The Other Image

“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” (Gen.1:27)

This verse says that God created mankind in His own image, and that image is displayed in two different ways—male and female. This is not to say that God is a woman. All of inspired Scripture refers to Him in the masculine gender. What it does say is that the differences in the sexes that make them complimentary to one another are all found in God. I need not look to goddesses like Diana, Isis, or Ishtar to find someone who understands me. God knows what it is to give birth (John 1:13); nourish (Eph.5:29); and comfort (Isa.66:13).

God may have created Adam first, but you and I as women were not an afterthought with Him. Femininity, the real source of a woman’s beauty, comes directly from God. And when we deny it or neglect it, we deface that part of His image that He has stamped upon us uniquely. God saw fit to make someone who would be enough like Adam to make him feel comfortable, but different enough to arouse his interest. Fulfilling the purpose of God and catching the eye of “Adam”—who could ask for anything more?


“Nevertheless neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord. For as the woman is of the man, even so is the man also by the woman; but all things of God.” (1Cor.11:11-12)