Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? This that is glorious in his apparel, travelling in the greatness of his strength? I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save. Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy garments like him that treadeth in the winefat? I have trodden the winepress alone; and of the people there was none with me: for I will tread them in mine anger, and trample them in my fury; and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment.
The early church fathers interpreted these verses differently from John Calvin.
John Calvin said, “This chapter has been violently distorted by Christians, as if what is said here related to Christ, whereas the prophet speaks simply of God himself; and they have imagined that here Christ is red, because he was wet with his own blood which he shed on the cross. But the prophet meant nothing of the sort.”
But Gregory of Nazianzus said, in responding to the Docetists who claimed that Jesus did not really have a human body, “How can the garments of the bloodless and bodiless be red as of one that treadeth in the wine fat? Urge in reply the beauty of the garment of the body [of Christ] which suffered and was made beautiful in suffering.”
