Christ in the Old Testament, pt. 1 - A Study by Scott Sperling   [Here we begin a series that deals with references to Christ, to the Christian life, to Christian doctrine, etc., as found in the Old Testament writings. A goal of these studies is to convince ourselves that the Bible is one unified book: a single book, with unified themes, and a consistent Theology.] The Creation and the Trinity - Genesis 1:26-27 26  Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” 27   So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. As far as I can tell, the first reference to Christ in the Bible, subtle though it may be, is found here in Gen. 1:26-27.  In vs. 26, there is a conspicuous use of plural pronouns, translated in English as “…us…”, “…our…”, and “…our…”. The best explanation of the use of these pronouns here is that they are referring to a plurality of persons in the God-head (as John Calvin terms it). This is a foreshadowing of the Christian concept of the Trinity, that is, that God is one unified being, consisting of three persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We know that the plural pronouns (“us/our/our”) cannot be referring to multiple gods, because we are taught many places in the Bible that there is only one true God. For instance, God Himself instructed Moses (see Deut. 6:1) to teach the children of Israel: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one” (Deut. 6:4). And God Himself testified through Isaiah: “This is what the Lord says—Israel’s King and Redeemer, the Lord Almighty: I am the first and I am the last; apart from me there is no God” (Isa. 44:6). And so, the “us/our/our” in Gen. 1:26 cannot be referring to multiple gods. The Bible would never testify to such a thing. The most prevalent explanation among conservative commentators of this peculiar use of plural pronouns (the “us/our/our”) is, as stated above, that they are referring to the plurality of persons in the God-head, a subtle reference to the Trinity. There have been attempts at explaining the plural pronouns in other ways, but these alternate explanations have problems, and none of them have garnered popular support among commentators and scholars. Here are some attempted alternate explanations: 1. God is speaking to angels – This is an explanation given by some Jewish scholars [see Lange, 173]. But this explanation does not hold up because that would imply that man is made in the image of angels (God said, “Let us make man in our image…”). There is no indication in the Bible that we are made in the image of angels. Moreover, there is also no indication in the Bible that the angels are involved in any way in the creation of man. 2. God is speaking to the earth – This explanation stems from the language used in the creation of vegetation (vs. 11), and animals (vs. 24), where it says, “…Let the land produce…”  But again, this is not a satisfactory explanation of the use of the plural pronouns, because man is not made in the “image” of the earth. 3. God is using the plural as a way of enhancing His majesty – This is what we would call “using the royal ‘we’”, just as some monarchs in history would refer to themselves with the plural pronoun “we”. But this explanation is an anachronism. There is no evidence, either in the Bible or elsewhere, that a plural pronoun was used in this way. Also, linguistically, the Hebrew use here would not support that the pronoun enhances the majesty of the speaker (see Lange, 173). And so, by far the best explanation of the use of the plural pronouns here, especially given the revelation that we have of Jesus Christ as the deific Son of God, is that the three persons of the Trinity are taking counsel in the important act of creating man in the image of God. Other commentators are in agreement: “Only a plurality of persons can justify the phrase. Hence we are forced to conclude that the plural pronoun indicates a plurality of persons or hypostases in the Divine Being” [Murphy, 63]. “This form of expression conveys the idea of counsel and agreement—and suggests that the work was done in wisdom and love. It is not at all inappropriate language when we know that there are three Persons in the Godhead… And though this plural form of the verb is not, in itself, reason sufficient for the doctrine of the Trinity, yet, taken with other and more direct passages, it is strongly confirmatory of it” [Jacobus, 77]. “We may not affirm that a Trinity of Persons, or even a Plurality of Persons, in the Godhead, could have been concluded a priori  from such a passage as this; but what we are authorized to assert, a posteriori, is,—that since ‘spiritual things are to be compared with spiritual’ (1 Cor. 2:13), and Scripture is to be interpreted from itself, and since the doctrine of the Trinity has been clearly revealed in other parts of Holy Scripture, especially in the New Testament; and since all Christians are baptized into a belief of that doctrine, and it is the received doctrine of the Church of Christ, therefore the true interpretation of this passage of Scripture is that which has been stated above, and which is sanctioned by the universal consent of the greatest Teachers of the Church, both in ancient and later days” [Wordsworth, 8]. “The ancient Christians with one mind see in these words of God that plurality in the Divine unity, which was more fully revealed, when God sent His only begotten Son into the world, and when the only begotten Son, who was in the bosom of the Father, declared Him to mankind” [Cook, 35]. “The three Persons of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, consult about [the creation of man], and concur in it, because man, when he was made, was to be dedicated and devoted to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Into  that great name we are with good reason baptized, for to that great name, we owe our being” [Henry, 6]. It makes sense that the Trinity should be referenced in the creation narrative, because the Bible testifies