Honoring Christ in Male/Female Roles (2)

Introduction: The Authority of Scripture and the Framework of Christian Ethics

0:01 Peter, you may not put these first few remarks on the tape, but I can't resist saying that I would like to take all of the advocates of the silly notion that your generation is so infantile and spiritually ignorant that you cannot sing the, quote, old, stuffy, traditional hymns with intelligence and with enthusiasm. I'd like to park all the experts down here, tell them to just keep their mouths shut and their ears open and watch your countenances and listen to your voices as you've rendered to God what I believe has been worship in spirit and in truth. It's amazing how wrong the experts can be, many of whom are serving their own interests to promote themselves, to promote their sheep news. It's amazing how wrong the experts can be, many of whom are serving their own interests to promote themselves, to promote their so-called gospel cause for which you must pay your few quid to get in.

1:07 I trust none of you is sucked in by that dribble, but by the grace of God will appreciate the rich heritage that is ours, and perhaps out of your ranks God will raise some who will add to that great stream of Christian hymnody and psalmody, and that we will count ourselves not. We are not to be radical innovators, but those who by the grace of God can cast in our might to the great legacy that is ours at this point in the history of the church. Well, I just had to get that off my chest before we turn to the things at hand. Now let us again look to God in prayer and ask the Lord's blessing upon our study of his word. Our Father, we bow in your presence and thank you for the challenge that came to us. We thank you for the challenge that came to our minds and our hearts in the previous hour. You have told us in your word that all things are yours, Paul, Apollos, Cephas, and we believe Calvin, Knox, Luther, Wishart, and a host of others who have served you in their generation,

2:27 and from whose hand we have received such a rich legacy. Because of their determination to be true to the word of God and loyal to their King and Savior, Jesus Christ, we give you praise for ever raising them up and for ever bringing us within the orbit of that truth which transformed them and is transforming us. And now, our Father, as we again address our minds to this vexed and vital issue, of male and female roles, we pray that the Spirit himself will so come that in our study of the word of God we may be given true insight, and with that insight, grace to run in the way of your commandments. Hear our prayer and bless us together in your presence. We ask through Jesus Christ, our Lord and King. Amen.

3:36 Now, may I just ask, how many are here for the session this morning who were unable to be with us in the opening session at which I spoke last night? If you would just raise your hand, please. All right, only about a dozen or a dozen and a half, so an extensive review is not necessary, but basically, for those of you who were not with us, let me try to give you in five minutes the high points of about an hour and ten minutes of exposition and exhortation. I said at the outset last night that in taking up this subject of male and female roles and relationships and honoring Christ in them, we were really moving into the realm of Christian ethics, that is, the norms of Scripture for human behavior. And the moment we move into any subject of ethics, there is an immediate and almost an inevitable, inevitable pressure to run directly to the specifics. And so the question of whether or not women should be found in office in church, whether there ought to be deaconesses as well as deacons, are there any grounds for reversing the traditional roles of father as breadwinner and mother as breadmaker,

5:04 and to reverse them so that, Father, mother is breadmaker and mother is breadwinner. When we descend into the whole area of dating and sexual mores and standards, we have all kinds of questions that terminate upon the specifics. And in dealing with ethical issues, we must consciously resist the temptation to move directly to the specifics, put them, as it were, in suspension long enough to come to grips with foundational perspectives, because at the end of the day all of our perspectives on the details of ethical issues are an extension of our theology or an expression of our building blocks of thought and perspective. And so I asserted that it was my purpose to set before you the two major building blocks of all Christian ethics in general, and of the ethics of male and female relationships in particular. And the first building block was what I called the nature of Scripture itself.

6:17 And I asserted that the Scriptures teach us concerning themselves three very basic issues. First of all, their undiluted integrity, that is, they are infallible, inerrant, and self-consistent. Second, their timeless sufficiency. They speak with relevance and authority to every age and every culture in every single epoch of the history of the Church.

6:50 And thirdly, I referred to the fact that they are perspicuous in their accessibility to the average person. They are not given for the experts, but they are given in order that they may be a light unto our feet and a lamp unto our pathway. And then the second major building block for all ethical thinking is what I call the scriptural framework for ethical concerns. And that framework is the framework of creation, fall, and redemption.

