Gender and the Image of God

"We are meant to interpret our humanity, our male-female relations, in the light of the Trinity. God is love. Love always implies communion between persons, and that is what we see supremely in God. The Father loves the Son in the communion of the Spirit. The Son loves the Father in the communion of the Spirit in their continuing mutual "indwelling" (perichoresis was the word used by the fathers of the church). The Spirit is the bond of communion between the Father and the Son and between God and ourselves. The Spirit is God giving God's self love. The Father and the Son and the Spirit are equally God (autotheoi). But there is differentiation within God - personal distinctions in the Godhead. There is unity, diversity and perfect harmony. It is this triune God who has being-in-communion, in love, who has created us as male and female in that image to be "co-lovers" (condiligentes in Duns Scotus's expressive word), to share in the triune love and to love one another in perichoretic unity. "Then God said, 'let us make man in our image, in our likeness.' ...So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created them" (Gen 1:26-27). These purposes of God in creation find their fulfillment in redemption. Therefore, to understand what it means to be in the image of God, one must look at Christ and the new creation in him. "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Gal 3:28). This does not mean that it does not matter, therefore, whether we are male or female. We do not become unisex. If so, what would be the difference between heterosexuality and homosexuality? There is unity, diversity and harmony which should be reflected in the church. The gospel does not eliminate our gender identity. But as men and women we find our masculine and feminine identity and fulfillment in Christ, our true being in mutual communion."

- James B. Torrance, Worship, Community & the Triune God of Grace, (IVP, 1996), 104-105. (HT: Michael Pailthorpe