Was there a reason Jesus came at the time he did? Concerning what the Bible says, and what might be said in commentary from prominent church leaders, is there a particular reason Jesus came 2000 years ago and not at some other time. One would think the earlier, the better.

If the question seems too broad, then just give me biblical support.
Was there a reason Jesus came at the time he did?

The short answer is &quot;yes&quot; – there is nothing accidental about how the key events in the Bible timeline unfold. This is evident in Acts 41 for example:

27for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, 28to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place. ESV

I'm going to recast your question as &quot;Explain how the timing of the incarnation fits with God's overall plan revealed as revealed in scripture&quot;

Before answering I'm going to refute, or at least demote, some of the common answers to this question:

&quot;The Pax Romana and great road system allowed the Gospel to spread&quot;
The gospel spread predominently by sea, and sea travel wasn't new. The Gospel was competing with any number of other religions and ideologies and its successful spread as outlined in Acts is explained only by the miracles2 that accompanied the evangelists. The power of Rome was important however, as I will explain later.

&quot;The common Greek language allowed the Gospel to spread&quot;
Language was no barrier to the Holy Spirit3. In any event lingua francas have developed around the world throughout human history, Greek being just the current example in the 1st century.



God's overall plan, and how the timing of the incarnation fits in:

What went wrong in the garden?
Adam and Eve disobey God, yes, but more importantly they distrust God:

17And to Adam he said,
“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; ESV

God's purpose in Bible history is not just to display his glorious forgiveness for this crime of failing to believe Him (which logically, He could have done straight away). It is also to prove that He is, in the final reckoning, right, and the lies are indeed false4. Everything that follows can be seen in this overarching context.

The purpose of the curse
The curse includes pain, sweat, conflict and especially death5. This is for a reason, and it is not just punishment: God will do all it takes to bring mankind back, never to doubt Him again. It has to be a long and difficult road, because every opportunity to blame God or to try and remake the world in our own image has to be exhausted before we will know forever and beyond doubt that He is 'the God of truth'.

Fix the outside (1), the flood
Left to their own devices, the wickedness of man increases6. God intervenes again and again – but each time a different lesson is learned. With the flood, God shows that the problem of wickedness cannot be addressed by washing it all away and starting again, because it is not a problem of society, culture or history. The problem is much deeper, in the heart7. As Noah steps onto the land that has been washed clean, he brings sin with him8.

Fix the outside (2), the law
The law brings another lesson: rules, however good and perfect, don't provoke an unrighteous man to righteousness. You simply cannot reach the human heart from the outside9.
The history of Israel after the giving of the law is a litany of its failure to make the nation righteous, from the cesspool of Judges until the circle is complete and they return to exile. Only after the return from exile is there a spark of hope: the open idolatry of the past is banished and a religion that purports to worship God begins10, but this too is a lie that must be exposed.

Twin Peaks: The Pharisees and Rome
Rome is like Egypt and Babylon before it: a symbol of the heights of human power and authority. That this empire should be conquered by the Gospel, and more importantly the manner of this conquest, is highly significant. God has demonstrated his power to humble the most powerful human rulers before, by smashing them with raw force11, or driving them to eat grass 'like an ox', but it is Rome's heart that is broken, not her right arm.
By contrast, the Pharisaic religion represent the pinnicle of human evil, in that it is the biggest lie. From the outside everything looks good, but nothing has changed within: worship is from the mouth not the heart12. Jesus' arrival is coincident with this peak of self-righteousness and he never holds back from denouncing it: he takes every opportunity to attack their hypocrisy13. What is inside the 'whitewashed tombs' must be revealed, and sure enough, the spitting hatred for God that lurks beneath the surface comes boiling out14 as these respectable religious folk conspire with their hated oppressors to kill the one who tells the truth in order to silence him.


So, Jesus came as just the right time: the events past were all that was needed to reveal the futility of every sort of lie and rebellion. The peak of both religious and idolatrous lie-worship had arrived and the life, death and resurrection of Jesus both exposed the lies, and laid open the way back to God for those who now choose truth.

1 See also Isaiah 46 and many other places in scripture.
2 For example, see how the great excitement of the crowds in Lystra in Acts 14 was a response to an extrodinary miricle. Paul elsewhere calls signs and wonders and mighty works evidence of apostleship.
3 See Acts 2:5-13.
4 The new man in the new creation will thus never fall again: he knows that God is to be trusted in a way that Adam could not: from the past. There is no form of rebellion that has not been tried already, and shown to be nothing but false promises and foolish vanity.
5 See Genesis 2:17, 3:3 and 3:19; the repetition imbues emphasis.
6 See Genesis 6:12
7 This is Peter's understanding of the flood: Baptism corresponds to the washing of the flood, but not at the level of removing dirt from the outside (i.e. the body) but acting on the inside where the conscience operates.
8 See Genesis 9:20-27
9 See Galatians 3:21
10 See 'let us make a covenant with our God' in Ezra:10. Ezra is unaware of the bitter irony of Israel re-committing itself to God and promising anew to keep His law. This verse is often read in a positive light but to do so is to completely miss the big picture of the Bible narrative; the seeds of the biggest and worst lie are being sown.
11 See Exodus 9:16
12 Isaiah forsaw this (Isaiah 29) and it was fulfilled in Jesus time (Mark 7:6): not a coincidence!
13 The list of examples is long. Jesus spoke of no other group like this: Gentiles, tax collectors and prostitutes were treated with gentleness. Though their sin was not condoned, they were not beyone the help of the 'physician'.
14 See the show-trial of Matthew 26:67-68.