[While I am rewriting sections in chapters as I am doing a final read-through of the “The Serpent & the Cross” for it’s wholly updated 1028-page second edition, I am moved to put extracts here in order to stimulate interest in the book and to demonstrate the scope of it. The extract below is just a few pages from a detailed 66-page chapter entitled “Daughters of Babylon: Rebellion, Witchcraft & Women’s ‘Liberation“. I felt this extract would work as a “Thoughts for the Day” stand-alone piece. It is 4,900 words and has a 26-minute read-time].

God’s Gender-Plan for His Human Creation

When the Lord created this universe He had a cosmic design which specifically involved the creation of both men and women for its consummation. In Genesis 1:26-28, we discover three principles which govern this gender-plan and which clearly spell out to us God’s intentions for His creation.

The first principle in God’s gender-plan for His human creation is that both male and female were created in the image of God. “So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them”. God created both the man and the woman in His image, a fact that is strongly emphasised in the text (Genesis 1:27; 5:2). In fact, the image of God is specifically reflected in the complementary characteristics of male and female. In other words the two genders of male and female complement each other in such a way that they are a reflection of the image of God.

Bear in mind here that the image of god was originally reflected in true righteousness and holiness. When our first parents are said to have been made in the image of God, this not only refers to the fact that they were created as rational creatures with innate ingenuity but also that they were a glorious reflection of their Maker’s righteousness and holiness. It is clear that if they were possessors of such qualities then this would also have involved the recognition that there are norms to which creatures must adhere. For those made in the image of God there was to be no deviation from the Law of the God in whose image they were made. There would be no room here for the modern prevalent idea of ‘situation ethics’. This would especially be the case with our first parents’ approach to their sexuality. God ordained that a man and woman were to be the norm for human sexual relations. Those made in the image of God in righteousness and true holiness and living in a state of pre-Fall innocence would adhere to that standard unswervingly. (Well, that is, until the permitted intrusion of Satan to fulfil God’s inscrutable purposes).

We know that they were originally created in true righteousness and holiness because the Bible says so in Ephesians 4:24. Those qualities were lost in the Fall so that all born since then are tarnished in this way, then the righteousness and holiness in the image is renewed in disciples of Christ as “the new self” which is “renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator” (Colossians 3:10).

The second principle in God’s gender-plan for His human creation is that both male and female were blessed by God (Genesis 1:28). The male and the female as one flesh has the blessing of God. It is most important to understand this. We are confronted here, in the opening pages of the Bible with the endowment of gender gifts in the creation of man and woman — and they are blessed. A blessing is given by God on that coming together of the male and the female as one flesh. No other form of sexual relationship is blessed. On the contrary, same-sex sexual relationships are condemned in the Bible as “an abomination” — a violation of the Divine order (Leviticus 18:21).

The third principle in God’s gender-plan for His human creation is that the male and female were commanded to procreate. “And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply’” (Genesis 1:28), along with the taking of dominion over the earth by His human creation. Such procreation between a man and a woman provides us with the clear biblical norm for participants in a sexual relationship: Man and woman only. The deviation from that — essentially, sexual deviancy — is to rebel against God’s creative norm… and that is where we are up to in the world today.

So, those are the three aspects of God’s gender-plan for His human creation. First, we see them made in the image of God so that in some mysterious way male and female coming together as one flesh have a complementarity that reflects that image in righteousness and true holiness. Second, we discover that male and female coming together as one flesh are blessed by God. The union of male and female in monogamous marriage has the stamp of approval of God the Creator. Thirdly, we see that embodied in God’s gender-plan for His human creation is procreative activity uniquely on the part of the male and female.

Human Sexuality Provides Satan with a Major Battleground

Plainly there have been a number of developments throughout history — and especially things that we see happening around us in the world today — that do not square up with God’s gender-plan for His human creation. Therefore, God’s gender-plan and its outworking in the world throughout history must be understood in the context of a mighty spiritual battle which has been taking place from the beginning of time. One of Satan’s primary battles has been in the area of human sexuality. At the heart of his evil work in the subversion of our first parents in Genesis 3:1-6 was not only the questioning of God’s Word and the incitement to disobedience, but there was also the attempted fouling up of God’s gender-plan in creation. He practically destroyed the relationship between Adam and Eve by tempting the woman into making a decision which effectively ruled out her husband as head of the household (Genesis 3:6), and then turned them against each other (Genesis 3:12-13). Here, in the behaviour of Eve, and then of Adam, were the very beginnings of that corrupting condition of human sexuality which we now know today as Feminism.

