R.C. Sproul

They're not three gods.

Elohim doesn't suggest a plurality of gods.

There's only one God.

But in that one God,

There are three subsistences, three distinct personalities.

Now, the idea of the Trinity communicates that even within the very nature of God, the foundation and the ground of all unity and all diversity comes to rest.

Now, I am not one who believes that the author of Genesis intended by the name Elohim to give us a kind of hint or cryptic revelation of the Trinity.

Maybe it was his intent.

I don't know that.

Certainly, the idea of Trinity is not spelled out in the book of Genesis.

However, what I'm simply saying is that the name Elohim is consistent with the idea of the Trinity.

And as we look somewhat technically at the literature of the Jews and at their manner of speaking and the way they use this term Elohim, we know that the Jewish people had a concept that is called the plural of intensity and another concept called the plural of majesty.

And I think today most biblical scholars agree that what the name Elohim is pointing at is that the name Elohim is used in a lower sense simply for the simple plural gods.

Pagan deities can be referred to as Elohim, that is, gods.

But when it's used for Yahweh as a name and title for the God,

The plural of majesty is calling attention to the superiority, to the transcendent greatness of the Most High God, where all of what is comprised in the concept of deity reaches its climax in Yahweh.

Anything else by comparison is really a pretense.

All other claims to deity pale into insignificance in comparison with Elohim, in whom all of the characteristics and all of the attributes, all of the facets, all of the fullness of deity dwells.

And so he is called the Most High God.

not because he's simply higher than other gods.