Biblically Defining What is a Woman?

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Biblically Defining What is a Woman? Examines the definitions of woman and man in the light of the Bible’s teaching.

What a Woman is not

A woman is not a second class citizen, nor is she an inferior version of a man. A woman is a creature of God in her own right. Also, a woman is not a man. She has her own identity before God, given to her, just as God has given both man and woman their identities, but also the whole human race (together as a unit before God).

Understanding how Women (and Men) fit into the Nature of God

If we understand the absolute necessity of the Trinity in the scheme of the nature of God, then we can understand both what a man is, and what a woman is. Women are not defined as “an afterthought of God” after having created Adam. This misunderstands both the creation of man and woman, as well as the being of God.

God is a trinity because His nature demands it.

God is defined as God is love.

1 John 4:7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.
1 John 4:8 He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.
1 John 4:9 In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.
1 John 4:10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
1 John 4:11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.
1 John 4:12 No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.

Love is a spiritual activity, not because God declares it to be so (which, in essence, He does, He commands us to love). If love is only an emotion, that comes without warning and flees without our minds and soul being involved or in control, then why does God command men to love their wives (Ephesians 5:25)? We are to love our enemies also (Matthew 5:44), which has a very strong antagonistic quality, they hate us and mistreat us, yet we are to love them.

Ephesians 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;

Matthew 5:44 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;

But there is a big difference between understanding love as God understands it (and demands us to imitate) and how the world commonly sees love. The world understands that love is dependent upon the other person doing good to you. As a predicate, or a consequence of their good will towards you, you respond with love. But God represents love as a spiritual action of the will, in the manner that without any good will shown to us, or even ill will shown to us, we are to initiate and practice the love of God towards others. The world cannot understand this. Only a person who is saved, having received the love of God without their “initiating that love towards God”, in our sins and rebellions towards God, He loved us and saved us. There is no explaining nor exhorting this kind of spiritual action towards another unless your life has been touched by God’s love.

But love is a divine activity that has much depth. God loves (John 3:16), but it is much more than a decision and an action on God’s part as a person. God loves because that is a foundational part of His divine nature. So God requires this same profound change in our nature, or taking on the heavenly natural of God in us.

So we cannot go further in defining what is a woman if we do not first understand how low fits into both man and woman’s natures. Love can be defined as “my sacrifice for your benefit.” This is essential to understand. But let’s break it down even more.

Firstly, love is giving.

You have to have before you can give. Having means be the possessor, owner of what you give. God has everything. He is Creator. However, that is not sufficient in God’s sight. God saw necessary that after Jesus Christ created the world, he had to die for the world. In other words, he purchased it twice. That is love. Even though Jesus is Lord because He created the world, he again “purchased” or redeemed the world from sin, because of his divine essence. Jesus is love.

Love cannot be pigeonholed by man. Love means both giving, and defending against what threatens the object of that love. So love also includes a kind of fury, wrath, against what damages the object of that love.

The essence of love is that it is a spiritual activity, in the same vein as the foundational essence of God, in that “affection” (or simply, affection is another term for love) is shown or given to another person.

Love has to be an active decision of the will of the person. Love can be false. A false love is when the very same action is done, but there is no real moral commitment to the other person. It is perfunctory, or a heartless action. The emotion is missing as it should be, or with the intensity that it has to be if the action is love.

Secondly, different persons are essential in Love.

The trinity is defined thusly. God is a single God, in that there are no other gods, no two gods. This is monotheism. The Trinity doctrine begins with monotheism, and there is only one God, which is a theme woven throughout the doctrine of the Trinity. Within this one single God, there are three persons. Why? Could there be four, and we don’t know about the fourth person? Catholicism presents the Virgin Mary as a fourth person, equal with the other three. But they are wrong because they declare that Mary is the “mother of God”, that she gave birth to God, so she is God’s creator, which is totally unbiblical.

But love has requirements. These requirements are (1) there has to be a person who originates or shows love. (2) There has to be a second person, distinct from the first, who receives this love. (3) There has to be a transmission or flowing of an ethereal nature between the two.

On #2, love of one’s own self is not that the love that is in God’s nature. It is egoism. Satan was an egoist which saw himself, and love for himself, as being supreme. He is the archenemy of God, and his nature is extremely opposite of God’s nature. Divine love has to be external to one’s self. This is not a hatred of one’s own self, but a matter of priorities, the other comes first. The originator of love (God the Father) has something that he sacrifices for the object of his love, (the Son, the Beloved).

