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In my other question, I asked what the biblical basis was for considering gender to not be merely physical, but also present in a person's soul and/or spirit. However, there are some who believe that gender is purely physical, so it seems necessary to ask that question as well.

So, what is the biblical basis/argument/rationale that supports the idea that gender is something that is only physical/biological and does not have any presence in a person's soul or spirit?

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  • It has been nearly a month and I have attempted to solicit more responses in chat, however, the one that has come since seems to miss the point to me. Is there something lacking in the current answers that you are hoping for?
    – user3961
    Mar 12, 2013 at 8:13
  • No, I'm just giving it time. I upvoted your answer already.
    – Narnian
    Mar 12, 2013 at 12:38
  • Not really looking for rep. I am far more interested in the answers. I am thinking that there must be more to the argument for this point of view than these answers provide.
    – user3961
    Mar 12, 2013 at 18:33
  • Depends on what exactly you mean by either soul or spirit. Neurology is technically part of the physical or biological realm, and even psychology itself overlaps with the former to a certain considerable extent.
    – user46876
    Nov 4, 2019 at 5:59

4 Answers 4

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There doesn't need to be a Biblical reason for this. There are some terms that mean a certain thing because that is the definition of the term.

From Dictionary.com:

gen·der 1 [jen-der] Show IPA noun

  1. Grammar . a. (in many languages) a set of classes that together include all nouns, membership in a particular class being shown by the form of the noun itself or by the form or choice of words that modify, replace, or otherwise refer to the noun, as, in English, the choice of he to replace the man, of she to replace the woman, of it to replace the table, of it or she to replace the ship. The number of genders in different languages varies from 2 to more than 20; often the classification correlates in part with sex or animateness. The most familiar sets of genders are of three classes (as masculine, feminine, and neuter in Latin and German) or of two (as common and neuter in Dutch, or masculine and feminine in French and Spanish). b. one class of such a set. c. such classes or sets collectively or in general. d. membership of a word or grammatical form, or an inflectional form showing membership, in such a class.

  2. sex: the feminine gender.

There are certain terms that are simply what they are. We don't ask for the Biblical basis that the word "desert" means a hot, arid place, nor do we ask for the Biblical basis for calling a certain tree a "cedar", even though the Cedars of Lebanon are found in Scripture.

It wasn't until certain groups came along and tried to redefine terms in nonsensical ways that this even became a matter for Christianity to speak out upon. Until that time it was a simple understanding of the English language, combined with a lack of political correctness (aka, insanity; aka, calling black white, and white purple).


Put another way, we don't call oxen "oxen" because there is a Biblical basis for it. The term "oxen" has a definition, which is why the translators chose to use the word. If someone wants to call an ox a "goat" it's not a Biblical issue. It is one of correct usage of the English language, and not about redefining terms to suit a political agenda.

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  • I don't get the feeling that there is any political agenda involved here.
    – user3961
    Mar 12, 2013 at 6:28
  • 1
    I don't think Narnian has a political agenda here, but the idea that gender isn't defined certainly comes from one. Mar 12, 2013 at 12:59
  • Well, if we define gender merely as the phenotypic traits, then yes, it is pretty obviously only the two exist and the Bible authors knew of nothing else. With today's knowledge of sex chromosomes and the various disorders there in, plus the in utero developmental conditions that can masculize or feminize the genitalia against the chromosomal norm, gender is not so obviously and easily defined. Today, a gender test is typically performed by searching any somatic cell for a barr body. That leaves Turner's syndrome in an odd spot, lacking the barr body but having feminine genitals.
    – user3961
    Dec 19, 2013 at 7:36
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The only "evidence" I have seen for this is the time when the Pharisees are attempting to trap Jesus by asking who would be the husband in heaven of a woman widowed seven times. His answer is none; we will be like the angels in heaven.

Some people think that this automatically means that there will be no sex or procreation and also no gender.

A few issues:

  1. Jesus only said there will be no marriage in the Kingdom of Heaven; nothing to do with sex or gender.
  2. Assuming He included sex and procreation, too, in that statement, does not mean that we will be without gender, although gender would seem unnecessary.
  3. Like the angels seems to me that we should examine angels and their lives for an answer on this issue. Frankly, there is very little on angels in the Bible, but quite a bit in the Apocrypha.

So, with that I would say only this, assuredly: The angels do not marry and neither will we after our resurrection into the Kingdom of heaven.

