Quote:
Originally Posted by FaithHopeLove
Berean Standard Bible
Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness, to rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, and over all the earth itself and every creature that crawls upon it.”
https://biblehub.com/genesis/1-26.htm
From what I believe to understand, God is an entity. There is God the Father who is the Creator, God in the Son who is Yeshua Hamaschiach the Messiah, and God in the Holy Spirit and God in His Word. These 4 are all part of God's entity so when we refer to God, we should be specific as in to which part of Him we are referring to. The Word of God is alive and living. So, we know even the Word of God is part of God Himself.
Why is God referred to as a He and not a she? I believe when referring to the whole entity of GOD, GOD is referred to as a He because GOD is the HEAD, not humans. God's church is referred to as the counterpart, who are the people of GOD who needs GOD as their HEAD so it really reflects the husband and wife aspect of that. I believe the scripture says that God is a spirit so there is no gender like humans.
Even after we die and resurrect with God, our bodies transform and we are no longer in this flesh divided by gender.
So when GOD says LET US make man in OUR image, isn't it clear that they are in a meeting and conversing with one another? Do we have then, 4 GODS? The Father, the Son, the Spirit and the Word? This is something people ask me too. Well, we may have 4 " persons " but they all have the same life inside. The life of God that rules over well, as far as I believe, Earth. God's not created, so where does God come from?
This, I honestly, don't know. If anyone has answers, please do share.
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Welcome to the forum, FaithHopeLove!
You make such an interesting observation about the Word being God. I wonder why so many hold to a "God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit" view and yet don't add "God the Word" into the mix. Or why it's not "God the Father, God the Word, and God the Holy Spirit" when John 1 seems to show the Word is the term used prior to incarnation.
Anyway, things to think about.
I think even among Trinitarians, there isn't necessarily agreement on what the "Let US" in Genesis 1:26 is referring to. Since the Bible is clear that the Son was involved at creation, and says that the Son is the image of the invisible God, some believe the "Us" is simply God the Father speaking to His Son....God being the source of creation, and the Son being the agent through which everything was created. In other words, if the Son is the image of God, then explaining the verse as simply the Father saying to the Son "let us make man in our image" isn't dissonant with Scripture because we would be in the image of God and of the One who is Himself already the image of God. There isn't consensus on it, but this verse might not necessarily be a verse pointing to a three-in-one God (or a four-in-one God). It doesn't negate it, but given the rest of what Scripture says about creation, it may not be the "entity" verse it's often been thought of.
I don't think I worded that very well, but.....there you go.
Among Christian apologists, most will say that there must be what is called "an uncaused first cause". In other words, there must be something/someone that is the initial cause of all creation, but that something/someone must itself/himself be uncaused, ever-existing. Some people try to claim that the universe itself is the "uncaused first cause", that it is the universe that is eternal and just always existed, and that nothing caused it. Except if that was true, if the universe simply always existed, then all the stars would have burned out a long, long, long time ago. There has to be a hard beginning for the universe to operate the way it does. And so that (and many other things) point to the existence of something outside the universe that caused the universe....and whatever that thing is, that's what people mean by "God". If someone wants to say "well God must have a cause, or must be created", well, okay, then whatever caused God to exist.....THAT is the thing we actually mean by "God".
The Bible says God alone is immortal. I can't wrap my head around it, but....He's the basis of all our reality. Keeps me up at night occasionally!
Trapped