reason Jesus came as a man. After all, the social conditions were such that a woman as rabbi of
Israel, rebuking the Pharisees, leading the disciples, etc., would have been fully unacceptable.
Therefore, some might say, for these social and pragmatic reasons only, Jesus had to be a man.
Allow me three brief replies. 1) We have already considered eight previous reasons that
only (nor by any means the most important) reason our Savior had to be a man. 2) Is it
reasonable to think that God would shrink back from challenging the socially unacceptable if he
judged this would be best to do? Are we to think that the social conditions of Israel dictated to
God the design and plan of the very incarnation itself? And 3) while it is true that those in Israel
would expect, for example, the teacher of Israel to be a man, just why did they think this way?
Was not the patriarchal system of Israel commanded by God himself? Was not the lineage of
leadership in Israel established by God as being through sons in the line of David? Therefore, it
seems entirely false to conclude that God`s hand was somehow forced or even twisted by a
culture`s patriarchal mindset of which he fundamentally disapproved. Rather, God designed
male leadership and sent his Son as a man, functioning and ministering within the very overall
patriarchal structure God himself established. Therefore, for social and cultural reasons, many of
which were themselves established by God, our Savior had to be a man.
Tenth, the Savior to come must have been a man, because the risen Christ is now
course, in so doing, this echoes Yahweh`s relationship to Israel. As the prophecy of Hosea
illustrates beautifully, God intends his people to understand their relationship to him as that of a
wife to her husband. Idolatry is depicted as adultery. And so God, as husband, requires fidelity
and loyalty to him alone.
Similarly, the Church is portrayed as the bride of Christ. The Revelation of Jesus Christ
18:23; 19:7; 21:2, 9; 22:17), and it is clear that by these, we are to understand Christ as the
protector and purifier, while the Church gives herself fully to him in obedience and love. All this
depicts what marriage itself has meant from the beginning, according to Paul in Ephesians 5 (cf.
2 Cor 11:2). When a wife submits to her husband as the church submits to Christ, and when a
husband loves his wife as Christ loves the Church, both reflect the two sides of the relationship
of the Church and Christ. O, what harm the false teaching of mutual submission in marriage
produces. The parallel between a husband and his wife, with Christ and the Church, simply will
not allow the symmetrical kind of authority advocated by the voices favoring mutual submission.
As Lord, King, Head, and Husband, Christ is fully and solely in charge over the Church. As he
made clear to us, we show our love for him when we do his commandments (John 14:15; 15:21,
23). There simply can be no mutual submission in terms of lines of authority between Christ and
the Church, lest we dishonor Christ`s Headship and rightful Lordship over us. So too, the
marriage relationship sees the husband in the role of Christ, and the wife in the role of the
Church; authority is exercised from the former, submission by the latter. From this analogy,
then, it is clear, that the Savior who would come to become the Bridegroom of the Church must
have been a man.