If Jesus was God, why did He not know when He would return?

But the Lord also tells us in language peculiar to this Gospel, "of that day or of that hour knoweth no one, neither the angels who are in heaven, nor the Son136, but the Father." He had thoroughly taken the place of Son upon earth. I do not think that it refers to Him, viewed in His highest character, as one with the Father, but as Son and Prophet upon earth. The title of Son applies to Christ in more ways than one. It is true of Him in the Deity, true of Him as born into the world, and true of Him also in the resurrection. It is the second of these that we find here, as in the very first verse of this Gospel we find it said, "Jesus Christ the Son of God." I do not doubt that refers to His being Son of God here below, begotten in time, not the only-begotten of the Father, as we find so often in John. Looking at it in this way, there is little difficulty in understanding that He should speak as not knowing that hour, because He is speaking in His capacity of minister in the place that He took here below, the prophet that was serving God upon earth. So He did not know that hour. We read of Him in Luke as growing in knowledge as well as in stature. "Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man" (Luke 2:52). He was always perfect — perfect as a child, perfect as a young man, perfect as a servant; but, nevertheless, all these were quite distinct from what pertained to Him as the Son, one with the Father in Godhead. So here, without derogating from His own intrinsic glory, He could say that "nor the Son, but the Father" knew of that hour.

We have here the remarkable expression as to the Son of Man not knowing the day and hour when these things will take place. This is peculiar to Mark, and in keeping with the lowly character of our blessed Lord as the servant and messenger of God. He was concerned with but the fulfilment of His course and obedience to the will of God. In the relation of which Mark speaks, He knew neither the day nor the hour, in common with the angels. As God, however, surely He knew all things.

But lest anyone should dare to suggest a date for His coming (as many have foolishly attempted), He emphatically insists that no-one knows the day nor the hour, not the angels, nor even the Son, but the Father. The Son was here in the place of Servant, as Mark has presented Him. In this place He knew only those things that the Father had given Him as a matter of revelation, therefore the knowledge of the time of His coming could not be available from Him. We see this same devoted servant-character in Paul, who told the Corinthians, "I determined not to Know anything among you save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified" (1Cor.2:2). "Though in Deity the Lord Jesus is omniscient (all knowing), yet in Manhood He has willingly accepted the limitations of a Servant. In serving the Corinthians Paul also accepted a servant's limitations.

With the Gospels in our hand will it be claimed that Christ Jesus, even as incarnate, had, and manifested as occasion called for it, His own intrinsic essential knowledge of things, knowledge proper to a divine person, and differing in kind as much as in degree from our knowledge which is always derivative and limited, that at the back of everything this remained intact. As Prof. Orr says, "Behind all human conditionings are still present the undiminished resources of the Godhead. Omniscience, omnipotence, all other divine attributes, are there though not drawn upon save as the Father willed them to be." Omniscience, present though not drawn upon, quite meets the case of our verse here, "Neither the Son." The idea of absolute nescience, of an unqualified negation of knowledge cannot be entertained if He who made the statement is to remain for us true God as to His person. Become partaker of flesh and blood, He who would not draw upon His omnipotence in commanding the stones to be made bread for His sustenance as a man, would not either in this case fall back upon what in His omniscience He could not but be cognisant of; but observing in full measure the conditions proper to the humanity He has taken, "the times and seasons which the Father hath set within His own authority," are left there, and the prerogative of announcing or revealing them not usurped. In the capacity of Prophet the Son knows not officially of that day and hour.

C .C. — And so in Mark, they were asking for a revelation, they wanted to know the hour of His return. He replies, It has not been made known. The Father has not communicated it yet. He would not use His personal divine knowledge; He would not draw on His essential knowledge as God to communicate what was not a subject of divine revelation. He did not have that knowledge as a deposit,

(4) The parable of the revival of Israel's fig-tree from her winter sleep, with what follows to the thirty-second verse, is again almost word for word with Matthew. But Mark alone, in recording the Lord's declaration that "of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven," inserts "neither the Son." This the Lord's character as the Son of God in service sufficiently explains. "The servant knoweth not what his lord doeth." And to the Corinthians the apostle says, "I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified." It is not a question of His divine knowledge, but of what He knew as about His Father's business, as the apostle at Corinth knew nothing but the Crucified One.

