It is also St. John who relates the testimony of the Forerunner, St. John the Baptist, answering to those who had said to him that all men come to Jesus Christ: "Ye yourselves bear me witness, that I said, I am not the Christ, but that I am sent before him. … He that cometh from above is above all. … He whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God: for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him. … The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his hand" [Footnote 10] St. Paul is more systematic, and enters more fully into the questions and principles of the Christian doctrine, and he regards the divinity of Jesus Christ as the first of these principles. He writes to the Philippians: "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: who, being in the form of God, thought it no usurpation to be equal with God: but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." [Footnote 11]
[Footnote 10: John iii. 28, 31, 34, and 35.]
[Footnote 11: Philippians ii. 5-6. I have given this verse in Osterwald's translation, which is also that of the Vulgate; but my son Guillaume, who is following out a careful course of study of Latin and Greek philology in sacred and profane literature, reminds me that the text of this passage presents a difficulty which furnished a field for the labours of Erasmus, Cameron, Grotius, Méric Casaubon, in the sixteenth century, as well as many others before and after them. The Greek word ἁρπαγμός admits of two meanings, an active and a passive sense—it may designate the action of ravishing, of carrying off by force, or the object carried off—the act of depredation, or the spoil. Substantives derived from verbs frequently waver between these two acceptations, and the word ἁρπαγή, which is merely another form of ἁρπαγμός, is unquestionably a case in point. Æschylus, Euripides, Herodotus, have employed it in the first sense; Æschylus, Euripides, Thucydides, and Polybius in the second sense. Now, in the passage of St. Paul, accordingly as one or the other sense is adopted, these words must either be translated thus: "He did not consider it a usurpation to be equal to God;" or thus, "He did not display as a trophy his equality to God;" that is to say: He did not display His equality with God as the conquerors of the earth display the spoils and booty which they have amassed; He did not make use of His divinity to reign, to triumph, to pride himself in it; He was not the Messiah whom the carnal Jews expected, a visible king and victorious in arms; but, on the contrary, "he humbled himself, and took upon him the form of a servant," etc., etc. This second interpretation seems more probable; the reasoning on which it is founded is thus more connected and flowing; and at the same time, it leaves the doctrine of the Apostle intact; it changes nothing in his conception or his conclusions. In this passage, as in many others, St. Paul likewise affirms the divinity of the Saviour whom he announces to men; and it is from this majesty, subjected to a voluntary humiliation, veiled under the form of a servant, obedient unto the death of the cross, that He presents an august example and an imperative lesson for Christians of humility and mutual support. It is thus that this interpretation has been admitted and defended by two eminent men, a scholar of the sixteenth and a theologian of the nineteenth century, both of whom were strongly attached to the dogma of the divinity of Jesus Christ—I allude to Méric Casaubon (De Verborum Usu, pp. 138-146, at the end of the letters of his father), and M. A. Vinet (Homilétique, p. 116).]
…. It is he "who is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of every creature: 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." [Footnote 12]
[Footnote 12: Colossians i. 15-17.]
St. Peter and St. John, in their Epistles, speak in the same terms as St. Paul. St. Peter says, "We have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him." [Footnote 13]
[Footnote 13: 2 Peter i. 16, 17.]