Man as Male and Female

All right, the title of the message this morning is Equality and Distinction. Can men and women be equal and yet have different roles? And the answer to this question for most of church history has been yes. But the past 30 or 40 years has seen a battle.

for the minds of women in the church. And a battle for the minds of churchgoers in general. I remember Back in I think it was '93, I went to a missions conference. I was trying to figure out, still figuring out what the Lord wanted to do with me and I went to a missions conference back in Illinois called Urbana.

Has anybody ever heard of Urbana? And I didn't know a whole lot about this missions conference back then, but I was aware in '93 that there were issues on the subject of men and women in the family and in the church going on in liberal churches. I knew that there were liberal denominations that were ordaining women to the pastorate and arguing for more of an egalitarian view of marriage and so on. but Urbana, as far as I knew, was a conservative evangelical, missions conference, and as a young man, I was in for quite a surprise when I showed up to this missions conference that was sending evangelical missionaries all over the world.

at Urbana, in the opening ceremonies, there was a woman pastor that came up and exhorted. the whole group and, and it opened in prayer. We were all given a gender neutral translation of the Bible, the new revised Standard Version. we were all exposed to gender neutral worship, singing a song like He has shown you, oh people, instead of he has shown thee, oh man.

and virtually all of the hymns that we sang were gender neutralized. And I was just in, that was quite an experience for me. I did not know that so much of evangelicalism was already believing something very different from what I had been exposed to. And either I was very wrong and the denominations that I came from were very wrong, or what was happening at this conference was very wrong, or these are just minor issues that we can all agree to disagree over.

But when you consider what the, what's really at stake. In this question of can men and women be equal and yet have different roles, you realize that this doesn't just touch on minor issues. if you're familiar at all with the debate that has been going on in the evangelical church for the past 30 years, there is a battle for hermeneutics. How is it that we should interpret scripture?

Should we bring in a cultural hermeneutic that basically invents a historical scene to explain what is going on in the various passages? This affects our view of God. How God chooses to reveal Himself? Is there anything theologically wrong with God, us speaking of God as a mother and Christ as our sister, or the Spirit as our handmaiden?

This teaching has an effect on our view of the Trinity. Is there anything necessarily in the Trinity that demands that the Father, Son, Holy Spirit be related to each other in such a way to where there's subordination within their roles? This affects our view of Christ. Does Christ submit Himself to the Father merely during his incarnation or for all of eternity?

It affects our view of the gospel. It affects our view of the church. How are we to understand men's and women's roles in the church? It affects our view of mankind.

It affects our view of sin. Is the role distinctions that at least I was raised with as a Christian, are those part of the fall, and are they demonic and satanic and sinful, or are they pre-fall institutions? it affects our families. How are men and women to relate to each other within the family, within their marriages, and how are we to even understand manhood and womanhood?

This battle for the minds of women and battle for the minds of the church, I want to propose to you is more than a minor issue. And the two camps, the egalitarian camp that would argue for no role distinctions and the complementary complementarian camp that would argue for biblical role distinctions, have been spilling ink, lots and lots of ink over the past 30 years. The answer to this question largely hinges, I believe, upon our view of God, particularly the Trinity, and how we reflect God's image, how we reflect the Trinity as humankind.

And so I want to take a moment just to do a little review of the doctrine of the Trinity, and then we're going to get into the meat of this message.

And so look for a minute here with me at this diagram, the ancient diagram of the Holy Trinity. OK. Do you have this should be slide 2. There we go.

Slide 2, there we go. the ancient diagram of the Holy Trinity. This is an excellent little picture that basically summarizes what we believe the Scripture teaches and what the church has understood for 2000 years about the doctrine of the Trinity. In the center of this diagram, you see that there is one God.

And then on the outside circle, that's what emphasizes the distinction between the persons. The Father is not the Son, the Son is not the spirit. The spirit is not the Father. And then the lines that point towards the middle show how each person is God.

The Father is God, the Spirit is God, the Son is God. There was a C28 made a t-shirt on this several years ago, my favorite t-shirt to this day. I was going to wear it, but I've got stains all over it. So but we could define the Trinity this way.

I love this definition that Wayne Gruden gives on the next slide. God eternally exists as three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Each person is fully God. And there is one God.

