Why God didn't send Jesus earlier?

[JesusAddicted]

A quick question that a friend of mine asked and I couldn't answer. Why God didn't send Jesus earlier if He knew that this is the only way to get saved? All those sacrifices and rituals didn't have anyway the total power to save someone. Why God needed to wait so long?

 

[inquiring mind]

We can only know what the Bible tells us... God created everything and works all things out according to His knowledge, not ours (Ecclesiastes 3:1, Ecclesiastes 3:11, Galatians 4:4).

 

[miamited]

Hi JA,

Tell your friend that God didn't send Jesus earlier because of the claim made in the Scriptures that Jesus came 'in the fullness of time'. God set in motion, with His call to Abram, a plan. That plan was, as Paul attests, that the Jew was to be entrusted with the oracles of God. That plan was that in the fullness of time, after the written testimony was given unto man of God's Messiah, that Messiah would come. For some 1500 years, through the prodding and guidance of God's Holy Spirit, all that God wanted us to know was written down as a testimony to us of His plan of salvation, and then when that part of God's plan was completed, Jesus came to fulfill that which had been written about him.

Who would believe Jesus' purpose if he just showed up one day and made the claims that he made and did the things that he did and then died for our sin? God is wiser than you or I could ever think to imagine. God knows the heart of a man and He knew that the only way that even some men would believe the claims of Jesus and the purpose of his death, was for there to be a long established written prophetic account of His Son and His purpose.

I believe that this is exactly what Jesus was referring to when he said, "It is finished." The plan that God had begun working out with His call to Abram was now finished. It had all been written down and prophetically established through hundreds of years of God's working through the hearts and minds of some few who were faithful to Him, this plan. When Jesus died, that part of God's plan was finished.

Yes, God works out all things according to His purposes and His knowledge. God wanted there to be no question that any diligently seeking heart would not understand that the man Jesus, dying on that cross, was God's Messiah. The one who was long foretold to be coming to pay the ultimate penalty for our sin.

God bless you,
In Christ, ted

 

[Waggles]

Why God didn't send Jesus earlier if He knew that this is the only way to get saved?

It all has to do with 7 days or one week since Adam.
Genesis > God [Jesus] created the heavens and the earth in six periodic times and rested on the seventh
period of time. One symbolic week, made up of six days of work and one day of rest from work.

Adam is formed, not created, on the eight "day," and with his wife blows it with God and is expelled.
This was six thousand years ago, give or take a year. Six days of Bible history.
Three thousand five hundred (3,500) years ago [half-a-week] Moses gave to the Children of Israel the Law received from God.
The second coming of Jesus Christ as the great God of creation in all his power and glory [with myriads
of angels] is imminent, perhaps later this year or by next year 2018.
This will complete the six days of work - Old and New Testaments - and usher in the seventh day -
the millennium in which Jesus shall rule the world (Psalm 2) from Jerusalem and the Third Temple.
Thus six thousand years of Bible history from Adam plus one thousand years of Godly government =
one symbolic week of salvation Israel/Church history.

We see similar again with the ministry of Jesus - three-and-half years. Which fulfills Daniel's prophecy
of the first coming of the Messiah.
27 And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.
Daniel 9:27

Thus one week or seven years from the start of Jesus' ministry (which began when he was baptized
by full immersion and received the Holy Spirit) is made up of:
1: three-an-half years of Jesus preaching the gospel and performing wondrous miracles, culminating in
his death, burial and resurrection for the atonement of our souls.
2: three-an-half years after Jesus' ascension into heaven Cornelius and his household receive the
indwelling Holy Spirit and thus gentiles come into a covenant relationship with God.

That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world:
Ephesians 2:12

 

[Greg J.]

A quick question that a friend of mine asked and I couldn't answer. Why God didn't send Jesus earlier if He knew that this is the only way to get saved? All those sacrifices and rituals didn't have anyway the total power to save someone. Why God needed to wait so long?

Note that people could be saved before Jesus came. The death of God's Son is the greatest event that will ever happen (along with creating everything). Everything that happened leading up to it was given to us so we might understand what it is that Jesus was doing. To understand it as best we can, we, as a race, had to go through a time of trying to save ourselves (by the Old Testament Law) and fail. It demonstrates, on an epic scale, how much we need God. Even with all that history, we still are generally pretty bad at recognizing how remarkable a thing God has done for us.

You've seen some families forgive a murderer after killing one of their family members. What Jesus did was like a surviving family member choosing to take the place of the murderer for his execution so the murderer wouldn't have to die.

 

[Resha Caner]

Note that people could be saved before Jesus came.

I was going to note the same thing.

 

[JES1023]

Hi JA,

Tell your friend that God didn't send Jesus earlier because of the claim made in the Scriptures that Jesus came 'in the fullness of time'. God set in motion, with His call to Abram, a plan. That plan was, as Paul attests, that the Jew was to be entrusted with the oracles of God. That plan was that in the fullness of time, after the written testimony was given unto man of God's Messiah, that Messiah would come. For some 1500 years, through the prodding and guidance of God's Holy Spirit, all that God wanted us to know was written down as a testimony to us of His plan of salvation, and then when that part of God's plan was completed, Jesus came to fulfill that which had been written about him.

