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
51-0729A §34
And then after He got all His creation made, He said, "Let Us," plural, "make man in Our," plural, "own image." Now, if God is unseen, if the Logos was in the form, just mythically speaking, drama, in the form of a Halo, then It's supernatural. Then He had to make a man in His own image. John 4 says that God is a Spirit. And He had to make a spirit man. And He brought it down now; there's deity cannot be seen. Deity is the supernatural. Then He brings It down from a sacred Halo to a little white cloud, something th...
Questions and Answers on Genesis
53-0729 §6
Now, in this, Genesis 1:26, God made man in His own image. And if you notice, we will get it so you can read it, and 26... If you'd like to read along with us, we'd be glad for you to do it, check me up. And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, ... over the fowls of the air, ... over the cattle ... of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him;...
Oneness
62-0211 §3
This morning's message I'm speaking on the subject of "Oneness." And I--I want to take my time and try to make it just as... lay it out just as perfectly as I know how. And I desire your prayers as you have gathered. And now, I want you to turn, if you have a Bible and like to read with me, to the 1st chapter of Hebrews, first. And I want to read the first three verses of the 1st chapter of Hebrews, and then Genesis 1:26 and 7 to tie that together. And no man can say anything that's worth saying unless God helps hi...
The deity of Jesus Christ
49-1225 §21
And God in the beginning made His first man. He made him out of spirit. And spirit is the invisible part of man that you don't see. Now, God made man in His Own image. Are you listening to me? [Congregation says, "Amen.".] All right. God made man in His Own image. "And God is a Spirit," says the Bible. And the first man that was made had the government over all the creation, just like the Holy Spirit has government over the Church today. He led the creation. He led the animals. But there was no man to till the soil...
Faithful Abraham
61-0312 §54
When God made his first man in the garden of Eden, did you notice He made him both male and female? He was a man, made in God's image, a spirit. He put him in flesh, Genesis the next chapter, after He already made him male and female. And there still was no man to till the soil, so then He created man out of the dust of the earth, not in his image. But then God came down in the form of man by Jesus Christ to redeem the man that's fallen in the image of the earthly. He was made in the image of the earth. O God, can'...