7:29 The facts of Genesis 1 and 2 and Genesis 3, are like the point of truth in this. are like the point of truth in this. are like the point of truth in this. to the triangle, if I may now again allude to the building, and if we could take the triangular window pane and turn it upside down, that point upon which the rest would pivot can be likened to Genesis 1 to 3, and the entire unfolding of biblical revelation rests down upon the realities asserted in the doctrines of creation and of the fall, and then of course the introduction of the doctrine of redemption in chapter 3 and verse 15, and in a very real sense, the rest of special inscripturated revelation is but an expansion of Genesis 3.15, but everything from Genesis 3.15 to the last verse of Revelation. Revelation 22 rests down upon that point of Genesis 1.1 to Genesis 3.14, and so we must

Overview of Male-Female Roles: God's Creative Design

8:38 approach all ethical concerns within the framework of creation, fall, and of redemption. Now we come this morning to take up the subject, and I'm approaching it under this title, an overview of male-female roles. An overview, and by that I simply mean that we are cruising over some of the major passages of the word of God at about 10,000 feet, and we'll have little time to descend in a helicopter and hover over any one of them at about 15 feet. Now hopefully we're not cruising over at 40,000 feet, but somewhere around, you know, 8,000 to 10,000 as you would in a light single-engine aircraft going across the countryside. You see the major contours of the landscape, you cannot see every nook and cranny of every valley and every hill and every garden, but certainly you see a lot more than when you're at 40,000 in a jet aircraft making your way from one country to another. And I have three headings under which I have organized the materials. First of all, I want you to consider with me the fundamental issues embedded in God's

10:05 creative design and activity. The fundamental issues embedded in God's creative design and activity. Having considered that, we will then consider together what I'm calling the tragic disruption of God's creative design. through the fall, the tragic disruption of God's creative design through the fall, and then finally the glorious design and dynamics of redemptive grace as they come to bear upon male and female roles and relationships.

Fundamental Issues: Male-Female Equality in Creation

10:49 All right, first of all, then, we take up together the fundamental issues embedded in God's creative design and activity. And I want us to look, first of all, at the major aspects of male-female equality or parallel identity. Turn, please, to Genesis chapter 1, and notice the major aspects of male-female equality. Equality or parallel identity.

11:28 And there are at least three of these major aspects of equality and parallel identity. Number one, there is equality of dignity as image-bearers of God, Genesis 1.26. And 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 heaven and over the cattle and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.

12:04 And God created man in his own image. In the image of God created he him, male and female, created he them. Now, in this initial statement of maleness, and femaleness, not innocuous personhood, but maleness and femaleness, it is abundantly clear from the text that there is equality of dignity between the male and the female with respect to bearing the image and the likeness of God. When God says within himself, in the mystery, in the mystery of the tri-unity of his own existence, let us make man after our image and our likeness, the scripture is explicit, it is simple, you don't need to know a word of Hebrew, you don't need to know a letter of the Hebrew alphabet to understand the simple fact that male and female share equally in the dignity, in the dignity of being created as image-bearers of God. And even though the fall brought some tragic disruption and marring of that image,

13:34 the fall did not cease to make man an image-bearer of God. For you'll remember in that pivotal text, after the flood and the destruction of all mankind, God says to Moses, to Noah in Genesis 9-6, God says to Moses, to Noah in Genesis 9-6, Whoso sheds man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God made he man. So that man, even post-fall, post-flood, is an image-bearer of God, a marred image-bearer, a poor image-bearer, but an image-bearer, but an image-bearer, nonetheless. And though the theologians have written their tomes with respect to precisely what is involved in being an image-bearer of God, in these things they are all agreed that man was made as a creature with a capacity to reflect God, to know God, to commune with God, and consciously and volitionally to bring glory to God. And as we think of the whole subject of male and female roles and relationships,

15:02 we must start where God starts. And he starts by underscoring this major aspect of equality or parallel identity as bearing the dignity of image-bearers of the triune God. But then there is a second major aspect of equality or parallel identity, and it's what I am calling the equality of accountability to God as moral agents. The equality of accountability to God as moral agents.

15:43 And we see that in verses 28 and following. And God blessed them. He conferred upon them an expression of his good will and favor. And God said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens, etc.

16:10 Verse 29, And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb or herb, whichever way you pronounce it, yielding seed which is upon the face of all the earth and every tree and which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed. To you it shall be for food. And God saw everything he had made and behold, it was very good. It is evident, you see, that God is treating the man and the woman as responsible moral agents.

16:44 He confers his good will upon them. He confers his good will upon them in blessing. And then he solemnly charges them to do his will and to perform the purposes for which he placed them in his world. In this sense, they are responsible moral agents.

17:06 And in that dimension of their existence there is indeed equality and parallel identity. But then there is a third area of equality and parallel identity and I have chosen to call it there is equality of responsibility as stewards before God. Adam and Eve were made stewards of God's creatures and his creation in the very creation in which he placed them. And so the verse is already read in your hearing.

17:48 The stewardship of procreation be fruitful and multiply and the stewardship of subjugation. Those are the two great stewardships underscored in the opening words of Genesis chapter 1. The stewardship of procreation replenish the earth. The stewardship of subjugation have dominion.