that all three persons of the Trinity (the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit) took part in creating the heavens and the earth. The Holy Spirit is mentioned early on in the creation narrative: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters” (Gen. 1:1-2). The hovering presence of the Spirit of God, seems to suggest that He’s involved as the acting agent in the creation. So when God says, Let there be light, we may infer that it is the Spirit of God who puts into effect the light. We are told explicitly that the second person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ, was involved in the creation. “In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe” (Heb. 1:1-2). And John tells us, concerning Christ as the Word: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made” (John 1:1-3). And Paul teaches: “The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him” (Col. 1:15-16). Paul also speaks of both the Father’s and the Son’s involvement in the creation: “For even if there are so- called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as indeed there are many ‘gods’ and many ‘lords’), 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” (1 Cor.  8:5-6). So, given that all three persons of the Trinity were involved in the creation, it is natural that we would find a reference to them in the creation narrative. When one realizes that the plural pronouns (the “us/our/our” in Gen. 1:26-27) refer to the plurality of persons of which God consists, one might find also subtle indications that there are exactly three persons. Note that there are three plural pronouns used in verse 26: “…us… our… our…” Note also, in verse 27, the creation poem contains a triple parallelism: “So God created mankind in his own image,   in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” Now, admittedly, these subtle references to the three- ness of the Trinity are not definitive for doctrinal purposes, but such literary subtleties, which are often found in the Bible, speak to my spirit of the inspiration of the Bible. When reading and studying literature and poetry, literary scholars naturally look for the use of literary devices, such as symbolism and foreshadowing, in literary works, because they know that literary authors do such things. So, if in a literary work, there is a theme revealed late in the work of the three-ness of some aspect of the main character (say, three peculiar talents, or three ways the character shows love to another character, or some such thing), a literary scholar, if he or she found a subtle reference to three-ness early in the work, would naturally conclude that the author was foreshadowing the three-ness that was to be revealed later in the work. Now, we who believe in the Divine inspiration of the Bible, believe that each word in the Bible is Divinely inspired. We also believe that the Bible contains a single communication, a unified work that reveals the works, the person, and the plan of God. So, if when we reach the end of reading the Bible, we find that we can discern the doctrine of the Trinity, that God consists of three persons (the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit), then we should not be surprised to see subtle references to the Trinity found throughout the Bible, just as a literary scholar would not be surprised to find such things in a literary work. The literary scholar knows that literary authors, as part of expressing their art, use literary devices such as symbolism and foreshadowing. Why then should we be surprised that the Creator of all things, even the concepts of art and literature, would use these same literary devices in His great work of literature, the Holy Bible? If we accept that there are literary hints to the nature of God as consisting of three persons, then we would not be surprised to find other subtle hints to the Trinity in other parts of the Bible. For instance, the very worship of God by angels contains a triple affirmation of His holiness: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory” (Isa. 6:3), and also in the book of Revelation, “‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty,’ who was, and is, and is to come” (Rev. 4:8). Then also, the God-sanctioned blessing upon His people, as given to Moses, is a three-fold  blessing: “The Lord said to Moses, ‘Tell Aaron and his sons, “This is how you are to bless the Israelites. Say to them: The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace”’” (Num. 6:22-26). Another subtle indication of the plurality of persons in the God-head in the Old Testament, one which is not obvious to English readers, is the word used to designate the True and Living God in the original Hebrew. By far most references to God in the Old Testament (more than 2300 references) use the word Elohim, which actually is a plural form (as designated by the suffix -im) of the word God (the singular form is Eloha). When the word Elohim occurs and is referring to God, interestingly, singular verbs and adjectives accompany the word. And so you have, in each and every sentence that uses the word Elohim, an illustration (as it were) of the doctrine of the Trinity: you have God expressed as a plurality of persons  through the use of the plural word Elohim, and then God expressed as a unity, as one God, through the use of singular forms of verbs and adjectives describing God. “[T]he plural of the Hebrew form is generally employed to denote the one God. The singular form, when applied to the true God, is naturally suggested by the prominent thought of his being the only one. The plural, when so applied, is generally accompanied with singular conjuncts, and conveys the predominant conception of a plurality in the one God,—a plurality which must be perfectly consistent with his being the only possible one of his kind… [I]t indicates such a plurality in the only one God as makes his nature complete and creation possible. Such a plurality in unity must have dawned