According to the Lord Jesus, angels are not dual sex beings (neither male nor female – see Matthew 22:30 and Mark 12:25), and those of us humans (being male and female for now) that are accounted worthy to enjoy the resurrection and the life to come, will become “as the angels” (i.e. in contrast to being dual-sexed as we are now – see also Luke 20:35). Pre-resurrection humans are different from angels by being a dual sex type of creation. Glorified, post-resurrection humans will in their new bodies no longer have sex-drive or any need to be married to another human being, and according to Scripture, our flawed, temporary marriages to each other as flawed humans will be replaced by an eternal marriage to a perfect, eternal partner, the Lord Jesus Christ (see Ephesians 5:25-27, Revelation 19:7-9, II Corinthians 11:2, Revelation 21:9).
Since the Church, a corporate body of humans, is in Scripture figuratively depicted as wife/woman, it should not surprise us that God’s Word uses the same type of figurative language for corporate groups of human beings in the Old Testament, as well. In Hosea, God revealed that He viewed His covenant treaty with His people as a marriage covenant to a corporate body “wife,” and when His people split into two nations (Israel and Judah), the Lord described that event in Scripture as though He had married one wife only to have that one wife split into two wives. Israel, the adulterous wife whoring after false gods, was initially forgiven, but finally God, as the innocent victim spouse suffering her unfaithfulness, divorced Israel (see Hosea 2:2). Yet the nation of Judah was reckoned as a distinct “woman” who was still married to the Lord, although because of her waywardness she was made to suffer a time of separation. In Isaiah 54 the Lord described Judah as a wife (v. 6) that He, as the Husband (v. 5) had put away (“forsaken”) for but a “small moment” (the NIV rendered it as “brief moment”) only to bring her back with “great mercies” (the NIV has “deep compassion”). Brewer explains:
God is described in the Old Testament as married to Israel and Judah, and in the New Testament the church is described as the Bride of Christ. The marriage to Israel ended in divorce and the marriage to Judah suffered a period of separation.1
Bearing in mind this fact that God depicts people groups as women, let’s consider Zechariah 5. First, please note that this is a prophetic vision of figurative imagery. Upon study it seems that it is not a historical narrative account of a literal visit from heavenly females, but rather it holds visionary language describing human events using picturesque figures. The prophecy itself deals with the problems and issues encountered in the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem. It is closely tied to the account of Ezra 4. Eli Rosencruft explains the passage as follows:
The wicked woman in the “eiphah” measure (bushel or barrel) represents one or more of the enemies of Israel, primarily the Samaritans and the Edomites, who harassed the builders after being excluded from the rebuilding project. Similar language of wickedness [is seen] in Malachi 1:4. The eiphah is a standard dry measure and a symbol of justice. The word is used here to indicate that the iniquity of the enemies has reached full measure. This is a possible alliteration to the language of Genesis 15:16. The women angels in verse 9 possibly represent Judah and Benjamin (as in Ezra 4:1) or the Jerusalem and Samaria returnee communities who were rebuilding the Temple. In this prophecy they are removing the wicked from the land. They are the antitheses of the two women in Ezekiel 23:1 who brought wickedness into the land [Mordecai Zer-Kavod, Daat Mikra]….
The stork is a long-haul migratory bird with powerful wings. The power of the wings represents the stamina of the returnee community to deal with the harassment and send off their enemies far away….
The house for the wicked in the land of Shinar (Babylon) is saying that the enemies who are harassing the builders of the Temple in Jerusalem will eventually be worn out and will go back to build their own temples in their own lands….
That is the simple meaning of the prophecy according to the approach of the ibn Ezra (1089-1164) that this particular prophecy was not eschatological but, like pre-exilic prophecy, was an interpretation of current events at the time of the prophet. (See Bernhard Anderson’s Introduction to the Old Testament chapter 7 for an explanation of non-eschatological prophecy.)2
In all of the Bible’s historical narrative accounts of literal visits by heavenly angelic beings that showed up in a form that resembled human, the heavenly visitor had a masculine appearance (at least as per our limited human viewpoint) and (whenever a name was revealed) a masculine name. In the Greek of the New Testament, the very word for “angel” (angelos) is in the masculine form. No feminine form of angelos exists. With regard to these facts, we are compelled to point out: those angels were not male as opposed to female. They were neither male nor female. In fact, remember that although they appeared human, they were not human beings. All the above facts do not indicate a heavenly rejection of femininity while supposedly offering acceptance of masculinity. Rather these facts hint of an absence of either human maleness or human femaleness among the angelic hosts.
To imagine that because heavenly angels who have shown up in human form did not display a feminine appearance supposedly means that heaven rejects femininity would be like saying that a beaver rejects any doors for his home that swing outward as opposed to swinging inward. A beaver builds a tunnel into his home. He does not use either an inward swinging door or an outward swinging door.
C.S. Lewis, well-known author and Christian apologist, speculated in some of his writings (e.g. his Space trilogy) about whether the genders associated with the sexes (i.e. masculine linked with male and feminine linked with female) could exist in the absence of any duality of sex, and he seemed to surmise that they could. He wrote of fictional heavenly beings that were not male, yet were masculine, and of fictional heavenly beings that were not female, yet were feminine.
In this author’s own Christian fiction (the Skyport Chronicles series of novels), which considers the future beyond the end of this age and in fact beyond the end of the age to follow this one, the believing reader is invited to ponder upon the possibility that whenever he or she is glorified (and thus is no longer a he or a she), they might still have the physical appearance of being a he or she and in any case should still possess the unique strengths and character traits learned while living as a he or a she in their former life. Think of how much our flawed, earthly marriages can teach us about how to get along and love regardless of frustrating differences. Those lessons are keenly based on our dual-sex existence. Since the heavenly angels that predate humanity never lived as male or female and never had our unique occasions to learn lessons that our experiences could teach, we should be in some ways distinct from them. In this regard, in the novels the possibility is entertained that while we will in key ways be “like the angels” (as Jesus prophesied) whenever we are resurrected and glorified, we may yet perhaps still have aspects that make us distinct from all prior heavenly angelic beings. This seems to be supported by the prophecy that we will be elevated from being lower than angels now (Psalm 8:5) to being made judges over angels (I Corinthians 6:3-4).
Footnotes:
- David Instone Brewer, “Three Weddings And A Divorce: God’s Covenant With Israel, Judah and The Church,” Tyndale Bulletin 47.1 (May 1996)
- Eli Rosencruft, response to “The two winged women in Zechariah 5,” online source current as of June 5, 2018, https://hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/questions/2010/the-two-winged-women-in-zechariah-5
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Flower petals fluttered in the breeze on a brisk day in May. The time since has not dulled the memory of those moments. Taps rang out from a bugle in the hand of a tall Marine on a nearby hill. The melancholy notes uttered volumes as we laid to rest the body of Jack Wayne Murphy, my friend and brother in the Lord. An aged veteran recited dear words that added to the message of the bugler. A twenty-one gun salute wrote a holy ellipsis at the end of the book of a precious life.
