The biblical data overwhelming supports the position that God wants us to refer to him with a singular, masculine pronoun. Since that’s how God has chosen to reveal himself, we should honor him by using the pronouns used in Scripture.
God is not a he. That’s what gender theorists claim. God’s pronouns are they/them, we’re told. After all, God is an ungendered spiritual being. He’s three persons in one: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. That’s a plurality of persons. Furthermore, “Elohim”—the ancient Hebrew word for God—is in plural form. Doesn’t all this evidence signal a reason to change how we refer to God? Should we abandon he/him and adopt they/them?
To be fair, there is some truth to what is being said. God is a spiritual, not physical, being. He’s not gendered and, therefore, neither male nor female like a human being. That’s true. Also, God is triune, which means he co-exists as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—three persons in one divine being. Therefore, it does make sense to refer to the three persons of the Trinity as they/them (e.g., “They all have the same divine nature”). Apart from that instance, there’s no reason to assign the Almighty new pronouns.
It’s also worth noting that modern gender ideology is, historically speaking, incredibly recent (and, I’d argue, highly dubious). To grant it full authority and then retroactively impose it on an ancient culture that never operated in those terms is like trying to impose automobile regulations on horse-drawn carriages. It’s anachronistic.
The attempt to map modern ideology on ancient texts is nothing new. Cancel culture is fraught with problems because it assesses past behaviors and expressions of ideas according to modern sensibilities. People have also recently claimed that the Bible doesn’t limit sex to male and female, which, again, attempts to map today’s cultural categories onto ancient texts. There are other examples, to be sure. All of them, however, fail because they are anachronistic. Even so, there’s a better reason to reject they/them pronouns for God.
God has already revealed his pronouns in the Bible, and they are he/him. In one sense, there’s no need to debate this question since God has already decreed his decision. Remember, the Bible is God-breathed (2 Tim. 3:16). That means the Holy Spirit inspired the biblical authors to write the words of Scripture, and that includes the singular, masculine pronouns he chose for himself.
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