In the beginning, on the sixth day of creation, before the Sabbath on the seventh day, God created man, and he made them male and female—and called their name Adam. The Apostle Paul said this is a great mystery that speaks to Christ and the Church.

By understanding the purpose of creation, we can begin to understand the mystery of God much more deeply. There was a design in making them male and female, their purpose for being, and their placement in the patriarchy. In viewing things outside of their created purpose, there is confusion, and God is not the author of confusion. Male, female, and the institution of marriage were created with specific roles and purposes—thus, they were joined in marriage and made one flesh, and God called their name Adam.

Genesis 2:21–25 states: “And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept; and he took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh instead thereof; and the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, he made a woman and brought her unto the man.” And Adam said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother and cleave to his wife, and they shall be one flesh.”

Two became one flesh, just as Christ and his bride become one flesh and one spirit. In that God made man in his likeness and in his image, it is to be understood that it is together as one that man and woman express the likeness and image of God—“It is not good that man should be alone.” The two together create an expression of completeness; the Lord is not lacking in any virtue that either the man or the woman brings into marriage.

God is one, yet He separated distinct attributes of his own person and set them apart in the creation of male and female that they might be magnified and seen more clearly. In so doing, the variations of His persona—goodness and virtue, strength and tenderness, mercy and judgment, being complementary to each other—are made manifest.

What virtues are there that are expressed by the manliness of a man and those possessed by a virtuous woman that God does not possess in the fullness of perfection? God created man as an expression of strength, command, boldness, and leadership. He is to be the defender, protector, teacher, judge, and provider. Man relies largely on logic and reason, setting them above emotions as the foundation of decisions and actions.

However, God is not one-dimensional, and being the fullness of all virtue, He expresses this through His creation of the woman. The woman is to express God’s love, His humble service to others—that part of God wherein lies compassion, mercy, selflessness, nourishing, and meekness. She exemplifies being meticulous in her works while serving in humility—virtues that in men are sometimes secondary to narrower focused priorities of the male character.

It is also in women that we find greater unpredictability; likewise, God acts against what is deserved in that he grants mercy and grace to us through his love—for when we were certainly worthy of death, we found pity and compassion in his eyes. He offered us life instead of death through the shedding of his own blood by taking our sins upon himself on the cross.

In what is sometimes referred to as “woman’s intuition,” mercy overrides what justice might demand by offering compassion that never would have been realized by pure reason and logic.

However, although both male and female were created to express the image of God together, after the fall of man, that expression was corrupted. Mankind began to also express the image of Satan; a war for control of the soul began.

It is not possible that either man or woman can measure up to their role in expressing God’s virtue to perfection—nor is it possible that finite mortal beings could ever perfectly express the fullness of an infinite God in whom dwells the fullness of every good thing.

Nonetheless, in the creation of male and female, God gave to mankind two finite beings to be united as one in marriage—wherein the fullness and completeness of God might be expressed at least in part, even if only in a state of imperfection.

Thus, marriage between male and female illustrates the goodness of God manifested in the relationship of Christ and his bride, which is the church. This is the true love of God revealed—that he laid down his life for his bride, that his bride should be redeemed and set free to love him and others by laying down her life in bringing forth children for the Father—that in heaven and earth, all in him might be gathered together as one family at the time appointed.

The confusion of gender identification pervading the world today is a consequence of men and women failing to recognize, accept, and fulfill the roles given to them by God.

Driven by fleshly desires, many neglect their biological roles as male or female. In rebellion against their Creator, they defile the image of God by confusing roles or claiming fluidity.

The union of male and female joined together as one in the beginning—whereby God began revealing the spectrum of his being—has been perverted into the inordinate, beastly nature of man and the schizophrenic nature of Satan. As God made man in his image and in his likeness, when the Devil captures a soul, he also fashions them in his image and likeness.