(Part 10 of 12)
Galatians 4:4–5 (4)But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, (5)to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.(ESV)
“When the fullness of time had come…”
That’s an interesting way to describe the arrival of Jesus. Not when God finally figured out what to do. Not when everything else had failed. Not when humanity’s problems became too large to ignore.
When the time had come. That raises a question. When did God begin preparing for the Cross?
We know when the Cross happened. We know about Golgotha. We know about Pilate. We know about Judas. We know about the nails, the crown of thorns, the darkness, and the tomb. But that’s where the Cross happened.
It isn’t where the story of the Cross began.
So let’s start moving backward.
Gethsemane?
Maybe the story begins in the garden. Jesus knows what’s coming. He knows the suffering ahead of Him. He prays in anguish.
Matthew 26:36–46 (36)Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, “Sit here, while I go over there and pray.” (37)And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled. (38)Then he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me.” (39)And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.” (40)And he came to the disciples and found them sleeping. And he said to Peter, “So, could you not watch with me one hour? (41)Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” (42)Again, for the second time, he went away and prayed, “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.” (43)And again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy. (44)So, leaving them again, he went away and prayed for the third time, saying the same words again. (45)Then he came to the disciples and said to them, “Sleep and take your rest later on. See, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. (46)Rise, let us be going; see, my betrayer is at hand.”(ESV)
There’s no surprise here. Jesus isn’t arrested and suddenly forced into a plan He didn’t know existed. He walks toward what’s coming. But Gethsemane can’t be the beginning.
Jesus had already told His disciples He was going to Jerusalem to suffer, die, and rise again.
Matthew 16:21 From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.(ESV)
So we’re too late. Keep going backward.
The Last Supper?
Before Gethsemane, Jesus sits at a table with His disciples. He breaks bread. He gives them the cup. He speaks about His body. His blood. The covenant. Forgiveness.
Matthew 26:26–29 (26)Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.” (27)And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink of it, all of you, (28)for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. (29)I tell you I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.”(ESV)
Jesus is explaining the meaning of His death before His disciples watch it happen. They don’t fully understand yet. Soon they will scatter. Peter will deny Him. Fear will take over. But Jesus already knows what Friday means.
So the table isn’t the beginning either. Keep going.
The Beginning of His Ministry?
John sees Jesus approaching and says:
John 1:29 The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!(ESV)
The Cross is still years away. There’s no crown of thorns. No trial. No Golgotha. Jesus hasn’t called all of His disciples yet. And already John is using the language of sacrifice.
Maybe that’s where the story begins. Except John didn’t invent the language of the lamb. Israel had been speaking that language for generations. We’re still too late.
Isaiah?
Now we move backward centuries. Isaiah writes about one who will be despised and rejected. He speaks of suffering. Wounds. Sin. A lamb led to slaughter.
Isaiah 52:13–15 (13)Behold, my servant shall act wisely; he shall be high and lifted up, and shall be exalted. (14)As many were astonished at you—his appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of the children of mankind—(15)so shall he sprinkle many nations. Kings shall shut their mouths because of him, for that which has not been told them they see, and that which they have not heard they understand.(ESV)
For Christians reading Isaiah after Calvary, the connection to Jesus is impossible to miss. Acts itself shows Philip beginning with this passage and telling the Ethiopian eunuch the good news about Jesus.
Acts 8:35 Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this Scripture he told him the good news about Jesus.(ESV)
Surely we’re getting close to the beginning now.
But Isaiah is drawing on sacrificial language his readers already know. The lamb was already part of Israel’s story. Keep going.
Passover?
Now Israel is still in Egypt. Pharaoh has refused to release God’s people. Judgment is coming. Israel’s told to take a lamb. Blood marks the houses. Death passes over. Then God tells His people to remember.
Exodus 12:26–27 (26)And when your children say to you, ‘What do you mean by this service?’ (27)you shall say, ‘It is the sacrifice of the Lord’s Passover, for he passed over the houses of the people of Israel in Egypt, when he struck the Egyptians but spared our houses.’” And the people bowed their heads and worshiped.(ESV)
Year after year. Generation after generation. Remember.
Centuries later, Jesus will sit with His disciples at Passover shortly before His death.
Paul will eventually write:
1 Corinthians 5:7 Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.(ESV)
The connection becomes explicit. The vocabulary existed long before Bethlehem. Long before Rome occupied Judea. Long before crucifixion entered this particular story. But Passover still isn’t early enough. Keep going.
Abraham?
Abraham walks up a mountain with Isaac. Isaac notices that they have fire and wood. Something is missing. Where’s the lamb?
Abraham answers:
Genesis 22:8 Abraham said, “God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” So they went both of them together.(ESV)
God provides a ram. Isaac lives. We should be careful here.
Genesis 22 is a real story with its own context. We shouldn’t reduce Abraham and Isaac to nothing more than coded characters in a future story. But once we know the Cross, the pattern is difficult for Christians to ignore.
A beloved son. Sacrifice. Provision. A substitute. God provides.
Maybe we’ve finally reached the beginning. Except humanity needed redemption before Abraham ever climbed that mountain. So keep going.