If there is more support for this viewpoint, I am unaware of it.

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See my answer to your other question, since it applies here, and provides the necessary biblical quotes and citations. In this question, you seem to be asking for a definitive verse in scripture that states or implies that only the body has a gender. There is no such verse. In both questions, though, you seem to be asking "does the Bible say that gender is in the body, or in the soul?" The answer is "yes."

Humans have a male or a female nature, since God created humans male and female. Humans are persons consisting of both body and soul, since human heavenly perfection consists of having both soul and glorified body.

A body is a male body in the sense of being the body of a male person: a person with a male nature. Your hand has no gender, your blood has no gender. In that sense a body has no gender. What is the gender of flesh never animated by soul?

You might ask: do we have gender because we have a soul, or because we have a body? If that question makes sense, the answer is likely: we have gender because humans have both a body and a soul, and are made male and female by God.


Matthew 22:30 is sometimes wrongly invoked as saying that there is no gender in heaven, on the heretical assumption that our bodies will not rise again. It reads:

For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.

But Jesus is saying that there is no marriage after the resurrection, not that there is no gender. Though this passage also seems to imply that angels do not have a gender (no marriage, so no procreation, so no gender).

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Sometimes the answers in the Bible are less easy to understand than they are on subjects which are directly addressed.

You have seen from the previous answers What Jesus said about the Angels in Heaven, not marrying, So first of all is there anything which elaborates on this in the Bible, and the answer is yes.

All Scripture is quoted from the King James translation, unless otherwise noted.

First of all we must determine what Marriage is in the eyes of God. Our first clues come from Genesis:

Genesis 1:21 and 22 And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.

and;

Genesis 1:24 and 25 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

With the animals God decreed that that they multiply, but he did not give any commands as to how that was to be accomplished, but with man things are different.

Genesis 1:26 and 27 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

As we see here God created man completely different from the animals, they were not made in his image, and we see that God gave man dominion over the animals. So in fact what God did was to make man as a mini god to the animals. This would appear to be a part of creating man in God's image, since as God is sovereign over man so man is sovereign over the animals.

So lets take a longer look at what God meant in Genesis 1:26 and 27. So God created them in his own image male and female, but God is tripartite to most Protestant Christians, and he only created them in duality that is male and female. So lets take a look at what the Trinity consists of, that being the Father, the Holy Spirit and the begotten son. So since we are created in the image of God where is our third part? Just as the son is the third part of the Trinity, so our children are the third part of our family. That is why God decreed that man should:

Genesis 1:28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

From this I surmise that God intended that man and woman come together and produce offspring to continue his image on the Earth, and the children should keep that image in perpetuity until the end. In my humble opinion preservation of that image is why God said:

Deuteronomy 5:16 Honour thy father and thy mother, as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee; that thy days may be prolonged, and that it may go well with thee, in the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.

and;

Genesis 2:24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.

and;

Genesis 2:23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.

If woman was bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh because she was taken out of man, would not children also be since they were taken; not only of her, but of him also. And should all three not then be one as is the Trinity.

Satan knows that if he can get rid of that family image of God he can materially hamper God's plan. That is why I personally disagree with the attack on traditional marriage, and part of my reason for objecting to Abortion.

Now that we have defined what God considers marriage to be, lets look at whether or not we will be physically sexual when we go to Heaven.

As we see from the Scriptures above God made the man and woman as part of his image, what then was the reason he made them different in physical form. That reason appears to be for procreation purposes, and that will not be needed in Heaven since all things will be settled, and Heaven will not need procreation since it will as God wants it to be.

In:

Revelation 10:7 But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets.

The mystery of God is finished, and to me that says that God's plans for his creation is finished. That has a lot of meaning to it. God has a specific reason for all that he does, and when that reason is accomplished He will no longer continue that plan. Since it is apparent that God had procreation in mind at creation, when that has been completed to his satisfaction; it is also apparent that he will no longer support that part of his plan. Beyond that we as Christians will have a specific task to perform in Heaven, which from my understanding is to worship him night and day. Sex as we know it would interfere with that task and so it makes sense to me that it will be discontinued.

In Heaven as opposed to here on Earth we will only be interested in God's edification and not our own.

That is my interpretation of the Scriptures, you may or may not agree. At any rate I hope this will give you a basis for future study.

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