18:15 And let me say by way of an aside in this day of fanatical environmentalism the modern environmentalist movement grows out of a pantheistic philosophy of reality. Beware of it. I hope I take second place to no responsible Christian in the sense that we must be good stewards of God's creation and we must not carelessly defile his creation. But beware of this obsession of modern environmentalism which regards all of God's creation including man as of equal worth. It is pantheistic to the core. And it's more concerned about preserving an exotic bird in Antarctica than preserving babies in the wombs of their mothers. And I tell you I'm sickened with the hypocrisy.

19:22 The BBC produces its programs and we see them in the States and they are beautifully done as to their cinematography in which great appeals are made to spare some exotic bird that's about to be extinct while in your country and mine the same people from the same university talk about our burdened earth that cannot stand the weight of more human beings kill them by the millions in their mothers' wombs. The hypocrisy is a stench in the nostrils of God. But you see what it grows out of? It grows out of a pantheistic humanistic evolutionary view a mechanistic evolutionary view of all reality. And I must remind you that God does make a distinction between man and all the other creatures and I do not say this as a knock at anyone who may be a vegetarian as a matter of conscience or health but I simply remind you that God said to Noah that he had given him all creatures for food along with the vegetables and that God says through his servant Paul in 1 Timothy chapter 4 that one of the doctrines of demons is forbidding to marry forbidding to eat foods and meats

20:51 which God has created to be received with thanksgiving. So don't let yourself be brainwashed think biblically dear young man or woman keep your nose in your Bible and filter all that you hear from the experts through the scriptures. Well, that was just a little aside but I could not resist inserting it. Right, do you see then in the light of this passage the major aspects of equality or parallel identity between male and female in that which God himself designed and brought to pass in his creative purpose and his creative activity. There is equality of dignity as image bearers there is equality of accountability as moral agents there is equality of responsibility as stewards before God. In the light of those realities there should never be among Christians any demeaning of one sex in the presence of another. No Christian young man should ever think of his sisters in Christ as anything less than those who bear with him

22:19 the dignity of being image bearers of God moral agents accountable to God and stewards of God's creation. Furthermore, there should be no triumphalism nor antagonism nor a subtle kind of competition between the sexes which is one of the great tragedies of the so-called modern feminist movement in which women are killing themselves trying to prove that the only difference between them and men has to do with their primary sexual organs. Apart from that everything else is negotiable everything else is attainable everything else is up for grabs. But now, not only do these opening chapters in Genesis set before us the major aspects of equality or parallel identity but in the second place they set before us some major aspects of essential diversity and I've chosen my words carefully essential, that which has to do with the essence of something and there is in the very essence of maleness in the essence of femaleness not only

Fundamental Issues: Essential Diversity in God's Creative Design

23:47 equality equality in certain areas but essential diversity. Now these aspects of diversity are both I'll use a big word and explain it both ontological and functional. That is, they have to do with what men and women are in themselves and what they are in their performance of the will of God. These essential areas of diversity are both ontological they have to do with maleness and femaleness in abstraction from any particular function as well as functional that is, maleness and femaleness coming to expression in specific tasks. Alright, what are they? Well, as we look into the scriptures and here we will root around in chapter 2 we see, first of all the distinctive male identity and function and then we'll look at the distinctive female identity and function. Chapter 2, verses 2 to 7 Genesis 2 I'm sorry, I should say verse let's start with

25:15 verse 7 and following And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became living soul and the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden and there he put the man whom he had formed now words could not be clearer could they? that here we have an account of the creation of Adam as the male species and the God who made the man planted a garden and there he put the man whom he had formed and out of the ground the Lord made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight good for food the tree of life also in the midst of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and a river went out of Eden etc. and now down to verse 15 and the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it it wasn't very democratic was it? he didn't sit down with Adam and say now let's negotiate your function in my world Adam, what would you like

26:43 to put on the table and then I'll put my proposals and then we'll see the Lord God made the Lord God took and the Lord God put very simple isn't it? he made he took that's what my Bible says he took him put him and he gave him a task to dress the garden and to keep it that is in that context to have full expression for all of his innate aesthetic inclination and sensitivity the element of creativity and arrangement the necessity for labor the necessity there seemed to be this built in excessiveness of growth which would need to be cut back and trimmed so that it might reflect the orderliness of God in man the image bearer of God who is working as a steward in God's creation and then God goes on to say in verse 16 of every tree of the garden you may freely eat but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat of it for in the day that you eat thereof you shall surely die and the Lord God said it is not good that the man should be alone I will make a helper answering to his need and out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field

Distinctive Male Identity and Function in Creation

28:12 and every bird of the heaven and brought them unto the man to see what he would call them and whatsoever the man called every living creature that was the name thereof and the man gave names to all the cattle and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field but for man for Adam there was not found a helper suitable or answering to him now what is the distinctive male identity and function according to this passage well notice four things number one the man was created for his task of dressing the garden and keeping it the man was created for his task of dressing the garden and keeping it the Lord God formed the man then verse eight says the Lord planted a garden and then we read in verse fifteen and the Lord took the man whom he had created put him into the garden which he had made and assigned him a task to dress it and to keep it and in the midst of that task God then adds another

