Who really is the God of Genesis?
by Russell Grigg
The God of Genesis is not someone whom Christians share with Islam,
modern-day non-Messianic Judaism,1 Hinduism, Jehovah’s
Witnesses, Unitarians, or any other belief system which rejects the divinity of
the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Rather, unlike those systems, Genesis portrays
the God of Christianity (the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob) to be the God who
is not only one, but is also more than one.
The very first verse of the Bible reads: ‘In the beginning
God (plural) created (singular) the heavens and the earth’ (Genesis
1:1). Moses, the author of Genesis
under the direction of the Holy Spirit, chose to use the Hebrew plural term elohim
for God,2 rather than the singular el3
or the singular poetic form eloah. But he does use the singular form of
the verb ‘created’!
Besides elohim, Moses also used other plural forms with reference to God
in Genesis. Genesis 1:26 reads, ‘Then
God said, “Let us make [plural] man in our [plural] image.”’4 Here Moses uses the singular verb ‘said’,
but quotes God as using a plural verb and a plural pronoun with reference to Himself.
See also
Genesis 11:7, where God says, ‘Let us go down and
confuse their language.’
Why did Moses use these plural forms?
Some have suggested that this plurality is merely a plural of majesty, like the
‘royal we’ grandly used by kings, queens and others today. However,
the kings of Israel and Judah were all addressed in the singular in the Bible accounts.
Linguist Dr Charles Taylor says:
‘Nobody is in a position to show that in Moses’ day
or earlier, people were in the habit of addressing kings and princes in the plural.
In fact, there is no evidence at all from the Bible itself, and the Bible is one
of the oldest books there is.’5
Others have gone further and said that elohim shows that God includes within
Himself plurality of powers, attributes and personhood. With this we agree. Elohim
is a plural noun with a singular meaning. The Old Testament writers
used it over 2,500 times, usually with singular verbs and adjectives (as in Genesis
1:1), implying that God is one, yet more than one—what some commentators have
referred to as the ‘uniplurality’ of the Godhead.6
So does this ‘uniplurality’ or ‘plurality of personhood’
refer to the Trinity?
Second Person: the Word of God
The doctrine of the Trinity was not, and could not be, fully formulated or understood
until the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Trinity, in
the New Testament (see box). After Jesus came, one of His titles was revealed in
John 1:1–14 to be ‘the Word’ (Greek logos), and
note that ‘the Word was God’
(John 1:1, emphasis added). If we reread Genesis chapter 1 with this in mind, we
find that everything that God created on each of the six days of Creation Week was
by His word. The formula God used on each day was ‘And
God said …’, and it was so.
God’s name
The root meaning of elohim is ‘the powerful one’, and so elohim
stresses God’s omnipotence. As such, it was a particularly appropriate term
for Moses to have used to describe the Creator God of Creation Week.
‘His power is seen much more clearly in creating many diverse objects and
beings in a short time, than it can be seen in a long, drawn-out evolutionary timetable.’1
Although generally thought of as a name for God, elohim is rather a title
or a descriptive expression. The truly personal name of God is the one He revealed
to Moses at the burning bush (Exodus
3:15), namely YHWH, often transliterated Yahweh or in
English as Jehovah and written in capitals, LORD. It means ‘I am
who I am’ and so means ‘the self-existent one’ or ‘the one
who causes to be’. It is used of God’s personal relationship
with Adam and Eve in
Genesis chapters 2 and 3,2 where Moses uses
the combined term Yahweh elohim, which the translators have rendered as
‘the Lord God’.
References and notes
- Taylor, C.V., The First Hundred Words,
The Good Book Co., Gosford, NSW, Australia, p. 3, 1996. Return to text.
- As well as of God’s covenant relationship
with His people. Return to text.
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We should note that although this activity of the Son of God is not defined
at this stage in Genesis, it is clearly confirmed in the New Testament,
which explicitly states that God created everything through Jesus.
For example,
Colossians 1:16 reads: ‘For by Him
[the Son of God (v.
15)] all things were created.’7
Thus, the heavens and the earth and all things in them came into being, not through
self-causation or evolutionary natural processes, but by the divinely powerful,
intelligent will of God, operating through the Son of God. Furthermore, the same
Son is ‘upholding all things by the word of His power’
(Hebrews
1:3; cf.
Colossians 1:17).
Third Person: the Spirit of God
Genesis 1:2 reads, ‘… and the Spirit of God
was hovering over the face of the waters’. The Hebrew word
ruach used by Moses can mean ‘spirit’, ‘wind’ or
‘breath’, with the choice being determined by the context.
So did Moses mean to say that a wind was fanning the waters, or that the Spirit
of God8 was participating in the creation event, particularly
with regard to making the unfinished earth habitable?
Answer: The participle ‘hovering’ does not adequately describe
the blowing of a wind. And if the text merely says that at the start of all the
momentous events of Creation Week a wind was blowing, we might reasonably ask, ‘So what?’ We conclude that it was Moses’ intention
to tell us that ‘despite the fact the earth was not then habitable, all was
under the control of God’s Spirit’.9
Conclusion
We should be wary of using as proof texts any verses of the Bible which the author
did not originally write with that purpose in mind. So it is probably better not
to say that Genesis 1 explicitly teaches the Trinity.
