The Fullness of Time

The Scripture says in the story of the Nativity: “But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law” (Gal. 4:4).

There is no doubt that waiting for the fullness of time is a deep spiritual lesson that we benefit from in our lives when we contemplate the story of the Incarnation and how God determined its appointed time.

The Fullness of Time

When Adam and Eve sinned, God promised them salvation, saying that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent. The woman gave birth to Cain, Abel, and Seth… yet none of them crushed the head of the serpent. The serpent continued raising its head in danger, until it almost destroyed the whole world in the days of Noah…

— Until when, O Lord, shall we wait? And when will Your promise of salvation be fulfilled?

When did the Lord carry out His promise of salvation? He fulfilled it after thousands of years…

The wisdom in that we will explain later, but for now we say: “With the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (2 Pet. 3:8). All those thousands of years with God are like a moment or the blink of an eye.

But humanity is eager to finish everything quickly…

The fever of haste afflicts all people. They want to hurry in everything and cannot be patient with anything. People run after their needs hastily without thinking most of the time.

The Love of Haste

• The Lord promised our father Abraham that he would have descendants like the stars of heaven and the sand of the sea. Abraham waited a long time and was not given descendants like the stars of heaven… not even one son…
  What is this, Lord? Have You forgotten Your promises?

No, I have not forgotten, but you are the one who wants to hasten matters before their time…

“Be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart; wait, I say, on the Lord.” Abraham returned and waited a longer time, but the descendants were not given to him… so despair began to enter his heart, and despair pushed him to go in to his maidservant Hagar and have a son from her… but the will of God remained the same: “In Isaac your seed shall be called” (Gen. 17:9). Abraham returned and waited more years…

Even after the birth of Isaac, dozens of years passed while the promise concerning the stars of heaven and the sand of the sea was still awaiting fulfillment…

Abraham again took Keturah as a wife, and she bore him Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak, and Shuah (Gen. 25:1–2)… Yet the will of the Lord was not in all of these, so Abraham gave them gifts and sent them away from Isaac his son… and he waited until the Lord fulfilled His promise in the fullness of time… in His calm way that has no haste.

• Despair from God’s promises and timings leads to haste. Haste leads to the use of human methods, and human methods contradict God’s good ways.

We will take an example of this from Rebekah, the wife of Isaac.

The Lord said to Rebekah while she was still pregnant: “Two nations are in your womb, two peoples shall be separated from your body; one people shall be stronger than the other, and the older shall serve the younger” (Gen. 25:23). The older was Esau, who would serve the younger, Jacob.

How, Lord? How will the older serve the younger? Since he is the firstborn, he should be the master. Will he lose the birthright? How will this happen?

The Lord answers: Leave these matters to Me. I will handle them in My own calm and good way. Days and years passed… Where is Your promise, Lord? He answers: Wait; everything will be done in its time, in the fullness of time.

Then the day came when Isaac asked for game from his son Esau in order to bless him. Here Rebekah could not endure, so she presented a human trick to her son Jacob to obtain the blessing by deceiving his father…

Why did Rebekah hurry? Why did she not wait for the Lord? Why did she resort to human and wrong methods that do not agree with the good will of God? It is the fever of haste and the lack of waiting for the fullness of time.

And what was the result? Long years of troubles and pain, which Jacob spent wandering, fleeing, and fearing his brother, and suffering from Laban’s bad treatment and deceit. Jacob summarized his life by saying: “The days of the years of my pilgrimage… few and evil” (Gen. 47:9).

Hannah also asked the Lord for a son, while her rival provoked her severely. It seemed as though the Lord heard yet remained silent!

Days passed while Hannah remained barren, year after year. Whenever she went up to the house of the Lord, her rival Peninnah provoked her, so she wept and did not eat (1 Sam. 1:7). The Lord hears and sees, yet He seems silent and does nothing. Until when, O Lord, will You not answer? Until when will You allow Hannah’s tears because of her rival?

The Lord answers: Wait for the fullness of time. My long-suffering should not trouble you; what troubles you is the fever of haste. Wait, for waiting has its benefit.

One benefit of waiting was that Hannah vowed a vow to give her son to the Lord all the days of his life. And so it happened, and Samuel was born to her.

Samuel was born in the fullness of time, very late indeed. Yet he was better than all the sons of Peninnah, the rival of his mother who provoked her. Who are the sons of Peninnah? We know nothing about them, not even their names. But Samuel is known by everyone.

Therefore, in our dealings with the Lord, let us be patient and wait for the fullness of time.

Tribulations require long-suffering until the Lord removes them from us at the right moment, in the fullness of time, after we have received their blessing. Yet we do not act this way; rather we quickly grow distressed and cry out: “Why, Lord, have You left us? Why did You not hear the prayer?”

You may have a sick person for whom you pray persistently for healing. The Lord may delay the answer until the fullness of time that He determines for the sick person according to His wisdom in choosing the right moments. But you become impatient and cry out in distress: “Why, Lord, do You not hear? What then is the benefit of prayer? What is the benefit of the sacrament of the anointing of the sick?” And you quarrel with God—not because God has done wrong to you, but because of your love of haste and your failure to wait for the fullness of time.

The Fullness of Time Is the Appropriate Time

With the same wisdom of the fullness of time, the Lord waited until everything was prepared for His Incarnation. Then He came down to us at the appropriate time.

There was no time more suitable than the very time of His coming. Everything had been prepared and made ready. Therefore His coming was powerful, and people accepted Him quickly.

The prophecies had been completed, and the symbols as well. The Lord had prepared people’s understanding of them over a long period so that they could comprehend them when what was written was fulfilled and the symbol was realized.

Take as an example the idea of the sacrifice and the idea of redemption:

How God gradually led them from the sacrifice whose skin covered the nakedness of Adam and Eve, to the sacrifice of Abel from the firstborn of his flock and their fat, to the idea of the sacrifice of the only son represented in Isaac, to the conditions of the sacrifice without blemish that bears the sin of others and dies on their behalf… and He left them for thousands of years until they embraced the idea, understood it, and it became one of their accepted truths.

God’s method is calm and long-term, but it is productive and beneficial.

Believe me, if God waited all those thousands of years until He found the pure Virgin who was worthy that the Lord should be born from her—and who could bear that the Lord should be born from her—this alone would have been a sufficient reason.

It was also necessary to wait until there was the righteous man in whose care that Virgin would live, who would preserve her in her purity, bear that she would conceive of the Holy Spirit, accept the idea, protect the girl, and live as though he were a father to her Son in the eyes of society.

It was also necessary to wait until the angel who prepares the way before the King of kings would be born—I mean John the Baptist, with his powerful character and deep influence—who could say: “There stands One among you whom you do not know. It is He who, coming after me, is preferred before me, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to loose” (John 1:27).
“He must increase, but I must decrease… He who comes from above is above all… He who comes from heaven is above all” (John 3:30–31).

Someone may ask: Why did God not create all these from long ago?

We answer that God does not force people into righteousness and holiness. He waits until the vessels are ready with their full free will.

There are many reasons that explain something of the Lord’s wisdom in waiting until the fullness of time comes. The clearest of them is preparing the whole world and making it ready to accept the idea of the Incarnation and the idea of redemption.

Finally, when everything was completed:
“But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons” (Gal. 4:4–5).

---

An article by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III – published in El-Keraza Magazine, Year Eight (Issue Two), January 14, 1977.

For better translation support, please contact the center.