A
We've already refuted this heresy AmberGardner. God is NOT a "heterosexual couple" nor is the Imago Dei dependent on or equitable to gender.
While Scripture mentions the Imago Dei several times (Genesis 5:1, 9:6; 1 Corinthians 11:7; Colossians 3:10; James 3:9), Genesis 1:26–27 is the most important text.
As Wayne Grudem PhD states in Systematic Theology, "Hebrew references to 'image' (tselem) and 'likeness' (demût) convey the idea of an object similar to or representative of something else, but not identical to it" with Geoffrey Bromiley PhD expounding stating, "further, the words 'image' and 'likeness' should not be understood as referring to two different things, but rather as interchangeable terms that reflect a Hebrew form of synonymous parallelism."
They go on to state that the New Testament Greek word for image (eikōn) conveys virtually the same meaning as the Hebrew with both languages indicating that God created humans to be similar to himself: but not identical to himself.
Therefore from a biblical perspective, human beings are in some sense both like and unlike the God who made them.
Scripture contains an implicit rather than explicit explanation of the image of God with a definition for Imago Dei arising through proper inferences from the biblical text which asserts that humankind possesses a formal nature that serves to represent God consisting of certain qualities, characteristics, and endowments (spiritual, rational, relational, volitional, functional, etc.) that make humankind similar to God in certain respects.
You've grossly misrepresented scripture related to Imago Dei to arrive at a heretical conclusion that "God is a heterosexual couple."
Furthermore, throughout both the Old and New Testaments, whenever reference is made to God (or, for that matter, to the other two members of the Godhead) a male pronoun (He, Him, His, etc.) is employed.
Male names/terms are applied to God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit throughout Scripture. The names for God—Yahweh, Elohim, Shaddai, Sebbaoth, Adonai, Kurios, and Theos—are all masculine gender. Furthermore, male metaphors frequently are applied to God.
And not just God the Father and Jesus Christ are male either. God the Holy Spirit has all the elements of personhood attributed to Him in Scripture: He has a mind (John 14:26; 1 Cor. 2:11), He has will (1 Cor. 12:11), and He has feeling (Eph. 4:30).
Further, personal pronouns ("He" and "His") are attributed to the Holy Spirit: "But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come" (John 16:13, emphasis added; cf. John 14:26).
"When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about Me" (John 15:26).
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you" (John 14:15-17).
“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you" (John 16:12-15).
"When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about me" (John 15:26).
Etc...
God is referred to hundreds of times with masculine names and with masculine pronouns such as “he,” “him,” and “his.” God is never given a feminine name, or referred to with feminine pronouns such as “she,” her,” and “hers.”
However, this does not mean that God is male. The masculine pronouns have always had the second, generic sense, referring to both male and female, just as “Man” has been used for centuries to refer to both men and women and there is symbolism in scripture where God is portrayed via female images and metaphors.
The point of all this is that as the Anglican Bishop Hugh Montefiore stated, "God exists eternally, and in the eternal sphere there is no sexual differentiation. God has no gender. He is neither male nor female” (1993, pp. 130-131, emp. in orig.) which is in line with every orthodox traditional Bible scholar from the early church fathers right through to today.
God is not male or female. As God stated, "‘I will be what I will be" which is a declaration of independent, self-determining existence (Ex. 3:14–15).
So why are all persons of the one triune God referred to hundreds of times throughout Scripture by masculine names and masculine pronouns but never given a feminine name or referred to by feminine pronouns?
As Kreeft and Tacelli, in their Handbook of Christian Apologetics, explain:
"The Jewish revelation was distinctive in its exclusively masculine pronoun because it was distinctive in its theology of the divine transcendence. That seems to be the main point of the masculine imagery. As a man comes into a woman from without to make her pregnant, so God creates the universe from without rather than birthing it from within and impregnates our souls with grace or supernatural life from without.
As a woman cannot impregnate herself, so the universe cannot create itself, nor can the soul redeem itself. Surely there is an inherent connection between these two radically distinctive features of the...biblical religions...: their unique view of a transcendent God creating nature out of nothing and their refusal to call God “she” despite the fact that Scripture ascribes to him feminine attributes like compassionate nursing (Is. 49:15), motherly comfort (Is. 66:13) and carrying an infant (Is. 46:3).
The masculine pronoun safeguards:
(1) the transcendence of God against the illusion that nature is born from God as a mother rather than created and
(2) the grace of God against the illusion that we can somehow save ourselves—two illusions ubiquitous and inevitable in the history of religion."
They go on to say, “One issue is whether we have the authority to change the names of God used by Christ, the Bible and the church. The traditional defense of masculine imagery for God rests on the premise that the Bible is divine revelation, not culturally relative, negotiable and changeable.”
Christ Himself left us the perfect example (as He always did) when He said: “Our Father Who art in heaven, hallowed by thy name” in Matthew 6:9.
The fact that biblical designations of God are placed within the specific framework of the masculine settles the matter once and for all. It simply is not a matter up for discussion except amongst feminist false teachers which is something the early church had to refute as well which you can read about here: http://christianchat.com/christian-family-forum/79897-dangers-feminism-21.html#post1439876
Further reading: http://christianchat.com/christian-family-forum/79897-dangers-feminism-19.html#post1439029
While Scripture mentions the Imago Dei several times (Genesis 5:1, 9:6; 1 Corinthians 11:7; Colossians 3:10; James 3:9), Genesis 1:26–27 is the most important text.