On #3, the flowing between lover and beloved is difficult to describe exactly. Two people can treat one another “kindly” but that is not the same as love. Kindness speaks as to the nature of the person as does love, but kindness is more generalized. It is not as much a focus on the object person, the beloved, as it is just a statement about the moral being of the person being kind.

Love is different, in that there is an intense emotion involved in love, as well as a very finely focused object of this love. We love specific people. When we say we love the world, we are kind to the world, and that divine love within us wants good for others. But we have to pick and focus attention and action on specific people to really “love them.”

But while the lover and the beloved are very definitely persons, that relationship between them is more of a spiritual nature, a will that passes through a lens or filter of their moral character (which is desiring good and blessing to one another) which results in objective actions. So the Holy Spirit is that spiritual action between two people, and this becomes or is actually a third person. When a man and a woman love each other as God desires, the result or natural consequence of this love is a baby.

The Love-Nature of God demanded Creation

Since God is love in his foundational essence, the Father loves the Son on an eternal level, this love is a “begetting activity”. It produces consequences or products. God created the world and man, because God in His nature has to show His love essence externally. Love which never manifests itself in real actions isn’t love.

So God loves, and God created. God created man. This is a progress, and neither creation nor the creation of man, nor the creation of woman are mistakes or second thoughts. They were planned as the outworking of God’s moral character, or His nature.

But the progression enters in our topic, of what is a woman. God created man because his love nature demanded it. It is the outworking of the moral character of God. Once man was created, God had to show or teach man that he was incomplete.

The Relation Within the Persons of the Trinity to Each Other

God has three persons, which interact according to the divine nature. But the very presence of one with the other two causes its own moral activity, joy. Joy is not when somebody gives you a car. That is happiness or blessedness, but it has to do with the physical things related to love. Joy is the same quality or level of spiritual activity as love, but its focus is being together in perfect harmony.

Joy is like having twin babies, and they may sit in a crib together, and they are just happy that the other one is with them, “enjoying life together.” The idea here is not that one provides physical blessings to the other (that would be love, one has, and sacrifices to benefit the other), but simply overwhelming good emotions at the mere presence and thought of the other person.

Each Person of the Trinity is Different from the other Two

We need to enter theology for a moment here. Modalism is the unbiblical belief that God is only one person (a misunderstanding of the oneness of God, which is unity in a single God being, but in three persons, because God is love), but modalism proposes that God has 3 “hats”, the Father hat, the Son hat, and the Spirit hat. When the Bible speaks of God in one of these three, he is only changing his current hat person to another one.

No. This is illogical. God is a Trinity, in that each person of the Trinity has a specific element that uniquely identifies that person, although all unite within the common causes of God’s purpose. God saves. This embodies all three.

But within these different persons of the Trinity, specifics are associated with individual persons. God the Father is identified as putting forth His will. The Son is identified with effecting our salvation. The Holy Spirit is associated with Holy, or creating holiness within man. Neither the Father nor the Spirit were incarnated, nor did they die on the cross. The Father is never seen as visiting earth, but both the Son and Spirit are represented this way.

But most importantly in our present discussion is the point is that both the Son and the Holy Spirit are subordinate to the authority of the Father, of the Father’s will. They are basically “enslaved” to this will. Many will object to that word, but they are firmly locked into the will of the Father. (Hebrews 10:9 Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second. Matthew 26:39; Mark 14:36; Luke 22:42; John 6:38).

But the point is, neither Jesus the Son of God, nor the Holy Spirit of God are lesser than God the Father. By definition, they are equally God. Yet for the accomplishment of the good purposes of God (the Trinity if you will), each takes their own particular role, and executes it perfectly.

In this point, we restate that the woman is not inferior in any way to the man, but both have distinct purposes under God’s plan, and his plans are for the good of man. Satan enters the picture to harm, maime, kill, and destroy. Satan enslaves man for the suffering of man. God controls through his will, which we are obligated to follow exactly and not move from that will of God. Satan’s plan to trip up man is to set on its head the authority structure God has imposed. So thus, women typically rebell against their husbands. Husbands typically rebell against God. Satan is behind it all. There can be no good outside of God’s will.

Betrayal of that Love Relationship, What is this betrayal? What is not betrayal?

We must grasp well the overall picture here. God, because of his foundational nature, love, created and created man. God has joy within himself. Nobody can understand the intensity of this joy that God enjoys among the persons of the Trinity, but we can get a brief glimpse to ponder when God the Father “left” Jesus on the cross as he became or took on himself our sins. “Father, why have you left me?”

But the love of God has “ripple effects.” This is seen in God’s creating, God creation of man. Creating man is the second step (the world the first), which is followed by the creation of woman.

