The "Arm of the LORD" in Early Christian Literature

            Due to the New Testament association of the Arm of the LORD with Christ (e.g., John 12:38), as well as the rich Jewish legacy which early Christians inherited, the view that God’s Arm is the Messiah was widespread among Christian writers. Unlike early Jewish sources, which often implicitly linked the Arm of the LORD to the Messiah, Christian interpreters tended to explicitly make the connection. Testimony from numerous centuries exists.

1 Clement

            The Letter of the Romans to the Corinthians (1 Clement) is hailed as “one of the earliest–if not the earliest–extant Christian documents outside of the New Testament.” Composed shortly after John penned the Book of Revelation, the letter affirms that believers are "delivered us from every sin by the Arm [of God]". Since the author previously had named Jesus as the Savior as well as the messianic Servant, he therefore recognized the Son of God as the Arm of the LORD.

Justin Martyr

            Justin Martyr, the celebrated apologist of the second century, expressed that Jesus deserved His designation as the messianic Arm of the LORD. In the course of an exposition which affirmed that Christ possessed no sin nature in His Incarnation, Justin said regarding the Son of God:

"And the first Power after God the Father and Master of all is the  Word, who is also Son; and of Him, in what follows, we will tell how He took flesh and became man. For as man did not make the blood of the grape, but God, so it was intimated that [His] blood should not be from human seed, but of divine power, as we have said above. And Isaiah, another prophet, prophesying the same things in other words, said thus: “A star shall rise out of Jacob, and a flower shall spring from the root of Jesse; and upon His arm will the nations hope.”

Justin’s contribution to the subject is of great importance because he lived only decades after the era of the New Testament Apostles.

Melito

            Melito the Philosopher, also of the A.D. second century, subscribed to the position that the Arm of the LORD typifies Christ. In a text which cited Isaiah 53:1, he asserted that “the Arm of the Lord [is] His Son, by whom He hath wrought all His works. In the
prophet Isaiah: ‘And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?’” Melito, therefore, plainly called Jesus–who he acknowledged as the Messiah–the Arm of the LORD.

Paulinus of Nola

            Paulinus of Nola (A.D. 354-431) likewise held that the Arm of the LORD is a messianic title that belongs to Christ. According to him, God entrusted the messianic Arm of the LORD with a twofold mission:

"That wisdom is God in Christ, the Virtue of virtues and the Mind of minds, the Lord of majesty, the raised Arm which, as Scripture says, has scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart, has put down the mighty from their seat, and has exalted the humble. By this Arm, which is Christ, the hungry are filled with good things and the rich are sent empty away."

Paulinus, therefore, understood the ministry of Christ to have both a positive and negative tenor, for the Arm of the LORD judged the boastful, while at the same time showing mercy to the meek.

Cyril of Alexandria

            Cyril, bishop of Alexandria from A.D. 412-444, was certain that the Arm of the LORD was a messianic appellation. This conviction is evident in John A. McGuckin’s quotation of Cyril’s letter to the monks of Egypt:

"Lift up your voice and do not be afraid. Say to all the cities of Judah: Behold your God, behold the Lord is coming with strength and his right arm has dominion. Behold his reward is with him and his work is before him. As a shepherd he pastures his flock and he shall gather his lambs in his strong right arm” (Isa. 40:9-11). Indeed Our Lord Jesus has appeared to us having a godly strength and in his right arm was dominion, that is authority and sovereignty."

Cyril drew his conclusions about the kingly role of the Messiah from the untypical phraseology of Isaiah 40:10, which prophesies that the Arm of the LORD would reign on behalf of the LORD.

Cassiodorus

            Cassiodorus, whose life extended from A.D. 485-580, bluntly agreed that Jesus “is called the right hand, the arm, the salvation, the justice of the Father.” In his writings, he counted all of the psalms which allude to the Arm of the LORD as messianic revelations. For this reason, Cassiodorus almost certainly saw other Old Testament "Arm" passages in much the same light.