"Christ Jesus: who, being in THE FORM OF GOD, thought it not robbery 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" (Philippians 2:5-7).
In His life, Christ hides His glory "the form of God," under the "form of a servant" as illustrated in the gospels. When asked for tribute, He pays the custom for Peter and Himself by commanding a fish from the sea to bring Him that very piece of money needed. On another occasion, He was the unnoticed guest at a marriage feast, yet as the very Creator of all He furnished it. Observe Him again in the vessel on the lake during a storm. He was there as a tired laboring man whose sleep was sweet. Such was His manifested form. But underneath lay "the form of God." He arose and rebuked the sea into a calm. Who was He? None less than He of whom it had been written "The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof."
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John Gifford Bellett was an Irish Christian writer and theologian, and was influential in the beginning of the Plymouth Brethren movement. Bellett was born in Dublin, Ireland. He was educated first at the Grammar School in Exeter, England, then at Trinity College Dublin, where he excelled in Classics, and afterwards in London. It was in Dublin that, as a layman, he first became acquainted with John Nelson Darby, then a minister in the established Church of Ireland, and in 1829 the pair began meeting with others such as Edward Cronin and Francis Hutchinson for communion and prayer.
Bellett had become a Christian as a student and by 1827 was a layman serving the Church. In a letter to James McAllister, written in 1858, he describes the episcopal charge of William Magee, Archbishop of Dublin, that sought for greater state protection for the Church. The Erastian nature of the charge offended Darby particularly, but also many others including Bellett.
The pair bonded particularly over prophetic issues, and attended meetings and discussions together at the home of Lady Powerscourt, and Bellett and Darby (along with the Brethren movement in particular) were particularly associated with dispensationalism and premillenialism.
Bellett wrote many articles and books on scriptural subjects, his most famous works being The Patriarchs, The Evangelists and The Minor Prophets.