If Jesus is truly God, how come he said he did not know the day and the hour of His second coming?

Jothi Prem John of Adventist Online Community on Facebook sent me an IM regarding this matter and I found it very interesting for others to read.

The text of Colossians 2: 9 is very clear about the fullness of Jesus’ divine nature. Paul wrote: For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.

When He came two thousand years back He did not come just as He was in the beginning. He was a real man to the fullest extent, the only difference was that He never yielded to temptations; therefore He never sinned.
Listen to the plain truth about this from His mouth:

I can of mine own self do nothing. (John 5:30)


Just as we cannot do anything on our own so couldn’t He! Just as we have to depend on divine strength to do the will of God, He too completely depended on the Father and His Spirit for everything. That is way Jesus had to even pray with great earnestness while He was on earth. Listen to Paul:

Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared; Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered; And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him. (Hebrews 5:7-9)

Our Lord told us plainly that it was by the power of the Holy Spirit He did all the divine activities while on earth. Jesus said:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord. (Luke 4:18, 19)

It was the Holy Spirit that enabled Jesus to work out all the miracles, preach all those powerful messages, heal all those diseases, etc. Isaiah the prophet too talked about it:

And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots: And the spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD. (Isaiah 11:1, 2)

It was the Holy Ghost that was with Jesus that helped Him to do everything He did. All that wisdom and understanding and knowledge was not that of His divinity, but the humanity filled with the Spirit of God. He was a real man, He was God in human flesh, but never used His own divine powers in anything. Otherwise the devil would have accused Him of unfair play, and the plan of salvation would have been thwarted.

In the prophecy of the Old Testament Jesus talked about His coming to earth, and this is what He said:

The Lord GOD hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary: he wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned. The Lord GOD hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back. I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting. (Isaiah 50:4-6)

The Father would communicate to His Son His plans for the day and what He should do, as the Son communicated with the Father in prayer:

He wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned.

Even when Jesus was predicting the future and telling His disciples about heaven and all the things that were yet to happen it was as the Father revealed it to Him.

When Jesus was on earth the Father did not reveal the day and the hour of the second coming of Christ. As the Son of man He did not know it. That is why He told His disciple plainly:

But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father. (Mark 13:32)

But once Jesus was resurrected all His divinity was in full blaze again. He said:

All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. (Matthew 28:18)

And just look at the contrasting statement He made while He was still in His Messianic Journey:

I can of mine own self do nothing. (John 5:30)

The day and the hour of His Second Coming He did not know while He was on earth as the Son of man, but now as He has taken back the powers of His Godhead, He knows everything! He could not do anything on His own strength while on earth, but now He has all the powers of heaven and earth under His command!

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