Why did Jesus not know the hour if He is really God?
One of the attributes of God is that He is Omniscient (i.e. all knowing), there is absolutely nothing that God Almighty should not know. Christians believe that Jesus is God and if He really is God, we would expect Him to have all the attributes of God, including His omniscience. It is therefore very perplexing that there are some things Jesus says He does not know. The key of which, the hour of judgment.
“But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”
(Mark 13:32)
How do Christians reconcile Jesus not knowing the hour of judgment with Him being God in the flesh? I present three potential resolutions.
The first potential resolution has to do with the Greek translation of the above passage, specifically the “but the Father” part of the aforementioned scripture. The Greek word translated “but” could also be translated “if not”. So the purport of the statement would then be “if not the Father, the Son and the angels in heaven would not know the hour”.
This to my mind is tenuous because it is almost too neat to be true. It is highly unlikely this verse would have been the subject of so much debate and theological attention if it could simply be explained away with something as straightforward as the interpretation of the Greek. Secondly, the overall context of the verse seems to align better with Jesus really saying He did not know the hour and neither do the angels in heaven, this emphasis seems to make more sense of the contextual statements and the overall theme of scripture to the effect that the hour of judgment is hidden and could come like a thief in the night, this is further buttressed by the opening sentence which is “No one knows the day or the hour”. This interpretation would not only mean Jesus and the angels know the hour but that everybody now knows the hour. It would be arbitrary to restrict this interpretation to cover only Jesus or only the angels in heaven and Jesus but not to everyone else covered by “No one knows”.
The second approach is that the word “know” used by Jesus is the Greek word “Oida” which has a number of meanings including to “make known, reveal or proclaim”. This is not as arbitrary as it sounds because we do have some consistency with this sentiment in how Paul uses the same Greek word in another instance. He writes to the church in Corinth,
“And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.”
(1 Corinthians 2:1–2)
Obviously Paul is not saying he literally knew nothing except Jesus and Him crucified. the context is that His entire preaching and declaration to the church in Corinth centred around Jesus and Him crucified. So in this context, Jesus is saying it is not His domain to declare the hour to His audience, that is the exclusive preserve of the Father.
The consummation of the kingdom of God is likened to a Jewish wedding feast and in a Jewish wedding, it is the Father, not the groom, that declares the date of the wedding feast.
Again the problem with this view is that Jesus goes on to say,
“Take heed, watch and pray; for you do not know when the time is.”
(Mark 13:33)
The word “know” is the same Greek word used for Jesus not knowing the hour in verse 32 so the context again, leads us to the same very uncomfortable position that Jesus is talking about actual knowledge here not any declaration, so the issue remains.
The third and most orthodox position is that this passage of scripture reflects the dual nature of Christ occasioned by the incarnation. Jesus is fully God and fully man. Jesus in His divine nature as God had access to the knowledge of the hour but as a human being and to reflect His humility in not using His divinity to His advantage (other than as directed by the Father and towards advancing His mission when He was earth), chose not to access that knowledge He had readily available.
In this light, there are echoes here of the temptation of Jesus Christ in the wilderness to turn stones into bread. Jesus turning stones to bread would have been Him using His divine attributes (in this context, Omnipotence) to His advantage in a way inconsistent with the Father’s directive and irrelevant to His mission on earth. In the same way, Jesus willingly refused to use His divine attribute of omniscience in a similar manner in context of knowing the hour.
Now that said, the post resurrection Christ when asked a somewhat similar question by the disciples states,
“…is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority.”
(Acts 1:7)
Now note that Jesus does not deny knowledge here, He just says it is not for the disciples to know this because that is the Father’s domain. So whatever interpretation one chooses, Christ does know the hour and remains Omniscient. if the first interpretation (problematic as it is), then Jesus knew the hour at the time He was speaking because of the Father. If the second interpretation, then Jesus knew the hour but it was not His place to declare the hour and if the third, then since His resurrection, there are no more self imposed limits on the omniscience of Jesus (since the whole mission which entailed the humble and voluntary limitation has now been accomplished) and He does now know the hour.
Note that Jesus is portrayed as omniscient in the gospels.
He does know things about the woman at the well (John 4:18), He knew the thoughts of Simon the Leper’s heart (Luke 7:39–40) as well as the hearts of the Pharisees who were judging him for forgiving the paralytic (Matthew 9:4), He knew what was going on in Peter’s heart was doubt when he started sinking after walking on water (Matthew 14:31). Note that the instances of the pre-resurrection Jesus “knowing things” are not portrayed as revelation given Him from God or anything of that kind, He just “knows” these things.
In the book of Revelation, the post resurrection Jesus is said to be the one that searches and tries the heart (Revelation 2:23), an attribute explicitly and exclusively given to YHVH, the God is Israel in the Old Testament (Jeremiah 17:10).
In conclusion, Jesus not knowing the hour is not inconsistent with His deity. Going with the most orthodox interpretation, Jesus willingly and out of humility chose not to access that specific knowledge available in His divinity because “He, despite being in essence God, did not want to exploit His divine nature to His advantage” (Philippians 2:6) and the post resurrection Jesus is portrayed as omniscient in the exact same terms as the God of Israel in the Hebrew scriptures.
