Is God / the Bible sexist?

The Old Testament refers to more men than women. Men also had a more public position than women in the conduct of worship under the law (e.g. the priesthood was given to Aaron and his sons: Ex. 28:1) and in the administration of Israel’s affairs (as seen, for example, in the fact that the right to reign passed through the male line). However, neither fact suggests any bias for or against either gender. God loves every individual who has ever been born with the same love — ‘all are precious in His sight’, as the children’s chorus states. God shows the same grace and favour to all, irrespective of gender, race or any other characteristic of nature which might distinguish one person from another. While He has given men the primary responsibility in connection with the public testimony for Him on earth in all dispensations, this is part of His order for earthly things.[1] It does not carry any suggestion that God values men more than women or that He takes less pleasure in the service of women than that of men.

The grace of the Lord Jesus was active towards all who came to Him when He dwelt here among men, but He seemed to have had the greatest consideration for the women. They are "the weaker vessels" and were not of much account in the estimation of the men. They had a proverb in those days, "Better burn the words of the Law than teach them to a woman," and even to this day in the Jewish Liturgy the men give thanks to God that they were not born women. But in contrast to the proud spirit of man the Lord stooped to the weak, the despised, and the neglected, and the greater their need the greater was His compassion for them.

But from the Fall to the Cross we hear nothing of woman's right place in creation. "The heathen had degraded her into being man's slave. By the law she was protected from being trampled on under certain circumstances (Exod. 21; Lev. 18:18); yet she never had, under the Mosaic economy, her proper place with man. But after the manifestation of the Second man (Christ), and the accomplishment of His work of atonement, the original order of creation is again adverted to, and woman regains her true place with man" (C. E. Stuart).

1893 250 The difficulties of questions concerning "Women's Rights" are not quite of such recent origin as some think. The "movement" never reached any acute stage amongst the Hebrews, it is true; for the position of women there was one of honourable consideration and quite above the position they held in any of the contemporary nations. Amongst the most civilized of them, their condition was one of extreme oppression, Herodotus says that in Assyria they were sold by auction; amongst the Romans they were classed with the chattels, res domestica; and amongst the Greeks, Plato's advice was that the children should be always kept away from the mother. The Hebrew child, on the contrary, was commanded to honour his mother as well as his father; and the subjection of the wife enjoined in the New Testament is illustrated by reference to Abraham's wife, who was certainly his companion and not his serf.

Here, as we know by our Lord,s words, in the law of marriage, we find, more than any where, the failure of the law. The hardness of man's heart forbad, until grace should come, the full restraint of absolute righteousness. Polygamy and divorce, as practiced among the nations round, could only be modified by partial curbing of the will and prevention of mere lawlessness. It was reserved for Christianity to restore woman to her original place in creation by the side of man.

Yet here, where most of all (and that is surely the reason why the commandment takes the peculiar form it does,) the woman was in the hand and power of the man, he was fenced round with prohibition. She must be given the wife's place, allowed a month for natural sorrow over the separation from her kindred, perhaps to test also somewhat the reality of the affection that has sprung up in him. If the tie is formed, she can never be enslaved again; and should she be divorced, is free to go whither she please.

The simplicity, the order, the rational character of these directions we learn as we study them; and this, too, we learn, that the wife's blood relations, her direct line excepted, are not viewed in the same light as the husband's own near of kin. Consanguinity, we repeat, is really the guiding principle on his side, whether it be as regards his blood relations, or his relations in law. On his wife's side he was not to marry her sister during her life. Now were his relations in law simply as such forbidden him, his wife's sister would be barred to him as much as his brother's wife. But it was not so. The brother's widow, except to fulfil the peculiar condition of the levirate law, he never was to make his wife, but his wife's sister he was free to marry after his wife's death. Again, relations in law, even on his side, are not by God viewed in the same light as relations in blood, as we have already pointed out. Further, the man and the woman are not in the Old Testament placed by God on equal ground. A man was permitted to have two wives (Deut. 21:15) by the law, but no woman was ever allowed to have two husbands. These simple facts kept in mind, we shall be preserved from drawing deductions, and imposing limitations on the creature's freedom in the matter of marriage, which God's word neither authorises nor countenances.

Laws on the second table are now more fully expounded by Moses. The love to the neighbor is to be expressed by guarding and preserving that which is his property. The strayed and fallen animal belonging to another had to be helped. To leave them in that condition would have been a violation of the law "love thy neighbor as thyself" as well as an act of inhumanity. Another interesting law is the one which forbids woman to wear man's garments (verse 5). "The immediate design of this prohibition was not to prevent licentiousness, or to oppose idolatrous practices; but to maintain the sanctity of that distinction of the sexes, which was established by the creation of man and woman, and in relation to which Israel was not to sin. Every violation or wiping out of this distinction--such as even the emancipation of women--was unnatural, and therefore, an abomination in the sight of God." Yet to-day we find a universal movement in the world for the complete emancipation of women, which ignores and even defies the place which the Creator and the Redeemer has given to woman.

Verses 7-11 deal with the case of the woman who becomes a bondservant. As the weaker party she might become the victim of wrongful treatment, so her rights are clearly defined. We may remark that under the law things were permitted that would not be tolerated by Christians today. That this was so is shown by the Lord's own words recorded in Matthew 19:7-8. We must ever bear in mind that, "the law made nothing perfect" (Heb. 7:19), since it set forth the minimum of God's demands, so that all, who in any way or at any time fell short of it, came under the sentence of death. The maximum of all God's thoughts and desires are realized and set forth in Christ.

What a contrast is this chapter with the Rabbinic corruption of the law by tradition of man! What contempt of women and children, to say nothing of slaves! "Gather the people together" (says Deut. 31:12), "men and women, and children, and thy stranger that is within thy gates, that they may hear, and that they may learn, and fear Jehovah your God, and observe to do all the words of this law." This the oral law abjures. "A woman's wisdom," says R. Eliezer in the Talmud (Joma, fol. 66, col. 2), is only for the distaff;" and what is worse, he cites Ex. 35:25 for his unbelieving folly and presumption. Had he forgotten so many that were highly favoured, and even vehicles of the Holy Spirit's power? A woman specially suffered in moral government. Jehovah here proves His gracious consideration in an ordinance expressly marking His concern that they should be purified from that which recalled sin and entailed uncleanness. Sacrifice alone could effect this; yet not a Sin-offering only but the Burnt-offoring in full acceptance.

This history is of deep interest to us. We should consider the privileges of our heavenly inheritance priceless. Let us not be checked by natural, apparently legitimate, considerations which would tend to hinder us from appropriating our blessings. Let us ask God insistently that these obstacles, if they exist, be removed. Do not think, sisters in Christ, that your enjoyment of heavenly things must be lessened by your position of seeming inferiority. Do not be satisfied until you have acquired the same portion of the inheritance as your brothers. To overcome in this, remember that this is a commandment of the Lord as to you. Your example will have a blessed effect on your sisters: it will inspire them to follow it and to rely upon the same promises. Whatever your humble condition may be, your inheritance is the same as that of your brothers. There is no doubt that you are not called to the same conflicts, to the role of mighty men of valor in battle, but you are called to the same possession as they: you have the same lot, the same heavenly blessings!