“In the fullness of time…” :
Truth Observed: Del Tackett
Sorry I try to only post a couple things a day at most, but this is too good to pass up. So here it is in total.
“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of woman…” Gal 4:4 (ESV)
“…the fullness of time…” This phrase conveys more than just the notion that God was waiting for the right moment or the perfect opportunity to come along. It conveys that there was a plan…a script…a composition that was now reaching its zenith, its crescendo.
It didn’t just happen.
It didn’t just emerge as a fortunate opportunity in the randomness of time and events.
Jesus didn’t just “burst” onto the scene out of nowhere.
It was planned from the beginning.
All the prophecies foretold it.
All the types foreshadowed it.
All the promises pointed toward it.
It was the “kairos” moment that all history had been preparing for.
The first hint came in the garden—a veiled statement about a “seed” that would come and somehow set everything right. More hints followed, partially hidden and obscured in the language of covenants and promises, ceremonies and feasts, tents and temples and water pouring out of rock. There were miracles and signs, types and shadows, and a law that demanded and required and tutored man to hope and yearn for it.
It was a mysterious story, a metanarrative, a lens of divine revelation that opened ever so slowy, yet steadily. And woven into its fabric, were the host of prophecies, telling us more and more about the coming of this “seed”, this savior, this Messiah. Yet, the whole tapestry remained in the fog of prophetic language—a dancing of shadows on the wall, a wavy reflection on the surface of water that never seemed to become calm enough to make out the exact image.
But, those shadows and reflections held some amazing details about this One who would come. The prophet Isaiah, in a few pages, gives us tantalizing tidbits about Him: that He would not have great outward beauty or form or majesty (53:2); that He would be despised and rejected by men (53:3); that He would be wounded, disfigured, and suffer (52:14, 53:2); that He would bear our grief and sorrow (53:4); that He would be stricken, afflicted, smitten by God (53:4); that His suffering would be for our transgressions, our iniquities (53:5); that His sacrifice would bring us peace and healing (53:5); that He would be our substitutionary atonement (53:6,8); that He would remain silent through all of this suffering (53:7); that He would die (53:8); that His burial would be associated with a rich man (53:9); yet for all of this He would be innocent, without violence, without deceit (53:9); but it would be the will of God to crush Him (53:10), so that His righteousness would be accounted to many (53:11), bearing their sin and making intercession for them (53:12); and yet, in the end, He would be exalted (52:13).
Looking back, it all makes perfect sense; yet as mere shadows and reflections, it was still veiled and hidden.
But the growing weight of it all was like the rising volume of a symphony. No one could doubt the music was getting louder and louder, the tempo increasing, the instruments beginning to join in greater and greater harmony. As if on queue, the prophet Malachi then stands and shouts: “Behold, the day is coming…!” and “Behold, I send my messenger…!” and finally “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord…!”
And then, as the whole thing rushes to its mighty and magnificent crescendo…
…the music stops.
Everything goes dark.
Revelation ceases.
All is silent…
“In the fullness of time…” : Truth Observed
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