Is There a Mother in Heaven? Part 4 of 10—Modeling Man and Woman

I think of the earth and all its inhabitants as a sort of microcosm of heaven—that is, the heaven where I believe we all came from. Of course, heaven is on a much higher plane than earth, yet who’s to say what the earth was patterned after? It might as well be patterned after heaven as any other place.

What we do know is the pattern after which man and woman were created.

“And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness . . .
“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” (Genesis 1:26-27.)

Wherever we came from, it would seem that the patterns for creating earthly man and woman resided in heaven, for that is where God resides.


By the way, the Hebrew word for image is tselem, according to the Hebrew and Chaldee Dictionary (James Strong, Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Abingdon Press, 1973). According to Strong, it is taken from an unused root meaning “to shade; a phantom, i.e. (figuratively) illusion, resemblance; hence a representative figure, especially an idol.”

Personally, I don’t think God created man as an idol or even as an illusion or shade. Yet, I can see God creating man as a shadow of himself, resembling him in appearance.

Now, it is generally understood that: 1-God is of the male persuasion; and 2-man was created in his image, as stated above.

But what about the woman? In whose image was she created? (When was the last time you asked yourself that question?)

I do believe that woman was created as a shadow of someone, certainly not a male, God or not. Who better to fill the bill than a heavenly Mother?

Surely God, the Father, could not fashion such a female after his own image or likeness. Let’s be reasonable.

Unless God, our Father in heaven, is something very different than what the Bible has led us to believe as Christians, I find it very difficult even to imagine him patterning both a male and a female after his own singular personage. If you can, well . . . you’re welcome to believe as you will. For me, it is nonsense—no offense intended.

Looking a little further, we find the Hebrew word for likeness is demûwth, which comes from a primitive root meaning “to compare; by implication to resemble, liken, consider.” As demûwth it means, “resemblance; concretely model, shape; adverbally like” (ibid.).

Thus we can see that God, indeed, modeled man after himself. In short, the man looked like God in form. And the woman looked like . . . well . . . like whomever she was modeled after. Again, the only personage I can imagine who could possibly fill this role is a Mother in heaven.

And why not? Just because the subject has been ignored, or we have been told differently all these centuries does not mean there is no Mother in heaven. And just because we cannot quote chapter and verse does not negate the idea.

If the woman was not modeled after a Mother in heaven, then after whom was she modeled?