And so here's the three components of our doctrine of the Trinity. God is three persons. There are 3 distinct persons for all of eternity. Each person is fully God.

The Son is fully God, the Father's fully God, the Holy Spirit is fully God. And there is one God. Now if you want a more detailed explanation of the Trinity, we did a series on the Trinity, I think 3 or 4 parts, and you can either look that up on our website or order the tapes. But what we see, if you look at Genesis 1:27, is in the very beginning, God creates man, this triune God creates man in his own image.

And the first description of what that image entails is right there in verse 27. God, the triune God, created man in His own image. In the image of God, He created him, male and female. He created them.

Now, while creation of man as male and female is not the only way in which we are in the image of God, it's a significant enough aspect of the image to be mentioned in the very same verse, where we speak of the image of God. Some have asked, well, how come if we have Father, Son, Holy Spirit, we don't have three aspects of the image, and there's different explanations for that as we're talking about the relationality of the of the man and the woman. Some would say that it's to, and we're just guessing here, it's to exalt God's great.

He's greater than us.

He's 3 and He creates man and woman as 2. Some would say that there's the husband, wife, and the children perhaps flushes out the Father, Son, Holy Spirit by way of analogy. We don't really know. But we do know that we are created in God's image.

We do know that God is a triune God. He's relational, and that to display that image, one of the ways it comes out right in the same verse, the first mention of the image is the fact that man is created as male and female. And so here's this morning's proposition. The creation of man as male and female shows God's image in at least two ways.

First, like the persons of the Godhead, men and women are equal in personhood and importance. We're going to spend some time on that. And then like the persons of the Godhead, men and women have distinct roles in authority. There is equality and distinction within the Trinity.

And we've been created in the image of God. And so we see that there is equality and distinction between men and women. And so let's look at the first. part, our first way of that, of how we display the image of God.

Number one, men and women are equal. This is where the children can fill us in. Men and women are equal in in personhood and importance. The persons of the Godhead.

Letter A are eternally equal in personhood and importance. So let's start, let's start our thoughts with the Trinity. If men and women are equal in personhood and importance, and we're made in the image, let's go back to the Trinity. The persons of the Godhead are eternally equal.

In personhood and importance. Jesus says, I am the Father are one, and we could multiply scripture after scripture after scripture that displays how that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all God and they're equal in their personhood and importance. Again, you can get our message on the Trinity to fully flesh that out. But this is summarized in the early church in the 4th and 5th century in a section of the Athanasian Creed.

I want to read this for you that summarizes this coequality, this eternal coequality between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Athanasian Creed says the godhead of the Father of the Son and of the Holy Spirit is all one. The glory equal the majesty coeternal, such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Spirit. This is an excellent just summary.

What Creed is just basically a summary of what we believe the Bible teaches. And in the 4th and 5th century of the early church, virtually everybody that would call themselves a Christian would say that there is eternal equality between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But beyond that, Each person is fully and completely God. There's equality, but each person is fully and completely God.

What do we mean by this? Each person has the whole fullness of God in Himself. In other words, the Son is not partly God. The Son is not one third God.

The Son is holy and fully God. And so it is with the Father and the Holy Spirit. We don't have one third Father, one third Son, one third Holy Spirit. We have the Father being fully God, the Son being fully God, and the Spirit being fully God.

When we speak of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we are not speaking of any greater being than the Father alone, the Son alone, or the Spirit alone. Do we understand everything that that really means? No. But this is what we believe is the summary of the teaching in Scripture and in the, in the early church in church history.

so just as the members of the Trinity are equal in their importance, and in their full existence, as distinct persons, so men and women have been created by God to be equal in their importance and personhood. And so let us see both women as being made in the image of God, both men and women are made equally in the image. Of God. We saw that in verse 27 of chapter 1 of Genesis, it gets reiterated in chapter 5 of Genesis.

so after the fall, before the fall, we see that both men and women are equally made in the image of God. And so as we look at our wives, our husbands, as we look at men and women in the church, We should see aspects of God's character reflected in each other's lives, in both men and women, we're going to, it should be natural for us to see ways in which men and women reflect God's character, that we're all equally made in the image of God. And that's why if we lived in a monastic society that was made of only Christian men, or only Christian women, we would not see the full picture of God's character.

It's one of the problems of the monastic lifestyle, is you're basically, you're pulling out aspects of God's character and God's image, as we see displayed for us in the Bible.