Genesis 2:18 And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.

God well understands the problems of solitude. God resolves that problem in Himself by the Trinity. That is how God has always been. But in creating man alone, he needed to communicate this truth to man. So he made man first, and in naming the animals, Adam saw how each animal “has its mate, or companion”, not male with male, but male with the same but different, a female, and that is how things work. To focus for a minute on this, this “works” because the two animals, male and female, “are together”, and a third is produced. Neither the female nor the male by themselves produce a baby. Only in the “being together”.

God’s focus is on harmony, not physical proximity. Two people can be together, but rarely will that produce a baby. We are constantly with other people in our daily lives, but it is a totally different level of things when there is this joy, this harmony, this “one fleshness” that results in a baby. It is only when one of the two is unfaithful to that love relationship is this condemned.

A mother’s love for her baby is sound, healthy. That is not condemned. Nor a father’s love for his child. But there is a very definite degree is loving your own children, and other people outside of the family.

God’s Principle Desire: Spiritual Harmony

Mark 12:28 And one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, and perceiving that he had answered them well, asked him, Which is the first commandment of all? Mark 12:29 And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: Mark 12:30 And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. Mark 12:31 And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these. Mark 12:32 And the scribe said unto him, Well, Master, thou hast said the truth: for there is one God; and there is none other but he: Mark 12:33 And to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbour as himself, is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.

A man came to Jesus wanting to know what is the greatest commandment. Jesus is the master soul-winner, evangelist. This was an excellent opportunity to witness to the man, but some people would be put off by Jesus’ answer at first. The greatest commandment is God is one. His phrasing of this is that God is a unity, a harmony. There are no other gods to which a sinner can run to for forgiveness. It is God, and only God.

But we should understand that within this teaching, is our topic popping up yet again. Unity and harmony with God is salvation. We are in rebellion towards God as sinners, and without Jesus Christ as our personal Savior, all is lost. But the answer is to love God energetically with all of our being. The ancillary axiom to this is parallel, we are to be in harmony with our fellow man. This is not a one time, seldom needed action. It is a way to live.

Marriage is God’s Answer to Man’s Problem

God made things so that Adam had to get along with Eve. This is a foundational concept. Two people “getting along” in harmony, different yet the same, in unity.

Matthew 19:5 And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? Matthew 19:6 Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.

Again, Satan’s efforts to stop this harmony at any cost is seen in the disruption that he does in marriages.

Mixed Marriages Are Wrong, Harmful to both

Amos 3:3 Can two walk together, except they be agreed?

2 Corinthians 6:14 Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? 2 Corinthians 6:15 And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? 2 Corinthians 6:16 And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

When a saved person marries an unsaved person (all dating is a precusor to marriage), Satan has immediately won the battle. Here Satan also uses the simpleton mindset of the ignorant person, assuming because a person pretends to be Christian, that he or she is one. What walks like a duck, and talks like a duck, and acts like a duck is. In other words, history is what decides. If the “supposed Christian” candidate for pairing has a long history of faithfulness and obedience, submission to God, then they are probably really saved. Nothing else should satisfy.

Disruptive Marriages and Heavenly Marriages

Yet when two saved people are married, even then Satan still enters in to disturb this situation. Satan’s main goal is stopping that joy that only comes from God. This is different from happiness which is worldly and possession oriented. Joy has its source in eternal things, in the spiritual realm, and it has to be firmly anchored there. A true Christian can be joyous while in great problems. The early Christian martyrs lost almost all earthly possessions, health, family, and even their lives, and expressed great joy in their lives despite all of that. That is a spiritually anchored joy, not just happiness.

So the true secret to a successful marriage is simply two saved people who both are submitted to God’s will. Only with this situation will both happiness and joy saturate their lives. Many married couples can testify to how austere their early marriage years were, yet they were very joyous times. How does that happen? Because they were one flesh, one spirit, unity, harmony. They refused to let anything destroy that joy in their lives. Usually, it is when financial blessings enter in that they begin to fight intensely and that success drives them emotionally apart.

A Wife is a Prized Possession of their Husband

While women are commanded to be in submission to their husbands, that is not all of the story here. As Paul Harvey used to say, “The rest of the Story…” Although they are to be submissive, the love relationship means that men are to work hard to support their wife and family. His highest goal is to please God, and God commands him to love his wife, so pleasing her in every way that he legitimately can is fulfilling God’s will. One thing is to go to work, work long hard ardous labor to make money, and then trying to find time and rest to enjoy that. It is a whole lot better to have somebody (like a pleased husband to his precious wife) that will do that hard work so she can not be in the harshness of the professional work environment. Can women endure this same environment and succeed? Absolutely. This is seen daily. Why would women want this? Can they not see within the plan of God that they are the priviledged ones?

