Our New Blog Series, In His Image
How often do we discover that we've "put God in a box" by how we imagine him to look, act, sound or feel? The CitySalt team will be exploring how we conceptualize and encounter God and what that says about who we are, being made in his image. Join us in envisioning new perspectives of our multifaceted God.
Genesis 1:26-27 (NRSV)
Then God said, ‘Let us make humans in our image, according to our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over the cattle and over all the wild animals of the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.’ So God created humans in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
These words, on the opening pages of our Bibles, make a bold and unqualified statement about how human beings, and humanity as a whole, relates to God: we have been made in God’s own image! Theologians have debated for centuries the precise meaning of these words and how exactly human beings do and do not image God, but one thing is clear: these words confer upon each and every person a designation of elevated status and dignity in God’s creation. As a result, “Each human being must therefore be viewed with reverence and treated with due respect and care.”(1)
The image of God in every person opens up lines of communication and deeper understanding to us concerning the nature of God and humanity. The lines of communication go both ways. We learn about God by understanding one another as we are made in God’s image, and we learn about one another by understanding God in whose image we are made. Every person has a part of God in them for us to acknowledge, appreciate, and honor, and God has something of God’s own self to reveal to us through every unique person.
The Genesis text also makes it clear that females and males equally image God. Not only does that mean that women and men in God’s creation ought to be given equal honor, respect, and dignity, it also means that both sexes equally resemble God - they each reveal important pieces of who God is and what God is like. Although God in essence is beyond any gender, important aspects of God’s being, traits, personality and character are revealed through the being, traits, personality and character of women and men who are created in God’s image.
I have known these things to be true in theory, but for most of my adult life I’m sad (and a little embarrassed) to say that I’ve imagined God almost solely as a male. Even though the Bible and Christian tradition have given us a diversity of feminine terms, images, and metaphors by which to talk and think about God, I haven’t given these much thought. Over the past few years, with help from some amazing female theologians and writers, I’ve learned some of these images and metaphors. As a result, my imagination about and communication with God has grown and expanded in wonderful ways.
Much of the language that Scripture gives us to talk about and understand God is through metaphors. God is a rock (Deut. 32:4). God is a strong tower (Ps. 61:3). God is a sun (Ps. 84:11). God is a lion (Hosea 13:7-8). God is a potter (Is. 64:8). As with any metaphor, there are limits to the truth of metaphors that we use to talk and think about God. There are ways that God is like a rock, and ways that God is not like a rock. There are ways that God is like a lion, and ways that God is not like a lion. The power of these metaphors is not in that they communicate the fullness of who God is, but that they each may help to communicate certain qualities and characteristics of God to us.
What I’ve come to realize is that although I use many metaphors and images to talk and think about God, I’ve never really considered using female images and metaphors until recently. As a result, I think I’ve missed or neglected significant parts of God’s personality, character, and actions. Not only that, but I’ve also missed or minimized the ways in which the women in my life teach me about who God is and what God does.
Here are three feminine images or metaphors for God in the Bible that I have recently found helpful for me to consider and contemplate. When I imagine God in these ways, I also connect with women I know who have been these for me or others, and I can better see and understand God through their lives.
God is a mother. Isaiah 49:15 says, “Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.” There is something special and wonderful about the way the mothers I know remember and care for their children. It’s a powerful truth for me to contemplate that God remembers me like a mother who remembers her children. I can trust God’s care and compassion just as (or even more than) I can trust the care and compassion of my mom and the way my children trust their mom. Wow!
God is a midwife. Isaiah 66:9-10 says, “‘Do I bring to the moment of birth and not give delivery?’ says the Lord. ‘Do I close up the womb when I bring to delivery?’ says your God.” I have never personally needed a midwife (surprise, surprise! ☺). However, I saw how my wife, Heather, was helped and supported through the birthing process by a midwife, and I find this to be a profound picture of God to meditate on at this point in life. There are new things that Heather and I want to bring into the world – desires that I think God has given us. God as a midwife comes alongside us in the mess and pain of bringing something new into the world, and She brings encouragement, guidance, and support through the whole process.
God is a seamstress. In the Garden, God acts as a seamstress, making clothes for Adam and Eve from fig leaves to help cover their nakedness and shame.(2) In Psalm 139, the psalmist says to God, “You have knit me together in my mother’s womb.” These images of God as one who sews and knits reminds me of women in my life who have been skilled in these ways. Somehow, they have the patience and vision and touch to take threads and cloths and yarn and make something good out of them. They patch holes and make new things out of old pieces of material. These are all skills that I do not have, but I have known women who do. It comforts me to know God is like them. I like to think about how God is knitting the threads of my life together into something good even though I can’t see the full picture. The process is slow, detailed, and painstaking. Sometimes it results in something beautiful, sometimes it is more functional, but I can trust the skill of the Seamstress that it will be good in the end.
David P. Gushee, The Sacredness of Human Life: Why an Ancient Biblical Vision is Key to the World’s Future (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013), 24.
I first came across this idea in Cole Arthur Riley, This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories That Make Us (New York: Convergent, 2022), 14.
About the Author
Aaron is a passionate seeker of God and truth, and he enjoys encouraging others in their own pursuits of the same. He especially likes to think about how God is at work in the most ordinary and mundane aspects of our existence. He loves going on adventures to new places with his wife, Heather, and four kids and his perfect day would involve an excellent cup of coffee (or two!), a hike to somewhere beautiful and serene, and some good conversation over a pint at a warm pub. He currently serves as an adjunct instructor at Portland Seminary and co-leads the CitySalt Kids’ Ministry along with his wife, Heather.