The little multicell thing in the woman's womb there, it's not praying. Okay?
It's not communing with God. It's not self-aware. I mean, it's none of these things.
A lot of these are all actually linked to brain function.
And this view has actually been used by ethicists,
some of whom will call themselves Christian, but many who won't,
to say, look, that means life isn't sacred. I mean, you Christians are crazy.
Life isn't sacred until you get brain development.
And so you look at Genesis from the very beginning, "let us make man in our image."
"let us make man in our image."
You know, who's the "us" there? Because I've heard it taught; this is the Trinity.
I know you're a Trinitarian. Like, is that the Trinity?
You know, because I've heard it taught, hey, the "us" there.
Yeah, I don't think it is. I'm gonna see if I can find a Genesis reference here really quickly.
But I will... just in regard to the language of Genesis 1:26,
you know, "let us create humankind,"
humanity, mankind, whatever your translation says, "in our image."
Yeah,
You know, "and our likeness."
And then the next verse, it switches back to the singulars.
Yes.
So God created them in his image and his likeness.
So it's really weird, because people have noticed;
you got this plural stuff going on, and you got the singular stuff.
And so the default explanation has been Trinity.
Yeah.
I would say if that's the only verse that was like this,
you could probably get away with that.
Okay. Yeah.
The problem is, it isn't. If you go over to Genesis 11. Let me just read this.
It says, "And the LORD (and it's the Divine Name, it's Yahweh. it's all small caps.)
And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower,
which the children the man had built." This is the Tower of Babel passage.
So the Lord comes down, Yahweh comes down to, let's check this out.
"And the Lord said, Behold, they're all one people, they've all one language,
this is only the beginning of what they will do,
and nothing they propose to do will now be impossible for them."
Now, catch this, "Come, let us go down."
And wait a minute, he was already down. So if the "us" here is the Trinity,
like, all three persons should be there.
You know, I mean, if God is one, that just sounds kind of weird.
Now what he's referring to is, again, the heavenly host.
And so there are a lot of reasons to take the heavenly host in Genesis 1:26,
where God, when he says, "Let's create humankind in our image."
He's speaking to a group, his other family really,
because humans haven't been created yet.
And he's making an announcement about what he wants to do.
And when it comes down to doing it, you don't have humanity created by many gods.
Yes.
I mean, that's History Channel theology right there. Okay.
You don't have humanity created by many gods,
you have singular creations verbs all over the Hebrew Bible,
but especially right there.
So, you know, the Trinity thing.
Again, it doesn't work when you start to bring in other passages here.
And not only that, but why would God
have to make an announcement to the other members of the Trinity?
They didn't learn anything? You know, like,
we don't need the announcement, we already know,
because we're like, you know, we're you too.
So is that point to the partnership?
I mean, he obviously, you mentioned it before; Family, Partnership,
Right. So why are the plurals there?
Yeah.
Now, I think to answer that adequately, we'll try to condense it here,
you have to understand what the image is.
Okay, I am opposed to the qualitative view of the image;
that the image refers to a quality, an attribute given to humans
because there's lots of reasons to oppose this.
It cannot be said that all humans at all stages of life's existence,
have whatever this quality is,
and there's a whole grocery list that the theologians have proposed;
self-awareness, the ability to pray, language, I mean, there's like 12-15 of these.
Okay
The biblical teaching is that whatever the image is, it's not bestowed incrementally.
It distinguishes humanity from everything else in the earthly creation here.
And it's both male and female, there's no growth in it. It doesn't develop,
There's no development, there's no stages.
There. It's just there. To be human is to be whatever this is.
And if you make it a quality, you can't say those things.
I see.
You know, the little multicell thing in the woman's womb there,
it's not praying. Okay? It's not communing with God.
It's not self-aware. I mean, it's none of these things.
A lot of these are all actually linked to brain function.
And this view has actually been used by ethicists,
some of whom will call themselves Christian, but many who won't,
to say, look, that means life isn't sacred. I mean, you Christians are crazy.
Life isn't sacred until you get brain development.
You know, it really has dark ethical implications,
but we don't realize that because we're just sort of taught to think this way.
And I'm opposed to that.
What the image really is, it's not a quality, the image is a status or function.
Okay.
And again, you could read on Unseen Realm
for the Hebrew grammatical reasons for this,
but we are better off translating the passage,
"Let us create humankind as our image." To represent, you know.
So something distinct, completely distinct from everything,
because he had just created other species, other animals.
This is the lone creation on Earth, that is now going to be my proxy.
Okay.
It's going to represent me. It's as though.... this has big implications.
This is why idolatry is insane in biblical theology.
We don't need to make idols. Okay, we are the representation of God.
So you're saying we're his idol.
Right, God is supposed to be…
Now, that's gonna trip some people off. That thought process.
Right. If you think about it perversely, like God is supposed to worship.
Yeah, no, no, I don't mean... what I just even that concept.
Right, we are His visible representation.
You know, and Jesus is the ultimate imager,
"He that has seen me has seen the Father."
I mean, that's the nth degree, the ultimate example of this.
But the idea is the same
that God puts us here to function in his place, as his partner.
Yeah.
And the plurals are essentially that
what we do here to represent our Creator mimes or imitates,
reflects, is in sync with the family he created in the spiritual world.
So that the plurals actually a link us to them, to the heavenly host,
and to God in some way,
and the son some way is this symbiotic relationship, this "as in heaven."
As God's family and bureaucracy and partnerships working up there.
That's the way it's supposed to work down here.
And, you know, we know that that gets undermined and destroyed with the fall
and we've got rebellions in the supernatural world.
I mean, the whole thing explodes in the early chapters of Genesis,
and then it carries through to Revelation.
But this is really what's going on with the plural.
I like to use the illustration, you know, I'm a single,
I'm Mike. I'm one guy. If I walk into a room and say,
"Hey, let us get pizza. Let us get lunch." Okay.
That does sound really good, by the way.
There you go. Especially pizza. Okay, so now I'm hopelessly distracted.
But if I do that, and I choose the toppings, I choose the place we get it.
I pay, we go in my car to get it, but I let you eat. You got the idea.
Yes.
Okay. It's this thing where God doesn't lose his unique creator status here.
Sure.
But what he's doing is he's looping other parts of creation in with it,
and he's announcing this to his heavenly hosts.
Here's what we're gonna do.
He's the only one that does it. And this is consistent in the Hebrew Bible;
verbs of creation, where humanity is the object of creation are always singular,
they're always singular.
You know, you never have this. Again, the gods are participating, you know.
like, you don't have that. That is...
There's only one creator.
Only one creator. That's pagan polytheism.
So, even though you have the plural language here
the text is very clear; God is the only creator of the world
and human beings.
But the plurals are important because they connect
that world and this world.