Just like every woman finds a certain great pleasure and joy in caring for her baby, likewise men find great pleasure and joy in caring for, providing for, and protecting their wife. A woman that overtakes the principle support of the home, throwing the man into the role of homemaker, ruins the scheme of God. God orders men to work (outside the home is the idea) and that women are home oriented. That is their principle area of work and responsibility before God. Anything else isn’t God’s will, and it will cause all involved problems in the long run.

So what is a woman?

A woman is a man’s life companion. Some woman think that phrase is putting them down. But we can flip it, and the same is true. A man is a woman’s life companion. Now we understand why Satan wants the feminist movement to say, “Women don’t need men.” It is to drive division into what perfection God has made.

Woman complain that they are slaves to their husbands, because they are commanded by God to be submissive to them.

Genesis 3:16 Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.

Colossians 3:18 Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord.

Ephesians 5:22 Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. Ephesians 5:23 For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Ephesians 5:24 Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.

1 Peter 3:1 Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives;
1 Peter 3:2 While they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear. 1 Peter 3:3 Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel; (fam27 Dress of a Christian Woman) 1 Peter 3:4 But let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price. 1 Peter 3:5 For after this manner in the old time the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection unto their own husbands: 1 Peter 3:6 Even as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord: whose daughters ye are, as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement.

Titus 2:5 To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.

1 Timothy 2:11 Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. 1 Timothy 2:12 But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.

The Bible does command women to be submissive to their husbands. But what they do not understand is that they are not alone. The husband (and his wife together) are to be submissive to God. Neither have the total liberity to do whatever they want. As the husband and wife are to be submissive to God, they wife submissive also to her husband, even so their children have to be taught submission.

Why Jesus had to learn Obedience

Hebrews 5:8 Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered;

Women should meditate on this verse. Why did Jesus have to “learn obedience” by suffering? He did it because Jesus is our moral pattern that we are to follow. He “teaches us” how by suffering himself, again, the pay or sacrifice concept of love. His love is communicated to us by our meditating on staying in the divine order of God the Father’s will, of God’s will.

But the woman is the primary caretaker of the children, and their primary teacher. Only through their watching their submissive godly mother live with her husband will they understand and take onto themselves submission to God. Satan infects women with rebelliousness, which infects their children. While we are on this point, men are not escaping this either. The man’s lack of submission to God, specifically in doing the duties as husband and father, to provide, care for, protect, and watch out for his family, Satan wins another victory in man.

Woman cannot refuse to submit because the man is king of his house. This is a total misconception and lie of Satan. The godly man (all other kinds of men will have problems with God) has to submit to God and order his house under God’s authority. He has to be the leader that God has commanded him to be. Anything otherwise is equally a disaster like a rebellious woman.

Genesis 18:19 For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the LORD, to do justice and judgment; that the LORD may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him.

Joshua 24:15 And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.

There is no “free ride” for men here. They are commanded (their task in life) to order their houses in the ways of the Lord. If you are a woman reading this, and your husband doesn’t do this, the problem is that you did not wait and study the guy before you married him. Most probably your own rebellion blinded you from discerning this guy who is not submissive to God. You just cannot get around the issue of submission.

The Blessedness of God’s Way

The real problem here is that we do not understand, we do not hold as a firmly held conviction (belief, faith principle) that God’s way is the only way to blessing, material happiness, joy, and peace. If we did believe and practice that, we would take the time and effort to make sure everybody we allow into our lives are living examples of Christ, (learning obedience by practicing even if that means personal suffering).

To be a Woman is to Be Feminine

When we learn that what defines us is how God has structured us, how He has defined us, and making ourselves subjective to that divine purpose, then we understand what we are.

Consider that “a woman” in the Bible has a definite profile. Proverbios 31 puts on exhibition the godly woman. But it defines the woman clearly in the context of her husband and family (children). Some debate about whether a woman should work or not. But that is another mute point that Satan uses to disturb us. ALL GODLY WOMEN WORK! Only lazy women don’t work. But whether in the house or out, that isn’t the point. The godly virturous (virtue mean strong) woman of Proverbs 31 is home focused, yet she has her own endeavors outside of the home. The answer of whether a woman works outside of the home or not is definitely blurred in Proverbs 31. Both. But she cannot leave the home to work outside the home.

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Biblically Defining What is a Woman?

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