29:40 the man was assigned the task of naming the creatures and also of naming Eve after she had been created and brought to the man verse twenty three and the man said this is now bone of my bones flesh of my flesh she shall be called she shall be named woman because she was taken out of man not very democratic either he didn't say now sweetie now sugar plum now pet God gave you to me but it be terribly chauvinistic of me to stick you with a name growing solely out of my assessment of who and what you are so let's negotiate a name for you the Bible does not say that the Bible tells us that Adam before sin ever entered so it could not have been a sinful act it could not have been the act of a dominant male chauvinist pig he gave the woman a name and you say well what's the big deal well there's an excellent section in a book which I highly recommend I don't endorse every jot and tittle no man does that who has any good sense

31:07 unless he's written his own book and then let him live let him live five years and he won't endorse every jot and tittle of his own book if he's growing in grace he'll at least change a few jots and a few tittles in it but in an excellent work James Hurley who did his doctoral dissertation on this subject of male-female relationships is found in 1 Corinthians 11 has an excellent section on the significance of the naming of the animals on page 210 and following and I'll not take the time to read the entire section but let me just give you some snippets naming the animals the text of Genesis 1 and 2 makes it clear that both mankind and the animals were shaped by God mankind however was made to rule over the others and to guard the garden of God his rule is expressed in his naming of the animals this idea is foreign to modern readers it's therefore worth considering briefly the function of names in the Old Testament for the Hebrew a name was not simply a group of vocables which correspond to a thing or to a person the name of something was related to its essence or its function and then he goes on to demonstrate this the various names of God are reflective of various aspects of his character

32:34 and then the names which God gives to his servants are significant of character and in the case of a man like Jacob when his character is radically altered by grace God forever stamps upon him that reality by changing his name saying your name shall no longer be a name your name shall no longer be Jacob but it shall be Israel Prince with God for you have striven and you have prevailed with God and so he goes on to indicate not only that in the Hebrew concept name has significance with reference to character and the revelation of character but also to name someone or something was associated with function and the power to assign or to change a name was connected with control and then he demonstrates this out of the scriptures in an incontrovertible manner so that the connection and it puzzled me for years the connection in this passage between God creating the man placing him in the garden and to dress it and to keep it and then saying now Adam name the birds and the beasts that I have created and whatever you call them

34:00 that will be their name this was a reflection in a unique sense as we shall see in our subsequent flyover of 1 Corinthians 11 of Adam reflecting the image of God as God's vice regent over his creation God made the animals with specific intention and diversity of function but he gives to Adam the privilege of analyzing the animals in their different physiology in their different patterns and according to those observable realities Adam gives them a name and in the giving of the name he not only expresses their significance but he exercises his God given authority over the beasts of the field and the birds of the air now isn't it significant that the same pattern is shown with respect to this amazing creature whom God made as Adam's companion and counterpart God did not name him nor did Adam and Eve jointly decide upon a name but Adam places a name

35:28 upon the woman and it's a beautiful twist from Adam Ish or Ish to Isha the feminine form well this is one of the distinctive male functions one of the distinctive aspects of male identity the man was created for his task the man was assigned the task of naming the creatures and Eve thirdly the man was the sole recipient of the direct revelation concerning the terms and here the theologians debate what shall we call it and without wanting to put my imprimatur upon this particular term for the sake of communicating I will use the term covenant of life the man was the sole recipient of the direct revelation concerning the terms of the covenant of life look at verse 16 and the Lord God commanded the man the woman had not yet been created of every tree of the garden you may freely eat but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat of it for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die Eve was not a direct recipient

36:57 of that revelation from God it was exclusively given to the man not the man and the woman but to the man the man was the sole recipient of that revelation and then fourthly the man was made the representative or federal head of all humanity and we learn that from a passage such as Romans 5 12 through 21 1 Corinthians 15 22 and following wherefore as through one man sin entered into the world as through the one man's disobedience and in all the feminist and in all the women of the world that he has originally been the head of the regard for the good as the representative head upon whose back the whole human race was placed to stand or fall in him I've never read a feminist so-called Christian or non Christian who complains that that responsibility was laid distinctly upon the man now do you see those things that are there in the passage there in the passage does any of you think I've thrown what we would say we say throw a curve in

38:21 American baseball it the ball comes in it looks like it's coming straight and the batsman starts to swing and at the last minute it breaks on him and unlike some of your bowlers who are known to be spinners and you can pretty well tell that that's what they're throwing not so in American baseball where it's coming straight at you and just when your reflexes are such that you're ready to take your swing at it the ball breaks sharply and so it's a figure of speech we use about throwing a curve that is playing mental gymnastics throwing out words that at the last minute dip and twist I hope you can see that what I've said are the distinctive male identity and function or what are those identities and functions are right here on the surface of the text man created for his task man assigned the task of naming the creatures man the sole recipient of the direct revelation concerning the terms of the covenant of life and man made the representative or federal head of humanity now then what were the distinctive female functions what was the distinctive female identity in this passage well I see at least three on the surface of the passage number one the woman was created for a

