In the Fullness of Time

on God's perfect sovereignty in the Incarnation

macey

Dec 23, 2024

For in the fullness of time...

The Word became flesh,

God inhabited the earth He created,

The omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient Creator and Sustainer of the universe became as one of us,

Christ, the Saviour, was born.

Galatians 4:4-7

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba! Father!" So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.

He was born of a virgin, conceived by the Holy Spirit, brought out of Egypt, born in Bethlehem and yet a Nazarene, neatly and perfectly fulfilling myriad prophecies made hundreds of years before His arrival.

Wondrously so, the King of kings was both fully God and fully man—His two natures wholly united, never mixed, always distinct: and this marvel is to last forever.

Christ Jesus is:

co-essential with the Father according to the Godhead, the self-same co-essential with us according to the manhood; like us in all things, sin apart…acknowledged in two natures unconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably; the difference of the natures being in no way removed because of the union, but rather the properties of each nature being preserved, and (both) concurring into one person and one hypostasis; not as though He were parted or divided into two persons, but one and the self-same Son and only-begotten God, Word, Lord, Jesus Christ…1

Because no other way could possibly suffice. Without the humanity of Christ, we who are limited by the human experience—born into sin and helpless without the effectual call of the Lord—are in need of a Saviour Who had been tempted as we are. A Saviour we can actually relate to, and He to us. No other faith offers this, because no other faith can. Christ alone has done this, and it is by Christ alone that we are then saved.

He lived under the law, and He came to fulfil it that we might be freed from it. Old Testament law, very simply, is impossible to maintain perfectly. This impossibility endured for so long to point to the need for a perfect fulfilment thereof.

Old Testament law required sacrifice for the atonement of sins. It was heavily ritualistic, and it had to be followed as perfectly as possible. All of this was to underscore the horror of sin, the separation that it festers between God and man, and the all-consuming necessity to have it wiped away.

So Christ had to come. For it was only in Christ—the spotless, blameless, sinless Saviour—that the sins of His sheep could be taken and atoned for. Only the blood of Jesus could fully provide remission of sins. The shadowy sacrifices of the Old Covenant could only stand for a chapter in human history; the redeeming fullness, the wholeness, the substance, the real thing, the New Covenant, the fresh administration—that was to stand for the rest of eternity.

And all within the fullness of time.

The coming of Christ was not only miraculous because the Saviour of the world was born of a virgin and laid in a lowly manger, not only miraculous because of this hypostatic union expressed so eloquently in the Chalcedonian Creed, but also miraculous because His birth and arrival are the pinnacle of God’s sovereignty in all of human history.

All of history has purpose in God’s hands.2

God, the Author of history, the Master Weaver of all human stories, Who alone holds the heart of every king, president, prime minister, and ruler in His hand, turning it whatsoever way He pleases3—this God perfectly planned the arrival of His Son.

At no other time in the history of mankind would His purposes and fine details best suit than in the era to which the Messiah came. Religious freedom reigned in Judea; Caesar Augustus had established Pax Romana: “an era of great stability and peace because of the reach of the Roman Empire…peace that lasted only for a few decades.”4 All roads were connected in the known world, and the language was shared, so the gospel could be spread after Christ's ascension. It is, of course, perfectly fitting that the Christ would come in this particular instant.

The Jewish people were once more settled in the region, their old tendency of falling prey to the emptiness of idolatry finally in the past, and crucifixion—the bloodiest, most inhumane way for a person to perish: death by asphyxiation, death that could only be meted out by the hand of Caesar—was present.

All of human history revolves around Christ’s birth, life, death—and resurrection. All of it. Regardless of one’s religion or lack thereof, this is an undeniable fact. There was Before Christ, and there is After Him, Anno Domini, in the year of our Lord.

“He entered time and space exactly as the Lord foreordained, fulfilling God’s perfect plan of salvation.”5

The fullness of time. The precise moment.

Jesus is born in Bethlehem; this is wildly important because He came in a time when people would be born, live, and die in the same place. His parents were of Nazareth, likely poor; there would be no need, desire, or even ability to pack up and start a home elsewhere, let alone a place 90 miles away. Prophecy upon prophecy fulfilled.

