was my Creator. Indeed, a righteous man may speak of someone beneath him in the very terms John used about Jesus, doing so only out of humility and reverence before God—just as the Messiah said of John:

“Among those born of women there has never arisen anyone like him.”

The author continues:

You have forsaken what the messengers and the prophetic scriptures brought concerning the Messiah—the foundation upon which your whole edifice stands—and have fashioned a law of your own instead. Those who instituted this new law for you are like someone who believes in the prophethood of a man who denies being a prophet.

For the Messiah, peace be upon him, states that he is a servant who is sent;
Gabriel declares that he is honored and chosen, that his forefather is David, and that God has made him king over the House of Jacob; a herald from heaven proclaims the same, and John son of Zechariah bears identical witness.

Yet you insist, “Rather, he is the eternal Creator who merely conceals himself.”

He—and everyone we have just mentioned—affirms that he receives and that God is the One who gives to him,
while you maintain, “No, he is the Provider and Bestower of every blessing.”

He says, “God sent me,”
whereas you retort, “He is the one who descended for our salvation,” believing that his descent from heaven was to save you, to bear sin, and to bind Satan! Yet we have already found salvation