John 4:24 says, “God is Spirit”. God does not have gender as we thing of it. God is not a man or woman. Neither is God androgynous, that is, He is not a blending the two genders together. God is Spirit and completely outside the male and female frame of reference He has given to mankind.

What we know about God we know from His Word. In the Bible God tells us what He wants us to know about Himself. Anything we know about God comes from God’s Word. In the Bible God only refers to Himself using masculine terms. God the Son, Jesus, taught us to pray, “Our Father, which art heaven.” He repeatedly refer to God as His Father. Throughout the Old and New Testament God is always referred in masculine terms. While it is not proper to say God is a man or that God is male, it is equally improper to say God is a woman or female. God is God and God always describes Himself to humanity using masculine terminology. That is why we refer to God as He. That is also one reason why it is incorrect to refer to God as she or it.

We don’t get to define or describe God for Him. God defines and describes Himself and demands that we submit to His explanation of Himself. Some have said the masculine pronouns are used only because the writers of the Bible were men writing in time of male dominance and seeking to support their patriarchal ways. That supposition denies the Divine inspiration of the Bible. According to 2 Peter 1 the men who wrote the Bible wrote as “they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” The books of the Bible are not “cunningly devised fables.” The words of the Bible are those words which were spoken by God. The men who wrote these words wrote only what God wanted them to write. Their writings are not distorted by culture or prejudice. Their writings are directed by God’s own Holy Spirit. God has revealed Himself using masculine pronouns, and we need to refer to Him according to the revelation of Himself that He has given in His Bible.

We cannot know anything about God other than what He has told us about Himself. God is far greater than anything we can ever imagine about Him. While God is far greater than our ability to understand, He is never anything other than or contrary to what He has told us about Himself in His Word. We must turn to the Bible and allow God to teach us who He is and what He is like.