Question:Matthew 24:36 quotes Jesus as saying, with regard to his second coming, "No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father." I have heard this scripture quoted a number of times -- even in the news -- in the wake of the recent failed Rapture prediction. This prompted some of my more skeptical friends to ask: "If Jesus is God then why didn't he know the day or hour? Why was his Father the only one who knew? Has his Father told him yet?"

How do I answer them? Scriptures such as John 3:35; 13:3; 16:30; 18:4 and Matthew 11:27 seem to indicate that Jesus knew everything and was all powerful. Colossian 1:15-16 depicts him as the most powerful being in the universe -- second only to God the Father. Why couldn't he know the time of his Second Coming?

Answer:The Bible tells us that God, without ceasing to be God, became flesh in the person of Jesus. He did not mix divinity and humanity, but rather united them together in the person of God in a unique way. The Bible says that Jesus is the Son of God in a unique sense, since he is called, in John 1:18, "the only begotten or unique" (the Greek word is monogenes). The New International Version calls him, God the One and Only.

Jesus was and is the unique God-man – and that is central to helping us understand his birth, life, death and resurrection. Since he was fully human and fully divine, there are many seeming paradoxes about his life when seen from our perspective, because we are only fully human. For example:

Jesus was tempted (Hebrews 4:15), yet God cannot be tempted (James 1:13), but Jesus who was both God and man was tempted – therefore he was tempted because he was a man – he was tempted in his humanity but not in his divinity. Yet because he was God, he could not sin as a result of the temptation (John 5:10).

Other paradoxes – God cannot be seen (John 1:18), yet men saw Jesus the man (1 John 1:1-2) while men cannot see Jesus in his divinity (1 Timothy 6:16). God cannot die (1 Timothy 1:17,) but Jesus, the man, did die (Phil. 2:8). Jesus, the God-man raised his human body from the dead (John 2:19-22). God never changes (Psalms 102:26-27), but Jesus the man grew and learned (Luke 2:52 and Hebrews 5:8), yet Jesus the Son of God never changes (Hebrews 1:10-12 and 13:8). God is eternal (Psalms 90:2), yet Jesus the Son of man was born (Matthew 1:18) while Jesus is the Eternal Son of God, having always existed (John 8:58). God is not a man (Numbers 23:19), yet Jesus is both man (1 Timothy 2:5) and God (John 20:28).

To your specific question – God knows all things (Isaiah 41:22-23) and Jesus as God knows all things (John 16:30) but Jesus, the man, did not know the day of his return (Matthew 24:36 and Mark 13:32). His point in making this statement to the disciples was this: Those who are concerned about God's timing and schedule are asking the wrong questions -- which is why those who go a step further and claim to have calculated and determined the exact timing of "end-time" events are always wrong. Rather, believers should be asking themselves if they are "alert" (Matthew 24:42) and "ready" (vs. 44) for whatever events they may encounter. We are alert and ready when we trust and believe in God to see us through the many traumatic events of our lives. Because he trusted his Father, Jesus, as a human being, did not concern himself with dates and times. Neither should we.

In Christ,

Greg Albrecht