Knowing God through His Word … Day by Day

John Piper, in a sermon, “The Son of God at 12 Years Old” says of Luke 2:41-52-

….our text has important implications for understanding the divinity of Christ. It helps us understand what Paul meant when he said, “Though he was in the form of God, he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped but emptied himself,taking the form of a servant” (Philippians 2:6, 7). One of the things Christ emptied himself of was omniscience. He said concerning the time of his return (Matthew 24:36), “Of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven nor the Son, but the Father only.” Similarly, here in our text Jesus is not just playing games with the scribes. His questions aim to gain insight, for verse 52 says, “He increased in wisdom.”

But it is not easy to imagine how Christ can be God and not be omniscient. Evidently the incarnate Christ was able somehow to bracket or limit the actual exercise of his divine powers so that he had the personality of God (basically, the motives and will of God), but the powers of knowing all and the infinite strength of God he somehow restrained. They were his potentially, and thus he was God; but he surrendered their use absolutely, and so he was man.

Therefore the child standing before us here in the temple is not so different that he can’t serve as an example for us and our children.

To read the rest of the sermon, which includes some background information on why this text about the boyhood of Jesus should be trusted, but other false gospels should be discarded, click here: