Inter-personal Relationships: A Biblical Perspective

female; yet, both are man. The connecting concepts are “image of God” and “likeness of God”. Man is created as a singular, spiritual, and social being in the image and likeness of God who is One, Spirit, and Triune. The Triune comprehends the three persons of all relational possibilities: the “I”, the “You” or “Thou”, and the “He” or “She”. No inter-personal relationship can fall outside this triangle.

Also, gender is not the determiner of sociality; it is a function. The determiner is the essence of human existence; he is a plurality; the essence is the image of God stamped on the creation of man: as God is a person, man is also a person; as God is an inter-personal being, man is also an inter-personal being. Gender is not the essence of any; the distinction is not a necessary one, but only a functional one. Spiritually, and as in the resurrection, man is not distinguished as either a male or a female. However, gender is also not an accident; it is a function of primary ultimate relationality between two contingent persons.  Such ultimacy and intimacy are impossible between angels since they are not mutually derived nor related through the mutuality of that oneness, which is categorized in the words “come from” (as of Christ, John 13:3; 16:28) and “proceed from” (as of the Spirit, John 15:26) by the Bible. Similarly, the woman was made out of man and man is born of a woman. This image is, further, used in the Scripture to describe first God’s relationship with Israel and then, Christ’s relationship with the Church, which is known as the Bride and Body of Jesus Christ. The symbol of the primary derivative (that the woman was derived out of man) is used to explain the headship of man in the family and the Lordship of Christ over the Church

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