Genesis 1:26; 3:22; 11:7; Isa 6:8 (2024)

Trinity Proof Texts: Genesis 1:26; 3:22; 11:7; Isa 6:8

I. Plural pronouns used of God proving the trinity:

Click herefor detailed study of plural references to God

A. Two plural pronouns, (Us, Our) used 6 different timesin four different passages. Remember the word God (elohim) is also plural everytime it is used in the Old Testament. Gen 11:7 also includes a plural verb(confuse) which even further, through grammar reinforces the plural"elohim" and the plural pronoun US.

1. "Our" Gen 1:26

2. "Us" Gen 1:26; 3:22; 11:7; Isa 6:8

B. These are the four passages where God speaks forHimself and uses plural pronouns:

1. "ThenGod [plural elohim]said, "Let Us [pluralpronoun] make man in Our [plural pronoun] image, according to Our [plural pronoun]likeness" Genesis 1:26

2. "ThenYahweh God [pluralelohim] said, "Behold, the man has become like one of Us [plural pronoun],knowing good and evil" Genesis 3:22

3. "Come,let Us [plural pronoun]go down and there confuse [plural form of balal] their language, so that theywill not understand one another's speech." Genesis 11:7

4. "ThenI heard the voice of the Lord [plural elohim], saying, "Whom shall I send, andwho will go for Us [pluralpronoun]?"" Isaiah 6:8

II. Christ is the identical image of God, angels are not

A. Jesus Christ is our co-creator who is the exact imageof God.

1. "seethe light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. "2 Corinthians 4:4

2. "Heis the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. "Colossians 1:15

3. "AndHe is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, andupholds all things by the word of His power. When He had made purification ofsins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, " Hebrews 1:3

B. There is no reason to suggest the plural pronoun isthe "pluralof Majesty", since both Jesus and the Father are described as havingthe same image.

Clickhere for a full discussion of "plural of Majesty"

III. Angels are not included in "Us" and "Our":

A. Anti-Trinitarians claim that when God said, "LetUS make man in OURimage". (Gen 1:26) he was speaking to angels.

1. Angelsare not created in the image of God, only man.

2. Ifangels are included in "Let US make", then angels AND God are equallyour creator.

3. Jehovah'sWitnesses actually get this one right: The US includes (at least) the Fatherand Jesus in this creation. Jesus, being God, is the creator of all things: "Allthings came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into beingthat has come into being. " John 1:3

IV. Christ cannot be the angel Michael the arch-angel:

1. Jehovah's Witnesses are taught through their Watchtower, that Jesus is the created arch-angel named Michael. This is false doctrine and heresy.
2. Hebrews 1:5 proves Jehovah's Witnesses false teachers when they say Jesus is an angel: "For to which of the angels did He ever say, "You are My Son, Today I have begotten You"? And again, "I will be a Father to Him And He shall be a Son to Me"? " (Hebrews 1:5) Of course the answer is rhetorical: God never said to any angels "Today I have begotten You". But he did say this to Jesus. Therefore Jesus cannot be an angel, but we begotten at his resurrection as Acts 13:33 says, thereby fulfilling Ps 2:7.
3. The self contradictory doctrine of the Watchtower has Jesus the creature, functioning as our co-creator (Jn 1:3; Col 1:16). But this violates Rom 1:25: "worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator". This passage teaches that if Jesus is the creator, as the Bible says he is, then he cannot be a creature. Jesus cannot be creator and creature at the same time!

