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.
But it wasn't so from the beginning
61-0411 §52
If I was a colored man, or a brown man, or a yellow man, or a red man, I'd be just as happy about it. Yes, sir. I sure would. That's the way my maker wanted me, and that's the way I am. Right. Why does man want to tamper with anything for? When man gets into it, he ruins it. Let it alone the way God made it. Let a man be what he is. By the grace of God, let him be. But he has to cause great fusses now, causing riots and big fusses, and everything else across the nations, and across the world, just because he wants...
The Identified Masterpiece of God
64-1205 §28
Let us turn now our thoughts from Michelangelo to the great sculptor, God Almighty, who in the beginning, before there was a day or dawn of day, before there was an atom or a molecule, God in his mind had man---what a man should look like, what he should be, and what he should act like. And He wanted that man to be part of Him, so He made man in his own image, and in the likeness of God created He man. Oh, when God in the beginning made this masterpiece, something that reflected his thoughts...
The Voice of the Sign
64-0313 §7
And now, the time was at hand that... God had made a promise to Abraham four hundred years before that time, that his seed would sojourn in a strange land and they'd be brought out. After forty years they would be brought out with a mighty hand. He would deliver his people by a mighty hand. And when the time of the promise drew nigh, that's when God put Moses on the scene. Moses, in his absolute failure, had went into the wilderness. Now, the type here ... there's a wonderful type that we sure don't want to miss, s...
Questions and Answers on Genesis
53-0729 §10
Now, if God created man in His own image and in His own likeness, what kind of a man did He create? A spirit man. Now, if you'll notice, after He had made all the creation and created a spirit man, and close reading of this now (to the one that asked the question) we'll find this, that God gave dominion of the cattle and the fishes and everything to the man. But, in His making up there, He made man in His own image to lead the cattle, lead the beasts of the field, just like the Holy Spirit leads the believer today,...
Adoption, part 2: Manifested sons of God
60-0518 §31
When He made His first man... Now, when He made his angelic beings... He made man, "Created He them male and female," all in the same unit. He was both man and woman, feminish and masculine. When He made Adam and put him in flesh... Remember, in Genesis 1, He made man and woman; and in Genesis 2, there was no man yet to till the soil, flesh man. No man that could take ahold of anything and till the soil, but yet there was a man in his image. And God is a [congregation says, "Spirit"]. That's right, see. He made the...