Why is God Masculine?

I hear this question raised every so often.  The usual response is either the idea God is masculine comes out of an unenlightened patriarchal culture and should be rejected or that God has no gender and therefore this should simply be ignored.

In that view, it doesn’t matter if we say Our Father, Our Mother or even Our Non-Gendered Being.  This, however, has a significant impact upon Christian theology.

The relationship between the masculine and feminine is very specific.  The masculine acts upon the feminine and the feminine receives. So symbolically, the masculine God acts upon the feminine Creation.

If God is feminine, and Creation was masculine, then we would act upon God and change Him according to our desires. He would submit to us and we would lead Him.

If God and Creation are of equal standing, then God would not be in the position to form Creation in the first place, nor maintain it.

This is why we see the pattern of God pursuing His people in the Bible.   He desires them like the masculine desires the feminine.  He wants to show grace to people, and He longs for us to accept it. If it was the other way round, then Christianity would be a religion of works. Where we would have to do all the pursuing and God would wait for us to find Him.

This is why the Church is the Bride and Christ is the Bride-Groom. He acts upon the Church, perfecting us for Himself.

If we deny this, we deny His perfect will to work in our lives and his authority to transform us into the Image of His Son.

If we deny God is masculine, it warps Christian theology. And it denies how Scripture describes His action in the World.