There are some who think that Jesus was a normal man who was later given the titles of Godhood. Another similar doctrine says that Jesus was always God but did not know it until he was older. Both deny that Jesus inhabited his deity attributes when he was yet a child on earth. Both of these positions are wrong.
Jesus was born and grew with divine wisdom and understanding. During Jesus’ childhood he ‘grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom’ (Luk 2:40). It wasn’t that he gained wisdom. He was already filled with it.
This divine wisdom would be explained later as greater than Solomon’s wisdom.
“… she came from the utmost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and, behold, a greater than Solomon is here.” – Luke 11:31
When Jesus was only twelve the doctors of the temple in Jerusalem were ‘astonished at his understanding and his answers’ (Luke 2:47). How did a child possess such wisdom? It was because this child was God in the flesh.
Unlike any other man born of a woman Jesus could declare that his Father was God making himself equal with God.
“But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work. Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God.” – John 5:17-18
In the temple at Jerusalem he was merely twelve years old and had full knowledge of the will of his Father. It was his mother who was ignorant.
“And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business? And they understood not the saying which he spake unto them. ” – Luke 2:49
Indeed there was something unique about this child. This child was once the babe who was miraculously conceived years earlier and of whom the angel predetermined his name to be ‘Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us’ (Mat 1:23).
There can be no doubt that Jesus, even as a child, was the fulness of the Godhead in the likeness of a man. Over the next three decades this God child would grow to be the God man in the divine wisdom that he had all along (Luke 2:52, John 17:5).
Article Index Published: December 5, 2008
Last Modified: May 4, 2016