He Was God and He Knew It

Luke 2:39-52

He was the child who was God and He knew He was God.  And here we have in verses 39 through 52 the only incident ever recorded, other than His infancy, in the first thirty years of Jesus' life and the only words that Jesus is ever recorded to have said in those thirty years.  And it all happens at the age of twelve.

By the time He reached twelve He knew exactly who He was and He knew exactly why He came.  And that is the incident that Luke selects because of its monumental importance. 

We have heard from so many who testified as to the fact that He was the Messiah. But we need to hear from the child Himself.  Is this something that people were forcing on Him?  Is this something that was being pressed on Him so that because of mounting Jewish messianic expectation He sort of pushed Himself into this place when He reached the age of thirty and assumed a role?  Or is this His true identity?

Well it's critical to understand that it is His true identity and that's why the remarkable incident at the age of twelve is recorded for us so it leaves absolutely no question.

Verse 39 says they went back to Nazareth, and they did.  However, between the completion of that and the return to Nazareth, there's a very important part of the history of the birth of Christ that’s not given by Luke.  Luke jumps from completing the ceremonies in verse 39, to going to Galilee, but there's something that happened in there of tremendous importance.  What is it?  It is the visit of the wise men.  It is the slaughter of Herod and the deliverance of Jesus from that slaughter by warning by an angel that caused them to flee to Egypt and escape that massacre.  All of that occurs between the time of purification at the temple and the time they returned to Galilee.

Now it doesn't serve Luke's purpose to rerecord what Matthew has already given.  BTW, consider the possibility that they made a quick trip to Nazareth before the flight into Egypt.  Maybe their parents would like to see their first grandchild through them.  Again, there’s the remote possibility that Nazareth is where the star led the wise men after Jerusalem.

The wise men came to a house, which was different than the stable where they were at first.  That house was likely in Bethlehem where they also had family…but again, maybe it was in Nazareth. 

So, Luke doesn't record the whole Egypt trip because it doesn't suit his particular purpose. 

Now we pick the story up in verse 40 and it is here that we really begin to focus on the life of the child who was God.  That one verse and that one sentence covers twelve years.  Twelve years He lived as an infant, as a little child, as a child, and as one who was on the verge of what the Jews considered to be adulthood at the age of twelve.

Then verses 41 down into verse 51 cover an incident that happened when He was twelve.  Then verse 51 and 52 cover from twelve to the beginning of His ministry at age 30.

This is all we know from the forty-day purification to the time when Jesus began to preach and was baptized by John.  Thirty years of His life are going to pass before us, essentially in two verses, verse 40 and verse 52, with an incident in the middle at the age of twelve.  It is very important to understand that if you have thirty years of history and only one incident recorded, that incident is of monumental significance. 

But let's begin by looking at the silent years of childhood, from birth to twelve as recorded in verse 40.  It’s a simple statement that He developed as normal children develop.  This is something that's important for us to affirm, that Jesus was fully man.  He was man from the very beginning. 

He grew as a child grows but in a manner that's unique, in a manner unaffected by sin.  His growth was never hindered, never impaired, and never restricted, or never affected by sin.  So He developed certainly a kind of physical strength, a kind of physical manliness, that would be unique. He could certainly do the labor of a carpenter which Mark 6:3 indicates is what He did in His father's business. He could walk many miles.  And if you live in Nazareth, you never walk anywhere on a flat level.  You're either going up or down because it's on the side of hills.  And all of Galilee is rolling hills.  He had the strength to endure sleeplessness as He did often in His ministry, praying all night.  The strength even eventually to be tortured, the strength to be crucified and still remain alive so that His life wasn't even taken from Him by the act of crucifixion, rather He gave it up by Himself.  He had some unique physical capacities.

This child who was God would have a physical strength and a physical prowess that would be beyond any other human ever who lived, because it was untouched by sin.

But His growth was not only physical, it was spiritual as indicated in verse 40. We are said as believers in 2 Corinthians to be growing up into the mind of Christ, as the ultimate.  And the mind of Christ, because He's God, is the mind of God.  Here was the child who could think like God thinks.  There wouldn't be any IQ test that could measure the mind of the child who was God.  He was filled with wisdom.

There's real humanity here and yet contained in this humanity is the mind of God, the wisdom of God which came upon Him gradually.  He didn't understand that when He was an infant.  He didn't understand that when He was a toddler.  He didn't understand that when He was a little child. But by the time He reached this age of twelve, the fullness of the wisdom of God as to His identity and His mission and the truth of God had come to its fruition in His mind.  At twelve He thought like God thinks, full of wisdom.

And it says in verse 40, "The grace of God was upon Him."  Grace, not the kind of grace that comes to sinners who don't deserve it, but grace as the favor that God gives to one who does deserve it.  It simply means that God was devoted to Him, that God favored Him, similarly to the testimony of God at His baptism in Luke 3 where God says, "This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased."  This is all it says about His childhood.

William Hendrickson has written, "Those who deny this are in danger of acquiring the mentality that must have marked the authors of certain apocryphal writings.  These picture Jesus as being omniscient and almighty and lions and leopards worshiping Him.  One writer says the infant Jesus says to a palm, 'Bend down and refresh My mother with your fruit.' And it does so immediately.  One writer says, 'At five years of age He modeled twelve sparrows out of soft clay, clapped His hands and they flew away,'" etc.

That isn't what the Bible says at all.  He grew as a child and He appeared at all points on the outside to be like any other normal, developing child.  And there was development as His brain developed.  It was truly human.  As it developed it became capable of receiving more and more of the understanding of the wisdom of God so that finally when He was twelve He grasped it and He thought God's thoughts.

He also learned by experience.  In Hebrews 5:8 it says He learned obedience from the things He suffered.

What does that mean?  I think as He was growing up He was suffering the onslaught of temptation. Chapter 4 verse 15 says, "He was in all points tempted like as we are yet without sin."  He suffered the constant temptation that comes to a child, temptation to be grasping and selfish and self-centered and demanding.  You know how children are.  He suffered all those temptations that come to young boys through all those developmental stages.  He suffered the constant barrage of temptation against His humanity.  It was through those temptations over which He triumphed that He experientially learned what it was to obey God.  So He had a developmental process going on by which in overcoming temptation He developed spiritual strength in the matter of obedience.

So by the time you get Him at the age of twelve, He is spiritually mature.  He grasps who He is.  He understands the wisdom of God and its application in the mission to which God has sent Him.  He is the sinless child who was God.