Addressing God as 'mother'

There is a stream of theological thinking which believes that the portrayal of God in Scripture is excessively patriarchal and sexist, in fact altogether too masculine, and that it runs counter to the need for gender equality in every sphere.

One of the attempts to correct this perceived bias is to legitimize the practice of conceiving and addressing God as ‘mother.’

Now I do not for a moment presume to have plumbed the profound mystery of the Godhead, however, this fact does not confer on me or anyone else the right to conceive of God and address Him in any way we please. This is simply because He is who He is. (Exodus 3.14)

He is not a ‘malleable’ or ‘plastic’ god who can be moulded to suit my particular conception of Him.

For example, if someone conceived Him to be arbitrary, capricious and cruel, we would have no hesitation in saying, “No, He is not like that, He is a loving God and He loves you.”

How are we able to say this with such confidence? Why, because this emerges plainly from the way he stands revealed in God’s giving of His Son and the Son giving of Himself as evidenced in the pages of Scripture.

The fact is that we could not know what God is like let alone know Him personally unless He revealed Himself. But He has indeed revealed Himself  most fully and comprehensively in the person of Jesus, in His life, death, resurrection and promised return.

The reason that God is not to be conceived of nor addressed as ‘mother’ is that this notion is quite simply not supported by Scripture.

Texts referring to God as Father are extensive, emphatic and univocal.

Texts referring to Jahweh as the Husband of Israel are equally extensive particularly in Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Hosea.

Likewise Jesus is consistently referred to as the Bridegroom to the Church, His Bride.

All these references are unequivocally (some would say scandalously) masculine.

However, if our prevailing sensibilities regarding gender equality are offended at this point, we have simply to conclude ‘so be it.’ We do not have the prerogative to create God in an image which is more acceptable, because He is who He is and He has not chosen to reveal Himself as ‘mother’.

 If one looks for texts that support the concept of God as mother, one ends up clutching at textual straws. Some discussion on certain of these suggested texts follows in the appendix.

Apart from these, the only one that bears scrutiny is Genesis. 1. 27 from which it is clear that there is ‘femaleness’ within the Godhead. If this be the case, it is certainly somewhat mystifying as to why when God stands fully revealed in the person of Jesus, it should be in the form of a man who proceeds to address God as Father. All one can say here, is that the prerogative rests with God as to how He chooses to reveal Himself.

However, perhaps the following may prove helpful:

Within the Godhead there exists an intimate love-relationship between a plurality of persons.

Such is the depth and oneness of this relationship, that it can best be represented by the one-flesh relationship between a husband and wife.

In John 17 Jesus refers to this oneness saying that He is in the Father and the Father is in Him.

Astonishingly and almost incomprehensibly, God desires the same depth of intimacy with us (see John 17. 21) and so again we have Jesus as the (male) Bridegroom while we, as the Church (both male and female) are the Bride.

So where then does the ‘femaleness’ of the Godhead come in?

Here is my best understanding:

When Adam was created and before Eve was made from a part of Adam. Adam held within himself all of mankind both male and female. This is why he was appropriately named ‘Adam’ which means ‘mankind’.

Likewise Jesus, ‘The Second Adam’ as Redeemer of mankind, holds within Himself all of mankind, both male and female.

This does not mean that He is some kind of androgynous being. He was and is quite clearly a man. He had male genitalia; He was after all circumcised on the eighth day.

Yet He was more than simply ‘a man’, He was and is “The Man”- the one Mediator between God and man.

 “Ecce Homo.” Behold ‘The Man’ says Pilate.

A key hermeneutic principle is that Jesus Christ is the lens through which the whole of Scripture is to be understood. Using this lens, there is no way in the world one can arrive at the notion of ‘God as mother’.

This can only be done by attempting to view Scripture through the lens of prevailing political correctness.

The Father seeks those who will worship Him in spirit and in truth, and the truth is that He has revealed Himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit and as such He must be worshiped.

In the light of this, to address God as ‘mother’ is quite simply heresy.

Appendix

Suggested texts for supporting the concept of God as ‘mother’

Matt. 23. 37 –how often I have longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings

This is clearly a ‘gathering metaphor’. It would not make any sense to talk about a rooster gathering chicks because roosters don’t. In any case, working from this metaphor back to a concept of God as mother would require a convoluted line of theological reasoning in which Jesus was viewed as an androgynous being who was both son and daughter.

Isaiah 49. 15 Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget I (Jahweh) will not forget you.

This is a Hebrew literary device known as a ‘more-than’ metaphor.

God is saying, “If even a mother will not forget the child she has borne, how much more will I (Jahweh) not forget you (my bride see verse 18) There is no suggestion that God is claiming to be a mother.

Psa 131. 2  I have stilled and quieted my soul like a weaned child with its mother.

This is a metaphor for quietness of soul. The inference that the mother here represents God is speculative and at best tenuous.

Job.38. 29  From whose womb comes the ice? who gives birth to the frost from the heavens?

