Advent | When The Fullness Of Time Had Come | Hope, Peace, Joy And Love | Second Advent | Dr. Madana Kumar

Advent : When the fullness of time had come…

We are entering into the advent season today and it is appropriate that we look into the topic of advent . Let us look at how Paul describes the advent as

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. Galatians 4:4-5 (NKJV)

What does “when the fullness of time had come” mean?

I hope you like history at least a little bit. I decided to do some research into the historical events in first century BC, just before the birth of Jesus Christ. This is what I found.

1. Political: The death of democracy and rise of powerful individual rulers

2. Spiritual: Spiritual upheaval, divisions, dilution of faith, occult practices, cults

3. Military: Wars

4. Philosophy: Rise of Philosophical and Atheistic thinking

5. Humanity: Anticipation and Waiting for the messiah.

Let us look at each of them briefly.

1. Political: Two of the earliest forms of democracy were in Athens and Rome. The republican forms of government was in existence primarily in these two civilisations. The roman republic existed for nearly five centuries. It was in the first century before Jesus’s birth that the Roman republic died out and the powerful Julius Caeser became the emperor, making Rome once again an empire dependent on one ruler. Nearby in Egypt, Cleopatra became the ruler and her relationships with Julius Caeser and Mark Antony caused serious problems for both kingdoms. Closer home, in China Emperor Wu became the powerful ruler. This is the time in India where the Powerful Kings like Ashoka, Kanishka etc ruled. Herod the Great was appointed ruler of Judea, even though he was not of Jewish origin. Overall, what history records is that this is the time of powerful individuals rising to political leadership, at the cost of democracy and smaller countries.

2. Spiritual: The first century marked significant upheavals in the spiritual side of the world. This is the time when the concept of state religion was introduced. The roman ruler insisted that there must a religion called roman religion, which basically was a worship of a pantheon of gods and goddesses. At the same time, in the rest of the world, the Hellenistic religious practices got intermingled with several local religious beliefs as a result of the invasion by Alexander the Great in the previous centuries. Judaism was also not spared of this influence. Various sects emerged in Judaism, like the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Essenes and the Zealots, each with a different interpretation of the Torah. Around the world, several mystery religions and cults started emerging each promising its own version of salvation and initiation into hidden knowledge. In India Buddhism emerged during this period.

3. Wars : There were plenty of wars that characterised the first century BC, just before the birth of Christ. Interestingly wars were there internally , civil wars, and also between empires. There were a number of civil wars within the roman republic itself. The major one know as the Caeser’s civil war ultimately resulted in the dissolution of the republic and establishment of Julius Caeser as the sole ruler. Externally, Julius Ceasar fought war with the Gauls (modern day France) for a long time. By the way, for comic book lovers, we can see this in action in the Astrix comics. Rome and Egypt fought several wars. Closer home, India was going through its own wars during that period. Kings and emperors fought among themselves. Ashoka fought the Kalinga’s. The Sunga dynasty fought the Maurya’s. Several foreign invasions happened in the Indian subcontinent during this period. Some of them are the Indo-greek invasion, Yavana invasion, Indo-Scythian invasion etc.

4. Philosophy : The first Century BC marked a significant rise in the philosophical thinking among people, especially the intellectuals and the learned. The thoughts of Socrates were popularised by his student Plato and later by Aristotle who was a student of Plato. Rationality, acceptance of the concept of fate, Logical thinking, predominance of knowledge, integration of various ides rather than strict adherence to one school of thought etc, marked this period. All this resulted in the dilution of faith as such, and the attitude of “all roads lead to Rome” became a common practice in faith too. In India, this is the time, when the Nyaya and Vaisheshika schools of Hindu philosophy emerged with focus on knowledge, logical thinking, the nature of matter (paramanu) . This is also the when epics like Ramayana and Mahabharata were written. Sanskrit became the language of culture and literature during this period. Ultimately all these philosophical movements resulted into complete atheism or the depiction of gods as just superhuman beings.