Distinctive Female Identity and Function in Creation: Created for the Man

39:40 the man as companion counterpart helper and follower now you see the distinction the man was created and given his task yet there was found no helper answering to his need there could not be intellectual companionship among all the beast as Adam observed them and observing them classified them and gave them names yet the scripture tells us that of all these animals the latter part of verse 20 but for man there was not found a helper answering to his needs and but for man there was not found a helper answering to his needs and so what does God Cotton's again is weeds not good that the man should be alone in the fulfillment of his act endowed with all of the averaging TBI of the overall organization of that And so the woman was conceived in the mind of God, designed and created for the man as companion, counterpart, helper, and follower.

41:07 And so verse 21 tells us the Lord caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept. One has said the first case of anesthesia. Apparently God did something like that, so that Adam's nerve endings would not scream when God opened him up and took one of his ribs. You say, Mr. Martin, you really believe that this is straightforward history, don't you?

41:32 Sure enough, do.

41:36 Nothing in the text, nothing in subsequent biblical revelations, to come to any other conclusion. This is not saga, this is not myth, this is not extended allegory, this is telling it like it was. And since God and Adam were the only one there, I think God ought to know what he did.

42:00 And all your smart aleck professors in your universities that sneer at this, they weren't there.

42:09 The so-called scientific method,

42:13 I thought, to apply the scientific method, you had to have the data before your eyes and in your test tube, and under observation.

42:24 Only two people were there, God and Adam. One of them was asleep, so the only one awake is told.

42:35 Makes sense, doesn't it? So God caused a deep sleep to fall upon him, and he slept. Took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh instead thereof, and the rib which the Lord God had taken from the man made he a woman, and brought her to him. And brought her to him.

42:49 And brought her to the man. Now this is beautiful. Oh, if ever I wish tape recorders had been invented earlier, I wish one had been embedded somewhere in a bush in Eden.

43:00 When Adam said, as he looks at Eve, he had been examining all of the birds, all of the beasts, but in them was no counterpart with whom he could hold intelligent conversation, aesthetic and social intercourse, with whom there could not be all of the multilevels, the full communication that exists between two image bearers of God. And now, God awakens him, and standing before him, is this work of beauty. And the man said, and I find myself reluctant to even read it, I wonder how he said it, this is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh, and she shall be called woman, Eshah, because she was taken out of man-ish. Therefore, whether this is a comment Moses made by inspiration, or whether it was an exclamation that Adam made in the recognition of who Eve was as companion and counterpart and helper and follower, therefore shall a man leave his father and mother and cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed, and God was not embarrassed.

44:29 He beheld everything he made, and it was good. May I say it reverently, when God saw Adam and Eve tumbling in the grass in naked, erotic embrace in the purity of Eden, God smiled and said, That's good. And if you have any other view of human sexuality, you have a sub-biblical view.

44:59 The account of creation ends with the note of Adam and Eve in the face-to-face communion of man and woman in total nakedness in the presence of each other and their God. And God beheld all that he made, and it was good. But this we see. We see in the passage that the woman was created for the man, not to be his rival, to prove anything you can do I can do better.

45:37 God did not say it's not good for the man to be alone. He'll never produce up to his optimum unless he has a rival. I will make a rival to spur him on. That's the claptrap of feminism.

45:50 But that's not the teaching of the Bible. He didn't say, I'll make a rival to spur him on. He was spurred by love to his God and appreciation for the gifts of his God. It is not good for him to be alone.

46:05 I'll make a helper answering to his needs. She was created for the man as companion, not just baby maker. That's the heresy of Rome. God made women basically as a utilitarian necessity so she could be a baby maker.

46:23 And make lots of good little Catholics. The Roman Catholic doctrine that the primary purpose of the sexual union is to make good little Catholics is heresy. But there are evangelicals who are swallowing it. Watch out for these who go around saying that any kind of responsible, prayerful, procreative stewardship involving the planning and the spacing of your children is carnal and under the frown of God.

46:51 That's Roman Catholic teaching. It's not biblical teaching. I'll make a helper answering to his need. Companion.

47:00 Counterpart. He sees that she is external to him and yet so much like him. This is now bone of my bones. Flesh, but of my flesh.

47:15 So as he gives her a name, he says, I must call her something other than myself. He doesn't call her, ish, with just longer hair and softer curves. That clobbers the notion of unisex. See how relevant the Bible is.

47:34 You see how relevant it is. Do you think that unisex clothing and haircuts are an innocent fad? They're not an innocent fad. They are a quenched fist at the God of creation saying let Adam who is ish now look at Eve and say ish and ish can look at ish and neither knows who ish is.

