Who Is God Talking About When He Says “Us”?

Hey Andy, in Genesis, why would God monologue to Himself about the humans eating the fruit of life? If He isn’t doing a monologue to Himself, who is God talking about when He says “us”?

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Hi, so who was God talking to when He said “us”? There are several thoughts and understandings about this, so let’s first look one of the most common theories:

Was God Speaking to the Angels?

You may hear some saying that God was speaking to the angels. This sort of makes sense, for the understanding is that they were probably created by this time. However, God didn’t create the angels in His image, only Man did He create in His image. It would be like looking at your dog and saying, “let us create something that looks like us”.

Also, Paul tells us that we will one day judge the angels, so we can’t be made in the image of both our Judge and the ones that we are to judge.

Also, angels are not “like” God. Satan challenged this and got his butt handed to him.

“Us” as the Trinity

You know, I continue to hear people say that there’s no mention of the Trinity of God in the Old Testament. However, continue reading for more information on that:

The Trinity: God the Holy Spirit

Open your (or a) Bible and take a look at Genesis 1:1-2 for a moment. Notice that in the beginning, the “Spirit of God” was hovering over the waters. That’s actually the first mention of the Holy Spirit.

The Trinity: God the Son

Later in the Old Testament, when it mentions “The Angel of the Lord”, the person often first recognizes it as an angel, but then calls it “Lord”, and worships it. Well, God tells us to worship only Him, so only God is to be worshipped, not angels. John tried to worship the angel speaking to him, twice! Both times, the angel snapped at him telling never to bow to him, for he’s just a servant of God like John is.

Therefore, that “Angel of the Lord” has to be God — “God the Son” (a.k.a., Jesus before His incarnation).

The Trinity: God (the Father)

Then there’s evidence that the Patriarchs recognized God as a triune being. For instance, the word for “God” that they used in the Hebrew is plural, yet always used with a singular verb.

So what all this suggests is that the writer of Genesis (Moses) was already familiar with the Holy Trinity.

Now remember, John 1 tells us that Jesus (God the Son) was the one who created everything that exists, thus bringing us back to Genesis 1. So with that in mind, when God (the Son) was speaking about creating humankind in “our” image (“us”), it’s believed and understood that He was speaking to His 2 other parts: God the Father and God the Holy Spirit.