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 Pillar of Fire
53-0509 §17
Now, the world was without form and void, and water was upon the deep. We're in Genesis 1 now, see. Then He made all the plant life. Then after a while, He made man in His own image. And if He made man in His own image, He had to make Him something on a order of that supernatural Being. That's right. Then there was no man to till the soil (Genesis 2.) Then He made man out of the dust of the earth; not in His image, but out of the dust of the earth. He might give him a hand like a monkey and a foot like a bear. I do...
Questions and Answers on Genesis
53-0729 §28
And then He put man in the dust of the earth, which was the first man, Adam. And that man was made after the image... This human man here is made after the image of an animal. These human bodies are made in the image of animals. We got a hand just like a monkey, and got a foot like a bear. Take a little cub bear, strip him down, pull the skin off of him and put up-side of a little baby girl and look at the difference. Brother, you'd sure have to look close. The whole diaphragm, the make-up, is almost the same, the...
I will restore unto you, saith the Lord
54-0809A §16
All things beginning; cults begin; the church of God began in Genesis. You believe that? Notice, closely now, as we go into it now. Now, the two that we want to deal with today, here is my conception: that when God made man in His own image, He made him spirit man, of course, 'cause God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in Spirit and truth. Then He made man out of the dust of the earth. That's where I think botanists and so forth get their chronologies and gets all scrupled up. When you realiz...
Sirs, we would see Jesus
57-0104 §40
And let me give you sick people something right here. Jesus was... Why, He was God. God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself. He wasn't just a philosopher. He wasn't just a prophet. He was God. A woman said to me not long ago. I don't know mean to call anybody's religion. You'd know if I... the church: Christian Science. And she said to me, "Mr. Branham, you put too much emphasis on deity of Jesus Christ. You make Him a god." I said, "He wasn't a god; He was the God." She said, "Oh, Mr. Branham, He wasn'...
Souls that are in prison now
63-1110M §22
And then, see, after He'd done made man in his own image, "created He them, male and female," there was no man to till the soil, and He put him in the dust of the earth, and therefore he become---he was that man. This human man was mammal. He was animal, but He put this Spirit of God, a life into him and made him on the basis that he could make a choice. And then when this man...