Eden
Now we’ve reached Genesis 3. No Israel. No Passover. No prophets. No David. No Bethlehem. No disciples. No Rome. No Judas. No Pilate. No Golgotha.
Just humanity, God, a serpent, a command, and a choice. Then everything breaks.
Sin enters the human story. Shame follows. Adam and Eve hide. They blame. Judgment comes. They will leave the garden.
If there were ever a moment for the biblical story to simply end in failure, this would be it.
Humanity has barely begun, and humanity’s already rebelled against its Creator. Yet in the middle of God’s words of judgment to the serpent comes something remarkable.
Genesis 3:14–15 (14)The Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. (15)I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”(ESV)
There will be conflict. The serpent will wound. But the serpent won’t have the final victory.
Christians have historically looked back at Genesis 3:15 and seen the first glimpse of the victory ultimately accomplished through Christ.
We haven’t even left Eden yet. And already the story is pointing beyond Eden.
But Even Eden Isn’t Far Enough
This is where the question becomes almost unfair. When did God begin preparing for the Cross?
Before Gethsemane? Yes.
Before Jesus began His ministry? Yes.
Before Isaiah? Yes.
Before Passover? Yes.
Before Abraham? Yes.
Before humanity left Eden? Yes.
Then the New Testament pushes us farther than the Old Testament narrative can take us. Peter writes about Christ as a spotless lamb and says He: “was foreknown before the foundation of the world.”
1 Peter 1:20 He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you(ESV)
Paul says God chose us in Christ: “before the foundation of the world.”
Ephesians 1:3–10 (3)Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, (4)even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love (5)he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, (6)to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. (7)In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, (8)which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight (9)making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ (10)as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth in him.(ESV)
Now we’ve gone as far backward as we can go. Before Bethlehem. Before David. Before Abraham. Before Adam. Before the serpent. Before sin. Before there was a human being who needed redemption. Before the foundation of the world.
And God wasn’t surprised.
The Cross Wasn’t Plan B
I think this matters because we sometimes tell the biblical story almost like God kept trying things until something finally worked.
Humanity failed in Eden. So God tried something else.
Humanity became corrupt. The flood. That didn’t fix humanity.
Then Abraham. Then Israel. Then the Law. Then judges. Then kings. Then prophets. Everyone kept failing.
Finally God sent Jesus.
That makes the Cross sound like the last option remaining after every previous strategy failed. But that’s not how Scripture presents it.
The Law wasn’t a failed attempt at salvation that Jesus had to replace. The prophets weren’t failed repairmen. Israel’s history wasn’t God experimenting. The Cross wasn’t an emergency meeting in heaven.
God wasn’t reacting. The story had been moving toward Christ all along.
Friday Still Looked Like Failure
And yet, standing near the Cross, none of that would’ve made Friday look easy. That’s important.
Preparation doesn’t always make the moment understandable while you’re living it.
The disciples had Scripture. They had Jesus’ own predictions. They’d heard Him explain what was coming. And when He was arrested, they still scattered.
When He died, they still grieved. The two disciples walking toward Emmaus later said: “We had hoped…”
Luke 24:21 But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened.(ESV)
Those words hurt. We had hoped.
They thought they knew where the story was going. Then the Cross happened.
From where they stood, hope had died. What they couldn’t yet see was that the event they thought had destroyed their hope was the very event through which God was accomplishing something far greater than they understood.
They were looking at Friday. God knew Sunday was coming. But even Sunday wasn’t the whole story.
The Story Was Always Bigger
This series has repeatedly looked backward.
Before Goliath, there was a shepherd. Before Moses stood before Pharaoh, there were decades nobody would’ve identified as preparation. Before the famine, Joseph was already in Egypt. Before the decree, Esther was already in the palace. Before Peter failed, Jesus had already prayed for him. Before the furnace, three men had already decided who they belonged to. Before Elijah needed the next provision, God already knew where He was sending him. Before Bethlehem, generations of ordinary faithfulness were already woven into the story. But the Cross takes the idea farther than all of them. Because the Cross isn’t merely one more example of God preparing ahead of a crisis.
The Cross is the place where we discover just how far ahead the story reaches.
We can trace the line backward through Jesus’ ministry. Through the prophets. Through Israel. Through Passover. Through Abraham. Through Eden. And Scripture still tells us: Keep going. Before the foundation of the world.
That means Calvary wasn’t God’s answer after He discovered how badly humanity had broken itself.
The Lamb wasn’t an afterthought. Christ wasn’t the backup plan. Redemption wasn’t improvised.
So when Jesus finally stood before Pilate, heaven wasn’t scrambling. When Judas betrayed Him, God wasn’t surprised. When Peter denied Him, the plan wasn’t collapsing. When the stone rolled across the entrance to the tomb, God hadn’t lost control of the story.
Friday looked like everything had gone wrong. But Friday had been coming for a very long time.
Long before anyone raised a hammer at Golgotha, long before anyone shouted for Jesus to be crucified, long before anyone needed to be saved, God already knew the cost of redemption—and Christ was already at the center of the story.
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