And, and we can dutifully honor one another, as we see in 1 Peter 3:7 that the, the husband is to give honor to his wife as a co-heir. And, and wives are called respect and honor their husbands. So both men and women are made equally in the image of God. In letter D, this equality is emphasized in a new way in the New Testament church.

There's an expansion of this doctrine once we get to the New Testament. Now in creation we see God's design that men and women are created in the image and so on, and we see this equality right there in the garden. but throughout the Old Testament you see, Some real terrible effects of the fall, and you see some inequities in the Old Testament that don't seem to really mesh with what you see in the book of Genesis. And so it takes the incarnation of Christ.

It takes Christ to come in and straighten things out and get things back to the way they were meant to be. And so we see it makes sense that once Christ shows up and dies on the cross and brings the church into existence that you begin to see a more Full picture of what was intended there in the garden and so we see things like this. The Holy Spirit is poured out on the entire church, not just the men, the men and the women, and the Spirit imparts gifts both to men and women.

That's the implication from 1 Corinthians 12, where it says each one, not just each man, but each one is given a gift.

Both men and women are baptized. You did not have that in the Old Testament circumcision for obvious reasons was, was exclusive to a particular club. Baptism is for both men and women. Both men and women can prophesy and pray in a mixed assembly, as we see in 1 Corinthians 11.

In Christ, this this prepositional phrase that Paul uses all over the place, in Christ we see equality of status being emphasized. And this equality sets Christianity apart from almost all religions, societies and cultures. If you look at what the Bible teaches about relationships between men and women in the New Testament, it's clear that Christianity, has made men and women much more equal than any other religion in history. Now, sadly, there have been the practice of this equality has Has has waned at points in church history, but when you look at Christianity at its inception there in the 1st and 2nd century, you compare that to what was going on in the Roman culture and the Greek culture, there's just no comparison to what was going on with men and women and the equality of status that was afforded to women in the first two centuries as opposed to the pagan religions, which is ironic because these days it's very popular.

for people to want to recall this pagan goddess worship is one way to exalt the status of women, but when you go back and look at the status of women in in the Greek culture where the pagan goddess worship was so popular, they were extremely repressed. And yet our feminist friends want to, get us all excited about pagan goddess worship, and if you haven't taken a college course lately or anybody who's been to your 1st 4 years of college, I'm sure you've had some instruction on the benefits of pagan goddess worship.

Now the true dignity of godly manhood and womanhood can be fully realized only in obedience to God's redeeming wisdom, as we see found in Scripture. So as we look at Scripture, and we see how that we see this equality between the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, this full and complete godhood, we see that both men and women are made equally in the image of God, and that this, this equality is emphasized in a special way in the New Testament.

We can experience God's glory in a in a unique way as we, as we look at this biblical worldview for men and women. So the creation of man as male and female shows God's image first. In this way that like the persons of the Godhead, men and women are equal in personhood and importance, so we, we, we see the image of God in the equality between men and women. But secondly, like the persons of the Godhead, men and women have distinct roles and authority.

What's another way that we see the creation of man as male and female showing the image of God? It's through the distinction of roles and authority. Let's think about the Trinity here for a moment, first to set up our thoughts. Between the members of the Trinity, there are distinct roles and authority.

Father, Son, Holy Spirit are all equal. Yes, Father, Son, Holy Spirit are all fully God. But the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit have distinct roles in authority. I want to just draw your attention to a few passages.

We're going to read through these quickly, but we're going to start with John 5 on the screen here. John 5, and I'm pulling out the, the phrases and, and sentences from this chapter that are pertinent to our discussion this morning. In verse 18, for this cause. The Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, to kill Jesus, because he was calling God his own father, making himself equal with God.

Everybody knew that Jesus was claiming to be equal with God. Verse 19. Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of himself. That's different.

He's different from the Father, unless it is something he sees the Father doing for whatever the Father does, these things, the son also does in like manner, for the Father loves the Son. Verse 22, the Father has given all judgment to the son. Verse 26, for just as the Father has life in himself, even so he gave or another translation says he granted to the Son to have life in himself. What does that mean?

The Father has life in Himself, and he's granted the Son to have life in himself. Verse 27, and he gave him authority to execute judgment because he's the Son of Man. Jesus says, I can do nothing of my own initiative. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment's just because I do not seek my own will, but the will of Him who sent me.

