God and Gender

Did you know that July 14 is International Nonbinary People's Day? It’s so hard to keep up these days. In fact, today (March 22nd) is National Goof Off Day—something that you might want to keep in mind for next year. What does it mean for a person to be non-binary? According to the Internet, nonbinary is a term people use to describe genders that don’t fall into one of these two categories: male or female. Wow! What would those be? We have heard there are as many as 57, although a Texas politician insisted firmly that there were six. Not everyone agrees with him: the four additional ones he mentioned “are often classified as disorders of sexual development (DSDs) or chromosomal abnormalities, rather than distinct \"sexes.\"

We all ought to be interested in what the Bible teaches. God made humankind in the beginning. How did He do that? “So God created man in his own image; in the image of God He created Him; male and female He created them” (Gen. 1:27). In vain you will look for the mention of the other four genders. The text only mentions male and female. In verse 28, God tells the male and female to be fruitful and multiply. No instructions can be found regarding the other four “genders”; so, we don’t know if they are even capable of multiplying—if, in fact, they qualify as genders.

Moving on to Genesis 2, we read of Adam’s creation first and that he was formed out of the dust of the ground (2:7). Eve was made from one of Adam’s ribs (2:21-22). Thus, we have one man and one woman. Where would four more genders come from? Surely, Adam could not have spared that many more ribs. Maybe Eve donated a couple? No, all we are ever introduced to are one man and one woman (2:23-24). When they had children, the first couple would be called father and mother. Had there been a sexual aberration in those days (and there’s no evidence that there was), we should have heard something about another gender. Later, Adam and Eve had “sons and daughters” (Gen. 5:4)—no non-binary “its.”

When Jesus was asked if a man could divorce his wife for just any reason, He did not lecture about how there were four other genders that everyone should be concerned about. No, instead He asked: “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning made them male and female” (Matt. 19:3-4)? Although it was 4,000 years since the creation, Jesus is still going back to the beginning of it, noting there were two genders that God created. Furthermore, no new genders existed in Jesus’ day—nor now, either. Whether people claim there are four more or forty more genders matters not. The fact is that only two exist, and only one of those genders can have a baby. Jesus is one male, and the church is His bride (Rev. 21:2, 9). Where is the exception in the Scriptures to this pattern God gave mankind at the beginning—and which lasts to the end?