Did Jesus in spite of being God and all-knowing, not know the Hour of his own Second Coming? How must Christians view this? These are the relevant verses, which appear in two out of the three Synoptic accounts:

“But of that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” (Mark 13:32).

Matthew (24:36) is identical (although in some manuscripts variants “nor the Son” is absent), so I won’t repeat it.

Jesus as Judge of the World

This “Hour”, in fact, is Jesus’ own Coming, which is quite clear in all three Synoptics, specifically Mt.24:30-51; Mk.13:26-27; Lk.21:25-36. We’ll take a look at the phraseology that is employed in these passages. The Son of Man will come on the clouds with with great power and glory (all 3 versions), he will send out his angels (Mt&Mk) with a loud trumpet call (Mt) to gather his elect from the four winds (Mk&Mt) from the ends of the earth (Mt&Mk) to the ends of heaven (Mk), because your redemption is drawing near (Lk), there will be signs in the heavens (all 3); Mt. and Mk. specify these identically as the sun and moon darkened, powers of heaven shaken and the stars fall from heaven; then the prophecy, identical in Mt. (vv33-35) and Mk. (vv28-31), while Lk.(vv29-33) says:“ So also, when you see all these things, you know that he (or “it” in Mt&Mk; Lk.: the Kingdom of God is near) is near, at the very gates. Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” Mt. which is clearly the most elaborate account likens the Hour to the judgement upon the Earth in the days of Noah “so too will be the coming of the Son of Man” (v.39), then goes on to describe the manner in which one will be taken from the field/ grinding corn (Mt), and the warnings to “keep awake therefore for you do not know the hour that your Lord is coming” (Mt. vv.42,44, also 25:12), while Mk. uses “when the time will come” (v.33). Mt. also gives the analogy of the thief coming unexpectedly, while Mk. uses the analogy of a master returning to the home and the warning “keep awake” (vv.35,37). Lk.’s phrasing is somewhat different (vv.34-36), again describing the unexpectedness of that day, that it will come upon people “over the whole face of the earth”, “like a trap” and the warning to “be alert, praying that you will have the strength…to stand before the Son of Man”. Mt.’s account continues in the next chapter (Ch.25) with the parable of the ten bridesmaids, the ten talents, with Jesus saying to the worthy “well done, good and trustworthy servant…enter into the joy of your master (vv.21,24), while in Luke this a parallel parable is earlier in Ch.19 and the phrase is truncated to “well done, good slave” (v.17). Following this, Mt. goes into the magnificent account of the Judgement of nations (vv.31-46), read 31-35 to get a feel of the theme: “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats…then the king will say…come…for I was hungry…”

It is Jesus who is in control here

Is Jesus really saying that he doesn’t know when he’s coming to judge the Earth himself? The first thought here is that it seems like the lesser should be subsumed under the greater. That is, surely the fact that Jesus is going to judge the earth is itself a fact before which literally every other possible fact seems rather insignificant, what greater power can there possibly be in the Universe? The narrative itself makes it quite clear that the Hour is intentionally kept secret from men, while at the same time, Jesus is quite clearly its main protagonist:

“For this reason, you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour you do not expect.” (Mt.24:44, repeated 25:15)

we see these warnings also in Revelations:

“Behold, I am coming like a thief! Blessed is the one who stays awake, keeping his garments on, that he may not go about naked and be seen exposed!” (Rev:16:15)

That which He was not sent to Reveal

Fr. Hugh Barbour O. Praem writes on the Catholic Answers site:

“We need to remember that the word to know in the Semitic senses used in Scripture is very diverse and rich and does not refer only to mental information but to actions and offices. Thus we will argue that Jesus “did not know” only in the sense of “not having been sent to reveal”– it is not his office or his Mission to reveal the “times and the dates which the Father has fixed by his own authority” (Acts).

St. Augustine offers the following commentary:

“According to the form of God everything that the Father has belongs to the Son for All things that are mine are yours, and yours are mine. According to the form of a slave, however, his teaching is not his own but of the One who sent him. Hence of that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. He is ignorant of this in the special sense of making others ignorant. He did not know it in their presence in such a way as to be prepared to reveal it to them at that time.”

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states:

“Christ enjoyed in his human knowledge the fullness of understanding of the eternal plans he had come to reveal. What he admitted to not knowing in this area, he elsewhere declared himself not sent to reveal. (ref Acts 1:6,7)” (474) – (see analysis of the verse from Acts below).

As the semantic range of “knowing” is quite wide in its Biblical usage, it also being used as a euphemism for the sexual act. In the case of these verses we can certainly make a strong case that Jesus is using it in a declarative sense- not to know is not to declare. We have an example of how “know” is used in a different sense in the Bible in another place:

“For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.” (1 Cor.2:2)

As the CCC points out, the verse from Acts1 can serve an explanatory purpose here: Jesus meant “it is not for you to know”:

“So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” He replied, “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority.” (Acts 1:6,7)

Bear in mind that the disciples are not asking Jesus when God will restore the kingdom through Jesus, rather when he will restore it himself.

Rev. 19:12 has a name on his thigh “only he knows”. Obviously this does not mean that the Father does not know that Name!

St, Aquinas, Pope St. Gregory

St Aquinas tackles it in Summa Theological III Q.10 Art.2:

“He is said, therefore, not to know the day and the hour of the Judgment, for that He does not make it known, since, on being asked by the apostles (Acts 1:7), He was unwilling to reveal it; and, on the contrary, we read (Genesis 22:12): “Now I know that thou fearest God,” i.e. “Now I have made thee know.” But the Father is said to know, because He imparted this knowledge to the Son. Hence, by saying but the Father, we are given to understand that the Son knows, not merely in the Divine Nature, but also in the human, because, as Chrysostom argues (Hom. lxxviii in Matth.), if it is given to Christ as man to know how to judge—which is greater—much more is it given to Him to know the less, viz. the time of Judgment.”