In this passage, you see a lot of distinction between the Father and the Son. John 6:38, Jesus says, For I have come down from heaven. Not to do my own will, but the will of Him who sent me 7:16. Jesus therefore answered them and said, My teaching is not my, my, is not mine, but His who sent me 1816.

But even if I do judge, my judgment is true, for I am not alone in it, but I He who sent me John 8:28-29. Jesus therefore said, when you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and I do nothing of my own initiative, but I speak these things as the Father taught me. I always do the things that are pleasing to Him. 8:42, Jesus said to them, if God were your Father, you would love me, for I proceeded forth and came from God.

What does that mean? And I have not even come on my own initiative, but he sent me. Never do we see the Son sending the Father on a task. We always see the Father sending the Son and the Father and the Son sending the Spirit, never the reverse.

John 14:28, you heard that I said to you, I go away, and I will come to you. If you loved me, you would have rejoiced because I go to the Father. And listen to this, for the Father is greater than I. What does that mean?

How can Jesus be equal with the Father, and yet say the Father is greater? What is that? Well, we're going to hit the eternal aspect of this in the next point, but I want to throw out a term to you. This is what has been called the economy of the Trinity, using economy in the sense of ordering.

As the church has investigated this doctrine, the equality and the distinction within the Trinity, The distinction of roles between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, both within themselves and how they act in the universe has been summarized underneath the term economy of the Trinity or the economic aspect of the Trinity, which can be defined this way the different ways. The three persons act as they relate to the world and to each other for all eternity. Think about that.

The different ways the three persons act as they relate to the world and to each other for all eternity.

And we see a consistent theme on the pages of Scripture about the roles between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. All the activities toward and dealing with the universe are done by the Father through the Son by means of the Holy Spirit. You see this consistent tale. I'll just give you a couple different passages that That show that 1 Corinthians 8:6, yet for us, there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we for Him, and one Lord Jesus, through whom are all things.

1 Corinthians 6:11, but you were justified in the name of Jesus, and by the Spirit of God. And so we see the Son and the Holy Spirit are equal in deity to God the Father, but they are subordinate. In their roles. You have a subordination of the Son to the Father, you have a subordination of the Holy Spirit to the Son and the Father.

Now here's the question, is this subordination merely a something that happened during Christ's incarnation? Or is this something that is eternal, and for all times? This is where the rub is. If you're on one side of the camp, you're going to argue that Christ's subordination was merely during his incarnation.

If you're on the side of about 2000 years of church history, you're going to say that Christ's subordination is eternal. So these distinct roles we argue this morning. That these distinct roles and authority are eternal, not temporal. And how do we know that?

was first proved by the immutability of God. Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever, unchangeableness of God. Secondly, it is also proved from scriptures that speak of the relationships of the members of the Trinity, that that the relationships they had before the world was created. there's a lot of different verses you could look at.

We'll just, just consider Ephesians 1. Listen to this carefully. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. So here's Father and Son terms being used, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, just as he chose us, the Father chose us in Him before the foundation of the world.

That we should be wholly blameless in love. This choosing was initiated by God in Christ before time. eternal and you can see many passages that talk about that eternal relationship. Third, the scriptures speak of the Father creating through the Son, indicating a relationship before creation, like John 1:3.

All things were made through Him, through Christ. Without Him, nothing was made. All things being made through Christ implies in other passages we see the Father making all things. How did he make all things?

He made all things through Christ. And even after the final judgment when death is destroyed, we see all things are put underneath Christ's feet. Consider on the next slide 1 Corinthians 15:28. Yeah, just think about this as far as the time here.

In eternity past, God chose a group of, of his people to be put into Christ. And then he creates through Christ, and then he sends Christ to come down and do his will. Christ comes back up to heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father, until all of his enemies should be placed under his feet. And once the kingdom is subjected to Jesus Christ, what does Christ do with his kingdom?

Verse verse 28. Now when all things are made subject to him, that's Christ, then the Son himself will also be subject to him who put all things under him that God may be all in all. Is the Sons subjection eternal? According to this verse, definitely.

At the end, when everything's all said and done, Christ hands the kingdom back over to the Father and takes his place in subjection to the Father. That God the Father may be all in all. His role. is to exalt His father, does that mean he is less God?