48:04 Now we've laughed and some things deserve laughter but oh do you see? These are not innocent fads. These are expressions of man's quenched fist. Sure Adam sees such similarity.

48:21 He looks into her eyes and his two eyes see not a cyclop. He'd have jumped in horror. But he sees she has two eyes. He felt he had two ears.

48:33 She had two ears, two arms, two legs. But then she was different from him. He saw in her very physiology that there was something different in her. Yet something so much like him answering to him.

48:50 It's a beautiful passage isn't it? This is now bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh. She shall be called Isha. Adam in the feminine gender with distinct femininity.

49:08 A distinctness that is not to be blurred, obliterated, merged into unisex nonsense, into personhood nonsense. No, the passage clearly teaches that the woman was created for the man as companion, counterpart, helper, and follower. She was brought to the man. You see the contrast?

49:39 And God brought her to the man. What did he do with the man after he made him? He brought him to the garden. The man was brought to his task.

49:54 The woman was brought to her man. That's what my Bible says. And you see why we go back to it? Back to where I started last night?

50:03 I believe that this is a plenary, verbally inspired Bible. And that it is to be regulative of all of my thinking about maleness and femaleness. And it's this very fact that is picked up in 1 Timothy 2 and verse 14 and given as the rationale why in the new humanity in the church women must not have public teaching and ruling functions. He says, For Adam was first formed, then Eve.

Distinctive Female Identity and Function: Named by the Man and Received as Gift

50:42 He picks up that simple fact that we've spent about 17 minutes examining together. And he says, If anywhere it should be evident that people accept God's order, it should be in the community of the new creation, in the church, where men are given their task of leadership and women are given to be supportive of them and answering to them, not leaders over them and governors of them. And then we see secondly not only that the woman was created for the man, that's part of her distinctive identity and function, but the woman was named by the man. We already looked at that in another connection, but I want you to look at it from a different angle as we turn to 1 Corinthians 11. The woman was named by the man and we have seen from the analogy of scripture that that naming involved an element of authority given to Adam in respect to the beast, the birds, and also to Eve. And here's a passage that troubled me for years until I saw the conjunction of these two things.

52:06 In 1 Corinthians 11, now you see all the questions about hats and veils are all going to come rising up. Just put them down, please, put them down. Put your veil down. If you've got a hat on, leave it on if that's your pleasure, but don't agitate that question.

52:23 I want you to see something in the passage that's vital to our study. Here the apostle begins by saying in verse 2 of 1 Corinthians 11, I praise you that you remember me in all things and hold fast the traditions, that is the apostolic traditions, which were the will of God for his church, even as I delivered them to you. But I would have you to know, and here comes the clearest statement of biblical hierarchism. I don't know if there is such a word.

52:53 If there isn't, there ought to be, and I didn't have a dictionary with me to check it out. But I would have you to know that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is the man, and the head of Christ is God. He said, I would have you to know something, that Almighty God has established a hierarchical structure of authority, and in that structure the head of the woman is the man, the head of the man is Christ, the head of Christ is God. And then he goes on to apply that principle to some specific issues in the church at Corinth. Now passing over that specific issue, notice how he picks up another very vital principle in verse 7. For a man indeed ought not to have his head veiled, forasmuch as he, the man, the male of the species, he is the image and glory of God, but the woman is the glory of the man. Well, wait a minute, I thought we established that they both were image bearers of God.

54:09 Well, in one very profound sense, they are. When God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness, in the image of God created he him, male and female created he them, in what is involved in being image bearers of God, there is a tremendous broad spectrum of equality. But there is one aspect of the image bearing of God which is peculiar to the man according to this passage. It is the man who is the image and glory of God, but the woman is the glory of the man.

54:50 And in what sense is that? Well, in the sense of the authority in the relationship between male and female. The male, reflects the absolute dominion that God has over all his creation as he exercises a dominion over the woman whom God has made and brought to him. And far from the grace of God and the gospel negating that structure, Paul is writing to a Christian church saying in all the details of your life, even down to the cultural expressions of it, you must be careful to make it evident that you embrace from the heart that the man is the image and the glory of God in his place of leadership in a way that the woman is not. Do you see that in the passage? Now, as we see that, and then he goes on to further amplify it from the very details of Genesis 2, for the man is not of the woman. God didn't make the woman,

56:14 put her to sleep and take one of her ribs. The man is not of the woman in creation, but the woman is of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman. Equal and interchangeable roles.

56:31 Who says so? Not God. The man was not created for the woman to assist her in her God-given task which was prior to his. No, he says that's not the way it is in Scripture.