And when we look at a man with a man, or a woman with a woman, coming together as one in a sexual relationship, these things threaten godly family relationships and boundaries because they run counter to the Divine command to procreate — a command that is a part of the order of creation.

The same kind of order has been put in place in terms of gatherings of disciples of Christ which, when misrepresented or overturned, is also another aspect of God’s created order being challenged. For example, feminists — especially those within the churches — have always been very vocal on the ‘women’s ordination’ issue; and the exegetical gymnastics of the feminist-sympathising evangelicals concerning the controversial Pauline texts have been truly breathtaking. Paul could not have been clearer in the things he said about church leadership, the exercise of authority and the role of women in the assemblies — what he calls “the house of God” (1 Timothy 2:9-15 with 3:15). Yet, because so many people in the churches today use modern cultural (predominantly feminist-inspired) norms as the yardstick against which the biblical data should be measured, everything possible is done to bend, twist and squeeze Paul’s words into something more acceptable to the kind of people who construct their life-norms out of “Cosmopolitan” magazine and “The Guardian” newspaper. [For a straightforward but sensitive treatment of the role of women in the churches, see Derek Prime, Women in the Church: A Pastoral Approach (Crossway, 1992). The great virtue of this book is that it studiously avoids the tortuous, back-bending scholarship which characterises so many modern evangelical treatments of this subject].

The stark truth is that the Word of God excludes women from the eldership in local churches, and also from shaping the authoritative teaching of the Church, on the basis of Eve being created after Adam and also being deceived by Satan into falling from grace (1 Timothy 2:11-15). Admittedly, these concepts are rather alien to the modern world; but this does not render them null and void. The idea of a soul-saving blood-sacrifice is also an alien concept in late twentieth century Western culture; but that does not prevent the atonement of Christ from being the central pivot upon which the whole of human history turns, from creation to eternity. The Apostle’s authoritative teaching about women in the churches does not designate women as being more obnoxious or less gifted than men. Paul is simply revealing and ratifying the consequences through the ages of God’s original judgement on the actions of the first woman in history. Neither does his teaching imply that Christian men are more honourable than their female counterparts. Let us not forget that Christian men, as well as women, were once “darkness” (Ephesians 5:8), and “dead in trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1), because of the sin of the man, Adam, which brought death into the world (Romans 5:12).

The Differences Between Men and Women

In spite of all the attempts to force equality on the world today, there are fundamental God-ordained differences between men and women which are vital to the working out of His plan on earth. The Hebrew word for woman or wife, אִשָּׁה, ishshah, is derived from a root which means ‘soft’ or ‘delicate’ (“The New Brown, Driver, Briggs and Gesenius Hebrew-English Lexicon of the Old Testament”, 1906 edition, Hendrickson, 1979, p.61). Although this word is similar to the Hebrew word for man, אִ֗ישׁ, iysh, there is actually an intentional contrast in meaning, as this iysh appears to be derived from a root which means ‘to be strong’ (Ibid., p.35). So there is a deliberate and complementary contrast in our gender-gifts from God, ensuring that men and women recognise a completion and fulfilment in their relationship with one another. This is the true mystery of marriage and also provides a stunning symbol of the relationship between Christ and His Church (Ephesians 5:22-33). Adam recognised this unity of the male with the female when he said of Eve: “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” (Genesis 2:23). So man and woman, although having individual sexual characteristics and roles, are intended by God to engage in a lifelong bond in conformity with His spiritual purposes: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” (Genesis 2:24).

Here we can perhaps understand the significance of Satan’s undermining of marriage between man and woman. If such a union has been — and still is — of supreme spiritual importance for the outworking of God’s plan, then by attempting to destroy all manifestations of this union, it may be possible to undermine the plan itself (in Satan’s warped way of reasoning). [The Saviour of the world — the Seed (offspring) of the woman (Genesis 3:15) — came to incarnation through a long line of generations. His people also come into being in the world as a result of marriage between the male and female].

