Matthew 24:36
"But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone." (NASB) Biblegateway.com

Ok, first off, I know some versions include the "nor the Son" and some don't. The ones I found that don't include it are the Latin Vulgate, the King James, and Young's Literal (I'm sure there's more). The NIV gives a note about the "nor the Son" being missing from some manuscripts. But the manuscript deal really isn't what I wanna talk about.

How could Jesus, being in the Trinity, not know "the day and hour"?
I don't really understand how God the Father could know something, but withhold it from the Holy Spirit and Jesus.

Input please! :brow:

Hey Eleazar,
I think that when Jesus refers to himself as "the Son," he means the physical being or state that he's presently in. Because being God in the flesh (which he was), didn't he return to the Father when he left after his resurrection? And in doing this didn't he become, in part, of the Father? Or the same as the Father? If not please correct me, but I think that by reuniting with God he also becomes part of God and therefore he is now the Father as well as the Son. So to sum it up, Jesus does know because he is God, but only after he returns to God and leaves his "physical" state.
In Christ,
Believer

Albert Barnes replies with

the passage has no more difficulty than that in Luk_2:52, where it is said that Jesus increased in wisdom and stature. He had a human nature. He grew as a man in knowledge. As a man his knowledge must be finite, for the faculties of the human soul are not infinite. As a man he often spoke, reasoned, inquired, felt, feared, read, learned, ate, drank, and walked. Why are not all these, which imply that he was a “man” - that, “as a man,” he was not infinite - why are not these as difficult as the want of knowledge respecting the particular “time” of a future event, especially when that time must be made known by God, and when he chose that the man Christ Jesus should grow, and think, and speak “as a man?”

I am inclined to think the same thing. Jesus was not completely omnicient while in flesh as proven by Luk 2:52.

The Peoples' New Testament says "When the Son was on earth in the flesh, he voluntarily subjected himself to limitations, among them ignorance of the hour when he would return again to judgment. "


But Jesus received all His knowledge from the Father ie. Rev 1:1

02-26-2003 @ 10:05 PM
Bill the Cat:The Peoples' New Testament says "When the Son was on earth in the flesh, he voluntarily subjected himself to limitations, among them ignorance of the hour when he would return again to judgment."

Hey Bill the Cat, thanks for the reply. Is the quote above scripture or sidenote commentary stuff?

I heard this reply to my question (on another message board which will go unnamed): "Jesus is the perfect picture of submission to the Father. He does not know the hour because He has chosen not to know the hour in submission to the will of the Father..."

I understand what you are sayin Believer about Jesus swoopin' up to Heaven and comin' to full knowledge with the Father. I just have a hard time thinkin' that Jesus was not totally omniscient while on earth.

Luke 2:52 does shed some light on the fact of Jesus being limited.

Thank you all soo much for your input. I am going to have to sit back maybe for a while and think about this more to develop my opinions and stuff.

Glory be to God in the Highest!

I believe the real issue here is just what was the status of Jesus when he was fully human. There is scripture that would lead me to believe that he was as human as you and me and just as finite but there again are the remarkable feats or miracles that Jesus performs that shows that He is not like us. I would like to say that this is an easily answered question but it is not easily answered. I would say that I tend to believe that this was just a case that while human he was not able to know the hour but if indeed he has returned to the father and is in someway part of him today then I would have to say that he does know now. The reason that I say if is because I am currently debating if something that is uncreated such as God choses to become created like Jesus could ever become uncreated again but that is for another day and another thread. I know it is pretty far out there but I like to think out there at times. I love my job

freeontheinside writes:

I believe the real issue here is just what was the status of Jesus when he was fully human. There is scripture that would lead me to believe that he was as human as you and me and just as finite but there again are the remarkable feats or miracles that Jesus performs that shows that He is not like us.

There is a definite sense in which Christ, and those who have been perfected in Him, are "not normal" - And yet they are the ones who truely ARE normal... But they do not lead 'normal' lives. They instead lead holy ones, and miracles flow from their prayers, yet they are far from omniscient. To be one in Christ is indeed to be one with God, but that is by participation, and not by appropriation of God's essence - e.g. become God... We do not become God, but become transformed by Him, and the actions of such as these who have attained unto perfection in Christ are not the actions of the ordinary, nor do they have the results, of statistically ordinary people. By worldly standards, theirs are lives of foolishness, lived in voluntary tribulation in the world, the radiance of their garments of righteousness not visible to the peering eyes of the worldly...

I would say that I tend to believe that this was just a case that while human He was not able to know the hour but if indeed he has returned to the father and is in someway part of him today then I would have to say that he does know now.

The Bible does not say that Christ, while human, was unable to know, but simply that the Father alone knew... Bill has already done a nice job of addressing the difference of his human relative to His divine awareness.

The reason that I say *if* is because I am currently debating if something that is uncreated such as God choses to become created like Jesus could ever become uncreated again ...

Your effort to make of the incarnation of our Lord a matter of subsumption under a more general philosophical principle, such as you have done above, so as to attain intelligibility, is both laudable and mistaken... It was your use of the word 'something' that is waving such a huge warning flag!