Imagine how perfectly timed all of this has to go in order for Joseph and Mary to leave Nazareth and travel four days, on foot, or perhaps with the aid of a donkey or a wagon, whilst she is with child, to arrive in Bethlehem when there are literally no rooms left—for the fulfilment of prophecy, for the glory of God, and for the humility of Christ, which punctuated His birth and, later, His death.

One thinks back to when Augustus has the whim to carry out a census, for his own ego. Who knows what time of day he had the notion? What he was doing when the thought of it first arose? He decrees it, either with imperial immediacy, or perhaps waits until the following morning to do so. Perhaps, he even forgets about it, recovers the idea a few days later. It is eventually put forth, and couriers prepare to go all across the conquered Roman world.

One courier, in particular, gets on horseback, perhaps after a long journey via ships and carts. His course is Nazareth. He travels miles upon miles, stopping here and there for sleep and food and the changing of horses. Finally, he arrives in Nazareth, or near it. How many days? How many times was he waylaid or burgeoned forward? Moment by moment, he urged himself and his horse onward, meticulously planned by the sovereign Lord of all the earth, the Writer and Mover of History, who was sending His son at the right time.

And the people of Nazareth hear the news: all families must return to the city of their extraction, of their lineage. Joseph might have heard it in person, in the town square, or perhaps he got the news secondhand. He makes ready his things, goes to Mary, tells her the news. Both of the royal line, they must go to King David's original home of Bethlehem.

I wonder if there were provisions they had to wait to buy to take on the journey with them; things lost that they wanted to find before leaving; or things people promised them as gifts of betrothal that they were still waiting for. How many hours, days passed by as they prepared for what would be an arduous journey in and of itself, now compounded in difficulty as Mary is drawing closer to delivery. No doubt she would not have been cleared to make such a journey in this era of modern medicine, but the Lord went before them.

All across Judea, people are preparing to do that which is a rarity: travel hundreds of miles away from their birthplace. Again, most families live and die in the same place, for generations and generations, and yet Augustus calls for a decree that all the world should be taxed.

And then Mary and Joseph finally leave. Their entire lives packed away and laden on the back of some beast of burden, a four-day journey lying ahead of them. How often did they stop so Mary could rest? How many hours passed as they slept on the earth each night, how many minutes did they spend smiling blearily at each other each morning, putting off the start of another long day of travel? Perhaps, because of Mary’s condition, the journey took double the time; perhaps, they were on the road for upwards of a week, growing wearier with each passing mile.

I wonder, if perhaps this is where they had their first real fight with the tensions rising, moods souring, short, snappish remarks. (I say first real fight by excusing what was likely a Very Huge Disagreement 9 months prior when Mary, a virgin, told her betrothed that she was with child.) In any case, how much time might have been spent on the side of the road with Joseph apologising for his shortness of temper that morning, or Mary saying sorry for being rather rude during lunch when she thought Joseph had read her mind and knew she wanted x, y, or z.

This is all so that the Christ be born in Bethlehem, in a stable, laid in a manger, and wrapped in swaddling clothes—at the perfect time. It is this humble birth which is grand, majestic, and foremost. It is the arrival of the King of kings to the earth that causes these movements to occur.

I saw a Tiktok the other day, and a well-meaning fellow believer said, and I paraphrase: “God was smart for having Jesus be born in a year of a census.” I appreciate the attempt, but it does rather miss the mark, at least in its phrasing. God is not just some smart guy anticipating the algorithm of a human heart, He is Sovereign. He did not make a strategic move, casting the lot and it landed just so, and happily managing to score Jesus’ birth during an era of peace, in a stable in Bethlehem, coincidentally lining up all the dots. Rather, He planted the idea in Caesar's head Himself and had ordained this to be so since before the dawn of Time and Space.

The Lord of all the universe controls and oversees all the moving threads within His-own-story, and He weaves them into the most perfect tapestry—one with Christ as the pinnacle, Christ as the centre, Christ as the perfect God-man, Divider of humanity, Peak of history, Saviour of eternity-past and eternity-present, King over eternity-future.