Marital discord and breakdown is a part of this element in the spiritual battle, but the most far-reaching tactic in the satanic destruction of marital integrity between man and woman is the widespread growth of homosexuality. It may be unfashionable, but it is certainly no exaggeration to say that homosexuality is a sin — a profound sin. It is a sin, not simply because it is ‘disgusting’, or ‘perverted’, or ‘unhealthy’ (these words are really secular judgements), but above all because it is disobedient to God’s will. When we deny that heterosexuality is normal, we deny our Creator, and we must then have recourse to the hijacking of euphemistic words such as ‘gay’, and even take refuge in ‘pride’, in our efforts to cover up the intrinsic sinfulness of homosexuality and to deny the spiritual significance of the heterosexual union in marriage. This process of becoming “one flesh” is referred to in the New Testament a number of times. For example, Jesus Himself reiterates the creation and union of man and woman, adding the rejoinder: “therefore, what God has joined together, let not man separate” (Matthew 19:5-6; Mark 10:8-9). The apostle Paul, in his first letter to the Corinthians, also stressed the sanctity of this union when he warned its recipients not to have sexual contact with prostitutes: “For “the two”, He says, “shall become one flesh” (1 Corinthians 6:16), thus defiling their bodies which are “not for sexual immorality, but for the Lord” (1 Corinthians 6:13).

The whole purpose behind the manipulation of women by the satanically-energized power-elite and forces of darkness in this world has not only been the usual one of causing deep division in society to the point of rage and violence, emotionalism, infantilization, insecurity, cognitive dissonance and openness to manipulation, but also the complete undermining of the essential and complementary characteristics of the sacred masculine and feminine. For male and female is God’s appointed order in this world. It is this which the satanic forces of darkness are trying to overthrow through feminism and all the gender-bending which we see happening across the world. When men and women work as one, with those complementary forces in full play — the masculine as the handsome pioneering spirit of focused-consciousness in society (and cherisher of women), and the feminine as the beautiful diffuse-awareness lightning rod of spirituality (and upholder of men); each playing their parts in humility and in fulfilment of the Divine purpose of truth and light — then a more healthy community and society will ensue.

Therefore, it has been in the deep interests of the forces of darkness (and the power-elite which is energised by those forces) to break that complementariness and divide men and women, thus rendering them both powerless, even though many women ironically imagine that they are being ‘empowered’. Their false form of ‘empowerment’ has become one of the greatest self-deceptions manifested in women today. In effect, through feminism — which has now taken on the mantle of a personality disorder (Feminist Personality Disorder) — there has been a castration of men and a spaying of women which is wreaking havoc in the world, a havoc which is so-desired by the power-elite and forces of darkness in order to more easily execute their world-plan of hegemony to install a one-world government.

The sanctity of marriage has become increasingly eroded in recent years and we can expect this erosion to continue as the iniquity of the satanic world-system comes to its fullness. A common phrase in relation to male-female relationships is the ‘battle of the sexes’. That such a state of affairs should have arisen is hardly surprising. The entire problem began at the time of the Fall of our first parents recounted in Genesis, chapter 3. Neither Adam nor Eve would take responsibility for their disobedience to God, and when Adam behaved with such cowardice, blaming Eve for his own waywardness (Genesis 3:12), the scene was set for a strife-torn relationship between men and women which has persisted to this day, resulting in the lovers’ tiffs, jealousy, marital stress, plus the separation and divorce which are now so prevalent in our culture.

Submission: The Key to Many Human Problems

Naturally, the more people attempt to ameliorate these difficulties through their own strength (cf. 1 Samuel 2:9b), the more they will become entrenched in their problems — that ‘Law of Godless Reformation’ once again. But the key to this immense problem cannot be found in Feminism or in any other attempted humanistic or utopian solution. The real key to the problem occurs throughout the Bible: It is submission. This is not a popular form of demeanour in this day and age — especially for feminists. For they believe that women are already too submissive to men. However, the submission advocated in the Bible operates in a very different way from the submission which Feminism finds so offensive. When Paul said: “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church” (Ephesians 5:22-23), he was not giving men carte blanche to subjugate their wives in a master/slave capacity. It is the wives who should, of their own volition, submit to their husbands to the glory of God. The husbands are not told to force their wives submit to them. In fact, the husbands are told: “Love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her” (Ephesians 5:25). In other words, theirs is to be a life of self-sacrifice.

God’s structure for human relationships works through two principal means: First, the submission of the one under authority; second, the self-sacrifice of the one in authority. The kind of male-female domination and submission so prevalent in our culture is actually a complete antithesis of the relationship advocated by the apostle here, because it is generally enforced in an entirely unreasonable manner — and that by unregenerate men. Similarly, the remedies offered by feminists are equally unbiblical because they merely offer at best, reactionary political reform; at worst, they initiate a descent into witchcraft.