upon the mind of Adam. It is afterwards, we conceive, definitely revealed in the doctrine of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost” [Murphy, 27]. Of course, in the New Testament, there are less subtle references to the Trinity, as the doctrine of the Trinity is fleshed out. At Christ’s baptism, we have the voice of the Father, the Son being baptized, and the Holy Spirit descending upon Him: “As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased’” (Matt. 3:16-17). After this, it’s natural and proper that we are commanded to baptize by referencing the Trinity: “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you” (Matt. 28:19-20). In the Epistles, there are many references juxtaposing the three persons of the Trinity. For instance, just as in Num. 6, where there is a subtle reference to the Trinity in the three-fold blessing (as referenced above in Num. 6:22-26), so Paul explicitly references the three persons of the Trinity in his blessing on the Corinthians: “May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all” (2 Cor. 13:14). And Peter describes the work of all three persons of the Trinity in the life of believers: “[You] have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to be obedient to Jesus Christ and sprinkled with his blood” (1 Peter 1:2). So then, throughout the Bible, we have a progressive revelation of the doctrine of the Trinity, beginning in Genesis 1:26 with the plural pronouns, the “us/our/our”, and continuing all the way through the book of Revelation, making clear to us that God consists of three persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. One might ask, besides the subtle literary references to the Trinity in the Old Testament, do we actually find the three persons of the Trinity at work in the Old Testament? I would say, “Yes! Certainly!” In order to recognize the manifestations of the three persons of the Trinity in the Old Testament, it is helpful to review the roles of each of them: God the Father – He has the authoritative role, with the Son and the Holy Spirit (and indeed, all creatures) submitting to His will (see John 6:38; 14:31; Gal. 4:4-6; et. al.). He also has the role of loving Father, lovingly adopting believers as his own, to be “heirs of God, and co-heirs with Christ” (Rom. 8:17; also Matt. 6:9). Jesus the Son – He has the role of the mediator  between God and man. He is God incarnate, in human form, so that we can see Him, and speak to Him. He is the “image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15; see also 2 Cor. 4:4; Heb. 1:3). The Holy Spirit – He is the invisible force of God, the influential aspect of God, indwelling  us, and guiding us to carry out God’s will. We see many times in the Bible, God sending out His Spirit to put His will into action. Knowing these roles, we can see more clearly manifestations of each person of the Trinity in the Old Testament. We certainly see God the Father, the authoritative aspect of God, in the Old Testament: God creating the heavens and the earth; God authoritatively giving His Law to man; God performing miraculous wonders on behalf of His people, demonstrating His full authority over all aspects of His creation; God as the omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent God; the all- seeing and all-knowing God. And we can easily find the Holy Spirit at work in the Old Testament, for He is often named “the Spirit of God.” There are many places in the Old Testament where the Spirit of God is sent out in His influential role, to indwell and guide God’s people to carry out the will of God the Father. Whereas in New Testament times, the Holy Spirit was given to the Church at Pentecost, and so indwells every believer, in Old Testament times, the Holy Spirit was (shall we say) doled out selectively. For instance, God filled a man named Bezalel with the Holy Spirit to give him special understanding when working on furnishings of the Tabernacle: “Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘See, I have chosen Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills — to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, to cut and set stones, to work in wood, and to engage in all kinds of crafts’” (Ex. 31:1-5). Likewise, the Holy Spirit came upon Saul, just before he became king, to give him the gift of prophecy, for a time: “As Saul turned to leave Samuel, God changed Saul’s heart, and all these signs were fulfilled that day. When he and his servant arrived at Gibeah, a procession of prophets met him; the Spirit of God came powerfully upon him, and he joined in their prophesying. When all those who had formerly known him saw him prophesying with the prophets, they asked each other, ‘What is this that has happened to the son of Kish? Is Saul also among the prophets?’” (1 Sam. 10:9- 11). The Holy Spirit comes upon many other people in the Old Testament, in a similar way (see Num. 11:26; Judges 3:10; 6:34; 11:29; and many other places). The second person of the Trinity, the Son, Jesus Christ, can also be found in the Old Testament. There is a bit of difficulty in discerning appearances of the Son in the Old Testament, because He is not known by the name Jesus, nor given the title Christ, in the Old Testament (“Jesus” was the name given Him by Joseph, at the advice of a visiting angel, when Jesus came to earth as the son of Mary, see Matt. 1:21; “Christ” is His title as the anointed one, which was His mission as Messiah when He came to earth as the son of Mary). In the Old Testament, we can discern appearances by the Son by remembering his role as mediator, as God incarnate, as the image of God to man. And so, when we see God appear to people in the form of a man, we can infer (because of His role) that this is the second person of the Trinity, the Son Jesus Christ, who is appearing to man. In support of this view, the great German scholar E. W. Hengstenberg wrote, in his classic work entitled “Christology in the Old Testament,” that there is