V. The apostolic Fathers unanimously taught that the "Us"in Gen 1:26, refers to the trinity:

More trinityquotes from the apostolic Fathers

1. 74 AD Epistle of Barnabas: "For the Scripture says concerning us, while He speaks to the Son, "Let Us make man after Our image, and after Our likeness" (Epistle of Barnabas, Chapter VI.—The Sufferings of Christ, and the New Covenant, Were Announced by the Prophets.)
2. 150 AD Justin Martyr: Speaking of Jewish theologians Justin calls the Jewish teaching that God spoke to angels a hersey: "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 (The Jews had their own heresies which supplied many things to the Christian heresies) 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." (Dialogue of Justin Martyr, with Trypho, a Jew: Chapter LXII.—The Words "Let Us Make Man")
3. 180 AD Irenaeus "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, nor any Power remotely distant from the Father of all things. For God did not stand in need of these [beings], in order to the accomplishing of what He had Himself determined with Himself beforehand should be done, as if He did not possess His own hands. For with Him 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; " [Gen. 1:26]" (Against Heresies 4:20:1).
4. 200 AD Tertullian: "If the number of the Trinity also offends you, as if it were not connected in the simple Unity, I ask you how it is possible for a Being who is merely and absolutely One and Singular, to speak in plural phrase, saying, "Let us make man in our own image, and after our own likeness; " whereas He ought to have said, "Let me make man in my own image, and after my own likeness," as being a unique and singular Being? In the following passage, however, "Behold the man is become as one of us," He is either deceiving or amusing us in speaking plurally, if He is One only and singular. Or was it to the angels that He spoke, as the Jews interpret the passage, because these also acknowledge not the Son? Or was it because He was at once the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, that He spoke to Himself in plural terms, making Himself plural on that very account? Nay, it was because He had already His Son close at His side, as a second Person, His own Word, and a third Person also, the Spirit in the Word, that He purposely adopted the plural phrase, "Let us make; "and, "in our image; "and, "become as one of us." (Tertullian, Against Praxeas, Chapter XII. Other Quotations from Holy Scripture Adduced in Proof of the Plurality of Persons in the Godhead.)
5. 200 AD Tertullian: Tertullian rejects the idea that God was speaking to Angels because our head is the creator, not a creature: "Since then he is the image of the Creator (for He, when looking on Christ His Word, who was to become man, said, "Let us make man in our own image, after our likeness"), how can I possibly have another head but Him whose image I am? For if I am the image of the Creator there is no room in me for another head" (Tertullian, Book V, Elucidations, Chapter VIII.—Man the Image of the Creator, and Christ the Head of the Man.)
6. 200 AD Tertullian: "In the first place, because all things were made by the Word of God, and without Him was nothing made. Now the flesh, too, had its existence from the Word of God, because of the principle, that here should be nothing without that Word. "Let us make man," said He, before He created him, and added, "with our hand," for the sake of his pre-eminence, that so he might not be compared with the rest of creation." (Tertullian: On the Resurrection of the Flesh, Elucidations, Chapter V.—Some Considerations in Reply Eulogistic of the Flesh. It Was Created by God.)
7. 250 AD Ignatius "For Moses, the faithful servant of God, when he said, "The Lord thy God is one Lord," and thus proclaimed that there was only one God, did yet forthwith confess also our Lord [Jesus] when he said, "The Lord [Jesus] rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah fire and brimstone from the Lord." And again [he confessed a second time our Lord Jesus by saying], "And God said, Let Us make man after our image: and so God made man, after the image of God made He him."" (The Epistle of Ignatius to the Antiochians, Chapter II.—The True Doctrine Respecting God and Christ.)
8. Origen: "it was to Him that God said regarding the creation of man, "Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness." (Origen Against Celsus, Book V, Chapter XXXVII)
9. Novatian: "For who does not acknowledge that the person of the Son is second after the Father, when he reads that it was said by the Father, consequently to the Son, "Let us make man in our image and our likeness; " and that after this it was related, "And God made man, in the image of God made He him? "Or when he holds in his hands: "The Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah fire and brimstone from the Lord from heaven? " (A Treatise of Novatian Concerning the Trinity, Chapter XXVI. Argument.—Moreover, Against the Sabellians He Proves that the Father is One, the Son Another.)
10. Constitutions of the Holy Apostles: "the divine Scripture testifies that God said to Christ, His only-begotten, "Let us make man after our image, and after our likeness. And God made man: after the image of God made He him; male and female made He them."(Constitutions of the Holy Apostles, Book V., VII)

BySteve Rudd
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