Does that mean that he is not equal with God? No, what this argues for is there is equality and distinction within the Trinity. the very names Father, Son, and Holy Spirit speak of an ongoing relationship and distinction between the persons that pertains to more than just their function in the world. It it pertains to their eternal personalities.

These are not mere Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not merely metaphors that we use to To just speak of spiritual things. God is not accommodating Himself to the patriarchal times of the scripture writers. Fatherhood is essential to the Father. And that is why while we have liberal churches that would do this and even some evangelical churches that are beginning to do this, we cannot call God our Heavenly Mother.

Jesus didn't say pray like this, our Mother who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Now why is that? Is that because the scripture writers are sexist or Jesus is sexist? Is this because we want to maintain some sexuality to God?

Is God a sexual being? No, as we look on the pages of Scripture, we see that God has revealed Himself in masculine terms for a particular reason. To demonstrate his character. The sun is not our sister.

And yet we see this happening even in evangelical churches today and in evangelical writings today. I love this summary from Strong, a theologian. On this aspect of the distinction. Between the persons.

He says, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, while equal in essence and dignity, stand to each other in an order of personality, office, and operation. The subordination of the person of the Son to the person, the Father, in other words, the order of personality, office, and operation, which permits the Father to be officially first, the Son second, and the Spirit third, is perfectly consistent with equality. Priority is not necessarily superiority. And we frankly recognize an eternal subordination of Christ to the Father.

But we maintain at the same time that the subordination is a subordination of order, office, and operation, not a subordination of essence. Now admittedly, When we start discussing this aspect of the Trinity, we become deeply conscious of the fact that we're entering into mysteries that are incomprehensible. But we do see from Scripture. And we see the testimony of the church verifying that we have the members of the Trinity being distinct in their roles, and that these are eternal distinctions, not merely temporal.

What does this mean for us as men and women in the church? Let see. Between men and women, there are distinct roles and authority. We're made in the image of God.

We're made to reflect the triune is, the Trinity of God, the Godhead. And so we would expect to see on the page of Scripture, equality between men and women, but distinction. And do we find distinction in the roles between men and women? We certainly do.

1 Corinthians 11:3. But I want you to know that the head of every man is Christ. And that the head of woman is man or probably better and I be her husband, and the head of Christ is God. God, Christ, husband, wife, there is an ordering, there is a distinction and role that is clearly reflected here, the, the tie between the godhead in men and women could not be more clearer.

Grude says, just as the father has authority over the son, though the two are equal in, in deity, so in marriage, the husband has authority over the wife, though they are equal in personhood. So in marriage, at least, we see this distinction, equality and distinction roles. What about in the church? The New Testament often makes a connection between the family and the church, as Pastor Milton's going to discuss next week.

We see it also in the, the, officers, the qualifications for elders, and so on. We see it in Ephesians 5, where women are told to submit to their husbands as unto Christ and Christ to love their wives as Christ has loved the church. So as male headship is a pattern for the family, so it is God's design for the church. Neglect in either area may affect the other, and Pastor Moulton's going to spend a lot more time on just what what is the upcoming passages have to say about the role relationships between men and women in the church.

So we'll leave that alone for now. But let's Let's deal with the final. Component of this doctrine, men and women have a distinct role and authority. And these distinct roles and authority were instituted by God.

Before the fall. Before the fall. Some have argued that role distinctions between men and women were not made until after the fall. Differences in roles are results of the fall, they argue.

They say that Christ has reversed the curse and removed such distinctions, as we see in Galatians 3:28, there's neither male nor female. One such writer that represents a host of other writers says this, because it resulted from the fall, the rule of Adam over Eve is viewed as satanic in origin, no less than his death itself. Satanic in origin. The sides of this debate are Could not be more stark.

The view that our church holds, according to some, is satanic in origin. However, we see indications that there were differences in roles between Adam and Eve before sin was in the world, and we're going to move through this rather quickly. If you have some questions about some of these points, feel free to hit me up later, but Indications of distinct roles before the fall. First Adam was created first, then Eve.

And Paul's going to make a point about that in the upcoming verses, and Milton will preach on that next week. Creation of Adam is consistent with the Old Testament idea that the firstborn of any generation in a human family has leadership in the family of that generation. Secondly, Eve was created as a helper for Adam. She was created as his help meet.

