How Does Jesus’s Authority Relate to His Sex?

Jesus’s authority was given to him by the Father and rooted in his identity as the Son of God, not in his biological sex. He taught with authority (Mark 1:27; Luke 4:36). He possessed authority over sickness, death, and demonic powers. He delegated authority to his disciples (Mark 6:7; Matthew 10:1). He was ultimately given “all authority in heaven and on earth” (Matthew 28:18). All of this authority is inseparable from his identity as the Son and from the Father’s commissioning, not from his maleness.

Authority is frequently treated as a distinctly male characteristic in discussions of masculinity. A so-called “real man” has authority and exercises dominion. The argument tends to run as follows: Jesus had authority; Jesus was male; therefore authority is masculine. The logic just doesn’t hold. Authority was given to Jesus by the Father; being male was coincidental to that gift, not the basis of it.

Christa McKirland’s distinction between executive authority (the power to command obedience and enforce consequences) and non-executive authority (the power to influence belief and inspire imitation) is useful here. Jesus possessed both forms. While being male may have been coincidental to both forms, it is difficult to demonstrate that maleness was essential to either. He possesses both sorts of authority and is male; that does not entail that only males could exhibit certain aspects of Jesus’s authority.

Again, I would point to Deborah who judges Israel. It is clear that she also had authority delegated from God (Judg 4:6-10). She is not male, but female. She exercises the authority God has given her. That authority doesn’t become feminine because she is a woman, nor is she given it because she is female. The evidence in Scripture certainly suggests that men often occupy authoritative positions, but the exceptions are important to note.

In any case, the authority Jesus exercises is not offered as a model of male leadership in particular. It is offered as a model of the kind of authority that accrues to the one who refuses to compromise even when such refusal results in suffering. As we read in Mark, “Whoever would be great among you must be your servant” (10:43). That is a word for the whole church, not a masculine subset of it.