Difficult Passages

A Pastoral Reference
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49 Gospels / Theology

The Son Does Not Know the Hour

Mark 13:32; Matt 24:36

The Difficulty

Speaking of his return, Jesus says, “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). If Jesus is divine and omniscient, how can he not know the time of his own coming? The verse is so striking that some later scribes deleted “nor the Son” from copies of Matthew. It seems to set the Son’s knowledge below the Father’s — fuel for ancient and modern denials of Christ’s full deity.

Responses

Knowledge According to the Two Natures

Tradition: Patristic / Conciliar Summary: As God the Son is omniscient; in his human nature he knew as a man knows, and it is according to that humanity that he does not know the hour.

Chalcedonian Christology confesses one person in two natures. The Fathers (e.g., Cyril, Gregory of Nazianzus) held that Christ’s divine knowledge is undiminished, while his genuine human mind operated within creaturely limits. He speaks here from and for his humanity. The verse thus safeguards, rather than threatens, the reality of the incarnation.

Strengths

  • Coheres with orthodox two-natures Christology
  • Takes both Christ’s deity and his real humanity seriously

Weaknesses

  • Can feel like a technical device to some readers
  • Raises the question of how one person “knows and doesn’t know”

Further Reading

  • Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 30 (Fourth Theological Oration)
  • Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae III, q. 10
  • Thomas Weinandy, Does God Change? (St. Bede’s, 1985)

Kenosis: The Self-Emptying of the Son

Tradition: Modern / Evangelical Summary: In becoming human (Phil 2:6–7), the Son voluntarily set aside the independent exercise of certain divine prerogatives, including unrestricted knowledge.

The incarnate Son lived in genuine dependence on the Father and the Spirit, growing “in wisdom” (Luke 2:52) and not drawing on omniscience as a reserve. His not knowing the hour expresses the depth of his identification with us. (Careful versions of kenosis affirm he never ceased to be fully God, but exercised deity in a truly human mode.)

Strengths

  • Reads the verse with the Philippians 2 self-emptying
  • Honors the texture of Jesus’ dependent human life

Weaknesses

  • Strong forms risk implying the Son surrendered deity itself
  • The exact mechanism of “setting aside” is hard to specify

Further Reading

  • Stephen Davis et al., eds., Exploring Kenotic Christology (Oxford, 2006)
  • C. Stephen Evans, ed., Exploring Kenotic Christology (IVP, 2006)

Functional, Not Merely Informational

Tradition: Exegetical / Pastoral Summary: The saying’s purpose is to redirect disciples from date-setting to watchfulness, not to deliver a metaphysics of the Son’s mind.

In context (Mark 13), the point is paranetic: “Stay awake, for you do not know.” Some note that “the Son does not know” can carry the sense of “it is not the Son’s to make known” — the prerogative of revealing the timing rests with the Father. The verse functions to humble speculation, and reading it as a Christological deduction may press it beyond its aim.

Strengths

  • Keeps the verse in its discipleship context
  • Curbs both date-setting and over-speculation

Weaknesses

  • The “not his to reveal” reading is debated grammatically
  • Does not fully resolve the underlying knowledge question

Further Reading

  • R. T. France, The Gospel of Mark (NIGTC, 2002)
  • James Edwards, The Gospel According to Mark (Pillar, 2002)