Thirdly, Adam named Eve. In the Old Testament, the thought, the Old Testament thought, the right to name someone implied a role distinction and an authority distinction by virtue of naming. Number 4, God named the human race man, not woman. The naming of the human race with a term that also referred to Adam in particular or man in distinction from woman suggests a leadership role belonging to man.

This is similar to the custom of a woman taking the last name of the man when she marries. It signifies his headship. In the family, by the way, this is why the feminist movement and even the evangelical feminist movement works very, very, very hard to change language and to change the way that we speak of humankind versus mankind. A male pronouns versus generic pronouns and so on and so forth.

One of the things I learned in college is that it's very important for the feminist movement that if you can change the language, you can change the thinking patterns. You can change the way people conceptualize. If you can change the way people conceptualize, you can change the culture. And so if you can get people to To talk about God in less than masculine terms, you can change the way that they conceptualize God.

As opposed to the way he's revealed himself. If you can change the way people conceptualize mankind, you can change the way they will understand mankind. It's no accident that the gender neutral versions of the Bible have come out with the particular agendas that they have. It's a new revised, new revised standard translation that actually takes the verse that we're going to see that in the qualifications for elders, most of your translations are going to say that an elder must be the husband of one wife.

New Revised Standard Version says that an elder must have only one spouse. But why do they do that? And then in a footnote, it says Greek, real tiny, tiny thing. It says the Greek is husband of one wife.

They want to influence the way that we think. About these issues by changing the language. 5, the serpent came to Eve first. It's likely that Satan, in approaching Eve first was attempting to institute a a role reversal.

This stands out in contrast to how God approached Adam first, as we see in the next point, God spoke to Adam first. When God shows up, he goes to the man and says, Hey, what's up? You were in charge. What happened?

God thought of Adam as head of the family and responsible for Eve. Adam, not Eve, represented the human race. When we see the fall spoken of theologically in the New Testament, it speaks of the fall occurring because of Adam, not because of Eve. It was his fault, right?

It's the guy's fault. The curse brought a distortion of previous roles, not the introduction of new roles, thorns and thistles, pain in childbearing, Eve's desire to conquer her husband, Adam's harsh rule over his wife. So in both cases, the curse brought a distortion of Adam's humble, considerate leadership and Eve's intelligent, willing submission to that leadership which existed before the fall. And lastly, redemption in Christ reaffirms the creation order.

If the distinctions that we're discussing are satanic in origin, you would expect that when Christ came, he would obliterate those distinctions, not instruct his writers of Scripture like Paul and Peter to actually affirm those distinctions. Why would Christ come to destroy the works of Satan and then allow his scripture writers to write things like, Wives, submit to your husbands. Why would he allow his scripture writers to actually promote the satanic agenda? If it is true that the fall brought the distortion of roles, then what we should expect is to find in the New Testament, the undoing of the aspects of relationships that resulted from the curse.

We would expect that in Christ redemption would encourage wives not to rebel against their husbands' authority. It would encourage husbands not to use their authority harshly. And this is indeed what we actually find. Colossians 3:18, wives submit to your husbands, husbands love your wives, do not be harsh with them.

That's exactly what, what's going on. If it were a sinful pattern for wives to be subject to their husbands' authority, Peter and Paul would not have commanded it to be maintained in Christian marriages. Let's end with this applications to marriage. And then some applications to the church.

We've seen that in the Trinity we have equality and distinction for all of eternity and that we're created in the image of God and male and female, male are created to reflect that equality and that distinction. And that this equality and distinction is something that's a pre-fall concept that's being restored in Christ. In marriage, how would this apply to our marriages? Husbands?

should aim For loving, considerate, thoughtful leadership and their families, wives should aim for active, intelligent, joyful submission to their husbands' authority. In this, and in this, they will reflect more fully the image of God in their lives. What's really at stake here is the glory of God. If God really created us in His image to display his glory through the male and female relationships, then to distort the male-female relationship is to rob God of His glory.

That's what's at stake here. is the very glory of God. Now, in respect to biblical roles in the marriage, there are several possible errors that need to be avoided. The husband may be unbiblically harsh and domineering.

