God’s Word for You
Genesis 1:27 Male and female
by Pastor Timothy Smith on Monday, August 10, 2026
27 So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him.
Male and female he created them.
This passage is not formatted as poetry in my Hebrew text, nor in any Hebrew text I know of. However, it reads like poetry. The first phrase is duplicated in reverse (a chiasm), and then this second line is altered in the third line to say “Male and female he created them.” The third line adds a new thought, which is that we are now talking about a male and a female, no longer about “mankind” in general. The word for “man” (adam) is not in the third line. Instead, we find “male” (zacar) and “female” (naqevah). From the very beginning, God had two genders in mind, and marriage was to be a natural part of man’s life. In Genesis chapter 2, this will be brought out in more detail, but here it is in chapter 1.
From the very beginning, we see how highly God honors and glorifies the married life. He creates marriage here on the sixth day of creation, and he protects marriage with the Sixth Commandment. God “created man and woman differently (as is evident), not for lewdness but to be true to each other, be fruitful, have children, and support and bring them up to the glory of God” (Large Catechism).
Marriage is the special container that is meant to privately hold the gift of sex. There are many lesser things that husband and wife share together, the little decisions that they make, compromises and discoveries, that they would hardly call secrets. These lesser things involve, for example, the new way that their home will be arranged and managed. It is not like her parents’ home apart from a few resemblances, and it is not like his parents’ home, either. It is their home, their new customs, their habits, their likes and dislikes. In among those things, which are hardly worth sharing with anyone else, is the private and intimate joy of their sexual union. That union isn’t for anyplace other than the container of marriage, the bond of all of those other things, some secret, most not worthy of secrecy on account of being so very mundane, but all of those things are theirs, their private life, all the same. There will be more to say about sex and marriage in the next chapter, and here and there all throughout Genesis.
The woman is held up for special consideration here, and this shows us that she is not inferior to the male.
Both men and women are given the rule and dominion over the world and the animal kingdom.
Both men and women have a place with God in the future glory of heaven, “joint heirs of grace and the gift of life” (1 Peter 3:7).
“In the household,” Luther points out, “the wife is a partner in the management and has a common interest in the children and the property.”
There are, of course, physical differences, and some gifts God gives to women, and other gifts he gives to men. But above all of these, no one can ever deny that this verse especially upholds the great truth that both men and women partake of the image of God. The Holy Spirit could not have phrased this verse in the way we have it were this untrue. Many ancient cultures degraded and diminished women into roles that belittled women as human beings. It may have shocked Paul’s hearers to learn that in Christianity, women are co-heirs with men of eternal life, receiving “the full rights of sons” (Galatians 4:5), “the church of the firstborn” (Hebrews 12:23). As to our glory in heaven, being male or female makes no difference. But our roles on earth? In the family? In marriage? In the church? Certainly there are differences, joyful and delightful differences. But we serve together with our eyes always fixed on our Sovereign Lord (Psalm 141:8), on Jesus the author and perfector of our faith (Hebrews 12:2).
We will have fuller details about both the forming of Adam and the making of Eve, but here we see that they were both made with God’s image, God’s love, and inheriting God’s promises. And so we praise God, for his forgiveness is for one and all, and his mercy is for one and all.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. To receive God’s Word for You via e-mail, please visit the St. Paul’s Lutheran Church website.