56:47 And what we find in Genesis 2 is regulative for all times even in the context of the coming of Christ and the outpouring of the Spirit and all of the liberating power of new covenant, the privilege and spiritual reality. The woman was named by the man thereby demonstrating according to the analogy of Scripture that she takes a place of submission. And if you think immediately submission means inferiority, then you are in big bad trouble with your Christology. Because it's in this passage that he says that the head of Christ is God. And if the Messiah's position in voluntary joyful submission to his Father in the accomplishment of messianic function and identity makes him inferior in his essence, then you've got at best an Arian Christology in which Christ is less than God. If headship equals inferiority, Jesus Christ is not God of gods. And I have no Savior and you have no Savior.

58:15 And every time you worship him as God you're guilty of breaking the first commandment. You're an idolater. So when people throw around this silly talk, women, don't let men make you inferior by saying that you are not capable of and properly to be assigned a role of equal leadership. It is demeaning.

58:38 That's nonsense. Now granted, some wicked, evil men and even some professing Christian men, they do demean women. That's because of the reality of the Fall. But that women are given a place of submission by creation is not demeaning.

59:01 It simply means there is diversity. And then the third thing we note about distinctive female identity and function is this. The woman was created for us. For the man as companion, counterpart, helper and follower.

59:15 Secondly, the woman was named by the man which has woven into it the reality of her place of submission to him and his headship over her as we have seen from 1 Corinthians 11, 7 to 10. But thirdly, the woman was joyfully received by the man as God's gift. And we've already looked at that. So we'll not flesh that out anymore.

59:41 Except to say this. There's no indication when Adam received the woman, especially if he made this exclamation. This is now bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. He made that exclamation.

59:55 But if it were, it was Adam who said, Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife and they shall be one flesh. You see what he was saying? He was saying that this gift given to me by God is to be joyfully received and tenderly, lovingly nurtured in a relationship that will take precedence over the relationship I share with the very one whose womb carries and brings to birth. Now, what relationship can be more intimate than that between the child who is tied to the life of its mother by an umbilical cord and yet Adam can be perceived that this gift given to him in successive generations would mean that if every male were rightly to relate to the female that God brought to him as counterpart and companion and support in his task, there would be no demeaning of her, treating her as a rug. No, it would mean giving to her a place of supreme allegiance and affection. Next to God and the total integration of all of life, the two shall be one.

The Beauty of Biblical Femininity and Male Honor

61:20 So that the distinctive female identity is that of being joyfully received and lovingly nurtured and cared for by a man who cuts his apron springs with his mama and his daddy and who's prepared if necessary to be dead-ended in his career if the price he must pay to pursue his career is to treat his wife as a thing and ignore her needs and not give sufficient time to nourish her and to cherish her as Christ nourishes and cherishes the church. It's beautiful how Peter brings the two together in 1 Peter 3, 7. He said, You husbands, dwell with your wives according to knowledge, giving honor unto them as unto the weaker vessel. You see that beautiful conjunction recognizing that in femininity there is the weaker vessel. Adam could see immediately that his shoulders were broader than Eve's.

62:28 The first time they went out to move a rock in the garden, Adam discovered that he was innately stronger than Eve. That's right. God says she's the weaker vessel. And that's not said to demean her but to be the very catalyst to honor her.

62:49 Isn't that beautiful? Now let me ask you girls, do you find anything demeaning in that? God says, I made you the weaker vessel and now I make your Adam to give you honor because of it. Demeaning?

63:03 There are times I wish God made me a woman. I get weary of having the buck stop with me. I get weary of the burden of leadership. There are times when leadership in the church and leadership in the home, leadership wherever I turn, I get weary of it and I say to my wife, Honey, can we switch roles for just a week?

63:23 Just a week. Much more than that I'd probably be itching to be a man again.

63:29 But just a week. Seriously, do you see? This is biblical femininity. And that's why I love the title of a book that I'm going to do everything in my power to see that it gets reprinted.

63:45 I'm going to say something about it this afternoon. Elizabeth Elliot's masterful work, Let Me Be a Woman. Letters to her daughter, Valerie. I love the title, Let Me Be a Woman.

63:59 Elizabeth Elliot has stood in the center of the so-called Christian feminist movement. She's interacted with Letha Scanzoni and Nancy Hardesty and Virginia Mollenkot and the Mickelsons and Jewett and all of their ilk. And she has stood her ground and she's crying out, Let Me Be a Woman. Let me be from that which is my glory, my God-given femininity.

The Horrible Fruits of Rejecting God's Design

64:26 And I pray God that you women here will have as your prayer Let Me Be a Woman. And all that it means to be distinctively female. Now these fundamental issues, young men and women, are embedded in God's creative design and activity. And I've taken more time than I thought I would.

64:50 It's the first time I've given this material. I was up at five o'clock this morning doing the final notes. I had about five hours sleep for your sake. I love you enough.

64:59 I love you enough to have said no to sleep after preaching, I don't know how many times, the past week. I don't say that to pat myself on the back. But I want you to know I love you and I want you to get hold of these things. And I wasn't satisfied that I had them laid out clear enough.

