Greg and Amy explain why Jesus’ arrival came at the perfect moment in history and how God prepared the world for the gospel and continues to accomplish his purposes as he conforms believers to Christ.
Transcript
Amy: Let’s do a question from James. In Galatians 4:4-5, Paul says, “When the fullness of the time came, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption....” So, what was “just right” about that point in history? And how might God be at work since then at that time? Is he doing anything special in our day?
Greg: Well, the “just right” at the “fullness of time” is, in a certain sense, God’s assessment of the circumstances that Paul was aware of enough to write this down. All right? Now, J. Warner Wallace in his book Person of Interest actually does some work on this, and others have done it too. Why was Jesus being born at this time ideal? Well, it was ideal in a number of ways. The location and also the Pax Romana and the lingua franca—the trade language was Greek, and this provided a vehicle for very clear, precise communication. There were trade routes that were going through that Middle East area. It was a bottleneck of sorts where massive numbers of people, or representatives from massive numbers of nations—maybe that’s the better way of putting it—would pass through and be influenced by the gospel, which, by the way, within a few hundred years—actually a little more than 300—Christianity became the religious coin of the realm, for goodness sake. Now, 400 years. It was after Constantine. He didn’t do that. The Edict of Milan just made Christianity legal, and that ended the persecution. But it wasn’t until later in the Fourth century that Christianity became the religion of the realm, so to speak. Nevertheless, I mean, it’s amazing how the entire Mediterranean Roman Empire region and beyond was captivated by the gospel message, and the only blood that was shed to accomplish that was the blood of the Christians themselves. So, it wasn’t a military effort like it was with the Muslims. And so, you can see the influence—the flow of influence there—that I think will help us see that there’s some sense to the statement “in the fullness of time.”
Now, there’s probably a whole lot more that such a statement pertains to. All right? But at least we could say—and all we can do—this is God’s perspective, in the fullness of time. There might be a whole bunch of other things, but we can look culturally and see, in a certain sense, the propriety of that at the time, how that fit into a larger plan that effectively and eventually brought the gospel to the entire world.
Amy: So, you’ve touched a lot on what was going on outside of Israel, but we can also look at what was going on inside of Israel because God had to go through a very long process of choosing Abraham and building up an entire culture and creating a whole system of sacrifice. And they got the Mosaic Law. And they were shaped as a people to the point where they would recognize Jesus when he came, and there would be a culture for him to fit into, and that would make sense. You plop Jesus down in Abraham’s time, and nobody would understand what had happened.
In this way, we see that God is faithful to his promises. We see a whole lot about God. We see his sovereignty. We see all the things that he was doing to bring about this particular situation where Jesus would be put to death on the cross for our sins. And there was so much that went into that, and there’s so much that’s involved with making sense of that, that God couldn’t have done that any earlier or it wouldn’t have made sense to them. I mean, just look at your Bible. Look at how much happened before then leading up to that. And the cross is the pinnacle of the whole story of redemption. So, that’s what it was leading up to. In terms of the culture, that was the right time. In terms of the outside culture, this was the right time.
What do you think about his last question? How might God be at work since then? And is he doing anything special in our day?
Greg: Well, let me make one other observation. Judaism and the nation of Israel came to a crushing halt in 70 AD with the destruction of Jerusalem, the invasion by the Romans, Titus of Rome, and how the whole temple system was destroyed and the people were scattered. So, all of the thousands of years of history leading up to the point of Jesus could not continue after Rome destroyed, essentially, the Jewish nation and scattered them.
Now, the question, I think, can only be answered in a way consistent with the point that Paul was making, “in the fullness of time.” So, it has to be answered theologically. We can’t just say, “Oh, well, God’s doing stuff now.” Or, “Is God doing stuff now? What is it that he’s doing now?” God has been doing stuff from the very beginning, and he will continue to do stuff all the way till the final moment—the final eschaton, so to speak—when it all comes to an end and a conclusion in terms of world history as we know it. God is always working.
Now, knowing where it is that God’s working in the micro is sometimes difficult. In the macro, you can see trends. Certainly, in the micro you can see individual instances where it seems God’s hand is clearly in play. But in general, in terms of the theological plan, all that came to pass in the life of Jesus is now going forward. I mean, think of the Great Commission. “All power has been given to me. Go and make disciples, baptizing, teaching, and lo, I’m with you always.” So, now we have a new commission. The commission for Abraham came to a fulfillment largely in the life of Jesus. And now, there’s a new commission in light of the new covenant. And so, what God is doing now is in virtue of this new commission and the new covenant going forward. So, God is moving that forward. The gospel is going to the nations. And God is in the midst of working in individual people’s lives—answering prayers, rescuing as is oftentimes, and often not rescuing, but building and restoring through suffering so that, as Paul puts it, every Christian can be presented complete in Christ.
I think this is a goal that’s often overlooked. “We want to see God working.” Well, when we say that, oftentimes we mean, “I want to see something supernatural happen.” Like, “I’ve got all this trouble in my own life, and I want to see a miracle that takes this trouble away, or else God’s not working.” No. God is working in the trouble, troubling you on purpose to make you complete in Christ. “Momentary light affliction is producing for us,” Paul says in 2 Corinthians, “an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison.” And the famous Romans passage that “we know that God causes all things to work for good”—all things—”for those who love him and are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he predestined to become conformed to the image of his Son.” So, there’s the whole piece there from beginning to end—the entire context there. God is working good through all the hardship to conform us to be like Jesus. That is God’s major work here. And he does it in all kinds of different ways, but the most poignant and most effective way is he lets bad things stay bad for us to use them for good. He doesn’t take the bad. Even Jesus learned piety through the things that he suffered. That’s Hebrews. And he’s our example.
Amy: And then, even—and you touched on this too—that in even the bigger picture is that he’s gathering his church. He’s bringing all of his people to himself. And when the fullness of everyone has come in, then the next thing on the list is Jesus’ return and the resurrection and all that sort of thing.
Greg: And judgment.
Amy: And so, we can just look at Revelation to see what the next thing on the list is. I mean, how that all plays out exactly, there are disagreements. But just in the big picture, we know what’s coming. So, this is what God is working towards now.