Galatians is probably biblical feminists’ favorite book in
the Bible. That’s where they find their theme verse, “There is neither Jew nor
Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for
you are all one in Christ Jesus” (3:28), and its corollary, “for in Christ
Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith” (3:26). (All Bible quotations in
this post are from the ESV.)
Biblical feminists read Galatians 3 to mean that, just as there
is now no more distinction between Jew and Gentile because of Christ, so also there
should be no distinctions of any kind between male and female. All church
offices should be open to women, and there should be no such thing as headship or
submission in marriage.
Biblical feminists ignore at least a couple of things here:
(1) that the context of Galatians 3 is how we all come to Christ on an equal
footing by faith; and (2) that the same Paul who wrote Galatians 3 also wrote “Wives,
submit to your own husbands …” (Ephesians 5), “… the head of a wife is her
husband …” (1 Corinthians 11), and “I do not permit a woman to teach or
exercise authority over a man …” (1 Timothy 2), to cite a few. (We’ll return to
these “inconvenient” verses in a moment.)
Now, while Galatians 2:26 (and 2:28) might on the surface seem
like the perfect proof text for egalitarianism, that conclusion is really a
misunderstanding of what Paul means by “sons of God.” Paul isn’t saying here
that gender is no longer important in any context, but that women too (just
like Greeks) fit within the category of “sons of God” by faith in Christ. Paul
wasn’t opening radical new “feminist” ground here (as some claim), but rather
following footprints in the Old Testament that lead back to Eve.
To understand this, we need a little Hebrew lesson. “Daughter”
in Hebrew is “son” with a feminine ending. A daughter is a female son, just as
Eve is a female man (Hebrew: adam). “Let
us make man in our image, after our likeness…. So God created man in his own
image …male and female he created
them” (Genesis 1:26, 28). “Male and
female he created them, and he blessed them and named them Man when they
were created” (Genesis 5:2). Adam is not only the name of the first man, but
also the generic name God gave to Eve (and to the whole human race).
Adam is God’s son (see Luke 3:38); by implication, Eve is God’s
daughter. In fact, the rabbis thought of God as Eve’s father, preparing her for
marriage to his son, Adam (Leila Leah Bronner, From Eve to Esther: Rabbinic Reconstructions of Biblical Women). In
the Old Testament, daughter is a sub-category of son. And perhaps this is why
Paul felt free to adapt the promise of 2 Samuel 7:14 (“I will be to him a
father and he shall be to me a son”) to read “and I will be a father to you,
and you shall be sons and daughters
to me, says the Lord Almighty” (2 Corinthians 6:18).
Whether male or female, we are all “sons of God” by creation,
God’s “offspring,” as Paul told the Athenians (Acts 17: 28–29). Paul’s point in
Galatians 3 is that those who believe in Christ are also “sons of God” by
adoption, whether male or female.
But the mistake of the feminists is to assume that this gospel
makes us a sort of new unisex race, where male and female have become
irrelevant. Yet it’s quite the opposite. God created adam male and female in order to be husband and wife, because he
always had the gospel in mind. That’s why Paul returned again and again to creation as the ground of his teaching
about marriage and church office. Paul championed our new freedom in Christ, but
with all that freedom, he wanted the church to also hold onto marriage as a picture
of Christ and the church (see Ephesians 5:32). From the beginning, marriage had
a gospel purpose.
And that’s why egalitarianism ultimately undermines the
gospel.
