In the Fullness of Time.

I love this Christmas leaning text from Galatians 4:4: “when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law.” That phrase, the fullness of time, might be one that is worth our time exploring for our preparation for the Christmas season because it will help us to see that our salvation is not a piece-mealed frantically put together plan that God fumbled through. No! God knew all the details that were necessary to occur in history so that the rise of the Son [sun] of Righteousness (Malachi 4:2) would rise with healing in His wings.

The word in Greek for “fullness” has been used to describe a ship that is ready to sail with its fill of cargo but also a full crew in place, fully prepared for the journey. Everything is ready. God took this term to describe for us His detailed planning of the coming of His Son into the world at this particular time in history (circa 4 B.C.). The exact time doesn’t matter from our perspective; what matters is that God had a well orchestrated plan put into place. In fact this plan was already established before the Creation of the Word.

That is a phenomenal thought: God already knew that humanity would go haywire and rebel against the holy, perfect law of God. And God in His amazing and unexpected extreme love had fully accounted for the cost He would pay to bring us back to Him: He would pay in flesh and blood with His Son’s life. But He also knew that the outcome would be secured and we would be brought into His family.

“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. 6 And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’ 7 So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God” (Galatians 4:4-7).

This fullness of time involved a difficult period in history for the Jewish people. Their nationality was hanging on a thin string of existence. And worse yet, the faithful were just a remnant of the Jews. We can see this in the corruption of the Pharisees and Sadducees. But again, God knew what He was doing; and at this very dark time in Jewish history with the Romans holding down the Jewish people, God ushered in the birth of His Son.

What made this time full? Here are a few details that help us to understand the concept of “fullness of time.” The Jewish people had been greatly humbled by the exile in Babylon; this caused them to once and for all renounce foreign gods and pagan worship from their Jewish religious life. Before the exile, the Jews were very much prone to including pagan worship into their culture. After the exile, this was more thoroughly addressed. This is why Antiochus Epiphanes and his pagan rituals were abhorred by the Jews and God used the Maccabees to bring in the miracle of lights at a time we now recognize as Hanukkah.

We also have the blessings of the Roman rule of the Near East: the Pax Romana. At the pinnacle of Rome’s power, Roman roads made for much safer travel. Some of those same roads are still in existence today (the Appian Way for example). The Romans brought in technology like the aqueducts and this benefitted large populations with the presence of fresh water brought from great distances to the cities. The Greek language allowed the Gospel to be spread without hindrance because vast amounts of people in the Roman world communicated with each other via Greek.

These and many other benefits were brought about by this period in history and made it “the fullness of time.” And the overall accomplishment of bringing us into the family of God was made possible by God’s intricate planning in history. If you want to experience even more insights into this phrase, “the fullness of time,” you can look up Pax Romana or the benefits that Roman rule brought to the world in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD.

May God bless you as you realize that your salvation was perfectly arranged and thought out by our Eternal loving Heavenly Father. He wanted us in His family and He knew the price (“redeemed”) that needed to be paid as well as the exact moment in time with that price could be actuated in the form of a crucifixion. He planned for this most cruel, hellish death so that our eternity could be purchased and our place in His family could be secured!