65:18 You see, those aren't old notes. Those are all nice, freshly written. The ink's hardly dry on them. But I've taken more time because having never given the material this way before, I didn't know how long it would take to move through it.

65:32 But I said, Lord, if there's any section I'm not going to cheat on, it's this. You must get hold of this that I have called God's creative activity. That which is embedded in His own design and activity in creation. When you get hold of that, then you begin to see how horrible are the fruits.

65:56 I'm going to tell you what I've learned in the last few years of a hundred years of evolutionary theory ruling the concept of origin. Because you see, evolution at the end of the day is not an issue of origins. It's an issue of identity. What am I as a man?

66:12 What am I as a woman? Am I simply the expression of some accidents in this meaningless, uncontrolled movement of time plus space plus chance operating upon matter? If so, how can I know for certain what I am as a man? What I am as a woman.

66:40 But it's the biblical doctrine of creation that breaks out with glory. Well, someone might say the Lord is trying to make a pedo-baptist out of me. I'm getting sprinkled. All right.

67:03 There we go. Whoops. There we go. Thank you, brother.

67:18 I like practical-minded men. There we go. Now, I'll hold my notes here so they don't get wet. All right.

67:27 Seriously now, as I seek to bring this head to a conclusion, not only consider the horrible fruit of evolutionary ideas, but consider the arrogance of the social manipulators. You see how arrogant they are? They've come along and they've tried to tell a whole generation of women, look, you don't know who you are. We'll tell you.

67:46 That's what they've done. They've said, we'll tell you who you are. We'll tell you how to function. We'll tell you that you've been sold a bill of goods for generations.

67:54 This whole idea that you ought to be stuck in the home and you ought to be doing these demeaning things of dishes and changing dirty nappies and ironing your husband's shirt. I mean, God gave you a mind as good as any man's. God's given you talents and gifts and you're burying them under this rubble of domestic detail? Break out of it, woman.

68:16 Find yourself. The expert social manipulators, how cruel they've been. And consider the judgment of God on such idolatry. Romans 1.25, when they worship and serve the creature more than the creator, what does God do? It says he gives them up. And when he gives them up, what's the first expression of it? They lose their concept of sexual identity.

68:41 Homosexuality comes on the wake of the idolatry of human knowledge and apostasy from the truth of God. As they did not want to retain God in their knowledge, the God of Genesis 1 and 2, God gave them up. And what we see in our day of the justification of so-called alternate sexual preferences and alternate lifestyles and all the other euphemisms is a manifestation of God's judgment upon a generation that has defied God and the knowledge of God. And God says, all right, you're going to be so smart to figure out how to live without the revelation of my word? We'll see. And what do we have? Smart-alecky men and women bragging that, well, my preference at this stage in my life was other men and then it was other women, and now I can go either direction.

69:48 And now they tell us, public enemy number one, AIDS. I wonder if God doesn't sit in the heavens and laugh. You see how it all fits together? It all fits together.

The Blasphemy of Christian Feminism and a Call to Fortitude

70:07 Consider the heightened blasphemy of the so-called Christian feminists, and I'll name them, Hardesty, Mollenkot, Scanzoni, and I've memorized this quote in an article in a broadsheet put out by a group, imagine they call themselves Daughters of Abraham. I mean Daughters of Sarah. I'm sorry, they take that phrase out of 1 Peter 3. Daughters of Sarah.

70:43 Virginia Mollenkot said in an article entitled The Androgyny of Jesus. You all know what an androgynous creature is, neither male nor female. She said, Christ embodied all that was noble of femininity and masculinity. He was the true Anthropos, true man but not on air, and she even had the gall to say he is never called on air, the Greek word for man, but he is only and always called Anthropos.

71:17 She should have just taken an Englishman's Greek concordance and she'd realize that her scholarship was very thin. And now I quote her. She said, For all we know, Christ may have possessed both sets of primary sexual organs. My rejoinder is there would have been one bug-eyed rabbi when he was taken up to the temple to be circumcised on the eighth day.

71:46 And yet that woman is called an and given a platform in evangelical circles in the United States. Blasphemy in the house of God. I pray you young men and women will have the spiritual fortitude to bathe your souls in Genesis 1 and 2 until the glory of what God has revealed about your identity as a man and a woman. It becomes a very precious thing to you. I have in my notes and it hoped to go on and we'll just fit it in somewhere before the week ends out to deal with the tragic disruption of God's design through the fall and then thirdly the glorious restoration I think was the term I used. The glorious design and dynamics of restorative grace. Amen.

72:53 And maybe we'll fit them in tomorrow. I don't know. Somewhere we'll get them in. But I'm more concerned that we lay well several basic concepts than simply in a surface way touch upon them.

73:05 Our time is gone. Let's pray and ask God to write upon our hearts the things we've considered today.