Is God male or female?
The starting point is the Lord's own declaration in John 4:24: "God is a Spirit." This single statement sets the entire question in its proper light. God, in His essential being, does not possess a physical body — and therefore does not have biological sex the way His creatures do.
God Is Spirit, Not Corporeal
Samuel Ridout draws out the significance of this when writing about the mercy-seat in the tabernacle — the place where God dwelt among His people, yet where no image of Him was placed:
Samuel Ridout"Upon the mercy-seat was no representation of God. 'God is a Spirit and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth' (John 4:24). How divinely in accord with all His truth it is that, in those days of partial revelation, of type and shadow, God should have most jealously guarded the conception of His infinitely glorious being from any semblance of representation so universal among the heathen."
"The ark, then, and the mercy-seat, with the attendant cherubim, were not idols, but they emphasized the spirituality of that all-glorious Being who fills heaven and earth."
He then quotes the express prohibition of Deuteronomy 4:15-19, where Israel was warned not to make any likeness — including "the likeness of male or female" — precisely because at Horeb they "saw no manner of similitude." God is not a being who can be captured in creaturely form, male or female.
Writing elsewhere on God's nature as revealed in the Gospels, Ridout puts it simply:
"God, a Spirit. Of the nature and attributes of God as thus revealed in the Trinity, the four Gospels furnish us with abundant material. 'God is a Spirit' (John 4:24); 'No man hath seen God at any time' (John 1:18). These and other scriptures declare the spirituality of God as contrasted with man His creature, or the universe His creation."
Both Male and Female Bear God's Image
Genesis 1:27 reads: "So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them." Both man and woman equally bear the divine image. But what does that image consist of?
F. B. Hole explains that it is not about physical form:
F. B. Hole"Man was treated in both the image and the likeness of God. The former word seems to be used in Scripture for that which represents unseen realities... Man was made, then, to represent God to the lower creation over which he was set. But he was also made after the likeness of God; that is, he was really like God in certain important respects. Not in all respects of course, for God is infinitely holy and man was merely innocent. Still man was God's 'offspring' (Acts 17:28-29), a spirit being, though clothed in a body of flesh and blood, and hence with intelligence and moral sensibilities, which are a reflection of that which subsists on an infinite scale in God Himself."
Hole further observes how closely the two are identified:
"Verse 27 states that duality characterizes man. It says that God created 'him; male and female created He them.' This fact is elaborated in Genesis 2, but the few words here show us how closely male and female are identified. The word, 'man' covers both, and jointly they were to have the dominion."
L. M. Grant draws the same conclusion — the image of God in man is moral and spiritual, not physical:
L. M. Grant"Man is of a totally different order than angels. He is made in God's image, that is, he is created to represent God. He is made 'after God's likeness,' which involves similarity. God is a triune Being, Father, Son and Holy Spirit: man is a triune character, spirit, soul and body (1 Thess. 5:23). Animals are amoral: they do not have a moral nature. God has a nature of truth and of goodness. Man was created with the same faculties, though sin has now badly corrupted his nature and he has become immoral."
God Reveals Himself as Father
While God is Spirit, He has sovereignly chosen to reveal Himself in predominantly masculine terms — above all, as Father. Morrish's Bible Dictionary notes:
"The characteristic name of God in the N.T. in relationship with His saints is that of FATHER: it was used anticipatively in the Lord's intercourse with His disciples, but made a reality after His resurrection, when He sent the message: 'I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God.' John 20:17."
Hamilton Smith elaborates on this from John 4:
Hamilton Smith"It would no longer be the worship of a Person who is unrevealed, but of God revealed and known in grace as the Father... Christian worship is according to the true nature of God. 'God is a spirit: and they that worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth.'"
The name "Father" communicates relationship — origin, authority, love, care — but it is a revelation of who God is toward us, not a statement about biological constitution.
The Heavenly Sphere Transcends Sex
A. Pridham, commenting on 1 Corinthians 7, makes a remarkable observation about the heavenly order:
A. Pridham"The believer, though still bearing outwardly the image of the earthly, is no longer in the flesh, but in the Spirit. He is in Christ; joined to the Lord by faith, and awaiting the moment of his change into the likeness of the heavenly, where sexes are unknown. Seeing, then, that in Christ there is neither male nor female, the apostle's answer is in strict keeping with the ground-truth of the gospel."
A. J. Pollock affirms this from Galatians 3:28:
A. J. Pollock"In the new creation there is neither Jew nor Greek [no national or religious distinction], there is neither bond nor free [no social distinction], there is neither male nor female [no natural distinction]."
In sum: God is Spirit — infinite, eternal, invisible. He is neither male nor female in any creaturely or biological sense. Both man and woman equally bear His image, which consists in moral and spiritual likeness: intelligence, will, conscience, and the capacity for relationship with God. Yet God has chosen to reveal Himself in masculine terms — as Father, as Lord, as King — and supremely in the incarnation of His Son, who became Man. This is not accidental but is His own deliberate self-revelation, carrying deep significance about His character as the One from whom all things originate, who exercises authority in love and sustains all that He has made. The name "Father" speaks to relationship, not to biology. He transcends the creaturely distinction of sex while choosing, in sovereign wisdom, the terms by which He would make Himself known.