Genesis 1:26,27
“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 the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them.”
Is God singular (Deut. 6:4; 32:39; Isa.45:5; John 17:3; 1 Cor. 8:6) or plural (Gen. 3:22; 18:1-3; Ps.97:7; Isa.48:16; John 10:34-38)? The Hebrew word for God is `elohim Strong’s #430, a plural noun.
In Genesis 1:1 it is used in grammatical agreement with a singular verb, bara strong’s#1254, “created.” When the plural pronouns in “Let us make man in our image after our likeness: are used, does it mean an august plural of excellence or majesty? Is God speaking to the angels or to the earth or nature? Or is this a germinal hint of (first mention) a distinction in the divine personality?
No one can be certain. Until Jesus came, the internal unity of the Godhead was not understood. God is essentially Spirit (John 4:24). Therefore, man, who is similar to God, possesses an immortal spirit. We resemble God in certain respects without being equal with Him (Isa. 40:25).
God the Father has a soul (Matt.12:18), God has a body (John 1:14) in Jesus, and God is Spirit in the Holy Spirit (John 1:33). Man’s likeness to God is what truly distinguishes mankind from the rest of creation. Man is a person with the power to think, feel, and decide.
He has the capacity for moral choices and spiritual growth or decline. In the beginning, man loved God and hated unrighteousness. The fall reversed this. Man was still a person with the capacity for good, but his spirit was altered by sin so much that he now generally runs away from God and loves evil more than righteousness (John 3:19,20).
Man is no longer in the perfect state of innocence as at the time of creation. Therefore, he does not have the same spiritual, God like attributes and qualities of that original state. Jesus, the last Adam (Rom.5:18, 19), came to undue Satan’s works (1 John 3:8), to restore a spiritual likeness to God.
The doctrine of the Trinity means that there is one God who eternally exists as three distinct Persons — the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Stated differently, God is one in essence and three in person. These definitions express three crucial truths: (1) The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinct Persons, (2) each Person is fully God, (3) there is only one God.
Filed under: Christianity, Comment, Light from the Pot, Nuggets, Theology, Word Study, word study Hebrew