Caesar was not the mover of history; he was not the cause behind a desperately tired, pregnant mother, after days and days filled with the minutiae of riding and walking and stopping and moving her swollen body along, finding that there are no rooms in the inn and that she must give birth to her firstborn child (and what a firstborn she was bearing, the Firstborn, the Second and Greater Adam!) in a lowly stable. God alone is the cause for this perfect picture of our Humble High Priest.

The King of the Universe, Who could have come in all His state, angels flanking either side, a crown atop His head, in a golden carriage reminiscent of heaven's streets, came instead in human form, emerging from His mother in all the usual estate, and then, He was wrapped in swaddling cloths and laid in a manger—the place where animals ordinarily ate.

For His sheep.

Since before the dawn of Time, this plan has been set in motion. Down through the years, since it was foretold that the Son of Man would crush the serpent’s head6, countless prophecies were made, several types of Christ established for the Jewish people to see as the mere shadow of what was to come, the Law instituted as the tenebrous bridge that would hold until the Messiah came—and then He did finally arrive, in that perfect moment.

All for His sheep.

For in His birth, we absolutely cannot ignore His death. In doing so, we would miss the point of Christmas. When the angels proclaimed the good news to the shepherds, it was "unto us" that He was born. Already were the heavenly hosts pointing to His estate, 33 years later, hanging on a tree.

Simeon, who blessed the Child after His circumcision, proclaimed gratitude to the Lord for allowing him to see the salvation of the sheep, and he also told Mary that suffering would pierce her heart—all of this pointed to the cross.

And when the Magi visited Him at age two, the frankincense and the myrrh shouted volumes about His burial wrappings.

The birth of our Saviour, amongst the stench of the animals and the filth of the stable, was the precursor to the brutal, humiliating death He would suffer at the hands of the Pharisees and Romans. He would be pierced for our transgressions, in every possible sense.

Whipped, with a brutal weapon designed to rip out chunks of human flesh with each hit. Perforated, moment by moment by the crown of thorns placed around His skull. Crushed, the weight of the cross on His back as He walked to the place of His death. Nailed, held to the cross by each of His hands and through His two feet. Debased, as He hung naked before those who mocked Him. Beat, spat upon, cursed.

This marvelling [of His birth] must be joined to the revelation of Mary’s soul-piercing agony. It’s “a sign that is opposed, and a sword will pierce through your own soul also” (Luke 2:34-35). Dear ones, none of this goodness [light to the Gentiles, glory to Israel] will come upon them unless her Son is pierced. None of this light will shine on the Gentiles, til Mary’s little light is snuffed out. None of this glory for the people of Israel will appear until the Son is shamed, shamed by His Israel. None of the blessings Mary and Joseph are given shall settle in until their little Son is sent out and cursed, condemned outside the camp. The Son will be pierced, must be pierced, and so shall His mother’s soul be pierced as well…
A deeper joy than joy that knew no sorrow [will be ushered in as a result]. Oh, what joy filled Mary’s heart at the birth of her little baby boy! But if that’s all that happens, there’s no deep, everlasting joy that will fill Mary’s heart… Her joy must be mixed with sorrow, so that her joy will not be temporal. So that your joy will not be temporal, but everlasting, found in the Son of God alone. For the Child born, lives to die, so that you and I are born again, died to our sin, and live in Him.7

For the sake of those whom the Father gave to Him. For their sake, for my sake, He became as one of us. He was subject to a human body with its weaknesses and needs for 33 years—yet miraculously not foregoing His divinity in the process. The Christ was subject to every temptation, yet He overcame them all. His every thought, deed, and motive was pure and holy altogether. He fulfilled the Law of Moses because I could not.

He imputed His righteousness to me and took my sins on Himself at the cross. So the Father turned His back on His Son. And the Son was willing to undergo such darkness, willing to be in a place where He had to cry out, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”

He gave up His life for me, one of His unworthy sheep. He laid it down of His own accord, and then He took it up again three days later, victorious over death, hell, sin, and our Enemy of Old.

And this glorious story of salvation all started in the fullness of time.

I started this post two Christmases ago, and got a lot of it written last year, but never finished it. I’m glad I got to wrap it up this year, and I hope it was an encouraging reminder of the glory of the Incarnation. Merry Christmas!

Marvel of Marvels

Discussion about this post