When God said, “Let Us make man in Our image” (Gen 1:26), to whom was He speaking?
We have now arrived at Deuteronomy 6, one of the most important passages for believing parents. Remember that this book is based on the premise that one generation dies, and the next generation needs to learn God’s ways from them before that happens! The first great truth to be communicated is called the Shema (from the Hebrew word for “Hear”). It refers to these lines in chapter 6:4-5, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.” This became a centerpiece of the morning and evening Jewish prayer services. And while Jews see this as a declaration of monotheism, and therefore excluding the idea that the Son and the Holy Spirit also are God, the Lord Jesus Himself quotes the Shema in its entirety in answer to a scribe’s query about the most important commandment (Mk 12:28-30). Obviously the One who said, “I and My Father are one” (Jn 10:30) did not believe it contradicted the Shema. The Hebrew word for “one,” ehhad, can mean a “unit” within a unity. It is in this sense that the word is used regarding marriage: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” (Gen 2:24). We believe this complex unity, versus a solitary oneness, is necessary because God is love. Before there were any creatures to love, if there was not the fellowship of the Divine Persons, then God’s love would be self-love, a distortion of the very essence of love. But the Father and Son were eternally linked in the Spirit of love (see Rom 5:5; 15:30). And the God who so loved us as to give both His Son and His Spirit to us should have our wholehearted love in return.