In
the fulness of time, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under
the law [Gal.4:4].
It was the right time for Christ to come and die for the ungodly
[Rom.5:6]. Then He,
the Desire of all nations, came to fill His house with glory
[Hab.2:7].
All
great movements in the soul of a man or in the history of the world need
proper preparation. God is
never in a hurry and does all things well without regret.
And this is how He prepared the world for the coming of His Son.
The
Roman Preparation
Under
the mighty leadership of Caesar Augustus just 27 years before Christ, the
Roman Empire asserted its world rule.
Three major changes took place that prepared the world for the
spread of the gospel of Christ.
[1]
Men were united under a system of law as citizens of one kingdom. Tribal fighting, revolt, and independent governing were not
tolerated, and men were expected to submit to a law that was not their
own, but was imposed on them by their conquering king.
Such
was to be the coming of the kingdom of heaven.
Christ would unite all of His own from various tribes and peoples
under His kingship according to the law of His Word.
That established a new kingdom and culture for all whose citizenship
is in heaven [Phil.3:20].
[2]
The Pax Romana [Roman Peace] was enforced by the military
throughout the Roman world making travel safe from armed robbers once
again. Since their excellent
road system radiated out from Rome to every strategic center of the
empire, movement throughout was made without difficulty.
[3]
As the Romans conquered different lands, it was viewed by the people as a
conquering of their gods as well. They
believed that the Roman gods must be stronger than their own.
But when they learned about the Roman gods, they knew that they
were no better. This
disillusionment led many to look for a true God to replace their own weak
and useless ones.
Stop
and Think:
How does tribalism and lawlessness hinder the preaching of the gospel? How can even war lead a people to reconsider whether their
gods are true or powerful?
The
Contribution of the Greeks
The
Greeks, who were the world rulers before being defeated by Rome, developed
and spread a universal trade language known as Koine [common]
Greek. This was the language in use in New Testament [NT] times.
It
was also the language into which the Old Testament [OT] translation known
as the LXX or Septuagint was made [LXX
“Seventy,” since it was claimed that seventy scholars produced
it in seventy days]. This
translation made in the 200's BC was the Bible version used by the
believers at the time of Christ and in the years following.
The NT was written in this same Koine Greek and was the
language that the gospel was preached in by the Apostles on their
missionary journeys.
Stop
and Think:
How can the Bible being available in a common tribal or trade language be
useful in preaching God’s truth?
Israel’s
Condition
Many
things had changed in the nation of Israel between the time of Malachi
[writing in 400 BC] and the coming of Christ.
And these are the conditions that Jesus met when He came.
Israel:
Synagogues
Synagogues
[a gathering together/assembly] came into being probably after
Nebuchadnezzar’s destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BC. Israelites who were
in the foreign land of Babylon as captives for seventy years met together
in a synagogue wherever ten families could gather.
Even
after returning to the land of Israel and the Temple was rebuilt under
Ezra and Nehemiah, the Jews continued to meet in their local synagogues
throughout the land. In these
meetings, rabbis [teacher/master] translated and explained the Hebrew OT
into the local language and the people joined in prayer together.
Each year the entire OT was read and taught in each synagogue and
any male was free to teach, though prominence was given to the rabbi or
scribe among them.
Differing
schools of thought arose around prominent rabbis who gained a following.
Pupils studied the commentaries of their rabbi rather than the text
of the OT itself. Over time
the “correct” interpretation of the rabbi came to have as much
authority as the text of the OT itself in the minds of their followers.
Eventually
the scribes, who faithfully copied the text of the OT onto hand-written
manuscripts, feared to proclaim any understanding of Scripture unless it
was backed by the “authority” of some master.
But this was an “authority” of a man-made office from which
doctrine that was nothing more than human opinion was taught.
This
is how the “tradition of the elders” spoken of in the NT developed.
It is also why Jesus’ teaching amazed men, for His authority and
message was drawn from the eternal spring of wisdom itself.
The
thoughts of man became elevated to the same level as the Scriptures
themselves and the ceremonial took on the same significance as the moral
and spiritual. Whenever this
occurs, the text of the Word
is soon neglected and forgotten while true godliness declines and
disappears.
Stop
and think:
What are the dangers of basing your faith on the explanations of men
rather than knowledge of the text of the Word of God itself?
Israel: Pharisees
In
the years preceding Christ’s coming many Jews were being influenced by
Greek culture to compromise their faith and practices. As a result the
Pharisees [separated ones] arose in order to instruct the people to follow
the law of God more strictly. But
their teachings from the Scriptures too soon turned to little more than
the burden of traditions that
neither our forefathers nor we have been able to bear [Acts 15:10].
Jesus
condemned these man-made rules as worthless to make men acceptable to God
[Mk.7:5-13]. They thought
that obeying their commands would prevent men from disobeying God.
For example, some Pharisees taught that it was illegal to spit on
the ground on the Sabbath. They
explained that the spit would “plow” the dust and thus the man would
be “working” on the Sabbath.
Thus
the people were taught oral traditions from these rabbis as being more
important than the Law itself. Pharisees
insisted that their oral tradition was given by God at the time of the
giving of the written Law on Mt. Sinai.
This, they claimed, explained and “corrected” anything that the
Scriptures did not seem to agree with.