God gives men leadership in the family as well as in the Church. As the Apostle writes: “I want you to know that the head of every man is Christ, the head of woman is man, and the head of Christ is God” (1 Corinthians 11:3). This is the divinely-appointed hierarchy in the Church for the remainder of this age. This headship of the man can be learned from a number of Scriptures, which show that it goes back to the original creation. Paul argues for the fact that women should not have rule or give authoritative teaching in the Church when he says: “Adam was formed first, then Eve” (1 Timothy 2:13). Again, he says: “For man is not from woman, but woman from man. Nor was man created for the woman, but woman for the man” (1 Corinthians 11:8-9). This echoes that primal Scripture: “The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make for him a suitable helper” (Genesis 2:18). [In the King James Version, the text says, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him”. Many seem to have become confused at this point and think that God is speaking of something called a “helpmeet”. But there is actually no such thing. The word “meet” in this context in King James’ era meant “suitable” — that is, it meets requirements. So the KJV is saying that God will provide a “helper” who is “meet”, suitable, for Adam, someone who meets all the necessary requirements. I just thought it might be good to clear this confusion up here as I see the non-existent and meaningless composite word “helpmeet” so often used in Christian circles]. Finally, he also asserts that the man “is the image and glory of God; but woman is the glory of man” (1 Corinthians 11:7). Now it is true that this is not at all in line with current worldly opinion; but the true purpose of Christian teaching has never been to please the world (cf. Luke 16:15). Rather, it is to build up the Church as a counterculture to the satanic world-system and provide norms for people who dwell in a new spiritual kingdom. We are to be conformed to the Word — not to the world. As the Apostle says:

“We have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. And this is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom, but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. The natural man does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God. For they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:12-14).

You must have the indwelling Holy Spirit to appreciate, discern, and obey the Word of God, especially in the area of relationships. That is why unbelievers and impostors in the Church will never really understand what Paul is talking about and will always feel obliged to make his words say other than what they really mean. Like the false religionists of Christ’s day, the Sadducees, they misinterpret because they neither know the Scriptures nor the power of God (cf. Matthew 22:29).

In the original creation, the headship of the man would have involved a beautiful and harmonious relationship. But after the Fall, that relationship became hugely distorted; and so it has been throughout history, during which relationships between men and women have been shot through with striving. But when husbands and wives come to Christ, that original relationship between man and woman is restored. Christian wifely submission and husbandly self-sacrifice bring the most wonderful things to a marriage. In many ways, the Lord’s requirement of the man’s love toward his wife is the more demanding of the two roles, for to love his wife “as Christ also loved the church” (Ephesians 5:25) represents the ultimate in self-sacrifice, as Christ became the Suffering Servant and laid down His life for His people, the Church. How many men can honestly claim to love their wives in this way? There can be no more beautiful harmony in relationship than when a husband is in submission to Christ, a wife is in submission to her husband, and the children are obedient to their parents, and all in submission to God and His Word. God blesses those who obey His Word and live according to the structures He prescribes. This applies in any sphere of life.

There are a number of key factors with respect to this “submission” in the relation of the wife to the husband: First, it is voluntary. Biblical submission does not involve oppression, repression, coercion or cruelty. Biblical submission has nothing to do with the woman being a mouse or a doormat. A woman can be a very strong and outgoing personality, and yet still be submissive according to God’s command. Submission does not at all mean that a woman becomes an insignificant blob without any real identity of her own. In fact, motherhood and homemaking are the most highly esteemed roles for a woman in Scripture — in spite of the fact that they are regarded as inferior in many quarters today. Scripture even envisages the possibility of working wives (apart from childcare, that is) — although always operating within the domestic sphere (See Proverbs 31:10-31).

A second key factor in relation to a wife’s submission to her husband is that it is always envisaged as being under the patronage of God: “Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord” (Colossians 3:18). What is implied here is that the submission of the wife is part of her obedience to Christ, and this lifts it out of the realms of the mundane and invests it with great spirituality. In sum, biblical submission simply means that, on a voluntary basis, out of love and reverence for the Lord and His Word, the wife accepts the authority of her husband in matters belonging to the family sphere. This does not mean that she is prevented from vitally contributing to family decisions. It is simply a question of deference to the headship appointed by God. Now the usual response to all this talk of submission from those who find it hard to swallow is to ask, “Doesn’t it say somewhere in the Bible that there is neither male nor female in Christ Jesus. Therefore, are we not all equal in the eyes of God?” Let us just have a look at this text:

“Now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian. You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise” (Galatians 3:25-29).