Having said this, we need to emphasize that we should expect that the wording of
Genesis would not contradict later biblical teaching about the Son of God or about
the Holy Spirit. In fact, we find that the terms Moses used by
divine inspiration in writing Genesis are completely in harmony with the Bible’s
later and fuller revelation in the New Testament about all three Persons of the
Trinity (see box).
Genesis affirms, from the very first verse of the Bible, that the Creator God is
truly one God. This is taught in the famous Shema (Hebrew for ‘hear’)
from Deuteronomy 6:4: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God
is one Lord.’ But even here, the word for ‘one’ is
echad, which is often used for plurality within the oneness.
E.g. in
Genesis 2:24 (which Jesus cited in
Matthew 19:5,
Mark 10:8) the husband and wife (two people) shall become one (echad)
flesh.10
The rest of the Bible reveals this one God to be Father, Son and Holy Spirit—three
personal distinctions within the one eternal divine nature or essence. Thus, the
Trinity can indeed be found in Genesis 1. And it is clear that only the
God of Christianity—unique and triune—is the God of Genesis, who is
not only Creator, but also Lawgiver, Saviour and Judge.
The Tri-unity of God
 The
doctrine of the Trinity states that in the unity of the Godhead there are three
eternal and co-equal Persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the same in essence but
distinct in role—three Persons (or three centres of consciousness) and one
Being (see diagram). This doctrine is difficult to understand, but this is what
God has revealed in the Bible about His own Being, so we should believe it. For
example, at the baptism of Jesus, the Holy Spirit was seen descending and landing
upon the Son, and the voice of the Father was heard from Heaven (Matthew
3:16–17). And when Jesus gave the Great Commission, He ordered His
followers to baptize in the name (singular) of the Father, and of the Son, and of
the Holy Spirit (Matthew
28:18–20).
The different senses of oneness and threeness mean that the doctrine is not
self-contradictory. This is similar in principle to saying that the navy, army and
airforce are three distinct fighting entities, but are also one armed service. Note:
this is not to suggest that the three persons are ‘parts’ of God. Indeed,
each Person has the fullness of the Godhead (see
Colossians 2:9). A better analogy is that space contains three dimensions
(length, breadth, height), yet the dimensions are not ‘parts’—the
concept of ‘space’ is meaningless without all three dimensions.
The Trinity and the God of love
The Bible reveals, ‘God is love’ (1
John 4:8, 16). This is distinctive of the Christian faith, and means that
love is part of God’s very nature, even before He created anything. But love
requires at least two persons—self-love is not really love at all. So there
must be at least two persons in the Godhead. If God were only one person, then love
could not be part of His nature.
Love is even greater when the love between two persons is not restricted to themselves,
but is combined and directed towards another. This should happen in a family, where
the husband and wife love each other, and also combine their love towards their
child. So for God to exemplify love in its fullest sense, there must be three Persons,
so there is both individual and collective love. Any more than three is unnecessary
for collective love, because it would just increase the number of persons involved,
not the nature of the love.
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References and notes
- Modern-day non-Messianic Jews might believe that God created as
per Genesis, but they reject God’s uniplurality. Return to text.
- The first of some 2,570 times elohim is used of God in
this way in the Old Testament. Although it usually refers to the Living God, it
is also used occasionally in the Bible to refer to pagan deities (in the plural),
as in: ‘You shall have no other gods [elohim] before me’ (Exodus
20:3; cf.
Joshua 24:16;
Jeremiah 5:7). Return to text.
- Corresponding to the Greek theos, the Latin Deus,
and the English God. Return to text.
- Some antitrinitarians try to claim that God is conversing with
angels here. But there is no indication anywhere in Scripture of angels being involved
in creation, or having such creative power. And more importantly, mankind was made
in the image of God, not in the image of ‘God plus angels’—see
also
Hebrews 2. Return to text.
- Taylor, C.V., The First Hundred Words, The Good Book Co.,
Gosford, NSW, Australia, p. 3, 1996. Return to text.
- E.g. Morris, H., The Genesis Record, Baker Book House,
Grand Rapids, Michigan, p. 39, 1976. Return to text.
- See also
John 1:3;
1 Corinthians 8:6;
Hebrews 1:2. Return to text.
- Whom the Bible tells us is eternal (Hebrews
9:14), omniscient (1
Corinthians 2:10–11) and omnipresent (Psalm
139:7–10). Return to text.
- Creation and Change, Christian Focus Publications, Ross-shire, UK, p. 91, 1997,
who references Young, E., Studies in Genesis One, Presbyterian & Reformed
Publishing Co, Philadelphia, USA, p. 36, 1964. Return to text.
- Paul, thoroughly educated in Judaism and writing under the inspiration
of the Holy Spirit, understood this. In 1 Corinthians 8:6, he wrote: ‘Yet
for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom
we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and
through whom we live.’ Here, Paul is applying the Shema, using the
key phrase ‘one Lord’, and applying it to Jesus Christ, thus including
Jesus in the identity of the one true God! Return to text.
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