Notes on the Trinity Doctrine
GENESIS 1:26,27
In verse 26 God says: "Let US make man in OUR image."
Genesis 5:1 indicates that the image is the
image of God ONLY: "In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him;"
verse 27: "So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them."
It must be noted that the word "image" is singular. The word would have had to be plural ("images") if God was speaking to an angel, for angels are never spoken of as being created in the image of God and man is never spoken of in the Bible as being created in the image of angels!
When God uses the word "US," He is talking to another being, or beings, exactly like Himself in nature - and this nature is a shared one because of the singularity ("image") used in the creation process.
Furthermore, the word "us" doesn't limit the number to "two" beings sharing this "God" nature.
The best explanation of these verses comes from the comments of the early Church Fathers whose writings serve as commentaries on specific Biblical passages.
Some of these men had a great deal to say about Genesis 1: 26, 27:
...God speaks in the creation of man with the very same design, in the following words: 'Let Us make man after our image and likeness...[God] conversed with some one who was numerically distinct from Himself, and also a rational Being.
These are the words: 'And God said, Behold, Adam has become as one of us, to know good and evil.' In saying, therefore, 'as one of us,'[Moses] has declared that [there is a certain] number of persons associated with one another, and that they are at least two.
For I would not say that the dogma of that heresy which is said to be among you is true, or that the teachers of it can prove that [God] spoke to angels, or that the human frame was the workmanship of angels. But this Offspring, which was truly brought forth from the Father, was with the Father before all the creatures,..." Justin Martyr - Dialogue with Trypho, ch. 62
"Now man is a mixed organization of soul and flesh, who was formed after the likeness of God, and moulded by His hands, that is, by the Son and Holy Spirit, to whom also He said, "Let Us make man." Irenaus Against Heresies, Book IV, Preface, section 4
"It was not angels, therefore, who made us, nor who formed us, neither had angels power to make an image of God, nor any one else, except the Word of the Lord," Irenaus Against Heresies, Book IV, ch. 20, section 1
"For with Him (God) were always present the Word and Wisdom, the Son and the Spirit, by whom and in whom, freely and spontaneously, He made all things, to whom also He speaks, saying, "Let Us make man after Our image and likeness;" Irenaus Against Heresies, Book IV, ch. 20, section 1
"But who else is superior to, and more eminent than, that man who was formed after the likeness of God, except the Son of God, after whose image man was created?" Irenaus Against Heresies, Book III, ch. 33, section 4
"For never at any time did Adam escape the hands of God, namely the Son and the Spirit, to whom the Father speaking, said, "Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness." Irenaus Against Heresies, Book V, ch. 1, section 3
"For by the hands of the Father, that is, by the Son and the Holy Spirit, man, and not [merely] a part of man, was made in the likeness of God. Irenaus Against Heresies, Book V, ch. 6, section 1
"But He, (the Word of God) the very same who formed Adam at the beginning, with whom also the Father spake, [saying], "Let Us make man after Our image and likeness," Irenaus Against Heresies, Book V, ch. 15, section 4
"And therefore throughout all time, man, having been moulded at the beginning by the hands of God, that is, of the Son and of the Spirit, is made after the image and likeness of God:" Irenaus Against Heresies, Book V, ch. 28, section 4
"But to no one else than to His own Word and wisdom did He say, "Let Us make." Theophilus to Autolycus, Book II, ch XVIII
