Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies 4.11

Many prophets and righteous men, knowing through the Holy Spirit that He would come, prayed to live in the time when they might see their Lord face to face and hear His words. In response, the Lord made this plain to His disciples: "Many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it" (Matt. 13:17). How could they have longed to see and hear unless they had foreknown His coming? And how could they have foreknown it unless they had received that foreknowledge from Him? How could the Scriptures testify about Him unless all things had always been revealed and shown to believers through the Word by one and the same God? At one time He spoke with His creature; at another He gave the law; at another He rebuked; at another He exhorted; and then He freed the servant, adopted him as a son, and at the appointed time granted an incorruptible inheritance for man's perfection. For He says this to him for increase and growth, just as Scripture says: "Grow and multiply" (Gen. 1:28).

This is how God differs from man: God acts, but man is acted upon. The One who acts is always the same; but what is acted upon — having beginning, middle, addition, and increase — must receive these things. God does good, and He does good to man. God is perfect in all things, equal and like to Himself; He is wholly light, wholly mind, wholly substance, the fountain of all good things. But man, receiving progress and increase, moves toward God. Just as God is always the same, so also man, found in God, will always advance toward God. For God never ceases to do good and enrich man, and man never ceases to receive benefit and be enriched by God. As the receptacle of His goodness and the instrument of His manifestation, man is grateful to the One who made him; but as the receptacle of His just judgment, man — ungrateful and despising his Maker, disobedient to His Word — receives judgment. To those always bearing much fruit, having more of the Lord's money, He promised to give Himself. "Well done, good and faithful servant," He says; "because you were faithful in a little, I will set you over much; enter into the joy of your Lord" — the Lord Himself promising much.

Just as He now promises to give much to those bearing fruit, according to the gift of His grace and not according to a change of knowledge — for the Lord endures, and the same Father is revealed — so also to those who came later, the same Lord through His coming attributed a greater gift of grace than what was in the Old Testament. The former people heard through servants that the King was coming, and they rejoiced moderately, according to what they hoped; but those who saw Him present, who obtained liberty and possessed His gift, have greater grace and more abundant exultation, rejoicing at the King's coming, just as David says: "My soul will exult in the Lord; it will rejoice in His salvation" (Psalm 35:9 LXX). And for this reason, when He entered Jerusalem, all who were on the road — the people of David — in the sorrow of their souls recognized their King, spread their garments under Him, adorned the way with green branches, and cried out with great joy and exultation: "Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!" But the evil stewards, who went about among the lesser ones and those whose reason was not settled — and therefore did not want the King to come — said to Him, "Do You hear what these are saying?" The Lord answered, "Have you never read, 'Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies You have perfected praise'?" (Ps. 8:2). This was spoken by David concerning the Son of God, showing it was fulfilled in Himself, and signifying that they indeed possess the power of Scripture and the disposition of God; but He is the Christ announced by the prophets, whose name is praised in all the earth, perfecting praise from the mouth of infants and nursing babies to His Father. Therefore His magnificence was also exalted on high.

If, then, He Himself is present — the One predicted by the prophets, our Lord Jesus Christ — and His coming attributes a fuller grace and greater gift to those who received Him, it is manifest that the Father is also the same One announced by the prophets. The Son did not make known a different Father, but the same One who was proclaimed from the beginning. From Him He brought liberty to those who serve Him lawfully, with a willing soul and whole heart. But to those who despise Him and are not subject to God, who pursue external purities for the glory of men — which were handed down as figures of future things, as a kind of shadow and outline of the Law, sketching eternal things from temporal ones and heavenly things from earthly ones — feigning to observe more than what was commanded, as if they preferred their own diligence even to God, while inwardly full of hypocrisy, lust, and all malice — He brought eternal perdition, cutting them off from life.