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 Masterpiece
64-0705 §31
And as he begin to work upon creeping things, like upon the little animals upon the earth. And then He began to bring it from that into something else higher. Then finally He brought it into the larger animals such as the lion, tiger, bear. Then He brought it into the life of maybe of monkeys, and apes, and so forth. Now, not an evolution, as we think that one came from a... That was a complete creation, God working in a pattern. But finally there came forth upon the earth a perfection, and that was a man. And then...
Faithful Abraham
61-0312 §55
Now this first man, Adam---look at him. In spirit he was both feminish and masculine. And then he was made flesh, and he had no helpmate. Then God... A woman is not in the original creation of God. She's a by-product of the man. So to make them one (to show what He did), He opened up the side of Adam and took a part of Adam's flesh so that they wouldn't be separated, they'd be one; and took part of Adam's spirit, part of Adam's flesh, took the feminish spirit off of Adam and made a Eve. And when you see a woman, th...
The Spoken Word is the original seed
62-0318 §204
Now, then after He made man in His own image ... "in the image of God created he him..." Now after He did this (now don't miss this), after God made His man in His own image by His own spoken word---now that was the perfect man, but where the fall came, was when He took from him a by-product and made him a bride. That's where the trouble is now. If you were spiritual, you've already caught it see, see. It wasn't Adam that got in trouble. It wasn't Adam that doubted the Word; it was his bride that doubted the Word....
And then Jesus came
57-0302 §5
And she referred to this Scripture, Saint John 11. She believed that He was only a prophet, and just an ordinary man, a good man, a prophet. Now, if Jesus was only a prophet, then we're all lost and in error. He was nothing short of Jehovah God, being manifested in the flesh. He was divine. So she based her thoughts on this: She said, "Then if I can prove to you that He was just merely a man, will you then accept it, if I prove it by the Bible?" I said, "Yes, ma'am. But I don't believe it can be done." She said, "O...
Let us see God
59-1129 §58
And she said, "Now, you said you was 'fundamental,' and you believed the Scripture." I said, "I do." And she said, "If I prove to you, by your own Bible, that He wasn't divine, will you witness that I am right?" I said, "Yes, sir. If the Bible said He wasn't divine, then I believe the Bible." And I said, "But I've got to see the Scripture." She said, "In John, over in St. John, it said, 'When Jesus went down to the grave of Lazarus, He wept.'" And said, "You know, if He was divine, He could not weep." I said, "Sist...