Most Christians learn early that Genesis 1:26 hints at the Trinity. God says "let us make humankind in our image," and the explanation follows naturally: the Father is talking to the Son and Spirit.

The problem is the text doesn't support this reading.

Look at what happens in the very next verse. Genesis 1:26 uses plural language—"let us make"—but Genesis 1:27 immediately switches to singular: "So God created humankind in his image." If the point was to show three divine persons creating together, why does the text abandon plural language the moment creation actually happens?

This isn't a minor detail. It's a textual pattern that undermines the standard interpretation.

The Announcement Problem

The phrase "let us make humankind" reads like an announcement to a group. But if that group is the Trinity—three co-eternal, co-omniscient persons—the announcement makes no sense. Why would God need to inform the Son and Spirit about something they already know?

Orthodox Trinitarian theology holds that all three persons share the same divine knowledge. They don't need briefings. They don't discover information. An announcement to beings who already possess complete knowledge is logically incoherent.

The text presents "let us" as a declaration to an audience. The Trinity interpretation requires us to ignore what the grammar is doing.

The Plural of Majesty Doesn't Work Either

When the Trinity reading gets challenged, the fallback explanation is usually the "plural of majesty"—the idea that ancient royalty used "we" to refer to themselves.

Hebrew grammarians have been clear about this: the plural of majesty does not exist in Hebrew verbs or pronouns. It applies only to nouns.

Joüon and Muraoka state plainly: "The we of majesty does not exist in Hebrew." Old Testament scholar Claus Westermann declared this explanation "completely abandoned today." Professor Gerhard F. Hasel noted "there are no certain examples of plurals of majesty with either verbs or pronouns."

The phrase "let us make" is a verbal form. The plural of majesty explanation is linguistically invalid for this passage.

What the Ancient World Knew

Every Ancient Near Eastern religion recognized a divine council—a gathering of gods who met to make decisions about cosmic and earthly matters. In Ugaritic texts, the high god El presides over this council, whose function is maintaining order in both divine and earthly realms.

Divine council scenes in ancient texts always contain the same elements: multiple deities, a formal setting, judgment, and legal language. This wasn't unique to one culture. It was the standard framework across the ancient Mediterranean world.

The biblical authors wrote within this cultural context. They used similar imagery—not because they were polytheists, but because they were correcting pagan distortions of spiritual realities their audience already understood.

When God says "let us make humankind in our image," he's addressing his heavenly court. The plural language fits the Ancient Near Eastern context perfectly. It's an announcement to the divine council, the assembly of spiritual beings who serve under God's authority.

Two Kinds of Imagers

This raises an obvious question: if God is speaking to heavenly beings about creating humans "in our image," does that mean humans and angels share the same status?

Yes. Both are imagers of God.

Modern scholarship on the image of God, informed by Ancient Near Eastern studies, reveals that "image" language appeared across Mesopotamian and Near Eastern cultures. Kings were called "images" of their deities, ruling with delegated divine authority.

The image of God is best understood as a functional role. It's not about possessing certain qualities like rationality or morality. It's about representation. Humans represent God on earth. Heavenly beings represent God in the spiritual realm. Both exercise delegated authority in their respective domains.

This explains the plural language in Genesis 1:26. God is creating earthly representatives who will mirror the function of his heavenly representatives. Both groups are imagers. Both bear God's authority. Both operate in different spheres of creation.

The Council in Action

Six passages in the Old Testament explicitly show God's council functioning: 1 Kings 22:19–23, Job 1:6–12, Job 2:1–7, Isaiah 6, Zechariah 3, and Daniel 7.

In 1 Kings 22:19, the prophet Micaiah has a vision of Yahweh seated among "the whole host of heaven" standing on his right and left. God asks, "Who will entice Ahab?" A spirit volunteers to be a lying spirit in the mouths of Ahab's prophets. God approves the plan.

This scene reveals how the council operates. God has decreed Ahab's death, but he invites the council to propose how it will happen. The council members have volition. They can suggest plans. But their suggestions remain subject to God's approval.

God doesn't need the council. He chooses to involve them. He's a relational being who invites participation in his governance, even though he remains sovereign over every outcome.

Freedom and Its Consequences

Both humans and heavenly beings share another attribute beyond imaging status: freedom.

This freedom is essential to genuine representation. Without the ability to choose, beings cannot truly image God, who is himself a free and sovereign being. But freedom includes the capacity to rebel.

The biblical narrative shows that both human and divine imagers exercised this freedom to rebel. The Sons of God in Genesis 6 crossed boundaries and violated their assigned roles. Humans did the same in Genesis 3.

