Welcome to Apostolic Life in the 21st Century, a podcast dedicated the teachings of the first century church. This podcast is... Dr. Bernard has dedicated his life to studying the helping believers apply its message to their daily lives. In Apostolic Life in the 21st Century, Dr. Bernard answers yours. what the Bible teaches, and how those teachings apply to everyday life. Thank you for joining us for this broadcast.
Oneness Pentecostals teach that there is no distinction of persons between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. However, when describing the creation of man, Genesis 1.26 quotes God as saying, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. Genesis 11, God observes the building of the Tower of Babel, and he again refers to himself in the plural, stating in verse 7,
Let us go down and there confound their language. Aren't these verses proof that there is more than one person in the Godhead? Well, thank you for that question. Let me start off by saying yes, Oneness Pentecostals believe that there is one personal God. As Deuteronomy 6.4 says, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord. We do believe that God has manifested himself as our Father. In creation, we do believe that God came in flesh as Jesus Christ, the Son of God. God manifests in the flesh.
And we do believe that God is the Holy Spirit. God works in our lives by His Spirit. God in action. God in personal presence. So we do believe in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But we do not believe these are three personalities. or three divine persons, quote, in the Godhead, because we don't believe the Godhead is an abstract substance that multiple persons can be in. We believe the Godhead is God singular.
So having said that, you bring up these plurals in Genesis, plural pronouns in relationship to God. I would first like to say that Thousands of times the Bible uses the singular pronoun or singular verb for God. So the overwhelming evidence, if you just want to go by grammar, the overwhelming evidence is God is singular. But you do have these few cases where plural pronouns are used of God.
It's interesting when you look at the Old Testament. Of course, the Jewish people have historically recognized the Old Testament as their Bible, and they believe in absolutely one God, no multiplicity of persons. Jewish rabbis, which I have done, does this indicate more than one person? They say absolutely not. There's standard explanation in these two places that God is addressing the angels.
that God respects the angels. Angels were present at creation, according to the book of Job, chapter 38. the angels did not participate in creating god created alone but they were present and so they what the jewish rabbis say is that god always includes his agents or his friends, his associates in his plans, even humans. And so in this case, he informed the angels that I'm going to create someone who's going to be like us.
And then the example of the Tower of Babel, I'm going down to judge and I want you to go with me and execute my judgment. So that's the traditional explanation and it fits the context very well. However, it's quite possible that something a little bit more is going on in Genesis chapter 1, the creation account. I do not think you can interpret this as more than one person participating in creation. If you do, you have several problems. Yes, Genesis 1.26
Let us make man. But then Genesis 1.27 immediately reverts to the singular. So God created man in his own image. It's singular. And then when you look at the image creature, Adam. Now you can describe Adam in many ways. He has body, soul, spirit, mind, will. personality, what have you. But at the end of the day, Adam is one person with one personality, with one will. And as such, the Bible says he's the image of his creator.
Well, if the image is one person with one will, then that means the reflection, he's a reflection of the reality, God, he would be one person, one will. So it actually proves the opposite. And then you also have the explicit statement of Scripture in Isaiah 44-24. I'm going to use the New King James. Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, and he who formed you from the womb, I am the Lord who makes all things, who stretches out the heavens all alone, who spreads abroad the earth by myself.
So God is very clear. When I created the world, heaven and earth, I did it alone and I did it by myself. So he wasn't talking to a co-creator or to another person. If you do say that, well, God is speaking, according to Genesis 1. If God is a trinity, then the trinity is speaking to someone else. So now you've got a fourth person. So I don't think that's a credible explanation. Probably the simplest explanation that I would give, it's the plural of deliberation.
So God is wanting to be intentional. He's wanting to show, I create everything by my word, but when I came to humans, they were so special, so unique, the apex of my creation. I molded them. And I breathed into them. This was very intentional. Not an accident. Not just a side thought. And so as part of that, let us make man. Just like I would say in planning my day. Let's see, what am I going to do today? literally let's see let us see am I talking to another person no
Am I split personality? No, I am deliberating. And in fact, Ephesians 1.11 says, God works all things together after the counsel of his own will. So God is counseling. within himself. showing us how important our creation was to him now there is even a thought too as well that in romans 5 it talks about adam created in the image of him who was to come that is christ jesus
So think about it this way. When God created Adam and Eve, he wanted people to have fellowship with him, to love him, to have communion with him. But they fell into sin. That broke the fellowship. At least that temporarily skewed God's plan. So then the question becomes, if God knows all things, why would he even create humans that would fail, that wouldn't fulfill his purpose?
And the answer is because he also had a plan of redemption to restore humans so that at least some of them could fulfill his original purpose. So in other words, in God's plan, Jesus Christ comes first. And the Bible even says that in Revelation. The lamb slain from the foundation of the world. 1 Peter 1.
The lamb was foreordained from the foundation of the world. So before God even created Adam and Eve, he already had the plan of redemption through Jesus Christ. So could it be there's a more profound statement in Genesis 1.26? God looking forward not to some other person sitting side by side but looking at that child to be born that true human being who was God manifest in the flesh but nevertheless a true human a baby a child a young man
A man who was crucified, who died, rose again. Could it be that God was looking forward and saying, let us. create man not just speaking of the original creation but the recreation that would come through the redemption so possibly it is a hint or an early sign of the future plan of redemption Through Jesus Christ our Lord. So I've given you several possible explanations. Different people put different weights on the probability. But what is clear.
is that the language doesn't require another person. And when you read the rest of the Bible, the language excludes the idea of another person. I see it as a beautiful statement of God's creative plan for the human race. Thank you for joining us for today's broadcast. We hope you'll make plans to join us again next. And once again we take a look at how the Bible applies to our everyday lives.