Who knows what God is, unless God Himself shows it? Heathenism answers with its lies. No man hath seen God or known Him; He Himself must show Himself. He has, however, showed Himself through faith, to which alone it is granted to see God. God is a friend to man, and long-suffering toward him… A great unutterable thought hath He thought, which He hath communicated to His Son alone. So long as He kept it secret, and retained His counsel, He seemed to have no care for us. But when He uncovered that already prepared from the beginning, and revealed it to us by His beloved Son, He sent to us what no one could beforehand have expected.
In the preceding times, men were convicted by their own works of being unworthy of eternal life, incapable of their own strength of entering into the kingdom of God. Thus God delayed in order that we might be made conscious of our own guilt and impotency. But as that was filled up, and it was rendered manifest that death duly awaited us, the One Love continued true. It hated not; it departed not; it remembered not evil; but was long-suffering, and bore, nay itself took on our sins. It gave His only Son as a ransom for us; the Holy for the unholy, the Sinless for the wicked, the Pure for the vile, the Immortal for the mortal.
For what else could cover our sins than the righteousness of Him? Whereby could the unholy and ungodly be justified but by the Son of God? Oh! sweet substitution! Oh, what an unsearchable device, what unexpected blessing! The unrighteousness of the many to be hid by the righteousness of the One; the righteousness of the One to justify many sinners! In Him has God showed to us a Saviour who is able to save what it was not possible to save [without Him]. In Him has God first loved us; how canst thou sufficiently love Him in return? But if thou lovest Him, thou wilt be an imitation of His goodness. . . After the previous time had showed to us the impossibility of our reaching life through our own nature, He sent His only-begotten Son, the Logos, that He might shine upon the world; and, speaking boldly and clearly, might reveal all things-despised by the people, preached by the Apostles, believed on by the Gentiles. He who was from the beginning, is He who appeared anew. He, who was forever, is now reverenced as the Son, by whom the Church is enriched, and grace displays itself and increases in the saints, giving understanding, and opening mysteries . . . What He reveals on earth is God Himself, the Truth; and this He does not by word alone, but above all by His death. Thus also there is revealed by deed the highest concept of God, the glory of God-Love. On him who despises this, falls the weight of judgment at the second Parousia (coming) of Christ.
-the epistle to Diognetus, about 120 a. D.
"An archive to me is Christ; my incorrupt Bibliotheca is Christ's cross, death, and resurrection."
"He was conceived in the Virgin Mary according to the counsel of God, of the seed of David, and of the Holy Ghost." "He is the Lord, who is truly of the lineage of David according to the flesh, but the Son of God according to the will and power of God; born really of a virgin really crucified under Pontius Pilate in the flesh.. .He hath lifted up a standard for all times, by His death and resurrection."
"Stop your ears when any man says aught against Christ, who was truly born, truly crucified and dead, truly raised from the dead by the Father."
-Ignatius-died A. D. 117.
"Whosoever confesses not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is an antichrist; and whosoever acknowledges not the martyrdom of the cross is of the devil; and whosoever … says there is neither resurrection nor judgment, is the firstborn of Satan."-Polycarp-about same time.