God said, Let us make man. Was God talking to Jesus?

(Genesis 1:26, Malachi 2:10).

We should not be so presumptuous as to believe we know what God meant by this statement.
However, we do know, based on his Word, that He is not talking to Jesus or some other God.
The Word is not clear on this matter, therefore, we shouldn’t assume that we know the answer.
There are a number of theories about the mind of God and what He meant when He created the
world.

There are some scholars and theologians who believe that God, in his infinite wisdom, is
counseling within himself which includes his future manifestation as the Lord Jesus Christ and
the Holy Spirit, the plurality of the nature of God. This is not to assume that there is another
God, rather, it could be a matter of self talk about future events. God as the Spiritual Father of all creation-created the world by his name Jesus Christ (I Corinthians 10:4, Ephesians 3:9-12).

In other words, at the time of creation, the name of God, Jesus Christ, had not been manifested in the flesh, neither had the Holy Ghost of the resurrected Christ returned to the earth to dwell in the hearts of men. These were all future events.

Therefore God is not speaking to his fleshly manifestation nor his manifestation as the resurrected Spirit of Christ. God is speaking in his Spiritual form as the Father of all creation.

There are those who believe that there were always angelic beings with God. When God said, let us make man in our image, and after our likeness, God was speaking to his whole heavenly hosts (Genesis 1:26). What comes to mind is the story of Lucifer and the angels which were mentioned later. The scriptures tell us that God threw Lucifer and 1/3 of the angels out of heaven.

This gives us an indication that there were other beings of whom God could have been speaking to at the time of creation. God used angels to help us and show us the way. Angels told God’s people what God wanted, they gave great proclamations as in the case of Mary when Jesus was born. Angels also freed Peter from jail. The Heavenly Hosts were intimately involved in the making of man physically when they spoke to us, gave directions, helped create events for us, and emotionally, when they told us not to fear. We were made in the image and likeness of these heavenly beings. Do you remember the angels whom were seen in the form of men?

Let’s look at the 27th verse, it says, so God created man in his own image. Thus, we find that One God created us in his image, which is the image of a man. Here is another example; God appeared as a man in the form of a pre-incarnate Jesus, “The Son of Man.” – Daniel 3:25. In II Corinthians 5:19, Colossians 1:14-16, Colossians 1:14-19, 2:9, and Hebrews 1:1-3, 8, God tell us that Jesus Christ, “The Son of Man,” is in his image and that he, God, is in one Person.

Therefore, we find that we were created in God’s own image and the likeness of his heavenly hosts. In conclusion, one would have to address this scripture and the meaning of God’s Word for himself/herself. However, if we try to make God’s Word fit our traditional beliefs by stretching the Word to include another God or other persons, we are in error. Remember, one God created us in his own image and God was not talking to some other mysterious secondary god or some other person in the Godhead. This excerpt is from my book; "Understanding the Trinity, Three Persons vs Three Manifestations by Will Daniels.