Jesus increased in wisdom?

Post by **_Jim** » Fri Oct 06, 2006 7:21 am

Luk 2:52 And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.

Ummm Jesus being God, wouldn't he already have complete wisdom already? Also why would he have to grow in stature with God?

Jim

Post by **_TK** » Fri Oct 06, 2006 7:37 am

hey Jim--

Jesus "emptied himself" of his deity (see Phillipians 2). he was a normal child, but w/o sin. he had to learn, etc. in other words, he wasnt"perfect" in any sense other than he was sinless. he might of received a "B" on his spelling homework, for example. but he wouldnt have tried to hide his report card!

it seems, however, that he was an avid learner when it came to the scriptures, evidenced by the epidose in the temple when he was 12.

TK

Post by **_Paidion** » Fri Oct 06, 2006 11:56 am

Thanks, TK. Your reply is similar to that which I would have given.

The second century gnostics, on the other hand, who had no problem believing Jesus was "God", but did have a probem believing He was man, in their "gospels" which they falsely ascribed to apostolic writers, had Jesus standing up giving wise orations when He was a baby (or "appeared to be a baby" as the gnostics would have said.)

Post by **_Ely** » Fri Oct 06, 2006 6:08 pm

I read an interesting article on Philippians 2 ("emptied Himself") recently. I'd be interested to hear people's thoughts on it: http://kenosis.info/index.shtml

Post by **_Paidion** » Fri Oct 06, 2006 10:54 pm

I have so many problems with the article, that one would have to write a book to deal with them all.

So I will restrict myself to dealing with just one or two issues:

On the other hand, because Christ is man, He elsewhere says concerning His second coming: "But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone" (NAS Mtt. 24:36). This statement is not true of Christ's divine nature. If we ascribe this statement to His divine nature, we would conclude that as God, He did not know when He would return. He would not be omniscient, He would be less than God, and thus, not God at all, as the Arians argued.

How can Christ's divine nature know when His return is to take place, and His human nature not know? This sounds as if our author believes He is really two persons, or "two-in-one". This seems to have been the position of Nestorius in the fifth century. Nestorius was appointed Bishop of Constantinople in 428 and was deposed at the Council or Ephesus three years later. He was banished in 431.

Our author seems not to have understood what the Arians actually taught. They did not teach that Christ was "less than God, and thus, not God at all." Rather, Arius himself in one of his letters, refers to Christ as "fully God."

It is true that Arius took the historic Christian teaching about Christ too far. He stated that Christ was "begotten out of nothing", and that "there was a time at which Christ did not exist." It may have been due to these extreme ideas of Arius that the universal church of the fourth century reacted by formalizing Trinitarian views.