Day 225 – The time between: The Roman Period
(63 BC to AD 135)
“But when the right time came, God sent his Son.” Galatians 4:4 NLT
As you open the Gospel of Matthew, the Jews are now unwilling subjects of the Roman Empire. They are allowed freedom of worship and limited authority in overseeing their own affairs. But they long for more as they hold on to the prophecies of the Old Testament and expectantly await the promised Messiah. They worship under the guidance of the high priest (the Pharisees), dispute religious matters in the high council (the Sanhedrin), and struggle to survive under Rome and its taxation.
They expected a warrior, not the baby lying in the manger that God’s angels announced. And Jesus never lives up to their expectations. Both of the main religious factions disapprove of Him and see Him as a threat to their system. The legalists of the day, the Pharisees, devoted themselves to the law of Moses and strictly applied it to everyday life. A task they took seriously and could not accept Jesus’ disregard for their rules and claim to forgive sins. The rationalists of the day, the Sadducees, were sceptical toward religion, and although they believed in a literal interpretation of Moses’ law, they did not allow it to have a life-controlling impact in their lives – they focused on the temporal, political concerns. They saw Jesus primarily as a threat, a rabble-rouser who might catch the attention of Rome and thus imperil the nation.
These factions came to agree on one point, at least – that Jesus must be killed. They worked together in the high council to sentence him, stirring up crowds and false witnesses and pressuring the Roman authorities to have Jesus crucified.
Looking back on the time between the Old and New Testaments, it is clear that God brought about the perfect political and religious setting for the work of his Son. Instigated by the Jewish religious factions, the Romans put Jesus to death. The power and highway system of Rome allowed the message of Jesus’ resurrection to spread faster than any person could try and stop.
Prayer: Father, thank You for creating these periods and guiding the events to lead up to the very moment of Jesus’s birth, ministry, crucifixion, and resurrection. And from this, the spread of the Good News to the ends of the world. You rule over political and religious matters and use the outcomes for the good of Your Kingdom. Amen.
