Centuries before the modern feminist movement, Christian theologians used feminine imagery to talk about God. It’s a mistake to assume that feminine references to God are a capitulation to radical feminism. Even the divinely inspired scriptures use feminine imagery in reference to God.
An ancient Hebrew theologian declared that “the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters” (Genesis 1:2). Here, the hovering Spirit of God is imagined as a large female bird hovering over her nest. The Hebrew word that is translated “hovering” is in the feminine gender.
Perhaps it is in the creation of humanity that we get the most straightforward view of God in a feminine 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). Both male and female represent the image of God. This suggest that the image of God transcends human gender. God is not compromised by being imagined as masculine and/or feminine. However, to insist that God is predominantly masculine or feminine distorts God’s image (John E. Hartley, Genesis, 2000). After all, the uncreated God is neither.
The imagery of God as a female bird is used often in Scripture. The imagery of God as an eagle is reminiscent of Genesis 1:2. “As an eagle stirs up its nest and hovers over its young, He spread His wings, He caught them, He carried them on His pinions” (Deuteronomy 32:11). Notice that in this single verse Yahweh is referred to in feminine and masculine terms. The KJV translates the feminine imagery: “As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings”. The feminine image is that of a mother eagle caring for her young. The masculine imagery is seen in the use of pronouns – He, His, which are supplied by the NASB translators. The ESV doesn’t translate the pronouns. Even Jesus employed the analogy of a mother bird in reference to the love of God: “How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings…” (Matthew 23:37; Luke 13:34).
The inspired author of Deuteronomy used this male/female imagery again. “You forgot the Rock who fathered you, and forgot the God who gave you birth” (Deuteronomy 32:18). The ancient Hebrew theologian speaks of God as father and mother. Michael A. Grisanti points out “The verbal root of מְחֹלְלֶךָ (meḥōlelekā, “who gave you birth”) normally refers to a mother’s writhing in pain as she delivers a child” (Deuteronomy in Expositor’s Bible Commentary, 2012). To speak of God giving birth is analogous to God as mother.
Likewise, in the prophecy of Isaiah, Yahweh declares, “Now like a woman in labor I will groan, I will both gasp and pant” (42:14). This refers to God’s act of delivering Israel from the Babylonian Exile. Also, Yahweh employs the analogy of a mother in reference to God’s care. “For this is what the Lord says: ‘…And you will be nursed, you will be carried on the hip and rocked back and forth on the knees. As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you’” (Isaiah 66:12-13; cf. 49:15). Geoffrey W. Grogan has written, “The thought of Zion’s children as nursed by her moves to the thought of God as mother of his people (v. 13). This is dramatic and surprising, for in earlier chapters God has been represented as the husband and Zion as the wife (e.g., 54:5). Once again, then, the prophet demonstrates the freedom of inspiration in using illustrative language…” (Isaiah in Expositor’s Bible Commentary, 2008, emphasis added).
So, we are confronted with a hermeneutical challenge. The most literal reading suggests that Yahweh is an androgynous deity, or a divine hermaphrodite who self inseminates. Sometimes a literal reading is not the most faithful reading. A faithful reading understands that the use of male and female nouns, pronouns, and images do not speak to divine gender, but are anthropomorphic and theophanic metaphors and analogies.
In the prophecy of Hosea, Yahweh speaks of divine wrath in terms of a provoked mother bear and lioness. “I will confront them like a bear deprived of her cubs, And I will tear open their chests; I will also devour them there like a lioness, as a wild animal would tear them to pieces” (Hosea 13:8). Yahweh is not a mother bear or lioness. The mother bear and lioness are analogies of God’s wrath. In the same way, attributions of divine gender (father or mother) are metaphors that illustrate God’s relationship with humanity.
What about the New Testament? When Jesus was baptized in the Jordan River “the heavens were opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove and lighting on Him” (Matthew 3:16). In reference to the Spirit of God as a dove, the Greek word for “dove” is in the feminine form. This means the text could be translated as “he saw the Spirit of God descending as a she dove“. This is consistent in all four Gospels. In Acts 2:38, Peter speaks of “the gift of the Holy Spirit”. The Greek word for gift is in the feminine form. Throughout the New Testament Luke and Paul refer to the power of the Holy Spirit. In every case, the Greek word for power is in the feminine form (Acts 1:8; 10:38; Romans 15:13, 19; 1 Corinthians 2:4; Ephesians 3:16; 1 Thessalonians 1:5; 2 Timothy 1:7). (I am aware that grammatical gender does not necessarily imply sex distinction, especially with inanimate objects.)
