Why did God wait so long before presenting Christ to save us?

Why did God wait so long before presenting Christ to save us? Why did He destroy people in the Old Testament?

Well I believe the reason why He had to destroy people in the Old Testament was because they had got to the point where they were just beyond saving. C.S Lewis gives the example of God building man to ‘run’ on Him. In other words, to survive on Him. If we are so corrupt, our hearts are so hardened to Him to the point where He can no longer do a work in us; the only thing left is death. Think of it another way, God gave us free will – which meant that ultimately we have a choice – a choice to do good and a choice to do bad. Each with their own consequences because this is a law. The law is a law because there is a standard. God is that standard, you are either for Him or against Him – if you are against Him then you are doing wrong, what we as christians call ‘sinning’ and as we have just said, the consequence of sin is to be separated from God (death)…

((This is all before God took on the consequence of sin and fought death so that we could have everlasting life. In other words, an act to stop death from being the consequence. Only by ‘repenting’ recognising you have done wrong and prayed for forgiveness, is how you gain everlasting life which you can only do through Jesus’. He is the one who took on the debt of our sins, almost like He is paying our ‘tab’.))

So, therefore, the more you sin, the further you are from God and the less able He was to be close to you. Genesis 6:3 “Then the Lord said, “My Spirit will not put up with [remain in] humans for such a long time…” Then he decreased their lifespan. Think of it another way. If you grew a fruit and this fruit was growing because you were feeling and watering it, but it then began getting fed and watered by something else – something that was no good for it and it was no longer looking to you for food thus, becoming more and more rotten, it would get to a point where there would be nothing you could do. It was ultimately being destroyed by something else and not coming to you for help, so the only thing left would be to destroy it completely so that not only would it be hurting you having to see it every day but also so it wouldn’t affect others.

So you may be wondering why God didn’t just force someone to love Him and come back to Him. This is impossible for two reasons: 

1) Like with man – we know forcing someone to do something is not going to get them to do it willingly. They may probably resent you for it, they also may comply but true love won’t exist. 

2) God in Himself is Love; this is a Law. God is a Law and thus cannot break any of His Laws because that would man He is a liar to Himself and all our Laws would mean nothing. Thus, the Law of Love in itself is ‘willing’ so if God now made man ‘love’ Him it wouldn’t be ‘love’  it would be something else and thus God would not be God. Thinking of God as a ‘standard’ – something of which two opposite things are compared to. If He now dropped His standard there would be no laws and the world would cease to exist. But of course this is impossible as the Law is the Law. It is. Just like, ‘I AM’ – it is active. Something which is active we can’t say is inactive because how can it be inactive if it is in fact actually active? It doesn’t make sense. Therefore, God cannot make us love Him because then this is not love and that in, itself, goes against exactly what God is. He can’t be something He is not, it makes no logical sense.

Why did God wait so long to save us then…? Well I believe it was because He – like us ‘men’ made in His image – knew pain and knew that killing His only son would be the worst thing. Destroying anything that is perfect is horrible to even someone with half a heart. This is because God is love. It is basically Him destroying a part of Himself. Imagine the most emotional person you know and then destroying something that they love so dearly – it is heartbreaking literally. Genesis 6:6, “So the Lord was sorry he had ever made them and put them on the earth. It broke His heart.” This is the way it would seem to us, that part of us which makes us like God. So imagine it on a bigger scale, as that is all what God is.

I reckon God felt the same. He wanted to give man as much time as possible to come back to Him willingly – so that He knew it was because of love. It wasn’t that He just sat back and waited for man to come to Him – no. He used a number of people in the Old testament including: Noah, Moses, Joshua, Daniel, Samuel, David, Solomon etc. to try and call people to come back to Him. He used people who knew Him and loved Him to show other people that they could also.

So why did God not present Himself to the world as a whole, why did He only show Himself to those few men? 

He did so for two reasons: 

1) As I have said previously, had He presented Himself (if it were possible – reason 2 will elaborate) then it would seem a controlling factor. It would be a bit like someone forcing themselves onto you. You would either not take to them,  be anti-conformist because you felt like you didn’t want to love, or you would conform because you knew you had to. Both of these don’t allow you the possibly of choice, which is love. You shouldn’t feel pressured into doing something you should do it because you want to – that is love. 

Reason 2) is because God is perfect. He is a standard and standards cannot be lowered. At the time the world was far from perfect, it was corrupt and full of sin. God is so perfect that sin cannot be near Him. This is because it is the opposite of what He is. In simple terms, light cannot be in darkness, if light enters darkness then it is no longer darkness it now becomes light and vice-versa; the two cannot co-exist together. This is the same for God and sin – they cannot co-exist completely together. Some light can shine in the darkness like a candle in a darkroom but the flame does not in itself have darkness in it. Hence why a piece of God can be in the world (Christ and disciples) but He himself – the light source – cannot. 

Also, if you think about it in terms of sickness and health. The more a healthy man is around someone sick, the more likely he is to become sick Himself. If he isn’t able to become sick, then we might think of him as being the unwell one or someone who is different and perhaps wouldn’t take to him. All these examples we can readily apply to God. Him being the light source and the healthy man. He cannot live in a world of sin without being able to change it (sacrifice Himself for it). It is not in His nature. 

So first, back to reason number 1) He wanted man to come to Him readily without Him having to Sacrifice Himself. The people God used in the Bible were all men of righteousness. They were people who had still had some good in them compared to the rest of mankind at their time, and it was this good that God recognised and was able to appeal to. Their hearts weren’t hardened to Him so they were able to recognise Him. His good, hear him, trust Him (before He presented Himself to them) and be obedient to Him which is what He wanted, as they were, if you want, His tools to get to the ones who didn’t know Him and were too ‘different’ to Him for Him to directly communicate with them.

I guess, however, it got to the point where people got so wicked that God couldn’t ‘cope’ or put up with anymore rather and therefore, chose to come and save us the only way He could – pay off the sin for us through death of someone because they were perfect – Himself in Human form – the son Jesus Christ. Before He had wiped out mankind with the flood, it hadn’t worked, people were still wicked but he promised He would never do that again. He chose to save us so that we could again chose freely to love Him and therefore able to have the consequence of good – eternity with Him. Even though we cannot on our own efforts, we can on the sacrifice that was made to us if we accept it in our hearts; through our hearts being willing to accept His love and the Holy Spirit which is Him in us.