We need to consider the extent to which God always had it in mind, in His plans and thinking, to send a Christ, and the extent to which this underpinned all He said in the distant past. It is implicit in His laws and commands given to Moses, that a human judge would be provided who had no sin who would judge the deeds of all. It is explicit in His word to Moses and the assurances Moses passed on to the ancient Israelites, assurances of God sending ”a prophet like myself”, as Moses put it. It was explicit, yet we should also consider the extent to which this is implicit in all of the words God gave in ancient times, that a human would one day come into the world who would be human yet sinless enough to judge all humans at the end of the generations of humans. It is even reflected in other religions with roots in those early times when God spoke to the Israelites. (Look at Zoroastrianism, for example, plus Far Eastern and Turkic traditional religions like the Tengri religion.) How, after all, could God command righteousness if no human would ever exist as perfect model of it? That would be like creating a fantasy to follow, unless God foresaw a perfect obe coming who obey it all. God is surely no fantasist and no hypocrite, so it is implicit that a Christ will be sent one day. So this is why, when Jesus did come, sent by God, he was called the Christ. It already was “a thing”. He had this mantle waiting for him. As Christ, he already existed, so to speak. His first disciples could recognise him as this Christ even without any human telling them, except that John the Baptist alluded to it. God could inspire those chosen for it that the sacrifices all looked forward in anticipation of a perfect sacrifice. They were leading up to a culmination. Something that would perfect them. They were a stopgap until the perfect would come. Human priests were imperfect. God would provide perfection eventually. It was implicit in what God said, if you had inspiration to see it. The Son of Man would come, The Christ. Now he has come and the world all knows the word Christ and who it points to most of all. We even call our years BC and AD. Even Jewish sects like Hassidism and the like who reject Jesus as Christ, still look for a future Christ. They must get this belief from something. It must be a concept existing before Jesus came, in old testament scriptures and in the moral compass of Abrahamic faith. It is there in the word of God. Jesus is this One who was to come. As he himself said, “Before Abraham was born, I am.”