The Biblical evidence demonstrates that the inspired authors used both masculine and feminine words, metaphors, and analogies when speaking of God.
The use of feminine imagery to speak of God in Holy Scripture was continued by some early stalwart Christian theologians, none of whom can be accused of promoting a radical feminist ideology.
Irenaeus, bishop of Lyon (130-202), employed illustrative language of believers being nourished from the breasts of Christ.
This is why he, who was the perfect bread of the Father, offered himself to us as milk. We were infants. He did this when he appeared as a man so that we—being nourished, as it were, from the breast of his flesh and having, by such a course of milk, nourishment—having become accustomed to eating and drinking the Word of God, might be able also to contain in ourselves the bread of immortality, which is the Spirit of the Father (Ante-Nicene Fathers 1, 521).
A literal reading of Irenaeus would suggest that Jesus was a hermaphrodite, or transgendered. But of course, that is not what he was suggesting. He was using allegorical language to suggest how believers are nurtured by partaking of the Eucharist.
Hippolytus of Rome (170-235) wrote a commentary on Genesis which employees the allegorical method. He had no reservation in personifying the Holy Spirit as female.
Isaac conveys a figure of God the Father; Rebecca of the Holy Spirit… Rebecca is full of the Holy Spirit, as understanding the word which she heard before she gave birth, “For the elder shall serve the younger.” As a figure of the Holy Spirit, moreover, she cares for Jacob in preference (Ante-Nicene Fathers 5, 168–169).
Clement, Bishop of Alexandria (150-215), wrote,
For what further need has God of the mysteries of love? And then thou shalt look into the bosom of the Father, whom God the only-begotten Son alone hath declared. And God Himself is love; and out of love to us became feminine. In His ineffable essence He is Father; in His compassion to us He became Mother. The Father by loving became feminine: and the great proof of this is He whom He begot of Himself; and the fruit brought forth by love is love (Ante-Nicene Fathers 2, 601).
Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa (335-395), wrote,
so the Divine power, after the manner of the illustration I have used, though exalted far above our nature and inaccessible to all approach, like a tender mother who joins in the inarticulate utterances of her babe, gives to our human nature what it is capable of receiving; and thus in the various manifestations of God to man He both adapts Himself to man and speaks in human language… (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers 2nd Series 5, 292).
Gregory offers great insight. Because God is unapproachable and humans are of weak nature, we must speak of God in language that we are capable of receiving. In other words, we can speak of God as father and/or mother only as long as we understand them as metaphors and theological images.
Like the ancient Hebrew theologians, the ancient Christian theologians had no issue with applying male and female images to God. They understood that all words, metaphors, analogies, and images are insufficient to talk about the incomprehensible and uncreated God.
Early Pentecostals acknowledged the various Biblical metaphors that speak of God. Evangelist Lillian Stokes published an article entitled “A Bible Picture of God”, in which she wrote, “God is not only pictured as a Father, but in a stronger, finer sense, in a more tender way, as a Mother… If you will combine all the best characteristics of God the Father, the Mother, the Friend, the Lover, the Husband, you will find a bible picture of God” (The Bridegroom’s Messenger, April 1936, 5-6).
Augustine, Bishop of Hippo (354-430), insisted that humanity is created “most remotely” in the image of God. He said that the divine image in humanity is not of the physical body, but of the rational soul which is possessed by male and female. Furthermore, the physical images of the created order reflect only “traces of things spiritual”. He encourages us to look beyond the created world “under the guidance of reason” in our efforts to understand God lest we fall into “pernicious error” (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 1st Series, 3, 157).
Responsible scholarship and hermeneutics require that we exercise great caution in using words and images when talking about God. Otherwise, we fall into idolatry by creating a god in our own sociopolitical image, be that hierarchical patriarchy or radical feminist.
For further reading:
The Holy Spirit as feminine: Early Christian Testimonies… – Johannes Van Oort
