Consider two facts: God does not make arbitrary decisions and Christianity is a religion whose truths are rooted in and revealed through history. Assuming those claims are both true—and I have no doubts about either—it follows that the Father had a particular reason for sending the Son to earth circa 5 b.c. But if so, what was the reason for choosing that particular historical period? Could Jesus have come any sooner?
Recently, while reading the introduction to God and Governing—written by our own Roger Overton—I stumbled upon what may be a clue:
All Christian hope is placed in [Christ], in what he accomplished through death by Roman execution and in what lies ahead when he finally returns with a two-edged sword. As powerful as this message is, there is a sense in which the spreading of this message depends on a certain amount of social order. Theologian Harry Blamires explains, “In a jungle, where cannibals dine on missionary stew, were men prey bestially upon another, certain preliminary steps toward minimal restraint, hygiene, and the guarantee of continuing survival have to be taken before a prayer meeting can be arranged and the gospel proclaimed.” There must be some level of common civility in order for the love of Christ to be demonstrated and good news of his work explained, and this common civility often come through political social order.
Assuming that Blamires and Overton are correct and that a certain level of social order is necessary for the spread of the Gospel, was the first century the earliest period in which the conditions were ripe for the message to spread globally? While my knowledge of Jewish history is woefully inadequate, I assume that the coming of the Messiah and the fulfillment of his earthly ministry could have been carried out at an earlier time in the history of the Jewish people. But could the message of the Gospel have been carried to the Gentiles any sooner? Could the work documented in the Acts of the Apostles have been fulfilled without the social order established by the Roman Empire?
Christians have always recognized that the second coming of Christ would follow certain preconditions (though we may disagree whether or not all such conditions have already been met). Could it be that the Father had determined that an initial set of social and political preconditions were historically necessary before he sent his Son?
October 27th, 2009 | 2:11 am | #1
The Chinese civilization has all the qualities you are looking for and it predates both the Romans and the Jews.
October 27th, 2009 | 2:28 am | #2
True, but a significant aspect of the precondition (assuming it was a precondition) would be that the social order of the Gentile world would have had to intersect with the world of the Jews.
Had the Chinese conquered Israel, though, they could have likely filled the social and political role that was performed by the Romans. That would certainly make for an interesting alternate history.
But that raises another question I didn’t consider in the original post: Did the philosophy of Ancient Greece (as filtered through Rome) have a significant impact on the global transmisssion of the Gospel?
October 27th, 2009 | 8:01 am | #3
[...] Joe Carter has a question. [...]
October 27th, 2009 | 8:02 am | #4
[...] Joe Carter has a question. [...]
October 27th, 2009 | 8:07 am | #5
1Pet 1:20
Rom 5:6
God sent Jesus “at just the right time”, Joe.
That’s one of those sentences that you could probably ponder for a year and still have more to think about. It is also one of those sentences that will make you a calvinist.
:-)
October 27th, 2009 | 8:08 am | #6
Joe,
I thought one of the preconditions to be met was that “it would come as a thief in the night” and be unexpected, unlooked for, and a surprise.
Another way to look at it is not as a factor of social and political preconditions but narrative imperatives of the overarching narrative. Redemption & exile, temple and a people, and the narrowing of the chosen people from a people, to a tribe to a young temple slave (?) named Mary …
How do these narratives choose the time and place? How do the internal narrative structures depend on external political/social conditions, such as Alexandrian and Roman conquests?
October 27th, 2009 | 10:27 am | #7
Joe, Peter van Inwagen makes exactly this argument in one of his papers on the problem of evil. One of the questions he’s responding to is the II Peter question of why God delays so long and allows more evil to occur before acting, if he’s going to restore everything eventually. In II Peter, it’s why Christ hadn’t returned yet, but part of the general question is why it took so long for Christ to come the first time, and he says something very close to what you say in response.
October 27th, 2009 | 11:47 am | #8
Frank God sent Jesus “at just the right time”, Joe.
No doubt. But what was that the “right time?” I’m sure there are more factors than we could ever know. But it is interesting to speculate why that time was chosen for the most important event in history.
Mark I thought one of the preconditions to be met was that “it would come as a thief in the night” and be unexpected, unlooked for, and a surprise.