And so it was that man-made opinions were exalted above the Word of
God and chaff was fed to multitudes as if it were the bread of God.
Stop
and think:
How can oral tradition actually cancel the Word of God?
Why is their teaching called leaven? [Mt.15:11,12].
Israel:
Sadducees
A
second major group arose during the years before Christ who were willing
to accept many aspects of Greek culture.
They rejected the Pharisees’ strictness based on oral tradition
in preference for the wealth and power that befriending politicians
brought them.
These
Sadducees [the righteous ones] were the rulers of the Temple ceremonies
and even bought and sold the office of the High Priest among themselves. Since they did not believe in the resurrection, angels, or
spirits [Acts 23:8], they imagined that worldly prosperity was an
indication of God’s favor upon them.
Love
of money, political and social influence, joined with a despising of the
poor and unfortunate were what characterized their miserable and heartless
lives.
Though
they could not escape close association due to the common Temple they
frequented, Pharisees and Sadducees actually hated each other; the
Pharisees because they viewed the Sadducees as abandoning true religion,
and the Sadducees because of the arrogance of their imagined social and
religious superiority since they were the wealthy elite and the High
Priesthood was under their control [see Acts 23:1-10].
The
Council or Sanhedrin [a seating together] was made up of seventy-one
prominent members of the High Priest’s family, Jewish elders, and
scribes. It served as a
Jewish supreme court of sorts in judging cases involving interpretation
and violation of the Law. Both
Sadducees and Pharisees were members of the Council.
It was this Council that ordered the crucifixion of Christ, the
stoning of Stephen, and attempted to kill Paul [Acts 23:1-10].
Stop
and think:
What happens when the moral and spiritual aspects of the kingdom of God
are replaced by the material and political?
Israel:
Essenes
Some
Israelites did not accept either the traditions of the Pharisees or the
corrupted influence of the Sadducees in the Temple. The Essenes believed
themselves to be the true Israel and withdrew from Jerusalem by forming
their own separate communities. There
they lived apart from fellow Israelites in a disciplined and simple
manner.
Each
member of the Essene community was expected to be devout and regular in
his study of the Scriptures and other religious books.
Manuel labor was expected of all in order to make the community
self-supporting. They shared
things in common and submitted to strict discipline enforced by an
overseer.
Sabbath
keeping was taken to an extreme, God-ordained
sacrifices and feasts were rejected, and marriage was either discouraged
or forbidden. Many thought
that matter and the physical body was evil. They believed that physical
isolation from corrupted conditions would make them holy before God.
Stop
and think:
Why can isolating oneself from corrupted situations never purify either
you or those whom you have separated from?
Israel:
Zealots
Roman
rule was not popular with most Jews.
The Roman yoke was a reproach and a bondage to the Israelite.
The Pharisees viewed Roman oppression as a judgment of God for the
sins of the nation that must be patiently borne until God was pleased to
remove it. Many expected the
promised Messiah [Christ/Anointed One] to free them from it.
Some
were violently opposed to Rome and refused to pay taxes to Caesar and even
led followers in revolt. These
were the Zealots. They
advocated taking up the sword against their enemies as did Israel of old.
Various of their leaders perished in their rebellions as did
Theudas and Judas [Acts 5:35-39].
Even
one of Jesus’ own disciples came from this background [Lk.6:15].
Eventually the Zealots succeeded in winning the majority of the
people to their side. Their
continual increasing defiance of Rome finally brought about the
destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD.
Stop
and think:
Why is using political force not part of the gospel of Christ?
Israel:
Samaritans
During
the days of Nehemiah in about 430 BC, one of the grandsons of Eliashib the
High Priest married the daughter of Sanballat, the enemy of the Jews.
This wicked man, Sanballat, furiously opposed Ezra and Nehemiah’s
rebuilding of the Temple and the wall of Jerusalem [Neh.4:1,7,8].
When
Nehemiah learned that this unholy marriage had taken place defiling the
priesthood, he drove Sanballat’s son-in-law out of Jerusalem
[Neh.13:28]. As he left he carried with him a copy of the law of Moses
which later came to be known as the Samaritan Pentateuch [the five books].
They
settled in the area between Jerusalem and Galilee, establishing a religion
centered in Mt. Gerizim. They
claimed that this was the place of blessing where God commanded His name
to dwell, and not Jerusalem, according to their understanding of
Deut.12:11; 11:29; 27:12,13.
This
was why such hostility developed between the Jews and the Samaritans
[Jn.4:9] since both claimed to have the true religion [Jn.4:20], even
though Samaritans worshiped ignorantly without salvation [Jn.4:22].
Stop
and think:
How does unholy compromise lead to false religion?
If the root is corrupt, what of the fruit?
Israel:
Apocalyptic Literature
Many
writings before the birth of Jesus claimed to be prophetic of the coming
kingdom of the Messiah. In
these apocalyptic [revelation] works the promised kingdom was represented
as an earthly paradise for the Jews with Jerusalem as its capital.
These
ideas filled the minds of the multitudes and probably accounted for
Jesus’ popular reception as He rode into Jerusalem as their King
[Mk.11:9,10]. It explains their enthusiasm to take and make Him King by
force, because He had prospered them with gain without their labor, when
the loaves and fish were multiplied [Jn.6:14,15].
Stop
and think:
How can popular ideas about Jesus keep someone from truly knowing
Him as He is?