As Wayne Grudem PhD states in Systematic Theology, "Hebrew references to 'image' (tselem) and 'likeness' (demût) convey the idea of an object similar to or representative of something else, but not identical to it" with Geoffrey Bromiley PhD expounding stating, "further, the words 'image' and 'likeness' should not be understood as referring to two different things, but rather as interchangeable terms that reflect a Hebrew form of synonymous parallelism."
They go on to state that the New Testament Greek word for image (eikōn) conveys virtually the same meaning as the Hebrew with both languages indicating that God created humans to be similar to himself: but not identical to himself.
Therefore from a biblical perspective, human beings are in some sense both like and unlike the God who made them.
Scripture contains an implicit rather than explicit explanation of the image of God with a definition for Imago Dei arising through proper inferences from the biblical text which asserts that humankind possesses a formal nature that serves to represent God consisting of certain qualities, characteristics, and endowments (spiritual, rational, relational, volitional, functional, etc.) that make humankind similar to God in certain respects.
You've grossly misrepresented scripture related to Imago Dei to arrive at a heretical conclusion that "God is a heterosexual couple."
Furthermore, throughout both the Old and New Testaments, whenever reference is made to God (or, for that matter, to the other two members of the Godhead) a male pronoun (He, Him, His, etc.) is employed.
Male names/terms are applied to God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit throughout Scripture. The names for God—Yahweh, Elohim, Shaddai, Sebbaoth, Adonai, Kurios, and Theos—are all masculine gender. Furthermore, male metaphors frequently are applied to God.
And not just God the Father and Jesus Christ are male either. God the Holy Spirit has all the elements of personhood attributed to Him in Scripture: He has a mind (John 14:26; 1 Cor. 2:11), He has will (1 Cor. 12:11), and He has feeling (Eph. 4:30).
Further, personal pronouns ("He" and "His") are attributed to the Holy Spirit: "But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come" (John 16:13, emphasis added; cf. John 14:26).
"When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about Me" (John 15:26).
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you" (John 14:15-17).
“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you" (John 16:12-15).
"When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about me" (John 15:26).
Etc...
God is referred to hundreds of times with masculine names and with masculine pronouns such as “he,” “him,” and “his.” God is never given a feminine name, or referred to with feminine pronouns such as “she,” her,” and “hers.”
However, this does not mean that God is male. The masculine pronouns have always had the second, generic sense, referring to both male and female, just as “Man” has been used for centuries to refer to both men and women and there is symbolism in scripture where God is portrayed via female images and metaphors.
The point of all this is that as the Anglican Bishop Hugh Montefiore stated, "God exists eternally, and in the eternal sphere there is no sexual differentiation. God has no gender. He is neither male nor female” (1993, pp. 130-131, emp. in orig.) which is in line with every orthodox traditional Bible scholar from the early church fathers right through to today.
God is not male or female. As God stated, "‘I will be what I will be" which is a declaration of independent, self-determining existence (Ex. 3:14–15).
So why are all persons of the one triune God referred to hundreds of times throughout Scripture by masculine names and masculine pronouns but never given a feminine name or referred to by feminine pronouns?
As Kreeft and Tacelli, in their Handbook of Christian Apologetics, explain:
"The Jewish revelation was distinctive in its exclusively masculine pronoun because it was distinctive in its theology of the divine transcendence. That seems to be the main point of the masculine imagery. As a man comes into a woman from without to make her pregnant, so God creates the universe from without rather than birthing it from within and impregnates our souls with grace or supernatural life from without.
As a woman cannot impregnate herself, so the universe cannot create itself, nor can the soul redeem itself. Surely there is an inherent connection between these two radically distinctive features of the...biblical religions...: their unique view of a transcendent God creating nature out of nothing and their refusal to call God “she” despite the fact that Scripture ascribes to him feminine attributes like compassionate nursing (Is. 49:15), motherly comfort (Is. 66:13) and carrying an infant (Is. 46:3).
The masculine pronoun safeguards:
(1) the transcendence of God against the illusion that nature is born from God as a mother rather than created and
(2) the grace of God against the illusion that we can somehow save ourselves—two illusions ubiquitous and inevitable in the history of religion."
They go on to say, “One issue is whether we have the authority to change the names of God used by Christ, the Bible and the church. The traditional defense of masculine imagery for God rests on the premise that the Bible is divine revelation, not culturally relative, negotiable and changeable.”
Christ Himself left us the perfect example (as He always did) when He said: “Our Father Who art in heaven, hallowed by thy name” in Matthew 6:9.
The fact that biblical designations of God are placed within the specific framework of the masculine settles the matter once and for all. It simply is not a matter up for discussion except amongst feminist false teachers which is something the early church had to refute as well which you can read about here: http://christianchat.com/christian-family-forum/79897-dangers-feminism-21.html#post1439876
Further reading: http://christianchat.com/christian-family-forum/79897-dangers-feminism-19.html#post1439029
get to the point i think is the idea.