Christianity, of which Jesus Christ is the Founder and Divine Head, is
essentially a "revealed" religion. It is not, that is to say, the
result and culmination of the progress of evolution in man's beliefs
about God. Nor was it the outcome of an impact made upon Judaism by
Hellenistic thought. It is, and has always from the first claimed to
be, a direct revelation by God of Himself to man through Jesus Christ.
To say this does not mean however that the world was not in any way
prepared for the coming of Christ. On the contrary, the traces of that
preparation are clear throughout the Old Testament, from beginning to
end. If the Old Testament is read in the light of a progressive
revelation of God's Nature and Being, and His relations with mankind,
its difficulties disappear, and it is seen to point clearly to the full
revelation of God in Jesus Christ. But the method is that of God
pointing out the way to man, not of man's discovery of it for himself.
When almost the whole of the then known world had been brought under
the sway of the great Roman Empire, the time was ripe for a World
Religion. So "when the fulness of time was come, God sent forth His
Son" to bring the message of salvation to the whole of mankind.