PCEA

The Preparation

The entrance into history of Jesus Christ was not sudden or unexpected. He came after thousands of years of preparation. Paul tells us that it was “in the fulness of time God sent forth His Son” (Gal. 4:4).

Fulness of time

Let us see, first, what is meant by the Fulness of God’s Time. God is never before or behind His time, never early or late. The promise of Christ’s coming had been given as soon as sin had entered into man’s experience. When Adam and Eve had disobeyed God’s command and ate of “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil”, they asserted their right to determine what was good and what was evil regardless of God’s command. It was in that dark hour in the moral history of mankind that God disclosed His purpose to intervene for the restoration of fallen man by providing One who should “bruise the head” of the Devil who was the father and instigator of this rebellion (Gen. 3:15). Throughout the whole of the Old Testament there gleams again and again this promise of the One who should come to recreate a new manhood. It can be said, indeed, that the entire Old Testament is expressly God’s preparation for that coming. Sometimes the Coming One is portrayed as a Conquering Warrior (Ps. 45:3), and sometimes as a Suffering Servant (Is. 53:1-4): at times as a Cleansing Fountain (Zech. 13:1), and at other times as a Plant of Renown (Ezek. 34:29); and the Old Testament closes on the note that the Sun of Righteousness is to appear to dispel the darkness and heal the wounds of men (Mal. 4:2).

We note secondly that what was the fulness of God’s time was the Emptiness of Man’s Time.

Man’s efforts to uplift himself proved unavailing and he was at the end of his resources. This was no mere coincidence. It was part of God’s preparation for the coming of man’s Saviour. Man must be emptied of his self-sufficiency. History records that this was indeed the condition of the world at the coming of Jesus Christ.

Seeds of decay

Several great civilisations — Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian — had risen and fallen, and the later civilisations that left the deepest impression on the pre-Christian world — the Greek and the Roman — were already in decline. The Greek civilisation at its zenith reached what may be conceded as the high-water mark of culture in philosophy, literature and art. It was, perhaps, the noblest that the world had so far known. But the culture of Greece had the seeds of decay within itself, in its debased morals. Its ideals were high, but they were rendered impotent by the self-indulgence even of those who formulated them. This gave point to the gibe that its poets “spent their days in writing sonnets to the praise of virtue and their nights in the practice of vice”. A demoralised and vicious society filled the hearts of the profoundest Greek thinkers with despair. They recognised that their culture was morally bankrupt and that the distinction between right and wrong had been obliterated.

The civilisation of Rome, which took over from the Greek, and was the next on the world scene, was more virile and practical. Rome was bent on creating a world-empire and it was ruthlessly practical and efficient in the pursuit of its ambition. History records that one of its most distinguished generals reported his conquest of Gaul in the proudly terse but triumphant words: “Veni, vidi, vici: I came, I saw, I conquered”.

In this connection it is significant and relevant to our present purpose, to note that Rome’s advance towards world dominion was closely associated with its distinguished military leaders — Hannibal, Caesar, Titus, to recall but three — who undoubtedly showed heroism and brilliant leadership never outmatched in all history. But the time came when the tempo of Rome’s advance was slowed down and it began to give its enormous skill and energy to consolidation. This took the form of constructing roads that became highways to the outmost posts of empire, and are the marvel of the world to this day; roads, be it said, that brought the missionaries of the Gospel to the outskirts of the empire. While Rome itself was suffering from decadence at its heart, its trade routes became the highway by which the Message of the Cross was to be spread as far as the Roman eagles could fly. But the far-flung empire of Rome was beginning to crumble, and the cry for a leader with wisdom to lead and courage to fight met with no answer. Very soon the barbarian tribes from the north would be battering the gates of Rome itself.

Darkness of despair

Thus the culture and the power of Greece and Rome were eclipsed, and broken civilisations looked in vain for the man that would take up the lost cause and match the occasion with wisdom, courage, and leadership. None was found, and the darkness of despair was settling on the hearts of men.

But what of spiritual life? Was religion still a living force in a decadent age? For that, one has to go to the Jewish race, now broken and scattered. Their religion was rooted in a revelation of the one living and true God, but they lacked the spiritual vitality to meet the demands that He made upon them. His holy Law only served to deepen their sense of moral impotence, and of the sin which the Law could condemn but could not remove.

And so culturally, morally and spiritually, it was the emptiness of man’s time, the nadir of his helplessness and despair. But it was the fulness of God’s time, and in the depths of man’s extremity and the darkness of his despair, God stepped in to provide the answer to man’s need. It was a Man, such as the Greek philosophers could idealise but not produce, and the Romans could rally round but could not provide. It was at that point that God’s Man appeared. And so in the fulness of time “God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law”. That was the Christ who came to save.