Every great deed, even a personal one, when people are faced with great tasks, requires long, many years, deep preparation. All great events in the life of the human race have been prepared by history for many years, sometimes even hundreds of years. If such is the order of human affairs, both personal and historical, then all the more great preparation was required by the most important event in the history of mankind - the appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ to the world. The human race had to mature for the reception of Christ's greatest teaching.

The worship of the True God, the knowledge of Him in ancient times was the property of only one, God-chosen people of Israel. The religions of other peoples were naturalistic. The pagans deified the material principles of the world, worshipped the heavenly bodies, all the elemental forces of nature, deified animals and birds, and worshipped idols carved by themselves.

In ancient times, the Indian people had a philosophically wise religion - Buddhism, but even they, for all their depth, were infinitely far from the knowledge of God. He knew only the vanity of human life and rejected life, becoming a religion of deep pessimism. In essence, he did not know God, he was a religion without God.

The ancient Greeks, a great people, knew God only partially, only in harmony and beauty. They were very far from knowing God as the only Being, as the center and focus, the source of all life.

The people of Israel came to know God as the only eternally existing One in Himself and worshipped Him as the True God (the word "Jehovah" means "He Who Is" in Hebrew). But even this is far from what true religion should be, for the people of Israel understood God rather as a terrible Autocrat, the Creator of the world and a terrible Judge, and, just like the pagans, they did not understand that God is first of all Love (John 4:8).

The essence of Christ's teaching is precisely the preaching and teaching about love. The people of Israel and all mankind had to be prepared to understand this great truth. And the Lord has been preparing for thousands of years.

In the most ancient times, promises were given to the human race about the Savior of the world. Even to Adam, the first man, before his expulsion from paradise, the Lord said: "The seed of the woman shall blot out the head of the serpent" (cf. Gen. 3:15). The seed of the woman is our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Woman is the Most Holy Virgin Mother of God, the Mother of God.

Several millennia before the coming of Christ to earth, a great prophecy about Him was pronounced by the forefather Jacob, the grandson of Abraham. Blessing his twelve sons before his death, he said to Judas, from whose lineage the Lord Jesus Christ was to appear to the world: "The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the rod from his loins, until the Mediator comes, and to Him shall be the obedience of the nations" (Gen. 49:10).

The reconciler is the same as the Savior, for the Savior, the Son of God, reconciled people to God. In this prophecy the time is even precisely determined, for the Lord came precisely when the scepter had not yet departed from Judah, that is, while the Jewish people retained their political independence, but the scepter from Judah and the rod from His loins were already ready to depart, for under the Lord Jesus Christ, when He was still a child, the Jewish people lost their political independence.

Предвозвестил пришествие Христа и святой пророк Исаия: Придет Искупитель Сиона и сынов Иакова, обратившихся от нечестия, - говорит Господь (Ис. 59; 20). Искупитель Сиона - это Искупитель народа израильского, ибо Сионом называлась та гора, на которой был воздвигнут храм Соломона, и под именем Сиона часто подразумевается именно еврейский народ.

А вот что говорит святой пророк Малахия: Вот я посылаю Ангела Моего, и он приготовит путь предо Мною, и внезапно придет в храм Свой Господь, Которого вы ищете, и Ангел Завета, Которого вы желаете (Мал. 3; 1). Это пророчество о святом Иоанне Предтече, который уравнял путь перед Господом Иисусом Христом.

Но самое важное пророчество о Господе Иисусе Христе принадлежит пророку Даниилу. Вот что он говорил за многие годы до воплощения Христа: Итак, знай и разумей: с того времени, как выйдет повеление о восстановлении Иерусалима, до Христа-Владыжи пройдет семь седмин и шестьдесят две седминыь, и возвратится народ, и обстроятся улицы и стены, но в трудные времена. И по истечении шестидесяти двух седмин предан будет смерти Христос, и не будет; а город и святилище разрушены будут народом вождя, который придет, и конец его будет как от наводнения, и до конца войны будут опустошения (Дан. 9; 25-26).

Что такое седмина? Седмина - это семь лет. Семилетиями древние израильтяне исчисляли время. Каждый седьмой год назывался годом субботним, в этот год отпускались на волю все рабы. Семьдесят седьмин - четыреста девяносто лет. Господь Иисус Христос точно по слову пророка Даниила был распят через четыреста девяносто лет после возвращения народа израильского из плена Вавилонского.

Пророк также говорит о том, что после предания Христа смерти, будет разрушен иерусалимский храм. Это произошло через семьдесят лет после Господа Иисуса Христа. Римский полководец Тит, после того, как Иерусалим был завоеван другим полководцем, Веспасианом, до основания разрушил Иерусалимский храм.