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Let Us
make man in our image
There are several verses in the Old Testament
where God speaks as a plurality. Many trinitarians quote these
verses to help support the Trinity doctrine
because they strongly suggest that there is more than one person in the
godhead.
- "Then God said, “Let Us make
man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over
the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle
and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on
the earth,” (Gen. 1:26,
NASB).
- "Then the Lord God said, “Behold,
the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now,
lest he stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and
eat, and live forever," (Gen. 3:22, NASB).
- “Come, let Us go down and there
confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s
speech,” (Gen. 11:7,
NASB).
- "Then I heard the voice of the
Lord, saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?” Then I
said, “Here am I. Send me!” (Isaiah 6:8, NASB)
Those opposed to
the doctrine of the Trinity say that God is
speaking of Himself in any "royal" sense, in a "plural of
majesty." They can say this, but biblically there is never any
account of a king or a ruler speaking of himself in a plural sense or in
the third person. So, there is no biblical support for God using it
of Himself in this way.
In regards to Gen.
1:26, those who deny the Trinity say that God when God says, "Let
Us make..." He is speaking with the angels in mind. The
problem with this is that angels do not create. There is absolutely
no biblical evidence that angels created anything at all. We see in Isaiah 44:24, "Thus
says the Lord, your Redeemer, and the one who formed you from the womb,
“I, the Lord, am the maker of all things, Stretching out the heavens by
Myself, And spreading out the earth all alone." God made
all things alone. Therefore, the "us" in "Let Us
make man in our image" cannot be the angels. Furthermore,
people are not created in the image of angels, but of God.
The three verses in Genesis do not prove that the
Trinity is true. However, they cannot be dismissed by the assumption
that God is speaking of himself in a type of third person way.
Furthermore, notice in the force verse
above, Isaiah 6:8, that's
God is speaking in the singular and then switches to the plural. He
says, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?" This
is on the unusual construction. The singular speaker refers to
himself in the plural.
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