In teaching the coherence of all things around the incarnate Word, Irenaeus was safeguarding not only the integrity of Jesus but the integrity of every particular. Whereas the gnostics saw in the redemptive work of the logos ‘the separation of what was unnaturally united,’ Irenaeus saw in Jesus the reunion of what was unnaturally separated.
Irenaeus placed heavy emphasis on the Christ-event as the climactic moment in a long history of God’s approach to man. Only after a protracted period of preparation does the Word appear among us – not as a retort to the old covenant or its deity, but as that very deity in person…. It is under their tutelage (the prophets) that we are slowly readied to receive him, for he does not come to us unannounced. When he finally does come of course a great threshold is crossed and a new age begun; under the tutelage of the incarnate one, in the communion of the Spirit, we ourselves may now advance towards God…. But we have missed an important turning if we proceed to operate on the premise that the incarnation takes place at the point where mankind as such is truly ready for God, where sacred history can therefore broaden out at last into universal history. …As Irenaeus sees it, our evolution has actually become our devolution the Son does not appear at the middle of history, then but at the end; not somewhere near the top, but at the bottom. The Son comes to offer his summing up just where it is necessary for history to begin all over again.
Douglas Farrow Ascension and Ecclesia
