Typology and the Gender of God's City
The Greater Protestant Conception of Anthropology
When I began to pursue a deeper understanding of male and female in 2018, it began with two discussions with teachers whom I consider friends, both members of the OPC. One still teaches in seminary; the other retired after a long career in teaching and now pastors an OPC church. Our conversations began with my wondering what most women do after obtaining theology degrees. The first teacher I asked was emphatic that women cannot teach theology in seminaries, including the biblical languages and history. The second had a diametrically opposing position. Both had reasons which could be traced to the Scriptures. The first professor tied his reasons to 1 Timothy 2 and 3. If women are excluded from teaching in the local church because they are women, how could they be permitted to teach future church leaders of local churches? Ecclesiology led him to his anthropology which he applied broadly to any setting that was “ecclesiastical.” The second professor stopped at ecclesiology. What women are or are not permitted to do in the local church should not be read into anthropology. If a woman is competent, she can teach in seminary or any other setting except sermons in the local church, which is reserved for the duly-ordained male elder.
I agree with both and disagree with both. With the first professor I agree that ecclesiology and anthropology are bound together. With the second professor, I believe that women can teach theology in seminary if that is where God leads them. I also believe that their theological voice is essential in its proper order in the local church because ecclesiology is connected to anthropology. And the cords that tether them are eschatological. It always returns to the same question for me, “Does God give us deeper structures that define us as male and female?” If so, how does he apply those to our mission in the local church?
The thesis of my first seminary degree was the “Eschatology of Diversity.” We were missionaries for 23 years in Central Asia. I knew the compelling beauty and goodness of ethnic diversity. I suggested that the meaning of our differences as tribes and tongues and nations can only be understood in light of God himself, in Van Til’s words, an equally ultimate unity and diversity, whom we prism in that climactic assembly on the mountain of the Lord. Howard Griffith was my thesis advisor. In the past, he had called my mind “fertile,” and to be honest, I was not completely sure he had meant it as a compliment. I was nervous when I submitted the first draft of my thesis, but he liked it. A year later, when the hovering Spirit took flight with him on his wings, bringing him to God and the Lamb on Mt. Zion so that he might walk the Hebrew 12 promenade, I could not help but imagine him in rapturous joy amidst that great throng.
It was only after I was well into research for the thesis for my second degree I realized that I was writing basically the same paper, only applied to male and female. In the second half of my paper, I was making a case for how we perceive ourselves as male and female from eschatological ordering, man representing God’s earthly work, followed by woman, representing God’s Sabbath rest, a pattern we are called to follow in Hebrews 4:11. My thesis advisor appreciated my work but said that she found my understanding bizarre. I received basically the same response when I wrote to Kevin Giles and asked him if he had ever considered that our understanding of ourselves as male and female was tied to eschatology. He is such a generous soul, so I do not think he will mind if I share his response,
I simply do not think in VanTilian categories. I would think no one trained in mainstream scholarly evangelical thinking would do so. Over the years I have read very widely in mainstream evangelical scholarship and I have never seen anyone in this "world" speaking "man's surroundings shot through with personality," or of God working through a "representational creational principle." Your work, I am sure will raise another way of thinking of man and woman in relation to God and creation but it is not one I have travelled . . . .
As evangelicals, we recognize the infallible Word as an unfolding revelation from God, beginning in Genesis 1-3 and moving indefatigably forward toward a determined end in Revelation 21-22. We further understand that we are moving forward, caught up and carried in that progression toward the final resolution, the Holy Spirit superintending all that was written so that we might have comfort through hope. Why would we not expect to see our true embodied existence as male and female (Genesis 1) as paradigms pointing to something climactic and greater than ourselves, especially when the Lamb and his bride are that culmination (Revelation 21)?
As I have written before, I see man as the symbol of the Genesis 1 earth, the cosmos loved by God in John 3:16, the realm of mankind whom he represents. And I see the woman as a symbol of the Genesis 1:1 heavenly temple dwelling of God, the realm of angels and perfected saints awaiting the resurrection. Although few are saying what I am saying, there are scholars that have brought us far down this road.
Vos returned us to biblical theology as the history of special revelation. He speaks of the organic development of the Scriptures as acorn to oak, embryo to fully-developed man. In the Eschatology of the Psalter and the Pauline Eschatology, he speaks particularly of that “oak” as Jehovah in his “conclusive, consummate action, surpass(ing) everything else in importance. Faith will sing its supreme song when face to face, either in anticipation or reality, with the supreme act of God.”1 For Vos, all of special revelation gravitates to that “act” when God gathers his people to himself on his holy mountain, “the joyous vintage-feast of all high religion.”2 In fact, history finds its significance in leading up to the “eschatological act of God.” Vos’ emphasis on typology is taken up by Edmund Clowney who gives us a triangle relating symbols to their fulfillment. The symbol of the woman of Genesis 1:1 (S) typifies dynamic union and communion (T1) is fulfilled in Zion, the Lamb’s bride (Tn). She is the city of our God, his holy hill, over whom he rejoices and exults. She is beautiful in elevation, the joy of the whole earth (Ps 48:1-2; Zeph 3:17).3
With the weight Vos applies to the “consummate perfection of God’s work,” we add the insights of others on Israel’s history as bound up with Jerusalem, the city of shalom. The professor who introduced me to woman as heaven, Mark Garcia, found the work of John Schmitt compelling support for the Genesis 1:27 female’s typico-symbolism. Schmitt traces Galatians 4:26’s Zion, “mother of us all,” in Isaiah 40-66, to her culmination as a mother who gives birth to a nation in a day so that all may be comforted, drinking delightfully from her.4 Yahweh makes peace and wealth flow to her, the wealth revealed to be the nations themselves which swell the city and multiply her joy (66:20). In this climactic event, Yahweh and Zion are seen in their functional unity as a mother who comforts her son, “I will comfort you, and you will be comforted in Jerusalem . . . Zion’s offspring and Zion’s name will remain.”
