The shadow of the divine nature cast into flesh. One YHWH speaking from within himself in the plural of self-address, and what he made humanity to be.
Document 4 of 13
The sixth verse of the first chapter of the Torah has generated more debate about the nature of YHWH than almost any other single verse in the covenant text. Not because it is obscure. Because it is precise, and the precision points directly at what the previous three documents in this series have been establishing. One YHWH. Four registers. The same full presence in each one simultaneously. The declaration of the first word before the creation began. And now, in the moment before the creation of humanity, the same one speaking from within himself about what he is about to make.
Genesis 1:26. Na’aseh adam betzalmenu kidmutenu. Let us make man in our image after our likeness. The Hebrew text places this declaration in the mouth of YHWH before anything else about humanity is said. Before the creation of the human being. Before the breath is breathed into the nostrils. Before the garden. Before the covenant. Before the fall. Before Avraham. Before Moshe. Before the first word of the Torah was drawn before the creation began, YHWH said to himself, within himself, from within the registers of his own being: let us make.
Na’aseh adam betzalmenu kidmutenu. Let us make man in our image after our likeness. One YHWH speaking within himself from the registers of his own being, before humanity existed, before the breath was breathed, before anything was made that was made.
The tradition has handled the plural, let us, our image, our likeness, in two main ways. The first imports the Trinitarian framework and reads the plural as the three persons of the Trinity deliberating together before the creation of humanity. The second dismisses the plural as the royal we, a grammatical convention of dignified self-reference used by rulers and divinities in the ancient Near East, carrying no implication of multiple beings. Both readings miss something that the register framework of Document 3 makes visible.
The plural in Genesis 1:26 is neither a Trinitarian committee nor an empty grammatical convention. It is one YHWH speaking from within himself in the mode that Document 3 identified, the same divine nature addressing itself across the registers of its own being. The na’aseh, let us make, is the cohortative (a grammatical form expressing deliberate intention and self-direction) plural of self-address. YHWH speaking to YHWH. The Av register in conversation with the I am register. The I am in deliberation with what the incarnate register will one day enter. The same one, from within the echad (unified oneness) of his own divine nature, determining from within himself what he will make and what it will be made to carry.
This is not a committee. It is one YHWH expressing from within his own divine nature the intentionality of the creation of humanity, and in doing so marking the creation of humanity as something different from everything else that was created. Light was created by declaration, let there be light, and there was light. The waters were separated by declaration. The dry land appeared by declaration. The living creatures were brought forth by declaration. But the creation of humanity was preceded by this deliberation within the divine nature. Let us make. The human being is the only creation that YHWH spoke about within himself before he made it.
צֶלֶם — Tzelem — Image, Shadow
A shadow, a representation, a likeness that carries the form of the original without being the original itself. From a root meaning to shade or to cast a shadow.
Betzalmenu, in our image, in our shadow. Humanity is the tzelem (shadow or image) of YHWH, shaped to carry the form of the divine nature, cast in the outline of the one who made it, but not itself the divine substance. A shadow has the recognizable shape of the one casting it. It moves when the one casting it moves. It reflects the posture and the form. But it is not the substance. It is the form of the substance, cast into a different medium. Humanity is the tzelem of one YHWH, made in the shape of the divine nature, carrying the outline of YHWH’s own form in physical flesh, but not itself the divine nature. The shadow of the divine, cast into the creation.
דְּמוּת — Demut — Likeness, Resemblance
Resemblance, outward correspondence, the form that corresponds to something deeper. From a root meaning to be like or to resemble.
Kidmutenu, after our likeness, corresponding to what we are. Demut (likeness) is a softer word than tzelem. Where tzelem emphasizes the shadow relationship, the form cast from the original, demut emphasizes the correspondence, the resemblance, the way the copy reflects the nature of the original. Together tzelem and demut declare that humanity is made to be both the shadow of the divine form and the resemblance of the divine nature. Not merely a physical outline but a created being that corresponds in some deeper way to what YHWH is. The capacity for relationship, for covenant, for love, for creativity, for naming and knowing and being known, these are the demut qualities in humanity, the ways the created being reflects the nature of the creating one.
Tzelem and demut together declare what humanity is. Not divine. Not a second deity cast off from the first. Not a diminished copy of a superior original. A shadow, carrying the form of the divine nature in created flesh, and a resemblance, corresponding in nature to the one whose image it bears. Made to be the dwelling place where the substance that cast the shadow could one day enter and fill the form from inside.
This last point is the connection that ties Document 4 directly to Document 5. The tzelem was not made to remain a shadow forever. The shadow was made in the shape of what would one day fill it. YHWH said let us make man in our image, and in saying our image he was saying the shape we will make will correspond to what we are, so that what we are can one day inhabit what we make. The Bet of Bereshit, the house, the first letter of the first word of the Torah, enlarged in every Torah scroll, is the declaration that a house would be built. The tzelem of humanity is the house that was built in the shape of the one who would fill it.
When YHWH breathed into the nostrils of the adam (the human being) the nishmat chayyim (the breath of life), Genesis 2:7, and the adam became a nephesh chayyah (a living soul, a breathing creature), the breath of YHWH entered the shadow. Not filling it with the fullness of the divine substance. But animating it with the breath of the one whose image it bore. The shadow began to move. The form began to live. The tzelem breathed with the breath of YHWH, carrying from the first moment of human existence the direct imprint of the one whose shadow it was.
The tzelem was not made to remain a shadow forever. It was made in the shape of what would one day fill it. The house was built in the form of the one who would enter it. Let us make man, the deliberation within one YHWH about the creation he would one day inhabit from the inside.
This also resolves something the tradition has struggled with in the image of God language, the question of what specifically the image means. If tzelem means shadow and demut means resemblance, then the image of YHWH in humanity is not a specific faculty or capacity that can be identified and located — reason, or moral sense, or relational capacity. The image is the whole form. The shadow carries the whole outline of the one casting it, not just one feature. Humanity in its entirety, body, breath, relational capacity, creative intelligence, the ability to enter covenant, the ability to love and to know and to be known, is the tzelem of one YHWH. The whole form. Cast in the shape of the divine nature. Made to carry what the divine nature would one day enter.
And this is why the cross restores rather than merely repairs. The shadow that was made in the shape of the divine nature became separated from the one whose shadow it was, not because the shadow changed shape but because the condition of all who slept is the condition of the shadow existing apart from the substance that cast it. A shadow without the one casting it is still the right shape. But it is cold and still and cut off from the warmth and movement of the original. The cross is YHWH entering the shadow, filling it from inside, restoring the shadow to its casting, bringing the substance back into contact with the form that was always made to carry it. For all who slept. For all flesh. Because all flesh is the tzelem, the shadow of one YHWH, cast in the shape of the divine nature, made from the beginning to be filled.
Let us make man, one YHWH speaking within himself about the shadow he would cast and the house he would one day fill from inside.
Na’aseh adam betzalmenu kidmutenu.
Let us make man in our image after our likeness.
Tzelem (shadow): humanity carrying the form of the divine nature in created flesh.
Demut (likeness): humanity corresponding in nature to the one whose image it bears.
Not a committee deliberating.
One YHWH speaking within himself.
The shadow was made in the shape of what would one day fill it.
The house was always built for the presence.
The Gospel Revolution • Mike Williams Ministries
William Ethan Massengill • Michael Lilborn Williams • Daniel Thomas Rouse
Published by Audrey Williams