Carol Wrote:

Shalom,

I like to tell you about myself so you can know a little about me. I am affiliated with El Shaddai Ministries and when this offer came up to learn I decided to check it into this program. I have been a Christian for 40 years and about 8 years ago I was hungering for more that what I had learned and read in my Christian walk. The LORD in his faithfulness open the door to Mark Blitz church and even though I live in Oregon I have since been observing the Sabbath on Saturday’s and listening to Marks teachings now for 7 years.

Now this has lead me to the Root Source website and when I looked at all the lessons, I though what a better place to start is with the beginning “God” . So I am very new in all of this and I have liked what I have heard and leaned so far. But I had a question that I like to write you about. Please know I have really have liked this class and have taken notes and listen to this Lesson 4 twice now. What amazes me is your perspective on Genesis 1:26 Let us make man in our Image and likeness. My focus on the word US. I never thought of God talking about us in the future tense. What I like about this is to me it opens up a intimacy with God that He has a great plan and I am part of that plan in a deeper way than I already believe, and that in a very small way I can create my future and it will affect history. Now, I have believed that in a surface level but this brings that thinking much deeper. But here is the but, I also believe that the US represent the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is another way of looking at this.

I just wanted to get your thoughts on this also.

Thank you

Rabbi Gedalia Meyer answered:

Hi Carol,

Thank you for your comments on that class dealing with that key verse in Genesis. The wording in that verse has been a challenge and an opportunity for Jewish and Christian Bible commentators and interpreters for many centuries. Of course, the big problem is that it appears to conflict with monotheism. The rest of the entire creation story has God working in the singular without any use of a plurality of assistants or helpers. Even the creation of human beings reverts back to the singular in the very next verse (27). This dichotomy is the crux of the issue. Why does the Bible switch to plural just in this verse?

The classic rrabbinic explanation is that God is requesting the assistance of angels, but this just begs the question of why specifically here the plural is used and not anywhere else, plus why in the actual creation of human beings there is no indication of assistance by the angels. I believe that these questions would apply to any explanation along these lines involving divine assistance, including that of the Son and the Holy Ghost. It is my belief that the only way out of these problems is by the suggestion that the ‘assistance’ God wanted would not involve anything or anybody who could have helped in earlier stages of creation and who could not assist in the actual creation of human beings (as described in verse 27). Assistance coming from human beings, however, does not have these problems. They couldn’t assist in the earlier stages of creation, nor could they help in the actual creation of themselves. However, they could be involved in the ‘plan’ for the creation of human
beings (verse 26) in that they would be there all along in the ‘making’ of human beings. Judaism has a long history of making a crucial difference between the words for ‘create’ and for ‘make’. The former is the classic ‘something from nothing’ which can only be done by God. The latter is ‘something from something’ – meaning to shape and guide that creation along certain lines. There is no better helper for God in the ‘making’ of human beings than those very human beings. believe this is what you meant by ‘in a very small way I can create my future and it will affect history’.

I hope this helps out a bit in your lifelong spiritual search and I look forward to more correspondence with you.