Who would believe Jesus' purpose if he just showed up one day and made the claims that he made and did the things that he did and then died for our sin? God is wiser than you or I could ever think to imagine. God knows the heart of a man and He knew that the only way that even some men would believe the claims of Jesus and the purpose of his death, was for there to be a long established written prophetic account of His Son and His purpose.

I believe that this is exactly what Jesus was referring to when he said, "It is finished." The plan that God had begun working out with His call to Abram was now finished. It had all been written down and prophetically established through hundreds of years of God's working through the hearts and minds of some few who were faithful to Him, this plan. When Jesus died, that part of God's plan was finished.

Yes, God works out all things according to His purposes and His knowledge. God wanted there to be no question that any diligently seeking heart would not understand that the man Jesus, dying on that cross, was God's Messiah. The one who was long foretold to be coming to pay the ultimate penalty for our sin.

God bless you,
In Christ, ted

I agree, Paul states that God sent forth His Son in the fullness of time; Galatians 4:4. Daniel gives the exact time in Daniel 9:24-27.

 

[Another Lazarus]

You drink H20 as water
You use Ice as chiller
You need vapor for rain

Its the same H20, All according to the purpose


May Jesus bless you all HalleluYAH

 

[ViaCrucis]

A quick question that a friend of mine asked and I couldn't answer. Why God didn't send Jesus earlier if He knew that this is the only way to get saved? All those sacrifices and rituals didn't have anyway the total power to save someone. Why God needed to wait so long?

The Apostle Paul writes, "But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law," (Galatians 4:4)

Jesus came at exactly the right time, at the right moment in history.

Why did Christianity spread so far so fast? Roads. The Roman Empire, if nothing else, believed in efficiency, as they spread and conquered the territories around the Mediterranean Sea they built a complex system of roads for ease of movement and fast communication. Also, in the Roman Empire the common vernacular of the Greek language--Koine--was spoken everywhere, meaning that whether you lived in Carthage, Rome, Corinth, or Jerusalem you could communicate using Greek--that meant that the message of Jesus spread easily, could be preached anywhere. The apostles could either travel on land along Roman roads, or safely by boat across the Mediterranean Sea and get anywhere within the Empire.

Those sorts of things had never existed before in the history of the world, a nearly universal language and a universal system of movement across great distances meant that the Gospel could go forth among the nations with rapid speed--communities of Christians were established all across the Roman world in less than a couple decades, a feat that would have been impossible several hundred years earlier, and even more impossible a thousand years earlier or more.

That's only one historical aspect to consider, but that alone makes when Jesus came nearly perfect.

All of the historical developments which preceded the coming of the Lord all provided the necessary historical context in which the things Jesus said and did make sense. When Jesus came there had been several self-proclaimed messiahs, they all failed in tragedy as the powers of Rome came down hard on them; these self-proclaimed messiahs preached war against Rome, a violent revolution to make an independent Israel. Jesus didn't preach this message, Jesus wasn't preaching a Neo-Maccabean revolution (the Maccabees were the inspiration of the Jewish Zealots, as the Maccabees had successfully several hundred years earlier overthrew Greek Seleucid control over their land); Jesus instead was preaching the message of God's kingdom, that ultimately meant His death at the hands of the Romans, and resurrection from the dead. Jesus' death by crucifixion is another historical detail that is vitally important; we could speculate about what other sorts of death the Lord could have suffered for the world but death by crucifixion says something very important:

Crucifixion was the method of execution reserved for political insurgents, rebels, and instigators; Rome used it on the frontier provinces of the Empire as a means of terrorizing the populace and keeping them docile and obedience. Nailing people to a cross was a public spectacle that declared to everyone walking by (people were usually crucified outside of cities along roads so they could be seen by more people) that Rome was in charge, and that Caesar was lord. The death of Jesus by crucifixion makes Him a public spectacle and victim of Roman violent terror and oppression, but the paradox of His death is that by His death He transforms the cross from the instrument of terror and oppression to the instrument of salvation and freedom; Christ instead makes a public spectacle of the powers and principalities (Colossians 2:15, "He disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public spectacle of them, by triumphing over them in him.") He rose from the dead, triumphing over death, and the grave; He robbed the power of violence and made it impotent, He faced off against the greatest worldly power the world had ever seen and showed it had nothing compared to God--but He did this not with a show of force or violence, but with His own love and sacrifice. His death for our sins, our shame, and our weakness; becoming weak for the weak, becoming a shame for the shameful--then in rising from the dead overcoming these all and brings us in Him to new life that we might live in Him, having peace with God, reconciliation with God, and hope of resurrection and eternal life.

All of these sorts of things all seem to point to Jesus coming at exactly the right time. History was ready, indeed the entire history of the world--of the universe--reaches its climax, its zenith, with the coming of Jesus. So that truly, "when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law,"

-CryptoLutheran