"If God created the universe, why did He wait so long to have the Virgin Mary get preggy?"
We need to understand that God does not have to tell us anything that He does not want to. We are entitled to absolutely NOTHING. To challenge God's authority and question His motives, we are essentially raising ourselves up to the level of God. And that simply cannot happen, no matter how much we want it to happen.
With that being said, I am going to try and answer these questions to the best of my ability; I hope that you guys read my responses and let it sink in.
Galatians 4:4 says, "But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law." This verse declares that God the Father sent His Son when "the time had fully come." There were many things occurring at the time of the first century that, at least by human reasoning, seem to make it ideal for Christ to come then.
1) There was a great anticipation among the person of that time that the Messiah would come. The Roman rule over Israel made the person hungry for the Messiah's coming.
2) Rome had unified much of the world under its government, giving a sense of unity to the various lands. Also, because the empire was relatively peaceful, travel was possible, allowing the early Christians to spread the gospel. Such freedom to travel would have been impossible in other eras.
3) While Rome had conquered militarily, Greece had conquered culturally. A "common" form of the Greek language was the trade language and was spoken throughout the empire, making it possible to communicate the gospel to many different people groups through one common language.
4) The fact that many false idols had failed to give them victory over the Roman conquerors caused many to abandon the worship of those idols. At the same time, in the more "cultured" cities, the Greek philosophy and science of the time left others spiritually empty in the same way that atheism of communist governments leaves a spiritual void today.
5) The mystery religions of the time emphasized a savior-god and required worshipers to offer bloody sacrifices, thus making the gospel of Christ which involved one ultimate sacrifice believable to them. The Greeks also believed in the immortality of the soul (but not the body).
6) The Roman army recruited soldiers from among the provinces, introducing these men to Roman culture and to the ideas that had not reached those outlying provinces yet. The earliest introduction of the gospel to Britain was the result of the efforts of Christian soldiers stationed there.
The above statements are based on the type of question posed here; about the speculation about why that particular point in history was a good time for Christ to come. But we understand that God's ways are not our ways (Isaiah 55:8), and these may or may not have been some of the reasons for why He chose that particular time to send His Son.
From the context in Galatians 3 and 4, it is evident that God sought to lay a foundation through the Jewish Law that would prepare for the coming of the Messiah. The Law was meant to help people understand the depth of their sinfulness so that they might more readily accept the cure for that sin through Jesus the Messiah. The Law was also "put in charge" to lead people to Jesus as the Messiah. Add to this the sacrificial system that pointed to the need for a sacrifice for sin as well as its own inadequacy.
Finally, Christ came when He did in fulfillment of specific prophecy. Daniel 9: 24-27 shows the prophecy being made by Daniel, talking about the timing of Christ's incarnation (500 years before before Christ); which was obviously brought to pass by Jesus' birth.
The timing of Christ's incarnation was such that the people of that time were prepared for His coming. The people of every century since then have more than sufficient evidence that Jesus was indeed the promised Messiah through His fulfillment of the Scriptures that pictured and prophesied His coming in great detail.
Guess they're all in hell...
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