Rebellion isn't just doing wrong. It's claiming the authority to define good and evil independently of God. In Genesis 1, God repeatedly declares creation "good." He defines what is tov. Eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil represents humans asserting autonomy—deciding for themselves what is good, effectively usurping God's authority.

This is why rebellion appears in both realms. Freedom is built into the imaging role. The capacity for rebellion is an intrinsic risk of creating free representatives.

Why God Chose This System

God knew rebellion was inevitable. He's omniscient. He understood that granting freedom to imperfect beings would lead to failure.

He created them anyway.

The alternative—creating robotic, unfree agents—wouldn't fulfill his purpose. God values authentic relationship with his creatures. That requires freedom and the possibility of rejection. A world without freedom would be a world without love, trust, or genuine worship. Only forced obedience.

The presence of rebellion and evil is tragic. But it's preferable to a universe of unfree, unresponsive beings. God's governance balances sovereignty with genuine participation. He can work through human and divine failures to accomplish his purposes while preserving creaturely freedom.

Biblical narratives like 1 Kings 22 show this dynamic. God allows free agents to make choices, even rebellious ones, while ensuring his will is fulfilled. This preserves both divine sovereignty and meaningful participation by God's imagers.

The New Testament Shift

In the Old Testament, "holy ones" (Hebrew qedoshim, Greek hagioi) primarily refers to members of the heavenly host—supernatural beings who serve God in his heavenly realm.

The New Testament adopts this term to describe human believers.

This isn't just semantic. It signals a profound theological shift. Humans are being incorporated into God's divine family and heavenly assembly. The language creates a conceptual link between the divine council and the church.

Believers are "partakers of the divine nature" (2 Peter 1:4), being conformed to the image of Christ through glorification. They're described as a "holy priesthood" (1 Peter 2:9), mediating God's presence and rule on earth—paralleling the function of the divine council in heaven.

The New Testament portrays the church as the reconstituted divine council. Believers are destined to "judge angels" and reign with Christ (1 Corinthians 6:3, Revelation 2:26–28). This indicates a restored and elevated status, fulfilling humanity's original purpose as divine representatives on earth.

The shift in terminology reveals the continuity of God's plan from creation through redemption to ultimate glorification. Humanity's destiny is to participate in God's cosmic governance as his holy, royal family.

What This Changes

Understanding the divine council framework transforms how you read Scripture. It shifts the focus from individualistic salvation to corporate identity within God's cosmic family.

Faith becomes participatory. Believers aren't just forgiven sinners. They're members of a vast, interconnected divine-human family that spans heaven and earth. They're being transformed to share in God's authority, judgment, and stewardship over creation.

This elevates the believer's role from passive recipient to royal priest and co-ruler with Christ. It reframes salvation as restoration and elevation into God's family and governance, fulfilling the original Edenic purpose.

The cosmic family structure challenges individualistic notions of faith. It encourages a holistic, kingdom-oriented lifestyle focused on community, worship, and shared mission.

The Most Common Misunderstanding

The biggest objection to the divine council paradigm is that it threatens monotheism. If there are other divine beings in God's council, doesn't that imply polytheism?

No. The divine council framework is deeply monotheistic.

It portrays Yahweh as the supreme sovereign who created and rules over all other divine beings. These beings are subordinate. They don't share his divine essence. They're part of his created order, not rivals to his authority.

The Hebrew word elohim refers to any disembodied being not restricted to the material realm. Yahweh is an elohim. There are many other elohim. But there is only one omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, uncreated, morally perfect elohim—Yahweh.

Despite using the same term, biblical writers never qualitatively equate Yahweh with demons, angels, the human disembodied dead, or the gods of the nations. Yahweh is unique and above these entities. The semantic range preserves monotheism while acknowledging other spiritual beings exist in God's created order.

The divine council doesn't diminish God's uniqueness. It clarifies difficult biblical texts by showing that references to "gods" or "sons of God" are not rivals to Yahweh but members of his heavenly administration.

What You Walk Away With

God's sovereignty is exercised through a relational, delegated system involving free agents—both heavenly and human. His governance is dynamic and participatory, inviting his creation into partnership rather than mere subservience.

This enriches our view of God's character as both sovereign and relational, powerful yet graciously inclusive. It helps you appreciate the complexity and richness of biblical theology and God's gracious governance of creation.

When you read "let us make humankind in our image," you're not reading a cryptic reference to the Trinity. You're reading an announcement to God's heavenly court about the creation of earthly representatives who will mirror the function of heavenly ones.

Both groups are imagers. Both bear God's authority. Both have freedom. Both have the capacity to rebel. And both are invited into the cosmic family God is building—a family that spans heaven and earth, united in representing the one true God who rules over all.