Question from a reader:
I read something the other day by a supposed Christian author that really upset me. This author said that in Heaven, there will be no women and God will turn all females into males. He bases that on the passage that says we will be like the angels and since all angels appear as males, that must mean that women will no longer be women. He also bases it on the passage that says we will be conformed to the image of Christ. He also says only men are in the image of God, but not women based on something Paul said. The thought that I would lose my identity as a woman is really upsetting. I realize that he is taking these passages out of context and twisting and distorting their meanings but because of my OCD, it’s hard for my mind to reject these misinterpretations, and I keep obsessing over it. What are your thoughts?
Answer from Eternal Perspective Ministries staff:
Randy shared these thoughts in response to your question:
If the man who said that really did intend it, instead of being misunderstood, he is both a sexist and a heretic. What a horrific teaching. It should be called a lie right off the bat. In all my reading about the resurrection and resurrection bodies, I have, in fact, bumped into that teaching among some of the church fathers, but for someone to still be holding to it today is almost incomprehensible. And what an example of extremely poor biblical interpretation. Of course, there’s a lot of that, but when you see it in a form like this, it is disturbing to anyone.
Here are some further things that Randy has written that we hope will help you anchor yourself in biblical truth, instead of those lies:
Some Christians seem strangely repulsed at the biblical teachings of the tangible nature of our heavenly bodies and the heavenly state. But this teaching should not surprise us, since humans have both a spiritual and a physical dimension. We do not become inhuman in Heaven; we become everything humans are capable of being by virtue of both creation and redemption. Matthew 22:30, for instance, does not teach we will be genderless (gender is a God-created aspect of humanity) or otherwise non-human, but simply that there will be no marriage in Heaven.
You will be you in Heaven, and I will be me.
The risen Christ did not become someone else. When He appeared to His disciples after His resurrection, He told them, “You can see that it’s really me” (Luke 24:39). The resurrected Jesus walked on Earth for forty days; we will walk on the New Earth eternally. He occupied space; we will occupy space. He ate and drank with His disciples; we will eat and drink with Him and each other.
He was the same Jesus He had been before.
Our personalities and histories will continue from the old earth to the New. So you’ll still recognize friends and family, and they will recognize you. Best of all, Jesus will know you…and you will know Him.
While some people say that in Heaven we will no longer be male or female, the Bible doesn’t say that. When people saw Jesus in His resurrection body, they knew He was still a man. Likewise, in the final Resurrection, women will be women and men will be men.
Think of how God honors women by calling His people His bride and using that female image and metaphor. This fits with what’s in Rebecca McLaughlin’s book Jesus Through the Eyes of Women, which we highly recommend to you. She writes:
The four New Testament Gospels tell multiple stories of Jesus relating to women. Poor women. Rich women. Sick women. Grieving women. Old women. Young girls. Jewish women. Gentile women. Women known for their sinfulness. Women known for their virtue. Virgins and widows. Prostitutes and prophetesses. Looking through their eyes, we see a man who valued women of all kinds—especially those vilified by others. Indeed, the way that Jesus treated women tore up the belief that women are innately inferior to men: a belief that was pervasive in the ancient world. We should not be surprised, therefore, that women have been flocking to Jesus ever since.
And another quote: “Mary of Nazareth was the first to hear about Jesus, before he was ever born from her womb. Mary of Magdalene was the first to see him after he was reborn from the tomb.”
Finally, God specifically tells us that women are made in His image: “So God created man in his own image, / in the image of God he created him, / male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27). You might like to read this article from Paul David Tripp.
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