Believing as I do that the Word of God is inerrant and inspired by the one true God who cannot lie or make the slightest mistake, I know it can be resolved; please hear my proposed resolution and see if the Lord will confirm any of it to your heart. Other people try to resolve it in other ways, and I know that there is some speculation here, but this is the only way I’ve heard that seems to fit all the Scriptures.

God created Adam in His own image, and called all of His creation “very good.” (Gen. 1:26, 31) God put Adam in the Garden of Eden, commanded him to cultivate it, and gave him one negative command: to not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. (2:15-17) Some time later God said, “It’s not good for man to be alone; I will make a helper suitable for him.” (vs. 18) Adam then named all the creatures, but did not find a suitable helper, so God put him to sleep and took out one of his “ribs,” from which He fashioned a woman to be his wife. (vs. 18-25) Huh. So familiar we just slip right past several elements crucial to our discussion.

First, note that God (1:26) is plural. “Let us make man in our image…” Yet we know from other Scriptures that He is one God, indeed the essence of oneness. “Hear O Israel! Jehovah is our God, Jehovah is One!” (Deut. 6:4) We can explain that (I believe correctly) by saying that God is so vast in His many-splendored, many-faceted nature, that it takes at least three “persons” to comprehend Him: the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, yet these three are perfectly, in their very essence, one God. Three in one; the Trinity. This is consistent throughout Scripture, and is not disputed by Christians. But it is this Trinity who creates man in His (Their) own image! Some explain this by saying that we too are trinity: body, soul, and spirit. I do not argue that; we are. But that explanation doesn’t totally satisfy me.

What about the woman? Is she less fully in the image of God, since she came from man later, after man was created in God’s image? Is that why Paul tells young Timothy that the woman should keep quiet in church?

Why then does Peter tell us to love our wives “in an understanding way, as with a weaker vessel, since she is a woman, and grant her honor as a fellow-heir of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.” ? (1 Pet. 3:7)

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