believe that while here on earth as a Man, Jesus did NOT know all things that he knows as being God, but that He "self limited: His accessing of all that, and relied upon HS to reveal what He needed beyond what a "human" would do!
I believe Jesus as body and soul was only revealed what the Father wanted us to know. Jesus as Spirit (God) knew it all and the soul and body was limited for our sake. His body and soul had to learn, but God Spirit that resided in Him knew it all and was teaching Him.
That doesn't take away from Him knowing who would believe from the beginning.
My wording some times isn't the best, but I try to reveal how i see things the best that i can.
Sometimes it is hard for men to distiquish between God the Son and the Son of man, and still being one.
Are you sure that Jesus didn't know for himself when He would return, or if perhaps He didn't want us to know when He would return so we wouldn't wait until the last day to confess and ask for forgiveness?
That was referring to the question of god giving Isreal now the kingdom, but jesus DID say that even he did NOT know when the second coming would happen!
That was due to Him limiting Himself to being a man, that He did not know all things while here upon the earth.....
I believe there is quite a bit of scripture showing God limiting himself at times, most notably when he wrestled Jacob and Jacob prevailed (Gen 32:24-30).
We see that when God met Abraham that he ate. Does God need to eat? (Gen 18) God also asked where Sarah was (vs. 9) and said he would go down personally to see if Sodom and Gomorrah had done as the cry of it, "and if not, I will know".
I take these statements as literal, because I cannot see any purpose in saying such things except they be true. Why would God make himself appear as if he did not know something? What purpose would this serve? So, unless someone can explain this from scripture, I take these statements as literal.
This thread seems to need a study on the distinction between God's transcendence and his immanence.
It just seems to me that God is able to be both without compromising anything and we just have to admit we can't quite comprehend such matters.
I would agree God is both transcendent and immanent.
God can be both outside of time and work within it in dealing with us.
Not sure how the above relates, but I will agree with those who say Jesus in his human form did not know when he would return, because he voluntarily laid aside some benifits of his dieity when he was incarnated.
Jesus also "grew in wisdom" as he aged... How does God Grow in wisdom?
I also believe that the Bible clearly states that God knows all things, past, present and future.
(sorry, no open theism for me)
I do not, however,
find "fault" with some of the questions that proponents of "open theism" ask, at least as far as understand them.
There are many things that by necessity from our perspective fall into that category of "mystery" and this "what did Jesus know and when did he know it" is one of those interesting areas to ask questions.