by Tad Lindley
After the recent acquittal of former President Donald Trump, US Congressman, Eric Swallwell (who had been hoping for an impeachment) expressed his frustration saying, “We could have called God herself [as a witness], and the Republicans would not have been willing to convict.” Yes, you read that right, he described God as “Herself”, not “Himself”.
Preferred pronouns
For all of human time, men have been referred to by pronouns such as he, his, and him. Likewise women by feminine pronouns such as she, hers, and her. For those who might be out of touch with more cutting edge political correctness, it is now possible to state your preferred pronouns as being something that disagrees with the way people perceive you. So now, a man can state that his preferred pronouns are actually she, hers, and her, and the expectation is that people should use the pronouns that are out of alignment with the fact that the person is a man. Apparently Representative Swallwell was trying to reassign God’s pronouns.
How do we know that God is male?
Let us look into the Bible to see what God’s preferred pronouns are. If we start at the very beginning and read until we encounter the first pronoun, it is not too far: In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darknesshe called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. (Genesis 1:1-5) Do you see it there? “He”, God is referred to as a male. If you read on for the next thousand pages you will notice a pattern, only the pronouns he, him, his, and himself are used to describe God; never the female pronouns.
He “presents” as a male
The word is pronounced with a long e up front. Presents rhymes with resents. It means that by appearance you are showing yourself to be something (whether you are in fact that thing or not). The prophet Isaiah wrote these words: For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counseller, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. (9:6) Quite clearly, the Messiah is being described as a male. He is the son that is given, and he is the Everlasting Father, not the daughter or the Everlasting Mother.
Gender reveal
Nowadays it seems that doctors have the ability to look at a picture of the baby in a sonogram and tell the mother the gender of the baby. This results in a phenomenon known as a gender reveal party. Since we chose not to know ahead of time about our kids, we did not find out until they were born. In the case of Mary, she found out the gender of her baby without any medical assistance. And the angel [Gabriel] said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God. And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS. (Luke 1:30-31) When Jesus came as the only begotten Son of God, he came as a male.
The Colossians 2:9 slam dunk
Even though we refer to Jesus as the Son of God (John 3:16), we need to understand that Jesus is also completely God. In I Timothy 3:16 we learn that God was manifest in the flesh, he revealed himself in a body. In John 1:10 we learn that not only was Jesus the Son of God, but that he was actually the one who created all things in Genesis 1. But if you had any doubt as to who Jesus really was, and you have been confused by different religious teaching about who Jesus is, and how he relates to God, please read Colossians 2:8-9, it definitively answers any questions about the matter: Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. That’s right, all of God is in Jesus, and Jesus was, as you know, on his human side a man; “himself” not “herself” please.
Tad Lindley is a minister at the United Pentecostal Church in Bethel, Alaska.
