Created sex
Historic orthodoxy
The teaching that God creates each person male or female, and that a person's body is a good gift that identity and conduct should honor.
Also called: biological sex is given, God-given sex, sex as created
What it means
Scripture teaches that God made humanity male and female, both in his image. A person's sex is not assigned by others or chosen by oneself; it is given by God in the body. The historic church has understood this as part of the goodness of creation, and the body as something to receive with thanks and offer to God.
This teaching does not deny that some people suffer real and painful distress about their sex, or that some are born with conditions that make sex harder to determine. Those burdens belong to a fallen world, and the church should meet them with patience, compassion, and care. The church can love and walk alongside people in such distress while still teaching that God's design for their body is good.
For this reason churches holding this view do not affirm social or medical gender transition, and they call every believer to live as the man or woman God made them, in the hope of the resurrection body.
In Scripture
God created mankind in his image, male and female he created them.
Jesus affirms that the Creator made them male and female from the beginning.
God formed each person in the womb, and his works are wonderful.
God forbade men and women to present themselves as the other sex.
The body is a temple of the Holy Spirit; believers are to honor God with their bodies.
Where it comes up
Confessions: WCF 4.2; LBCF 1689 4.2
On this site: Sex & gender identity
Related terms
Gender transition affirmationSerious error
The teaching that a person's inner sense of gender, rather than their bodily sex, defines who they are, so that the church should affirm social or medical transition.
Silence on sex and genderFlagged as a concern
A church's choice, deliberate or not, to state no position on whether a person's sex is given by God, in a time when the question presses on every family.
Historic sexual ethicHistoric orthodoxy
The teaching, held by the whole church through its history, that marriage is the lifelong union of one man and one woman and the only right place for sexual intimacy.