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In re-reading the Creation epic of Genesis 1, I was rather surprised to see in it an intense and beautiful love story. I was more surprised that I hadn’t picked up on that sooner, as my view of the Godhead and Creation dovetailed quite well into that understanding.
That same understanding is emphasized throughout Scripture itself. 1 John 4:8 defines God as the very essence of love:
“He that does not love does not know God; for God is love.”
Scripture virtually pleads with us to apply that understanding to the relationship between the Father and the Holy Spirit.
With respect to Creation, I understand Scripture in the original to be inerrant and inspired of God as both Paul, in 2 Timothy 3 and Peter, in 2 Peter 1, have claimed. That means that I accept the Creation epic as truth, and its competing worldview, (macro)evolution, to be false. That clash with secular wisdom led me into a rather lengthy research of modern molecular biology which, in the end, more than justified my rejection of evolution on purely scientific grounds as itself being mythical in nature and not to be trusted.
With evolution out of the way, the Creation epic stood boldly as an account that deserved much reflection. From the many hours spent in consideration of Genesis 1, I eventually reached an understanding that not only reconciled a large number of ill-fitting odds and ends regarding the nature of the Godhead, but also managed to blow my mind with its simple, majestic elegance. I couldn’t have come up with the ideas myself, so I give credit where credit is due: to the Holy Spirit and the Wisdom She embodies. I have written of my vision of the Godhead before in numerous places, so here I will limit myself to a brief review of what was touched on in a previous chapter: the Godhead as I perceive it consists of three Divine Members, Father, Holy Spirit and Son, tightly united as a Divine Family, and each with different but complementary roles: the Father as the Divine Will, the Holy Spirit as the Divine Means, and the Son as the Divine Reality.
That view of the Godhead implies much about the relationship between gender and love as well as about the origin and function of the Trinity. There are many forms of love, as reflected in the several names for love in the Greek language: fileo, agape, eros. Of these differing forms, eros or gendered love is unique in its possessive nature. That quality of mutual ownership grants gendered love an intensity and passion of an altogether higher level than the other forms. Love of that nature is fervent.
The functional relationship involving Will, Means and Reality, where the functionally male Father, in marital union with the complementary functionally feminine Means, gave birth to the Reality, is an intrinsically gendered one. The intimacy involved in this functional relationship identifies gendered love as the driving force behind all of creation.
At its core, the nature of this functional relationship evokes the notion of complementary otherhood, where the other responds to initiation and in complementary harmony with it. The joyful execution of this teaming activity elevates love to beauty of the highest order. When it is performed in selflessness, it becomes noble as well.
If complementary otherhood is considered to be the essence of gender, virtually all of creation exhibits that characteristic. Even at the cellular level, as biologists have recently discovered, cell division involves the search for a complementary other. Below that level as well, a complete atom has matching numbers of protons and electrons; a mismatch of these causes the atom to search for balance.
The ubiquitous display of love in Creation verifies Paul’s words in Romans 1:19 and 20:
“Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God has shown it to them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse;”
It was with Adam and Eve that God brought gender and love together in the form that most closely matched that which exists within the Godhead. Had not the Fall of man occurred, man would have been free of the numerous perversions that produce debauchery in the place of love. Because of Jesus, man can look forward to a restoration of love to its original meaning.
It is fervor of this order that lies at the center of Moses’ Shema in Deuteronomy 6:4 and 5, connecting the oneness of God with love of a passionate nature:
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord: and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.”
Gendered love and its associated fervor is why Scripture describes the spiritual union between Jesus and His Church in terms of marriage, and why Jesus, in Matthew 22, repeats the commandment of Moses to love God with passion and labels it the greatest of commandments.
If we look beyond the level of the individual to the composite Church, we see that there is nothing in Scripture to suggest, as do many pastors both now and in the distant past, that this marriage is no more than a figure of speech connoting a relationship that in actuality lacks gender and its corresponding intensity. A profound joy of gendered love is implied by Jesus’ turning water into wine through His first miracle at the wedding in Cana. Jesus obviously is anticipating in His marriage a far more intimate bond with His Church than a genderless relationship would produce.
The desire of God, as revealed in the Bible, to endow us with appealing personal qualities of character, speaks to His loving plan for His Church as Jesus’ worthy partner in her future role as the Bride of Christ.
Published by Art Perkins