Are you referring to the Second Coming? I wonder if that statement isn’t to be taken metaphorically. After all, since the Ascension has there ever been a time when Christians were not expecting, looking for Christ to return?
I also agree that the narrative takes precedence over any other conditions. But the narrative is rather flexible, and patient. If the social order had not been laid down by Rome, would God have waited to continue the narrative at a more opportune time?
Jeremy Peter van Inwagen makes exactly this argument in one of his papers on the problem of evil.
Do you know if that one is online? I’d love to read it. I assumed that someone had considered—and likely answered—the question before. I’m thrilled to hear that someone of van Inwagen’s intellect had wrestled with it.
October 27th, 2009 | 11:55 am | #9
Possible factors:
1.) Babylon dispersed the Jews.
2.) Greece established a common language.
3.) Rome established safe travel.
IIRC, Tim Keller pointed this out in one of his sermons on Habakkuk.
But the comparison with China is interesting.
October 27th, 2009 | 1:03 pm | #10
“If the social order had not been laid down by Rome, would God have waited to continue the narrative at a more opportune time?”
That sounds awfully odd to me. It’s really a lot like “If had hadn’t built that house, would I have waited until I built a different house before I moved in.”
I know you didn’t mean it like that, but it does come across like God is waiting and hoping that history will line up just how He hopes it will.
October 27th, 2009 | 2:08 pm | #11
I find all of these “what-if” questions odd. God unfolds history, so yes, the conditions were right in Palestine and beyond for the institution of the New Covenant.
But when I think of the “right time,” I think more in terms of God having shown by this time the inadequacy of the Old Covenant. When that happened, it was time for Christ to come.
October 27th, 2009 | 3:56 pm | #12
In regards to my China comment, why weren’t the Jews in China to begin with? Surely God’s chosen people could have been any ethnic group, for there is no genetic-based holiness unique to Jews. And after the great flood, Noah’s offpsring who became the Jews could have ventured in any particular direction for any length of time.
So it seems to me that the premise of Joe Carter’s question has a lot of presumptions that are not being considered.
October 28th, 2009 | 2:46 am | #13
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Biola University and David A. Porter, Brett McCracken. Brett McCracken said: This is a question I've always found fascinating: http://bit.ly/4mTjcZ [...]
October 28th, 2009 | 8:38 am | #14
[...] of which, our old friend Joe Carter put a question to his evangelical panel at the new Evangel blog that contained an interes…: Assuming that Blamires and Overton are correct and that a certain level of social order is [...]
October 28th, 2009 | 10:19 am | #15
The van Inwagen paper is called “The Magnitude, Duration, and Distribution of Evil: A Theodicy”. It’s been reprinted in several anthologies, and one of them does seem to be online with Google books, but it doesn’t have every page, so you can’t read the whole thing. The argument I’m talking about is on p.385, which I’m able to view, but the next page is missing, so there might be things he goes on to say about the subject on that page. I googled a sentence from that section to see if it picked anything up, and it didn’t, so I think it’s unlikely that the whole paper is online somewhere.
October 28th, 2009 | 9:43 pm | #16
Joe,
Are you referring to the Second Coming? I wonder if that statement isn’t to be taken metaphorically. After all, since the Ascension has there ever been a time when Christians were not expecting, looking for Christ to return?
I agree we are looking for Christ to return. But certainly there have been those using various clues from Scripture to make specific predictions. I’m suggesting that your remark “Christians have always recognized that the second coming of Christ would follow certain preconditions” might be misleading. That is the preconditions also come with an admonition that you will be surprised,” i.e., you will misunderstand and misread the preconditions.
Christians expect Christ’s return. Yet for centuries after the return from exile Jews expected the Messiah. When he came He was nothing like what they expected.
What I’m trying to get at is that the political and social triggers/preconditions are likely not what we naively (or straightforwardly) might expect.
Fr. John Behr in The Nicene Faith notes that one of the principal hermenuetical principals that governed the understanding of Scripture in antiquity was “that it was a fundamentally cryptic document.” One precondition was that perhaps finally a virgin daughter of Israel betrothed to one of the lineage of David who would say yes existed … and that … not socio-political-economic conditions were the important thing.
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