The context here has nothing whatsoever to do with marriage but is about the standing of people before God in relation to salvation. Insofar as all believers are adopted children of God, all distinctions between people pale into insignificance. The gift of salvation is not at all determined by our cultural, ethnic or gender characteristics. The only thing that matters is whether or not you are Christ’s; for, if you are Christ’s, then you are God’s children and recipients of the inheritance — eternal life.

However, despite this equality in terms of salvation, insofar as we are part of human structures in God’s creation, there is a divine order, a sacred hierarchy. The husband and wife are one in Christ Jesus; and they are one flesh in their relationship. But that relationship involves a structure, an order determined by God for its harmonious outworking; and who are we to argue with that?

So the woman’s position in relation to the man, as designated by God, does not indicate outright inferiority but a difference in office and administration. We must not superimpose the secular concept of male domination/female subjugation onto the biblical doctrine of submission within the family — for then we merely play into the hands of the feminists. The difference between the role of the man and that of the woman is one of office rather than consisting in superiority and inferiority. Yet, paradoxically, her submission to the man is totally liberating rather than enslaving when the man himself is in submission to God, because this is the relationship that God intended for His spiritual purposes. The beauty and enigma within this relationship require long meditation if they are to be understood.

The Feminist Movement is a Doomed Attempt to Bypass the Curse of the Fall

This divinely-instituted headship of the man over the woman was never a sorrowful or distraught event in the original creation but became distorted only after the Fall. So, when the Lord God said to Eve, after her lapse from His Law, “your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you” (Genesis 3:16), He was not spitefully laying down a cold, tyrannical sort of rule, but was, in judgement, plainly predicting how the male-female relationship would have to be worked out in the world as a result of human disobedience. Far from being able to exercise the equivalent of God’s knowledge and handling of good and evil — as Satan had suggested (Genesis 3:5) — the woman would now herself be the victim of evil over which she would be unable to exercise control. Such is the power of God. This saying of God was prophetic of the universally-recognised heartache felt by women in relation to men, and which can be worked out only in the complete acceptance of that relationship’s demands (cf. 1 Timothy 2:15). All attempts to avoid the opportunity to carry the cross of this curse can only lead to a further distancing of oneself from the Lord. The Feminist movement has, in many ways, correctly recognised the effects of this curse, but because they are blinded to its true spiritual origins and significance, they choose to bypass this heartache by taking refuge in political reform, lesbianism and fanciful occult religious practices, rather than restoring a relationship with their Creator through His prescribed pathway to Life and freedom (Matthew 11:28-30; John 8:31-32).

These extraordinary truths are outside the understanding of so many worldly women of today; but when a man and a woman dedicate their lives and their marriage to the Lord God, their eyes are opened to the necessity of this cross and it becomes a positive joy to carry. In other words, without this marital structure which the Lord has provided there would be much chaos and heartache. As the biblical model of marital and family life becomes further eroded by our humanistic culture, so the chaos and heartache associated with it will increase. God has ordained structure in human affairs for very special purposes. Francis Shaeffer puts it like this:

“In a fallen world (in every kind of society — big and small — and in every relationship) structure is needed for order. God himself imposes it on the basic human relationship… It is not simply because man is stronger that he is to have dominion. But rather he is to have dominion because God gives this as structure in the midst of a fallen world” (Francis Shaeffer, Genesis in Space and Time, Inter Varsity Press, 1972, p.94).

Yet, because we live in a fallen world, there has even been an abuse of the very structure which was ordained for us to alleviate the effects of the Fall and bring us to repentance. The maltreatment, abuse, and enforced subjugation of women by men is surely a gross corruption of the divinely-ordained principle of headship and submission. But Feminism can never bring about any real change in this worldwide problem because feminists have chosen to ignore a vital truth: That discipleship to the Christ, through His mediatorial office, is the only true force of liberation, for women as well as for men.

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© Copyright, Alan Morrison, 2025
[The copyright on my works is merely to protect them from any wanton plagiarism which could result in undesirable changes (as has actually happened!). Readers are free to reproduce my work, so long as it is in the same format and with the exact same content and its origin is acknowledged]

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