It is worth noting that the previous verse (28) says:

Does the rain have a father? Who fathers the drops of the dew?

This is a striking example of the Hebrew poetic device known as ‘double parallelism’

Both verse 28 and verse 29 have the common device of parallelism where the same thing is repeated in slightly different ways. However what is remarkable about this example is that verses 28 and 29 say similar but opposite things in which ‘rain’ is contrasted with’ frost’ and ‘father’ is contrasted with ‘mother’

The book of Job is poetic in its literary form and richly metaphoric. To assert that the reference to womb in verse 29 is to be taken literally and gives grounds to conceive and address God as mother is to place considerable strain on the exegesis and would require confirmation from other texts which confirmation is plainly lacking. 

I AM THAT I AM

To the 17^th Century philosopher and scientist Descartes is attributed the statement,

 “I think therefore I am.”

Over against this, certain 20^th Century existentialists have asserted, “I am therefore I think.”

Both these statements are essentially anthropocentric – regarding humankind as the central or most important element of existence.

Against this, the Judeo-Christian position, based on Genesis 1:26 and Exodus 3:14, is the following theocentric statement:

I am created in the image of I AM therefore I am and I think creatively.

Orthodoxy

Orthodoxy

In the book of Romans, the apostle Paul, with great care and precision, conducts us along the path of faith between the twin perils of legalism and license:

For by works of the law no human being will be justified in His sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. Rom. 3. 20

Where sin increased grace abounded all the more. Rom. 5. 20

What shall we say then? Shall we sin more that grace may abound? God forbid! Rom 6. 1

This concept of steering between opposing dangers occurs in a number of writings:

• In Homer’s Odyssey, Odysseus navigates with intrepid skill between Scylla and Charybdis.

• In Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, Christian must tread carefully between two chained lions. Surprisingly the lions are not named, but they are there as a trial of his faith and only by staying on the straight, narrow path does he escape harm.

• C. S. Lewis states that temptations often occur in pairs such that in perceiving the one and drawing away from it we fall prey to its opposite. In The Screwtape Letters, Screwtape, the senior devil counsels Wormwood, his nephew and junior tempter, as follows: “The game is to have them all running about with fire extinguishers whenever there is a flood, and crowding to that side of the boat which is already nearly gunwale under.”

• Most arresting of all is G. K. Chesterton’s description of ‘Orthodoxy’ in his book of the same name.

“People have fallen into the foolish habit of speaking of orthodoxy as something heavy, humdrum and safe. There never was anything so perilous or so exciting as orthodoxy.----- It was the equilibrium of a man behind madly rushing horses, seeming to stoop this way and sway that, yet in every attitude having the grace of statuary and the accuracy of arithmetic. The Church in its early days went fierce and fast with any warhorse, yet it is utterly unhistoric to say that she merely went mad along one idea, like a vulgar fanaticism. She swerved to left and right so exactly as to avoid enormous obstacles. --- It is easy to be a heretic. It is always easy to let the age have its head; the difficult thing is to keep one’s own. It is always easy to be a modernist, as it is easy to be a snob. ---- It is always simple to fall, there are an infinity of angles at which one falls, only one at which one stands. To have fallen into any one of the fads from Gnosticism to Christian Science would indeed have been obvious and tame. But to have avoided them all has been one whirling adventure; and in my vision the heavenly chariot flies thundering through the ages, the dull heresies sprawling and prostrate, the wild truth reeling but erect.”

An Unfolding Revelation: Hermeneutic Tool #2

   

 One of the Interpretive Tools which is generally accepted for a proper understanding of the Bible is that of a Progressive Revelation defined as follows:

There is a progressive revelation evidenced in Scripture such that our understanding of God and His purposes both creative and redemptive, become clearer and fuller as we progress through the pages of Scripture.

This is undoubtedly sound, however I personally prefer the related concept of an Unfolding Revelation.

Somehow the term 'progressive' conveys a linear development whereas unfolding conjures up a more multi-dimensional image: I picture it like a map being unfolded:

With each unfolding, the territory is displayed more fully until with the closing of the Canon – the book of Revelation – the map is completely unfolded and the entire landscape lies comprehensively revealed before us.

This is no two dimensional affair. It certainly has Geographical Dimensions : The margins of the map extend off into infinity, yet there is a geographical focus: the area known as the Middle East and particularly those territories whose shores are washed by the waters of the Mediterranean. It is a relief map which includes mountains and rivers, forests and desert wildernesses. Some parts lie well below sea level. The area comprising modern day Israel is the focus of the focus. Someone has described this as ‘the Cockpit of the Universe.’

Dominating the entire landscape is a cross, a Roman execution stake, outside the City of Jerusalem and hard by it an empty tomb, both occupied some 2000 years ago by Jesus Christ – Son of God and Son of Man.

But then there are Historical Dimensions: There are people moving around on the relief map, different nationalities, some powerful, some weak, some rich some poor, kings and vassals, heroes and villains - a motley crew. There is no shortage of bloodshed.

