Mark 13:24-27

HIS HUMAN MIND

The waters get even deeper. Jesus also has a human mind:

Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man. (Luke 2:52)

Concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. (Mark 13:32)

It may be strange enough to first ponder Jesus, as God, growing and increasing in wisdom. Yet so he does, with respect to his humanity. But even more so, the second text is striking for those of us with a high view of Christ.

If Jesus is truly God, and God knows everything, how can Jesus not know when his own second coming will be?

The mature answer from church history has been this: in addition to being fully divine, Jesus is fully human. His one person has both an infinite, divine mind and a finite, human mind. He can be said not to know things, as in Mark 13:32, because he is genuinely human and finite— and human minds are not omniscient. And Jesus can be said to know all things, as Peter says to him in John 21:17, because he is divine and infinite in his knowledge.

Paradoxical as it is, the Scriptures plainly affirm that Jesus both knows all things as God and doesn't know all things as man. For the unique, two-natured, single person of Christ, this is no contradiction but a peculiar glory of the God-man.