“But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.” Matthew 24:36 ESV

This is the third in a series of posts, a trinity so to speak, where we examine Bible verses that skeptics cite to claim that not only was Jesus not God, but also that Jesus admitted he was not God.

The first post was entitled “Why Do You Call Me Good?” and it dealt with Luke 18:19, the second post was entitled “The Father is Greater Than I” and that one dealt with John 14:28. Today we are going to look at the passage quoted above, Matthew 24:36.

After prophesying about the fall of Jerusalem, the eschaton, and his parousia, Jesus’ disciples wanted to know when all of this would happen. At this point Jesus admitted that he did not know when the end times would be, saying only the Father knew. Now, skeptics ask, if Jesus and the Father are one¹ how could this possibly be? If Jesus is God and God knows everything Jesus would know when the end times and his second coming would be.

Jesus as a Servant

Some of what I wrote in “The Father is Greater Than I” applies here as well: Jesus came to earth as a human messenger for the Father. In doing so he humbled himself to the Father in complete obedience, and as a human messenger he became a servant. And, as Jesus reminds us, a servant is not greater than his master.² As a messenger Jesus was subservient to the Father and relayed the Word that was given to him by the Father. Jesus spoke only what the Father wanted us to know.

But this does not answer the original question, this would be the answer if the question was, why didn’t Jesus tell us when all of these things would happen? This answer implies Jesus knew when they would happen but could not tell his disciples, but Jesus told the disciples he didn’t know. Jesus cannot lie so we have to conclude that he honestly did not know.

So how can this be?

Jesus Gains Knowledge

When Jesus humbled himself and became man, his divine nature didn’t leave him, however he had to learn and grow just as any other baby would. Because the Bible doesn’t tell us much about Jesus’ childhood it’s easy to forget at times that Jesus grew up as every other child grows up. Jesus wasn’t a baby on the outside and all-knowing on the inside, there had to be some type of separation there.

What I mean by that is, he wasn’t lying there in the manger pretending he couldn’t walk and talk until the proper age while at the same time pondering his mission on earth. He had to learn to walk and to talk just like we all did. There were no shortcuts Jesus could take if he was to live a perfect, sinless human life for us.

This being the case, it seems to me that Jesus understood at an early age that he was God, when as a 12 year old his parents lost him in the temple:

⁴⁹ And he said to them, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”³

While Jesus seems to have understood who he was, he still had to grow and to learn from the Father about his Godly nature:

“I have made known to you everything that I learned from my Father”⁴

⁵² And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man.⁵

Even though Jesus knew he was God, and he had a direct connection and line of communication with the Father, it seems as if there was a veil of sorts separating what Jesus knew as man from what he knew as God. This is reminiscent of the veil in the temple which separated man from God before the veil was torn in two at Jesus’ death.

Despite this, there are hints in the gospels that Jesus’ Godly learning was accelerated. Jesus was an exceptional student…

Our first hint comes in Luke 2:46,47 when Jesus was twelve years old:

⁴⁶ After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. ⁴⁷ And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers.

There are other examples of Jesus amazing the people with his learning ability:

¹⁴ About the middle of the feast Jesus went up into the temple and began teaching. ¹⁵ The Jews therefore marveled, saying, “How is it that this man has learning, when he has never studied?”⁶

And in Matthew 13:54-56:

⁵⁴ and coming to his hometown he taught them in their synagogue, so that they were astonished, and said, “Where did this man get this wisdom and these mighty works? ⁵⁵ Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? ⁵⁶ And are not all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all these things?” 

Jesus informs us in John 7:16 that “my teaching is not mine, but his who sent me.” So we see that the Father was teaching the human side of Jesus what he needed to know to spread the word of God in the world. The Father was constantly feeding him knowledge and teaching him, lifting the veil so to speak, throughout his life.

But there was heavenly knowledge which was apparently behind the veil that Jesus, the man, could not see because the Father didn’t want us to know when the end times would be. We are all supposed to live our lives as if the end times could be any moment, we are supposed to be prepared no matter when it comes.

If we knew when the end times would be, human nature would lead us to prepare only when it was necessary, and that would be the wrong motivation to live Godly lives. This is why this Godly knowledge was hidden behind the veil of Godliness from Jesus the man.

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1. John 10:30 ↩︎
2. John 15:20 ↩︎
3. Luke 2:49 ↩︎
4. John 14:16 ESV ↩︎
5. Luke 2:52 ESV ↩︎
6. John 7:14,15 ↩︎