Why did God send Jesus when He did? Why not earlier? Why not later?

"But when the fulness of the time came, God sent forth from (Himself) His Son." At just the right moment the promised Seed came. God sent forth from the glory of heaven His only begotten Son, the Word who was made flesh, and He came and dwelt amongst us. He came as God's representative (for the Greek word has this meaning). "The fulness of the time." How much there is in those words! Man had been tested and tried in every way. In the Garden of Eden man was innocent, but he failed. From Adam to Noah, man had his conscience to guide him; and the world became so full of violence and corruption that God destroyed it with the flood. From Noah to Abraham man had the responsibility of governing, and the world became so wicked that God rejected it, and chose one man and his family. He guarded them, fenced them in, led them, taught them and dealt with them in grace. But they chose law instead. They utterly failed under law; and it should have been manifest to all that man was a complete failure in every way. Then at just the right moment, "Having yet therefore one Son, His well-beloved, He sent Him also last unto them." God sent Him forth from Himself.

God had foretold in the prophet Daniel just exactly when the Messiah was to be "cut off." If there had been men of spiritual understanding to understand the Scriptures, they might have known beforehand the very day on which the Messiah must suffer. God had chosen the exact time when He should send forth His Son; and He prepared all accordingly. He sent before Him His servant John to prepare His way before Him (see Matt. 11:10). God allowed the Romans to have a strong government, having control of all that part of the world of which Palestine is the center. The Romans made good roads and kept a great measure of order, which made it possible to preach the gospel in very many places. God had also arranged that all that part of the world should understand the Greek language, so that this helped greatly in spreading the good news. He also arranged that this language should be, perhaps, at this time, the most perfect language this world has known, with which to give us the New Testament.

We must be careful to keep before us that the apostle is describing the former condition of himself and his fellow-Jewish brethren. Gentiles were not thus under the law, their state was wholly different as we shall presently see. "But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons" (vers. 4, 5). "The fulness of time" is an important expression here. The Seed was spoken of in Eden, but God suffered some 4,000 years to run their course ere He sent Him forth. Herein we may see the perfect wisdom of His ways. He would allow man to fully demonstrate his condition. He tried the creature in a variety of ways, under conscience and under law, sending prophets, etc. But what was the result? Man proved himself in every way an incurable creature — sin, transgression and enmity abounded. "In due time Christ died for the ungodly." "Once in the consummation of the ages has he appeared."

First, we were ungodly. That is the first thing we find out; but many know they are ungodly who have not yet found out that they are without strength. How many have been going on in the ways of sin, careless and indifferent as to their eternal welfare and the salvation of their precious souls, and have been convicted of sin and seen their danger, perhaps through hearing the gospel preached, or a tract, or in conversation, or, it may be, without any human instrumentality at all; and what is often the thought of such an one? "I am determined to alter my ways, or I shall be lost; I will turn over a new leaf." The new leaf is turned, and all may goon well for a time; but soon temptations come; one resolution after another is broken, and he thinks "It is no use my trying to be a Christian; I have tried, and tried again, and the more I try to give up my sins the more I seem to fail;" and Satan then tempts him to give all up in despair. Have I been describing the state of any one who may be reading these lines? Have you tried turning over the new leaf? Ah, you knew you were "ungodly," but you had yet to learn that you were "without strength." Does not that word "without strength" suit your case? Have you not tried to keep the law, tried to live without sin, tried to be a Christian? Ah, your desires were right, and we can thank God for them; but you were going the wrong way to work. You were trying to fit yourself for God's presence, and the consequence was that you found you were utterly unable to do it. Now look at the verse: "When we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly." Ungodly! is that you? Yes; without strength, unable to keep the law, to live without sin; unable to fit yourself for the presence of God. Does that suit your case? Yes. Now comes the blessed truth — it was for such Christ died; so that if you have been led to see that you are "ungodly" and "without strength," here is God's word to say that it was for such as you that Christ died. Now, instead of trying to do something you may take your stand before God as an ungodly sinner, with no pretence to righteousness, utterly without strength. You now find that what you never could do, Christ has done for you by His atoning death on the cross — "Christ died for the ungodly."

But there is more in the verse: "In due time Christ died for the ungodly." What is this "due time"? For four thousand years, from the time that Adam sinned, God was proving man — seeing if any good could be found in the race of the first Adam. Man was weighed in God's balances, and found completely wanting. He was tried without law, and under law. And lastly, God's Son was presented to the world, to see if they would receive Him. But no; they rejected Him! And what did they do? "Crucified the Lord of glory!" What a dreadful crime! How the cross brings out what man is! This was God's due time; and then it was that Christ died for the ungodly. It is important therefore to see that now God is not looking for improvement from man; but that the way of salvation is, to take the place of a guilty sinner before Him, and own His grace in giving Christ to die for sinners.

