Epistle to Diognetus
Chapter 9: Why the Son was Sent so Late
As long as the former time lasted, He allowed us to be carried along by unruly impulses, drawn away by the desire for pleasure and various lusts. This was not because He took any pleasure in our sins, but because He simply endured them; nor because He approved of that time of working iniquity, but because He aimed to develop a mind aware of righteousness. This was so that, realizing in that time our unworthiness of attaining life through our own works, it would now, through the kindness of God, be granted to us; and having shown that we were unable on our own to enter the kingdom of God, we might through the power of God be made able.
But when our wickedness had reached its peak, and it had been clearly shown that its reward—punishment and death—was looming over us, and when the time came that God had previously appointed for manifesting His own kindness and power, how God's love, through exceeding regard for humanity, did not look at us with hatred, nor push us away, nor remember our iniquity against us, but showed great patience and bore with us. He Himself took on the burden of our iniquities, giving His own Son as a ransom for us—the holy One for transgressors, the blameless One for the wicked, the righteous One for the unrighteous, the incorruptible One for the corruptible, the immortal One for those who are mortal.
For what else could cover our sins but His righteousness? By whom else could we, the wicked and ungodly, be justified, but by the only Son of God? O sweet exchange! O unsearchable operation! O benefits surpassing all expectation! That the wickedness of many should be hidden in a single righteous One, and that the righteousness of One should justify many transgressors!
Having therefore convinced us previously that our nature could not attain life, and now revealing the Saviour who can save even those things which it was formerly impossible to save, He desired through both these facts to lead us to trust in His kindness, to consider Him our Nourisher, Father, Teacher, Counsellor, Healer, our Wisdom, Light, Honour, Glory, Power, and Life, so that we would not worry about clothing and food.