Chapter 3—“The Fullness of the Time”
“When the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son,
... to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the
adoption of sons.”
Galatians 4:4, 5
.
The Saviour’s coming was foretold in Eden. When Adam and
Eve first heard the promise, they looked for its speedy fulfillment.
They joyfully welcomed their first-born son, hoping that he might be
the Deliverer. But the fulfillment of the promise tarried. Those who
first received it died without the sight. From the days of Enoch the
promise was repeated through patriarchs and prophets, keeping alive
the hope of His appearing, and yet He came not. The prophecy of
Daniel revealed the time of His advent, but not all rightly interpreted
the message. Century after century passed away; the voices of the
prophets ceased. The hand of the oppressor was heavy upon Israel,
and many were ready to exclaim, “The days are prolonged, and every
vision faileth.”
Ezekiel 12:22
.
[32]
But like the stars in the vast circuit of their appointed path, God’s
purposes know no haste and no delay. Through the symbols of the
great darkness and the smoking furnace, God had revealed to Abraham
the bondage of Israel in Egypt, and had declared that the time of their
sojourning should be four hundred years. “Afterward,” He said, “shall
they come out with great substance.”
Genesis 15:14
. Against that
word, all the power of Pharaoh’s proud empire battled in vain. On “the
self-same day” appointed in the divine promise, “it came to pass, that
all the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt.”
Exodus
12:41
. So in heaven’s council the hour for the coming of Christ had
been determined. When the great clock of time pointed to that hour,
Jesus was born in Bethlehem.
“When the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son.”
Providence had directed the movements of nations, and the tide of
human impulse and influence, until the world was ripe for the coming
of the Deliverer. The nations were united under one government.
One language was widely spoken, and was everywhere recognized as
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