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What Did Jesus Know of His Mission as a Child?

Senior Pastor, Harvest Christian Fellowship
Updated Sep 28, 2023

(Edited transcript of the video above, edited for readability)

Jesus was God and Jesus became a baby. Does that mean that that baby was omniscient? Does that mean that that baby laying there in the manger when he opened up his little eyes for the first time was looking around going, "Oh, there's Mary and Joseph, shepherds over there, looks like a donkey to me, couple of sheep, nice star out there tonight," you know. I hope you don't think I'm being irreverent when I'm saying this. We're wondering how much did Jesus know. It would appear that Jesus had to grow in his knowledge like any other child, because Luke 5:2 says, Jesus grew and increased in wisdom and stature. That would appear to be saying that Jesus went through a learning process like anyone else. Yet he didn't have the limitations that sin brings into his life. He didn't wake up as a baby, 12 minutes old, and start talking. "Mary Joseph, how are things? Good to see you.

I am the Messiah and I need some help getting out of the manger because I need to get started in this mission." No. He was a little baby that was helpless, that needed his diaper changed, that needed to be nursed by his mother. He had to be cared for and loved. You say, "Well, I don't understand. How could he be God Almighty as a helpless little human baby, if he was omniscient, meaning he knew all things? How is it that he could learn things?" Well, the answer is found over in Philippians when it says, and we'll come back to this in a moment, but it says, "who being in the form of God, he did not think it robbery to be equal with God, but took upon himself a form of a servant." Now that phrase "form of a servant" means he emptied himself. So did he empty himself of his deity? 

Was he not God at this moment? No. He was God at that moment. Remember, "you will call his name Emmanuel, which is God with us," and Isaiah again, "his name is wonderful counselor. The mighty God. The everlasting Father." Doesn't say he became the mighty God. He was the mighty God. So, my point is he emptied himself, not of his deity, but of the privileges of deity. Can you possess an attribute without using it? Self-emptying is not self-extinction. He humbled himself. He didn't use the privileges that he had at his disposal at that time. He became a man.

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