Episode Details

Implications of Image: Part IV

Transgenderism; 01/07/2024; Remsen Bible Fellowship

Text

Genesis 1:27, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”

Introduction

That verse from Genesis one has served as the basis for this mini series considering the implications of the image of God. How does this truth, that human beings are created, male and female, in the image of God, come to bear on some of the questions and controversies of the 21st century, of today? That’s what we’ve spent most of the past month considering. First, we saw that being made in God’s image means that each human life is of immeasurable value and worth. We thought last week about how that inherent dignity of humanity, along with God’s intention for marriage to be a fruitful union, should shape how we think about questions of abortion, birth control, and technologies like IVF. Human life is valuable and a gift - we should act accordingly.

Second, a clear implication of being made in God’s image is that God determines who we truly are - life is not about determining your “true” self for yourself. True life comes from embracing who God created you to be. And part of who God made us to be is expressed through our biological sex - through the very form of our bodies. “Male and female he created them.” We considered how this should shape our understanding of sexuality a few weeks ago: God's word restricts sexual activity to the monogamous marriage of one man and one woman. Homosexuality in particular is called a sin, not because it crosses an arbitrary line, but because it contradicts the very shape of how God ordered the human body and human relationships.

But here is another question: what if you don’t feel at home in your own body? Most of us have heard some form of the following statement, either in person or through the media we consume: “I am a woman trapped in a man’s body.” In his book, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, historian Carl Trueman seeks to help his readers understand how our society went from a place where that sort statement would seem like complete nonsense - it wouldn’t have been comprehensible 100 years ago - to being a statement that, whether you agree with the truthfulness of it or not, you have mental categories for understanding. You know what someone who says, “I’m a woman trapped in a man’s body” is trying to communicate. How did that come to be?

The short answer is this: we have come to believe that we are our own gods. We think we can transform our bodies in any way our minds desire. While 100 years ago those concepts would have been laughable to nearly anyone, medical technology in the form of surgeries and hormone therapy has made these beliefs at least plausible. If I feel like a woman, why shouldn’t I pay a doctor to make me look like a woman and pump me full of estrogen?

But following over half of a century of human experiments, the plain truth is beginning to make itself clear: the mental problems and false teaching about human nature that can lead to gender dysphoria and a real sense of not “feeling at home” in your body, are not solved by mutilating bodies or pumping people full of hormones that don’t serve a genuine medical purpose. Countries in Europe are realizing the lasting and irreversible damage caused by this fool-hardiness and are starting to scale back on so-called “affirming care” - even as we in the United States keep plowing ahead at full speed.

The Truth doesn’t move

But you’re not here for social commentary. What does the Book say? How do Christians respond to a world that has gone mad? Do we scream at the darkness? Do we give into despair, thinking there is nothing we can do? No. This sermon makes one central assertion, and suggests two clear consequences of that assertion f