But why not before? it is natural to ask. If, as now seen, this grace was in Him from the beginning, why was it so long before He openly manifested it? Was it necessary that through so many centuries of deferred hope, or of darkness without true hope, the coming of the Deliverer and the gospel of deliverance should be delayed? The New Testament affirms this absolutely when it speaks of a "due time" in which Christ died (Rom. 5:7). How, then, was this "due time" marked? First, "when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly." And again, "when in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of the preaching to save them that believe." (1 Cor. 1:21.)

Peace of soul is constantly hindered through our not recognising that God has taken full cognizance of what we are. The gospel begins consequent upon His having made a full estimate. He knew from the beginning what man was and would be; but after, in his history, He had brought out and demonstrated in ways and conduct what man was under all the possible circumstances in which he could be placed - when He had demonstrated him to be entirely lost, and that He could not trust him in any way or in any measure, He begins, and says, I cannot trust in you: you must trust in Me. Hence the reason there is often a long and painful conflict, because of our not being brought down, in conscience, to the point where the gospel begins. A man may acknowledge himself to be ungodly, but then he hopes to cease to be ungodly; and God perhaps lets him struggle on thus for some time, until in his own soul he is brought to the place where the gospel begins. It is not that the gospel is not simple, but that in conscience we are not in the conditions where the gospel sees us. The work must be in the conscience. We read (Matt. 13) of a man hearing the word, and anon with joy receiving it, yet of his not having "root in himself"; evidently no work in the conscience (it is not that he is insincere) but only in the intellect; he has never been brought in guilty before God; "for," it is added, "when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by-and-by he is offended." Whereas, if he knew that his own soul was lost without Christ, surely he would say with the disciples, "Lord, to whom shall be go? thou hast the words of eternal life!" (John 6:69). It is a great deal harder to believe that we are "without strength" than that we are "ungodly." Many a soul believes the one, that has not as yet been brought to believe the other. God has given us His history of the world from Adam to Christ. There was a "due time" for the death of Christ, a "due time," that is, in the history of the world. So is there the "due time," of the individual heart; not that the same feelings pass through the minds of all, but each must be brought to the result given us by the history of man previously to the death of Christ.

Two reasons the Word of God gives for the delay of Christ's coming. For why should God delay in what was nearest to His heart? The need of the discovery of man's need fully is the reason assigned. "When we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly." So there was a "due time;" and to what this has reference is plain from the apostle's statement. It refers to the trial of man morally in Israel under God's righteous law. This had been proved to have no help for man. Where it had found him, there it had left him — ungodly, and without strength. He was shut up to Christ, then; there was no hope but in Christ.

(4) The order and time in which eternal counsel is worked out in the Creation. If sin invaded the race, why a long protracted period before the Redeemer came? Here we have a wonderful display of Divine wisdom. The progressive revelation of the Old Testament led up to the Incarnation to which all looked forward. Time was needed for the full testing of the race which gave an opportunity for the rich display of the character of God which was necessary before the higher ranges of creation, while in His outer dealings He gave a figurative representation of ulterior things, a rich and blessed pledge by type and shadow of good things to come. We can see, therefore, the moral necessity that the Incarnation should be at the consummation of the ages. (Heb. 9:26) also (Heb. 1:2) and (Gal. 4:4).

God indeed, as we know, never left Himself without witness, — never meant to leave man to the mere blind gropings of a darkened intellect. Apart from the witness of external nature which is everywhere, somewhere the light was shining all the time. In the midst of the most cultivated nations of antiquity, and at the headquarters of their commercial traffic, — in close intimacy with Egypt, (upon whose bestial gods was executed once a judgment which resounded far and near,) — and in turn with Phoenicia, Syria, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome, there was a people who held in their hand the revelation of God, progressing with the onward march of the generations that went by. But this was not what they craved or would receive. Thus in the self-chosen darkness their wisdom ripened till in Greece, the land of the typical Gentile, in the midst of those who professedly sought after wisdom, it produced its fairest blossoms and its ripest fruits. The wisdom of God was pleased to give ample time for the development. As in Israel under law it was to be proved that man was without strength and ungodly, so amongst the Gentiles was it to be proved that the world by wisdom knew not God. Then, when the need was fully shown, which could not else be met at all, "it pleased God by the foolishness of the preaching" — not of preaching as a method, but of the thing preached in human estimation — "it pleased God to save those that believe."

Here we come to a very distinct thing: God laying the foundation for all blessing. Mark first, He does not effect it hastily. There are many who think it would have been better if God had at the beginning given His Son to die for sinners. Instead of this He waited for 4,000 years and more. In His word we get the key to the difficulty. "In due season Christ died for the ungodly" (Rom. 5:6). When the fulness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, come of woman, come under law that He might redeem, etc. (Gal. 4:4-6). It was not on the first day of the first month that the passover was instituted, the great standing type of Christ slain for sinners, but on the fourteenth day. Was not God in this delay of importance in many ways testifying the fulness of time?

With "the fulness of time" all is changed. Did not the fulness of time come when man had fully manifested the evil of his heart, and entirely failed to answer to his responsibilities? When it was proved that "all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God," and that all was over on man's side, then it was that God acted in pure sovereign grace by sending forth His Son, come of a woman, come under law.