Who Was the Bible Referring to When He Said Let Us Make Man in Our Own Image?
1) Direct Answer
It was the one God speaking in counsel with His own Word—His Logos—the expression of Himself by which He would create all things and later be manifested in Jesus Christ. It is not three persons, and it is not angels.
2) Scriptural Explanation
- Genesis 1:26-27 says, “Let us make man in our image… So God created man in his own image.” The very next verse returns to the singular—one Creator.
- Isaiah 44:24: “I am the LORD that maketh all things… that stretcheth forth the heavens alone; that spreadeth abroad the earth by myself.” God did not share creation with another person.
- John 1:1-3: “In the beginning was the Word… and the Word was God… All things were made by him.” The Word is God’s own expressed thought made manifest—God creating by His Word.
- Ephesians 1:11: He “worketh all things after the counsel of his own will.” God’s “us” is His own divine counsel—God communing with His Word.
- 1 Timothy 3:16: “God was manifest in the flesh.” The image God had in view would be fully revealed in Christ, the true image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15).
Now notice: Genesis 1 shows man created in God’s image (spirit nature and dominion), and Genesis 2:7 shows man formed from the dust. First the image; then the body.
3) Simple Clarifying Logic
- If “us” meant three divine persons, we would have three creators—yet God says He made all things alone and by Himself (Isaiah 44:24).
- Angels did not create the world.
- “Us” is God deliberating with His own Word, His plan, His self-expression. As a man speaks within himself, God spoke with His Logos.
- “In our image” points to God’s nature reflected in man—spirit, holiness, and dominion—and finds its perfect fulfillment when God Himself was manifested in Christ.
4) Reinforcing Statement
It’s one God, not three. The “us” is the one Lord counseling with His own Word, creating all things and purposing to reveal Himself perfectly in Jesus Christ.
Ask a Follow-up Question
What did the Laodicean Church Age (our age) Angel (- messenger) Say about this?
Ranked passages from the local William Branham sermon and Church Age Book database. Relevance is relative, not a statement of doctrinal certainty.
The resurrection of Lazarus
53-1122 §13
Man before he was this man, he was a spirit man. God made the first man in His own image. How many says that's right? Well, what kind of an image has God got? He's a Spirit, is that right? So He made a Spirit man before He made a flesh man. Then He put man in five senses to contact his earthly home. He might've give him hands like a monkey, and foot like a bear, I don't know. But anyhow, that wasn't in the image of God. God's a Spirit. But then God came down and was made in the image of man to redeem man back to Hi...
Show us the Father
63-0606 §72
And she said, "Oh, Mr. Branham." Said, "If I prove to you... You said you were fundamental. And if I prove to you by your own Bible that he was not divine, will you accept it?" I said, "If the Bible said so. I believe the Bible." She said, "All right, I'll give you your own scripture." Said, "St. John the 11th chapter, the Bible said that when Jesus went down to the grave of Lazarus, the Bible said he wept. And he could not weep and be divine." I said, "Is that the end of it?" I said, "Is that all you got to say?"...
Questions and Answers on Genesis
53-0729 §20
And then God taken from his side a piece of him, a rib, and made a woman. Now, where did He get the spirit woman, see? Genesis 1:26: He said, "Let us make man in our own image, after our own likeness, created He them (man) male and female." He made the burly spirit for man; He made the tender, little, delicate, feminish spirit for the woman. And when you see a woman act like a man, she's just got out of her place, you see, in the beginning, see. All right. She's supposed to... I think it's a shame that women has lo...
Questions and Answers on Hebrews, part 3
57-1006 §104
What do we do? Well, my dear sainted brother, my dear sainted sister, before the foundation of the world, when God created you in His image ... or created the man in His image, and created the woman in the image of the man for the glory of the man, He made you a theophany. Just like Himself, when He said "Let us" to the creatures that He had made, "Let us make man in our own image, in our likeness, a theophany." God had never become flesh yet; He was in a theophany. And Moses saw Him. Moses cried, "Lord, let me see...
Hebrews, Chapter 2, part 3
57-0828 §26
Now, when man become into that body, he had control of all the fishes and fowls and beasts of the field. And then there was no man to till the soil (Genesis 2). He done made male and female, but there was no man to till the soil. Then God made man out of the dust of the earth. He give him a hand like a chimpanzee. He give him a foot like a bear. He made him on the image ... and this earthly body is in the image of animal life, and it's made out of the same kind of material. Your body is made just the same kind of m...