"Thou shalt love Him that created thee, thou shalt glorify Him that redeemed thee from death."—Ep. Barnabas, xix.
Justin Martyr—writing between circa A.D. 114 and A.D. 165:
"Isaiah," wrote Justin, "did not send you to a laver, there to wash away murder and other sins; but those who repented were purified by faith through the blood of Christ, and through His death, who died for this very reason."—Dial. with Trypho, xiii.
Writing of Jesus Christ, Justin comments thus on the words written by Moses as prophesied by the patriarch Jacob: "He shall wash his garments with wine, and his vesture with the blood of the grape." This signified that "He (Jesus Christ) would wash those who believe in Him with His own blood."—Dial. with Trypho, liv.
"If, then, the Father of all wished His Christ to take upon Him the curses of all, knowing that after He had been crucified and was dead, He would raise Him up". . . .
"For although His Father caused Him to suffer these things in behalf of the human family". . . .
"If His Father wished Him to suffer thus in order that by His stripes the human race might be healed."—Dial. with Trypho, xcv.
"And as the blood of the Passover saved those who were in Egypt, so also the blood of Christ will deliver from death those who have believed."—Dial. with Trypho, cxi.
In well-nigh all these reliquiæ of the earliest Christian teaching, copious use was made of that wonderful 53rd chapter of Isaiah, in which the Hebrew seer sketched with a startling accuracy of detail some of the leading features of the awful drama of the Divine Atonement for all sin.[1] The scene of this drama was the storied Holy City, and the One who made the great Atonement was He who on earth was known as Jesus Christ and in heaven as the Son of God.
- ↑ The more notable of the Atonement prophecy passages in Isaiah were: "Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows. . . . He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastening of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed. . . . He shall see of the travail of His soul, and be satisfied: by His knowledge shall my righteous Servant justify many; for He shall bear their iniquities" (Isa. liii.).
