“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). This verse stands like an unshakable mountain against the shifting sands of human opinion, the changing theories of evolution, and the Godless humanism of our modern world. With this initial statement of self-revelation, the Word of God opens. We have here in this first verse of Scripture the origins of time, space, matter, and energy.

Time – “In the beginning”

Energy – “created”

Space – “the heaven”

Matter – “the earth”

The divine Initiator of all these forces is God. He is the Grand Subject of this first sentence of Scripture. The Hebrew word here translated “God” is אֱלֹהִים Elohim. In its grammatical plural form, this term for the Godhead hints at the doctrine of the Trinity: One God eternally existing in three Persons. Before this important Christian teaching is fully expressed in Scripture, we see clear glimpses of the Trinity in the way the triune God reveals Himself in the opening chapter of the Bible.

The Trinity in the Grammatical Structure of Genesis 1:1

Although the subject of this first sentence is plural, Elohim, the verb created is given in the masculine singular form. This God of the Bible, the Creator of all things, is one; but the One is also three Persons—three, but also one. What would seem to be a grammatical mistake is actually a statement of profound Trinitarian truth.

All Three Persons Were Active in the Creation of the World

God the Father is presented as the Father of us all. According to Malachi 2:10, God the Father created all things: “Have we not all one father? hath not one God created us?” Isaiah also identified the Creator as God the Father when he declared, “But now, O LORD, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand” (Isaiah 64:8). Clearly, God the Father was active in Creation, but what about the other two members of the Trinity?

God the Holy Spirit is presented as the source of energy. According to Genesis 1:2, “And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” The word here translated as “moved” is the same word that is used elsewhere in the Scriptures to describe “fluttering” or “vibration.” Usage of this specific word is a testimony to the fact that the Holy Spirit imparted energy and vibration to the physical universe, activating gravitation, electromagnetic currents, and the radio and sound waves that stream through the universe.

God the Son was also active in Creation. The Apostle John recorded of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Eternal Word of God, “All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made” (John 1:3).

In a similar fashion, Paul wrote to the Colossians concerning the Lord Jesus, “For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and by him all things consist” (Colossians 1:16–17). Just as the Father and the Holy Spirit were active in Creation, so also our Lord Jesus can and ought to be ascribed as the Creator.

The Trinity Expressed by the Plural Personal Pronouns “Us” and “Our”

Another evidence of the Trinity in the first chapter of Genesis is the surprising use of the plural personal pronoun by the Triune God. On the sixth day of Creation, after the creation of the animal kingdom, Elohim said in Genesis 1:26, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” This phrase employs an unusual use of the plural personal pronoun. God specifically makes a self-reference as “us” and speaks of “our likeness.” Try as they might, Unitarians, Jehovah’s Witnesses, unbelieving Jews, and other deniers of the Triune nature of the Godhead cannot diminish the force of these plural pronouns.

God is “us,” but He is also “him.” In the very next verse, we read, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him” (Genesis 1:27). Here there is a return to the singular pronoun, “his own image.” God is Three. God is One.

There is a great mystery in the doctrine of the Trinity, but there is no contradiction. God reveals Himself to us as the Triune God. We must believe by faith the Triune nature of an unlimited, infinite God Whom we cannot rationally understand with our limited and finite minds.