Why did God say “let US make man in OUR image”?
Here is a question from a brother in Christ.
Gen 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
Why did God speak in the plural when He made man, saying “let us make man in our image“?
A_SUPER_SIGN JEFF_IN 12-27-59 Morning
26 That’s a sign, that every unrepented sinner will perish in the judgment, that the righteous shall be saved by the mercy of God. He gave another sign at the burning bush. What was it when He caught His runaway prophet? “I have heard the cries of My people, and I’ve remembered My covenant”? He gave another sign there, that He was a covenant-keeping God, that He remembered everything that He said, every promise that He made. He gave a sign at the burning bush, “And I’ve come down to deliver them.” Watch God in His ways of work. When He created the heavens and earth, He called the Angels together, and He said, “Let us.” Every place in the Scripture where He did anything mostly, “Not Me, but My Father.” But when it come to the plan of redemption, He came alone; nobody was with Him. He was the only One that could come. An Angel couldn’t do it. Another man called His son, couldn’t do it. One called something else, a holy virgin, or a holy mother, or–or some saint, couldn’t do it. God had to come.
He was speaking to angels because he desired their participation in his work. First of all, notice that after God says, “let us make man in our image” first and then the scripture says in verse 27, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God, created he him; male and female created he them.”
See that Moses used the SINGULAR personal pronouns “HIS own image” “image of God created HE him, male and female created HE them.”
So the plural pronoun by definition means he was speaking to someone who WAS NOT HIMSELF, ie not God. God is ONE person as evidenced by the THOUSANDS of scriptures that use singular personal pronouns. In this verse, it clearly shows that he was speaking to someone OTHER than himself.
A great example of this is in Isaiah 6.
Isaiah 6:6-8 Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar: And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged. Also, I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me.
God is speaking to the angelic beings surrounding his throne. He says whom shall I (singular pronoun pointing to ONE PERSON) send and whom shall go for US (the singular PERSON was speaking to the angelic beings who were NOT him).
The next question that comes from this is “angels were not made in the image and likeness of God.” This is partially true, but I want to show in what sense. In the book of Job, we find that the sons of God gathered together and in Genesis 6 we find that the sons of God saw the daughters of men. It is not our subject here, but it is a clear teaching of the message that these were human, predestinated seed of God and not angelic beings. Angels are not sons of God, they do not come from the very life of God himself. However, in 1 Timothy 5:21 we find that there are “elect angels”. They are ordained to have eternal life and live eternally with the sons and daughters of God, but they themselves are not sons and daughters of God. According to Brother Branham in Genesis 1:26-27 man was first made in spirit form. According to John 4:24, God is a Spirit and when he made a man he made him first in spirit form-male and female. Then after that in Genesis 2, he put him in flesh. Notice in Hebrews 1.
Hebrews 1:7 And of the angels he saith, Who maketh his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire.
- God is a Spirit
- angels are spirits
- man was made as a spirit
Therefore, we can see the relationship, though angels are not sons, they are in a special relationship with God and men. Angels can think, speak, have a will to choose or reject the will of God (ie-Satan and his demons that fell), have a memory, worship, etc. They have a great likeness to humans, but they are not human and therefore they are not sons of God. But they are in the image of God as spirits, just as mankind is in the image of God, as a spirit man inhabiting a body of flesh.
There are several earlier quotes of Brother Branham alluding to the fact that God was speaking to His Son, but according to the development and progression of Brother Branham’s teaching we can see in the above quote that he clearly identifies it as God speaking to angels.
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Here’s my thought process and what I have wrestled with.
As far as “let us” is Father and Son, br. Branham’s thought developed over time on this issue in regards to the logos. He started out as the logos is the Son, in the late 50’s the logos was the Son prefigured in the mid 60’s the logos came upon Jesus and was the Father. Jesus did not bypass the word body, the life of the Son was in the word, but it was God’s own self-expression and not a separate person from himself.
Angels are servants not sons, true. however, man was made a spirit, God is a Spirit, God made his angels spirits.
Isaiah 44:24 says Yahweh created every alone and by himself. “Thus saith the LORD, thy redeemer, and he that formed thee from the womb, I am the LORD that maketh all things; that stretcheth forth the heavens alone; that spreadeth abroad the earth by myself;”
So, yes, the Son was involved in creation according to Col 1, Heb 1, Eph 3, but it needs to be in balance with the fact that the Father created everything alone and by himself. God created everything by, for and through his Son who was to be born in the future in the fullness of time. “Jesus was the beginning of the creation of God. How did he begin? In the wombs of a virgin.” Future Home. God’s thought when creating the world was his Son. It was revealing himself, redemption and his glory. All this was to be fully accomplished through his Son so God created it all by, for and through Him, the Son of God. And we in and with the Son received glory with the Father before the world began in the mind of God.
As a matter of balance, let me respectfully post another way of looking at this.
John 17:5
And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.
Hebrews 1:1-2
God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds;
Colossians 1:16-17
For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.
Ephesians 3:9
And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ:
I think it is fair to say that the consensus of scripture and the testimony of Jesus Christ himself lend us to believe that He (the Son) was with the Father in the beginning in some form and that He was the agency or vehicle that God used to create everything.
As a result, I think it would be fair to say that God could also have been speaking to His Son (as Brother Branham says in Questions and Answers on Genesis in 1953) and not only the angels. After all, he says that we were created in His image and not in the image of angels.
With regard to Brother Branham’s teachings on logos, I don’t think this means we need to throw out either his earlier or later teachings on the subject. As 1 Timothy 3:16a says, “And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness….” One day it will all be made clear to us.
Respectfully,
Nate
Here is a quote from brother Branham in regards to “let us.”
A_SUPER_SIGN JEFF_IN 12-27-59 Morning
26 That’s a sign, that every unrepented sinner will perish in the judgment, that the righteous shall be saved by the mercy of God. He gave another sign at the burning bush. What was it when He caught His runaway prophet? “I have heard the cries of My people, and I’ve remembered My covenant”? He gave another sign there, that He was a covenant-keeping God, that He remembered everything that He said, every promise that He made. He gave a sign at the burning bush, “And I’ve come down to deliver them.” Watch God in His ways of work. When He created the heavens and earth, He called the Angels together, and He said, “Let us.” Every place in the Scripture where He did anything mostly, “Not Me, but My Father.” But when it come to the plan of redemption, He came alone; nobody was with Him. He was the only One that could come. An Angel couldn’t do it. Another man called His son, couldn’t do it. One called something else, a holy virgin, or a holy mother, or–or some saint, couldn’t do it. God had to come.
Your quote from “A Super Sign” is interesting. I believe if you look at that quote in context, you’ll find he’s talking about the deity of Jesus Christ and saying that God couldn’t send his son to redeem the human race — He had to come Himself. Basically he is equating Jesus as God Himself. If you understand that comment (it’s not oneness), it makes the whole question that we’re talking about all the way back to the beginning clear.
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