If these words have a meaning, they make our blessed Lord to say that in Him the divine nature and the human were so separate, that one part of Himself knew and the other part did not; in other words, that, as second man, He had not omniscience. Is there any such lowering thought in Mark 13:32? First of all the text does not speak of Him specifically as man or Son of man, but as "the Son," and this alone destroys the argument. Secondly, it is admirably in keeping with the whole Gospel (in which alone it is found), where the Son is characteristically presented as the perfect SERVANT. Now, it was part of His perfection, as servant, not to know "of that day and hour" wherein the Father would exalt Him commensurately with His own voluntary humiliation. To humble Himself and to obey unto death, yea, death of the cross, was His whole concern. The result, as regarded Himself, He would leave absolutely and unreservedly with His Father; "wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him," etc. This is full of beauty and comeliness, truly heart-winning; but if you use the "no man knoweth" to infer that manhood in Christ had no part in omniscience, you disunite the two natures which now, i.e. since the Word became flesh, compose His person for ever, and you cast a slur upon Him. It is a fresh wound inflicted upon Him in the house of His friends.

But it is clear that Jesus as God must be omniscient, and a Divine Person could not divest Himself of this quality. He is evidently speaking of Himself in His dependent condition down here as the Servant of the Father, and as such He may not reveal this knowledge, but says plainly it is in His Father’s power.

This same prophetic discourse of the Lord's, of which the verse forms a part is, remember, His emphatic reply to the request of His disciples for a sketch of the future. No mere disquisition on things moral, clothed in the imagery of Jewish Apocalyptic literature, is this; but given as true prophecy. And after all this opening out of what that future contains, particularly as given by Matthew in its fulness, the whole course of events evidently before the mind of the speaker right down to the consummation of the age, Himself filling no small but the chief role in them, after all this we are to imagine that Christ's knowledge of the future, as of everything else, was of the same limited kind as our own, because He avows for Himself, in the capacity in which He was then speaking, unacquaintance with the day and hour of His own return and the establishment of His kingdom! In this case, as in the others, reason from what in the passage itself is apparent as to what Christ does know, and the kenotic interpretation sought to be put upon it will not stand. Any idea of absolute limitation as to the order or nature of His intelligence is seen to be quite incompatible with both the kind and extent of the knowledge already displayed. Granted that, as their expression has it, a lacuna or blank in His eschatology here appears. What of that? Does it follow inevitably that personally and in an unqualified sense the Teacher Himself was in a state of complete ignorance regarding the detail needed to fill it out. It did not belong to the class of things He was to intimate: does it follow therefore that it was beyond the range of those things with which He was intimate?

As there are no critical questions about the translation, we may take the common version. "But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father." This occurs in the Volume which asserts and proves our Lord to be God (John 1:1-2; Col. 1:16-20; Heb. 1:1-3). It came, too, from the lips of Him who claimed to be God (John 8:58; John 10:30). If this truth be a living reality in our souls nothing can disturb or unsettle, not even what is said in Scripture itself. We ought to be as firm on this as the great Apostle was about the Gospel, when he said, "Though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed" (Gal. 1:8). The moment we allow the thought of limitations in our Lord it is clear we have lost the truth of His Person. Suppose then we come across a passage such as this, what are we to do? Wait on the Lord for His help to understand it. If we keep close to Himself by the Spirit, with a sense of His grace, we will not be surprised at what seems to be contradictions. But suppose that light does not come and we are baffled, and cannot get to know the meaning, what then? Wait still on the Lord. If it be a settled thing in my soul that our Lord Jesus is God, How can I expect ever to understand all about Him? There are mysteries on every page of the gospels that we shall never be able to clear.