The result of the incarnation is that fallen human flesh has been given the reality of sinlessness, and in its resurrected exaltation in Christ is now sitting at the right hand of the Holy God in the Son of that God...

Human flesh is now a part of the Godhead, and our job is to make ourselves, through faith and through our living repentant lives, and by the power of Christ and the Holy Spirit, one with one another and with Christ in the Holy Body of Christ, His Church... It is the path of repentance that leads us in the Holy Spirit by grace to become those conquering and overcoming [Rev. 3:12]... That we be made pillars in the temple of God...

So your question, "Does Christ, having once become created, have the power to become uncreated again?" misses the whole point of the incarnation, which is the elevation of human flesh to the Godhead in Christ, unto which we are called to exert ourselves in every effort... [To love the Lord our God with all our strength.

Such is the awesomeness and importance of humility and ongoing repentance in the face of the race we are set to enter and win against all powers that do assail...

Newly Yours In Christ...

geo

Geo writes:

The Bible does not say that Christ, while human, was unable to know, but simply that the Father alone knew... Bill has already done a nice job of addressing the difference of his human relative to His divine awareness.

I used the word in haste. I was by no means trying to put words into Christ's mouth. I was merely trying to point out that if there was something that he was unable to know it would have to have been while he was in human form and like us.

Geo writes:

Human flesh is now a part of the Godhead, and our job is to make ourselves, through faith and through our living repentant lives, and by the power of Christ and the Holy Spirit, one with one another and with Christ in the Holy Body of Christ, His Church

I would like some clarification here about the flesh now being part of the Godhead. If you are making this supposition based upon Jesus resurrected form then ok I guess but one thing I am still debating is how something created can be in part uncreated. I am willing to state that Jesus may vey well be the exception to the rule. Anyway it is not a crucial matter and it is certainly worth more exploration for me. Sorry for the alarming word of something I certainly was not implying anyhing by the word. I see that philosophy does have something to offer to the pursuit of God since this has been the great question that philosophers over the ages have been in pursuit of the nature and character of the universe and to most the recognition in God or at least a god.

freeontheinside writes:

> I used the word in haste. I was by no means trying to put words into Christ's mouth. I was merely trying to point out that if there was something that he was unable to know it would have to have been while he was in human form and like us.

That is what I sensed, and that the word IF was implied as central...

> Geo writes:

[/quote]

Human flesh is now a part of the Godhead, and our job is to make ourselves, through faith and through our living repentant lives, and by the power of Christ and the Holy Spirit, one with one another and with Christ in the Holy Body of Christ, His Church

> I would like some clarification here about the flesh now being part of the Godhead. If you are making this supposition based upon Jesus resurrected form then ok I guess

My friend, Christ ascended into heaven in His sinless body of human and glorified flesh, and nowhere does the Bible state that He in some way discarded it. Indeed we find that this body of His could and did pass through walls and eat food, and had no vulnerability to the world whatsoever, as did the crucified and scourged and spat upon and speared body of Christ. The resurrection is what all His life was heading toward, for by it He united us to the heavenlies in communion [=together-one] with God the Father.

> but one thing I am still debating is how something created can be in part uncreated.

Christ was both, as are you and I, except in far lesser degree, for He was both utterly, for to be utterly uncreated is to be fully created - Such is the mystery of the incarnation. The less divinity we have, the greater our inhumanity... And He was both without confusion, for He was both the son of man and the Son of God. If we do well as Christians, we become the abode of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, so we have no arrogance of presumption of equality with God...

> I am willing to state that Jesus may very well be the exception to the rule.

Reliably so! :-)

> Philosophy does have something to offer to the pursuit of God since this has been the great question that philosophers over the ages have been in pursuit of the nature and character of the universe and to most the recognition in God or at least a god.

The ways of philosophy are not the ways of God, but if someone is struggling in the faith because of philosophy, then it really is a fairly small matter to frame philosophical issues into cogent expressions that are more apt to help a person in their acquisition of the faith...

geo

Geo said:

The ways of philosophy are not the ways of God, but if someone is struggling in the faith because of philosophy, then it really is a fairly small matter to frame philosophical issues into cogent expressions that are more apt to help a person in their acquisition of the faith...

I would disagree with you on this point because philosophy is a God created institution. Now I am not advocating that all secular philosophies are Godly. I am suggesting though that there is such a thing as a Christian Philosophy. I believe that it is bold to assume that philosophy is not the way of God.


Geo said:

My friend, Christ ascended into heaven in His sinless body of human and glorified flesh, and nowhere does the Bible state that He in some way discarded it.

I would agree with you on this point. My question though would be where in heaven did he asscend

Geo said:

Indeed we find that this body of His could and did pass through walls and eat food,

I am assuming that you are using John to arrive at the assumption that he has passes through the walls it does not say that and I suppose that you can assume it but I am not so inclined since this is never explicity mentioned. The Luke account records that he was found standing in the midst of them in 24:36. Mark has some interesting words that he appeared in another form Mark 16:12. Wonder what that form was Anyway Geo you have your opinion of the afterlife and I have mine and maybe that should be taken up on another thread. As I said I am merly examining this theory and I have been enjoying your inputs and look forward to some more.