a “hidden” God (which is God in the fullness of His glory), and a “revealed” God, who is Christ, “the Son, or the Logos” (or the “Word”, as John put it; the revealed God to man), and that these two are connected by a “oneness of nature.” Hengstenberg goes on to say that the Son, or the Word, “has been the Mediator in all God’s relations to the world;—[and] at all times, and even before He became man in Christ, has been the light of the world.” In other words, wherever we find God revealing Himself in bodily form to man, this is the Word, the revealed side of God (so to speak). This is Christ, before He was known as Christ. Such appearances occur many times in the Old Testament. For many of these appearances, the Son is given the name “the angel of the Lord”. “[The term] is found 33 times [in the Old Testament], and plainly designates the Angel of the Covenant – the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity… – the Mediator in all the relations of God to the world, who appeared to men under the Old Testament, and directed the whole visible theocracy… The title is employed to denote Jehovah as manifested in visible, personal form among men” [Jacobus, 277]. The first appearance in the Old Testament under that name was to Hagar, Sarah’s maid-servant. The Son appeared to her as “the angel of the Lord” to comfort her: “The angel of the Lord found Hagar near a spring in the desert; it was the spring that is beside the road to Shur. And he said, ‘Hagar, slave of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?’ ‘I’m running away from my mistress Sarai,’ she answered. Then the angel of the Lord told her, ‘Go back to your mistress and submit to her.’ The angel added, ‘I will increase your descendants so much that they will be too numerous to count.’” (Gen. 16:7-10). Note that “the angel of the Lord” said that He Himself would “increase [Hagar’s] descendants”, which implies a power that only God would have (not an ordinary angel). A bit later, Hagar herself acknowledged that this was an appearance of God to her: “She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: ‘You are the God who sees me,’ for she said, ‘I have now seen the One who sees me.’” (Gen. 16:13). For another example, when Abraham was asked by God to sacrifice Isaac, it is “the angel of the Lord,”  Jesus Christ Himself, who stayed Abraham’s hand to stop the sacrifice: “Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. But the angel of the Lord called out to him from heaven, ‘Abraham! Abraham!’ ‘Here I am,’ he replied. ‘Do not lay a hand on the boy,’ he said. ‘Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.’” (Gen. 22:10-12). We know that this was an appearance of God to Abraham, because “the angel of the Lord” said, “…you have not withheld from me your son.” The “me” is God, because Abraham was sacrificing his son to God. There are many other appearances of Christ as “the angel of the Lord”, and also other appearances of Christ (God incarnate) where this particular name is not used. God willing, we will cover many of these appearances in this series of studies. We have certainly seen enough here, though, to declare that, indeed, we do find the three persons of the Trinity in the Old Testament. Their roles are consistent throughout the Bible, Old and New Testament, giving support to the fact that we are studying, in the Old and New Testaments, one unified book, one unified revelation of the word of God to man.  Bibliography and Suggested Reading (for studies in the book of Genesis, and on Christ in the Old Testament) Ainsworth, Henry. Annotations on the Pentateuch.  Glasgow: Blackie & Son, 1843. Alford, Henry. The Book of Genesis. London: Strahan & Co., 1872. Calvin, John. Commentaries on the First Book of Moses Called Genesis. 2 Vols. Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1847. Cook, F. C. The Holy Bible with an Explanatory and Critical Commentary. Vol. 1. New York: Scribner, 1873. Dods, Marcus. The Book of Genesis with Introduction and Notes. Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1882. Fuller, Thomas. Expository Discourses on the Book of Genesis. London: Tegg & Son, 1836. Hengstenberg, E. W. Christology of the Old Testament. 4 Vols. Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1868. Henry, Matthew.  An Exposition of All the Books of the Old and New Testament.  Vol. I.  London: W. Baynes, 1806. (Originally published in 1710). Jacobus, Melancthon. Notes, Critical and Explanatory on the Book of Genesis. New York: Carter & Brothers, 1865. Jamieson, R.; Fausset, A. R.; Brown, David.  A Commentary, Critical, Experimental and Practical on the Old and New Testaments, Vol. I.  Philadelphia:  J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1866. Keil, C. F., and Delitzsch, F. Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament. Vol. 1. Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1885. Lange, John Peter.  Genesis (A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures:  Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical, edited by John Peter Lange, D.D.).  New York:  Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1898. Mackintosh, C. H. Notes on the Book of Genesis. New York: Loizeaux Brothers, 1880. Murphy, J. G. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Genesis. Andover: Draper, 1866. Patrick, Lowth, Arnald, Whitby, and Lowman. A Critical Commentary and Paraphrase on the Old and New Testament. Vol. 1. Philadelphia: Wiley and Putnam, 1846. Spence, Rev. H. D. M., and Joseph S. Exell, editors.  The Pulpit Commentary: Genesis.  London:  Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner and Co., Ltd, 1891. Thomas, W. H. Griffith. Genesis: A Devotional Commentary. 3 Vols. London: The Religious Tract Society, 1909. Wordsworth, Christopher. The Bible with Notes and Introductions. Vol. I. London: Rivingtons, 1872. -------- Many of these books (those in public domain) can be downloaded free of charge from:  http://www.ClassicChristianLibrary.com