as women. It is when men or women begin to swap the created order that chaos ensues. God's Word speaks with absolute certainty that this is displeasing to God and only a result of the fall. 

The whole conversation of sexual identity (indeed all of human identity) is about creational order. What God makes is good, and the way God sets things up is good. When we divorce our existence from God's creational order we are simply repeating the ancient sin of replacing the creator with the created, putting our own authority and preferences above God's. For we who are Christians, our identity is not found in our preferences, feelings, choices, mistakes, mishaps, maladies, psychology, or biology. As Christians we are owned by God, redeemed as new creations with an identity that is found in Jesus Christ the righteous. God has created us anew with new hearts that beat to the drum of God’s desires.

I'm sure others have more succinct arguments, but for me, this is where I’ve tackled the topic of human sexual identity over the last 15+ years as an evangelist, missionary, and most recently as a pastor. 

Even the most tragic circumstances that we can sympathize with are instances that are a result of the fall (we did already say the thing is tragic, and anything tragic is only present due to sin). God redeems his people through Christ from all sorts of tragedy, including gender confusion, sexual immorality, and desires that are contrary to who God is making men and women to be in Christ. 

God doesn't need to conform to our feelings, or our biological ability to mutilate our bodies. God has made and declared what is good. It is good for men to be manly, and good for women to be womanly. Each culture WILL look slightly different, but that doesn't change the created order of God, and sometimes even cultures (like Western hyper-sexuality culture) as a whole can reject these created distinct categories that God has made of male and female. We see this in the fact that “Androgynous” is a description of a blurred attractiveness of a person, neither fully male or female. Thankfully, regardless of how sinful we are, we have a God who delights to redeem sinners from all sorts of delusions.

God made us male and female. That's the pattern both pre-fall. Submitting to God’s created pattern for humanity is a part of our response of faith to the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

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