Schmitt comments that the wife of Yahweh and mother of his children in the Hebrew Bible are always a city. As a city, she both bears sons and marries her sons (62:5), even as God is said to rejoice over her as his bride. Of course, these point us to descriptive categories that lead us to worship the Lord enthroned in Zion, not prescriptive ones. In Isaiah, Zion is the mother of sons, wife of her sons, and the bride of Yahweh. Gendered Zion points us to union and communion with God, both his and our never-ending delight (62:4).
In my next Substack, I would like to begin to trace Zion from the Jebusite stronghold conquered by David, thenceforth known as the City of David, to the Bridal City in which the Greater David forever makes himself known to his people (Rev 21:2).
“Eschatology of the Psalter,” found in the Pauline Eschatology, 324-325.
Ibid., 325.
John J. Schmitt, The Motherhood of God and Zion as Mother.
I find the idea of woman as eschatological symbol for the heavenly realm very interesting. Nic Ansell, a reformed theologian from the Institute of Christian Studies (ICS) in Toronto, Canada, also sees the eschatological signficance of the woman in Genesis 2. While Ansell also connects the woman with Glory and the temple, he makes a connection in a wider sense as well. Ansell sees the woman as the man's help and glory the same way he sees God as Israel's help and Glory. The woman is the man's help and glory because the man is helpless or he cannot fulfill the cultural mandate of Genesis 1 alone. Ansell sees the woman as the end or telos to the man, but in eschatology, the end also means a new beginning. The creation of the woman fulfills creation, but also brings the creation to it's fulfillment in the wider sense of Genesis 1. The creation of the woman moves human progress forward to fulfill the cultural mandate to dominion and filling the earth. Adam was shown how to work and guard the garden before the creation of woman, but this doesn't make him solely the person responsible for this. Alone Adam stagnates and goes nowhere. With creation of Eve, Adam has the help to move human progress forward in the cultural mandate and fill the earth the same way that God will be all in all in the world to come. The woman symbolizes God to the man in her work as help and glory, but this doesn't make her his superior. This makes her his equal in the cultural mandate. So as the New Jerusalem signifies the end, but also the beginning of a new world, the woman brings an end to creation and helps the man move human progress forward in the cultural mandate and beyond to the New Jerusalem. Ansell is more egalitarian in his idea of the woman as Help and Glory. So I don't buy that only men should be elders. I see Deborah, a prophetess judging Israel, as an elder described as "a mother in Israel". The use of mother in this way is the semitic usage as a type of elder or chieftain in the ancient world. In the same way, the wise woman of Abel Beth Macaah uses the term "a mother in Israel" to describe either herself or the city (depending on what translation you use) she is trying to defend. Cheryl Exum’s ‘”Mother in Israel”: A Familiar Figure Reconsidered” looks at this term in Judges and Abel Beth Macaah as well in the book of Judith and defines it as " “a mother in Israel is one who brings liberation from oppression, provides protection and ensures the well-being and security of her people.” Well, if the New Jerusalem is seen as "a mother from above" and women symbolize her, this could mean what women, as mothers and the symbol of the people, are supposed to play roles as elders to protect their children and the well being of the people. Genesis 2 clearly establish matrilocal marriage where the man leaves his family and joins the woman's family. Matrilocal marriage was established by God, but has since been twisted in the fall since this type of marriage is usually seen in tribes that worship pagan deities of "mother earth" etc. While I don't agree with the pagan meaning here, women in traditional matrilocal societies usually have matrilocal and matrilineal marriage patterns with control over resources and the economy. Women often has a say in who becomes elders or may even become elders themselves and is far more egalitarian than patriarchy. You can see this in indigenous tribes like the iroquois. Societies with this kind of pattern has more maternal values as it's core where children are nurtured by everyone, child abuse is rare, rape and spousal abuse are almost non existant, etc., and things are decided by consensus. Men are not the final authority, but they may be spokespersons for the family. However, if women and children's rights are violated by an male elders, the women can depose him and elect someone else. Women are respected not treated by all male elders like Aimee Byrd was treated in the OPC. So I believe that Deborah the wise woman of Abel Beth Macaah are types of what a "mother in Israel" or "a city" should be as far as the role of women. Just my take. Nic Ansell's ideas can be found here-https://ir.icscanada.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/c1004beb-1224-46fe-99ae-a6f8bf703609/content