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Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” (Genesis 1:26a, ESV).
Genesis 1:26, in one sentence, is the most sophisticated statement of theology in the Bible. It’s also the most in-depth philosophical summation of life ever made.
Why do I say such things?
Note the pronouns in Genesis 1:26. God didn’t say, “I’m making man in my image,” but He did say, “Let us make man in our image.” The name of God is singular, with the pronouns indicating a conversation.
Is God talking to Himself?
I don’t think so, and Genesis 1:26 with “Let us make man in our image” reveals what theologians call the Trinity — or three in one — a doctrine difficult to understand, which is fine with me, as defining an all-powerful, all-knowing, and eternal God should be mysterious.
While the concept of “three in one” most aptly describes the comment “Let Us,” all the wisdom on earth can’t fully comprehend it, and we must wait to see God (Father, Son, Spirit) in heaven, to be in His presence, to understand completely.
Seeing God on His throne, we will shout, “Hallelujah, this is amazing!”
Why is it important to have a doctrine of the Trinity? What blessings can be found in the Trinity? C.S. Lewis writes. . .
All sorts of people are fond of repeating the Christian statement that “God is love.” But they seem not to notice that the words “God is love” have no real meaning unless God contains at least two Persons. Love is something that one person has for another person. If God were a single person, then before the world was made, He was not love.
No love in the universe, what a dismal place to live; however, in the Trinity, we find a God of love, which is the theological and philosophical undermining of our ability to enjoy loving relationships.
Not only can we underpin a reason for love from the Trinity, but let’s consider the blessing of being made in the image of a trinitarian God. One of my favorite authors from the Jesus Movement was Francis Schaeffer, and he wrote about the benefits of the Trinity in his book Genesis in Space and Time. . .
It is on the basis of being made in the image of God that everything is open to man. Suddenly, personality does not slip through my fingers. I understand the possibility of fellowship and personality. I understand that because I am made in the image of God and because God is personal, both a personal relationship with God and the concept of fellowship as fellowship have validity.
Love, personality, and the ability to have a relationship all make sense when we fully understand “Let us” and “in the image.” Made in the image of God, not sun or moon or animals — only us!
And now the final blessing of marriage, where we find love, personality, and relationship combined when two become one (yes, not three), but oneness still expressed. . .
Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh (Genesis 2:24).
Naturalists and atheists can only conclude that cosmic love and relationships are nothing more than somehow and that someway the cosmos chemically burped out humans capable of relationships. Please, universe, as my mother would say to me at the meal table, “No burping.”
We are made in the image of God. We are blessed.