“Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (St. John 2:19).
“No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power
to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again” (St. John 10:18).
Final objections against the divinity of Christ are raised, based on St. John
14:28 and Colossians 1:15-16. These two verses respectively say, “the
Father is greater than I”; “the first-born of all creation.” Together, they
imply that Christ is only a creature and inferior to the Father. With respect
to St. John 14:28, some early Christian writers understood the text in the
sense that as man, but not as God, Christ is inferior to the Father. It could
also mean that the Father is greater than the Son simply for having sent the
Son into the world. This is gathered from the fact that the Greek word used
here for “greater”––meizon––is a term normally used to denote
comparisons of position rather than quality or nature. So, some other early
Fathers said the phrase, “greater than I”, means “my origin”––since the Son
has His origin in the Father. Reading John 13:1-3 together with John 14:28,
it becomes evident that this is a reasonable interpretation in the context.
As for “the first-born of all creation,” St. Paul was only meaning to point
out the pre-eminence of Christ over all creation. St. Paul tells us in the
same verse that in Christ “all things were created through him and for him”
(v. 16)–he does not say “all other things.” Furthermore, by calling Christ
the “image of the invisible God” in the immediately previous sentence (v.
15), St. Paul is calling to mind Christ’s essential likeness to God and hence
His divine nature.
The Fathers
St. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Romans Address (c. 110 AD)
“Ignatius, also called Theophorus, to the Church that has found mercy in
the greatness of the Most High Father and in Jesus Christ, His only Son: to
the Church beloved and enlightened after the love of Jesus Christ, our God,
by the will of Him that has willed everything which is: to the Church also
which holds the presidency in the place of the country of the Romans ... To
those who are united in flesh and in spirit by every commandment of His,
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