We don't see Christ being unbiblically harsh and domineering over the church. The wife may be unbiblically rebellious and resentful. On the other hand, the husband may be unbiblically weak and passive, or the wife may be unbiblically weak and passive, and I'll leave that to your care group discussion to try to flush some of that out. As far as the church goes in respect to biblical roles, again, there are several errors that are possible, and Milton next week is going to be getting more into, what, what's going on as far as the roles distinctions in the church.

But let me just say this that In, in, in our church, there could be the temptation for elders or leaders to be unbiblically harsh and domineering and, and authoritarian. We're in charge, just do what we're telling you to do. The congregation may be unbiblical rebellious, and resentful. Elders may be unbiblically weak and passive, or the congregation may be unbiblically weak and passive.

There's Several different aspects that we need to avoid, but if we focus on Christ and relationship to church, we focus on the Father and the Son and their relationship to one another. This gives us the framework and how to think about our relationships between husbands and wives, men and women in the church. Again, why Why is this so important? It could be very easy for us to move into the passage that we're going to move into next week and just say, what, Let's not Fight about these minor issues.

Let's not worry about these little things that people debate about and there's lots of good men and women on both sides of the debate. And so why, why worry ourselves with this? I want to encourage you to, if, if you can, get a copy of a book by Wayne Gruden. called Evangelical, Evangelical feminism, and I forget the subtitle, but it's like the road to liberalism.

And within that book, he shows how that the line, the lines of reasoning that have been used in, in the move towards liberalism and all the denominations that you think that have just caved into liberalism. Are the exact same types of arguments and interpretations and hermeneutics that are being used by evangelical feminists today, the exact same kinds of reasoning. New hermeneutics, rejection of passages that scripture that the church has always accepted as for today, based upon some concocted historical situation.

That's the biggie hermeneutics is just reinventing the scenario and coming up with a radically different interpretation that the church has never known before.

So you see, the evangelical feminists are using the same types of interpretation and reasonings as the liberals, and what's even scarier is that the homosexual movement is using the exact same lines of reasoning as the evangelical feminists. There's really no difference if you look at what the homosexual movement is doing today to argue that homosexuality is a legitimate lifestyle, is a legitimate role within the church. The lines of reasoning could not be more exact. The hermeneutic is identical.

Brothers and sisters, I praise the Lord for organizations like the Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, and the men and women that are on that organization. If it wasn't for guys like John Piper, and John MacArthur, and CJ Mahaney and Joshua Harris, and Elizabeth Elliott, and Susan Hunt, if it wasn't for people like this, we would have the future of Christianity in America and Europe would have no hope. There's so much being written on the other side. And there's so much energy and dollars and movement on the other side.

When you look at it, it's almost, it feels hopeless that we can survive as a church. But there are a few people that are toeing the line and saying no, we must stand against the culture for biblical equality and distinction. And Lord willing, If we can look at what these folks are saying and realize how serious the situation is, we can save the church in America and Europe. If we ignore the warning, just go on the website Council Biblical manhood Womanhood, and look at how serious the issue is.

If we ignore their warning, it won't be long before virtually every church in America is saying our Mother who art in heaven. And not referring to Jesus in masculine terms, and we're changing all of the hymns to be gender neutral. And we've totally lost who our God really is. That's what's at stake in this issue.

And so I'd exhort you to, again this is just one message. Be good brands and see if these things be so. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for this time to be in your word.

And we come to you now and ask, Lord, that You would Enlighten us to understand your word. These are difficult times. I've heard these times we live in to be described as somewhat spooky. And yet we know that you are sovereign and you are in control of all things.

And so we thank you, Lord, that you have made, you've given us your word. You've given us men and women throughout church history that have stood for your word, and we pray, Father, in our day and age that we would stand for your word. And that we would be able to reflect that the apologetic for your word would be seen in our lives and the way that we relate to our husbands and wives. We pray that you give us husbands and wives that love one another, husbands that lead, wives that support their husbands.

We pray, Father, you give us leaders that lead and give us, Lord, biblical distinction. in our church, Lord, we pray that we would have a church full of women that are learning and intelligent and growing and setting the example, Lord, of these biblical roles and distinction. We pray, Father Lord, now as we give to you in our offerings that you'd receive this offering for your glory's sake and that you'll glorify Yourself through this church and its ministers and its missionaries and its people and as we pray in Christ's name.

Amen.