Again it is the Hebrew people and their patriarchal ancestors, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who get much of the press, for it is from this nation that Jesus the Messiah is born. His incarnation, His death and resurrection dominate the narrative and indeed even our secular dating system extends backwards and forwards from these events.

Leading on from the revelation of God in the person of Jesus, the narrative now describes how the ‘Good News’ of salvation in Him spreads out from the nation of Israel to penetrate all the nations of the world.

Reading the prophetic books, we find history telescoped such that in a moment of time we glimpse God’s perspective – God who lives outside of time – we see history as it were, laid out on a table before us.

Overarching both the Geographical and the Historical we have the Spiritual Dimension: This is woven intimately and inextricably into the Geographical and Historical dimensions, for the Bible is God’s revelation of Himself and His dealings with mankind.

This then is the concept of an unfolding revelation, each part of the map is important, nothing may be excised, for it all serves to reveal to us the story of mercy triumphing over justice in the person of Jesus Christ.

The Master Key: Hermeneutic Tool #1

 Jesus Christ is the interpretive Master Key which unlocks the whole of Scripture

Or put another way:

Jesus Christ is the lens through which the whole of Scripture is to be viewed.

This is not the same thing as saying that Jesus is the filter through which Scripture is to be viewed. A lens will bring a text into proper focus with regard to Jesus whereas a filter may well tend to eliminate a text as having no relevance to Him.

From this latter view comes the statement that “Not everything Biblical is Christlike.”

As a supposed hermeneutic tool, this is such a misleading ‘half-truth’, that if it is discovered in one’s toolbox, it is best discarded without further ado.

The difference between the lens and filter approach is subtle yet extremely significant.

The connection of some Old Testament texts with Jesus is easily discernible - Isaiah Chapter 53 for instance. For other texts the relationship to Jesus might be far less obvious.

Take for example the following text from Leviticus 19. 19b:

---Do not plant your field with two kinds of seed,

Do not wear clothing woven of two kinds of material.

There are preachers who refer to this text as so obviously arbitrary and inapplicable in our Twenty first Century context, that it casts doubt as to whether the Old Testament has any relevance to our current context in the arena of ethics and morality. Seemingly, it fails to demonstrate any relationship to Jesus and can consequently be ignored or discounted.

Such an approach uses a particular concept of Jesus as a filter when applied to the text.

By contrast, using Jesus Christ as a lens, we discover the following:

This law was given to the Israelites while traversing Sinai en route to Canaan, The Promised Land. God knew that once they began to settle in this land, they would transition from a nomadic existence to a settled agrarian lifestyle where contact with peoples who worshiped various foreign gods was more commonplace. This would bring a constant pressure to be unfaithful to the worship of Jahweh the one true God. He had chosen them to be a nation, Holy and separated unto Him: – a nation to whom He would reveal Himself as to no other nation, for from this people would come The Messiah who would bring salvation to all nations.

Yet until the coming of Jesus they were to keep themselves separate and uncontaminated by the idolatry of the surrounding nations.

Leviticus 19.19 describes everyday practices which would serve as a constant reminder that they were a Holy People, a Messianic People.

This does not mean that the laws set forth in the text are binding on Christians in our current context, (in this there is common cause with the ‘Jesus as filter’ interpreters) but the connection with Jesus becomes clear and we understand why Jesus said that He had not come to ‘abolish the law but to fulfill it.’ Indeed He said not a dot or comma of the law should be altered.

Rather a text such as this may be seen as one stone in a series of stepping-stones which lead to Jesus, who is the fulfillment of the Law and prophets.

There is also a contemporary application of this text in the lives of believers, as, in Christ, we too are considered to be a ‘holy people’, separated unto God. Thus Jesus prays that we should be ‘in the world but not of the world,’ (Jn. 17.) and Paul writes that we are not to be conformed to this world but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds.’ (Rom12.2)

Thus we can see that viewing the text through the lens of Jesus will unlock its riches and relevance within God’s salvation purposes.

Certainly two people who had a first hand experience of viewing Scripture through the lens of Jesus Christ were the travelers on the road to Emmaus:

“And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, He interpreted in them all the things concerning Himself.” Luke 24.27

Later they said to each other, “Did not our hearts burn within us while He talked to us on the road while He opened to us the Scriptures.” Luke 24. 32  

The Artisan's Tools

We've all heard the saying, "A bad workman blames his tools." Certainly a good workman with blunt tools will still turn out a better product than a poor workman with blunt tools. However, a good workman will ensure that he has the right tools for the job and that they are in tip top condition, for this is a prerequisite for turning out a quality product.

2 Timothy 2. 15 exhorts us. "Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of Truth."

This text suggests the title of this blog and the next few posts will deal with the 'Tools of the Workman'.
Hermeneutics is the theological discipline concerned with interpreting the Biblical text correctly, and it must be clear that our interpretation of particular texts will be influenced by the hermeneutic tools which we employ.