Welcome everyone to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. We’ve lately been looking at the Watchtower pamphlet of “Should You Believe In The Trinity?” Tonight, we’re going to be studying the topic of Jesus’s limited knowledge. This is a common objection and frankly, it is the first objection I can really see as one that can legitimately trouble some people. The rest fall on bad understanding, but this one does require more knowledge to it.
Why is it that Jesus did not know the day or hour of his return? What does it mean to say that Jesus learned obedience from what he suffered? Why is it that the revelation was given to Him? These are good questions and for an effective Christology, they need to be answered.
For Christians, the answer is that indeed, Jesus did not know some things. Why? Because he came as a human and as such, he took upon himself limitations. I believe that Jesus was only given knowledge that was absolutely essential to his mission. The knowledge of when he would come again in Matthew 24, however you interpret it, was not essential and frankly, we can be thankful in some ways I’m sure that he did not tell us.
Why did Jesus learn obedience? Jesus was a human for the first time and for the first time, he experienced what it means to obey God in the space-time continuum. Of course it would be something new. Jesus had to submit to the Father as a human and in doing so, he was being what we are all supposed to be.
Why was the revelation given to him? Again, Jesus was the servant and all the knowledge he had was coming from the source. Of course, I always like to take Witnesses to Revelation 19:12 where we are introduced to the man riding on the white horse, and there’s no doubt it’s Jesus. What are we told? He has a name that no one knows save he himself.
Ah. Are we to assume that God the Father does not know the name? If we interpret the verse the way Jehovah’s Witnesses do, then yes.
The reality is that passages like these being used indicate that more than anything, we need to be developing our Christology more and more. The reason the Witnesses have such great success is not I believe so much because of what they are doing, although we should certainly wish to have their zeal for evangelism. The reason they have such success is because of a biblical illiteracy and this is largely on the part of Christians.
What do we do? Churches ought to be trainers of their people. No. Not everyone can be an apologist. The pastor should have a basic knowledge of apologetics but even he is not necessarily to specialize in that. However, he should know someone who he can refer to who will be there to help someone. Could it actually be that it would help if every church had a member on staff who was a trained apologist?
It just might.
We shall continue later.
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