Pope St. Gregory the Great states very aptly:

“…how can one who professes that the Wisdom of God himself became incarnate ever maintain that there is anything which the Wisdom of God does not know? It is written: In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. […] All things were made through him (John 1:1,3). If all things, then undoubtedly the day and the hour also. Who would then be so foolish as to say that the Word of the Father made something he did not know? Scripture again says Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands… (John 13:3). If all things, then certainly the day and the hour also. Who then is so foolish as to say that the Son received in his hands what he was ignorant of?” (Pope Gregory the Great, Letter to Eulogius of 600)

We could also list that in John 17:3 Peter acknowledges that Jesus “knows all things”.

The Example of a Jewish Wedding

Lastly, remember that Jesus describes himself as the bridegroom of the Church in more than one place, for example the parable of the foolish bridesmaids, and again in Mark 2:19 (or Matt.9:15). One of the little-known aspects of Jewish culture was the wedding ceremony. When a bride and groom were to be married, a celebration would ensue. It took time to prepare the meals, the water, the wine, as well as for people to make travel plans to attend the wedding. Of course, in order to prepare for such a celebration, people had to know what day the wedding would occur. The custom of the groom was to prepare a room-addition to the father’s house. This is where the new bride and groom would reside after the wedding. it was the custom that the father would then “officially” declares the room addition ready and give the son permission to go get his bride. Of course, the trumpeters were waiting for the official command by the father of the household for the son to go get the bride. It was customary to say that no one knew the day nor the hour when the father would send the son to get the bride. It was a sign of respect for the father. It was a cultural thing.

It was never Church Teaching

It may come as a surprise to many to learn that this claim (that, in his humanity, Jesus did not know the day and the hour of the Final Judgment) has been condemned by several popes as a heresy. In fact, it would be impossible to hold this view without implicitly maintaining either the heresy of Nestorius (dividing Christ into two persons, one human and the other divine) or of Arius (denying the divinity of Christ all together).

The specific heresy which claims that Jesus did not know the exact time of his second coming is called Agnoeticism – Fr. John Hardon defined the Agnoetes (those who held this heresy) as follows:

“A sect of Monophysites who held that Christ was subject to positive ignorance. The leading exponent of its error was Deacon Themistios of Alexandria. He was condemned by the Church, which declared that Christ’s humanity cannot be ignorant of anything of the past or of the future. To attribute ignorance to Christ’s human nature is to profess Nestorianism (Denzinger 474-76).” (Modern Catholic Dictionary, “Agnoetes”)

As God, it is most certain that Christ knew and knows all things. However, what the heretics claimed was that the Lord was ignorant in his humanity, in his human intellect. From Ludwig Ott’s Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma:

“Christ calls Himself the Word become Man, the Light of the World (John 8,12), which is come into the world, in order to bring the true knowledge to mankind (John 12,46); He calls Himself the Truth (John 14,6), and gives as the purpose of His coming into the world the giving of testimony to the truth (John 18,37); He permits Himself to be called Teacher (John 13,13). He is, as Holy Writ witnesses, full of grace and truth (John 1,14), full of wisdom (Luke 2,40); in Him are all treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden (Col. 2,3). He knows about happenings which occur far away (John 1,48; 4,50; 11,14), and sees through the heart of man (John 1,47; 2,24 et seq.; 4,16 et seq.; 6,71). With this is irreconcilable the notion that Christ’s human knowledge is defective or erroneous.” (Book III, Part I, section 2, chapter I – 23.4)

In addition, Jesus states that only he knows the Father, and this is a direct claim to omniscience: “no one knows the Father except the Son”.

Magisterial texts on the perfection of Christ’s human knowledge

“If anyone says that the one Jesus Christ who is both true Son of God and true Son of man did not know the future or the day of the Last Judgment and that he could know only as much as the divinity, dwelling in him as in another, revealed to him, anathema sit.” (Pope Vigilius, Constitutum I of 14 May 553)

“The following proposition is condemned: “The natural meaning of the Gospel texts cannot be reconciled with what our theologians teach about the consciousness and the infallible knowledge of Jesus Christ.” (Pope Pius X, Lamentabili of 1907)

The following proposition is rejected: “The opinion cannot be declared certain, which holds that the soul of Christ was ignorant of nothing but from the beginning knew in the Word everything, past, present and future, that is to say everything which God knows with the ‘knowledge of vision’.” (Pope Benedict XV, Decree of the Holy Office of 1918)

The following proposition is rejected: “The recent opinion of some about the limited knowledge of the soul of Christ is not to be less favoured in Catholic schools than the ancient opinion about his universal knowledge.” (Pope Benedict XV, Decree of the Holy Office of 1918)

Testimony in other religions

Because this issue gets brought up in polemics, so its worth looking at what other religions here. We find this for example in this verse from the Qur’an. The Arabic reads wa-innahu la’ilmun lilsa’ati– “and indeed he (3MS obj.pron.) is surely a knowledge of the hour”:

“And (Jesus) will the knowledge of the Hour: therefore have no doubt about the (Hour), but follow ye Me: this is a Straight Way.” (Q 43:61)

The Problem with the Opposite View- Nestorianism

When we ask the question “Who knew the hour?” You have to say “The Divine Person, not the Human Person”. You cannot say the Human Nature did not know the hour and the Divine Nature knew the hour. Natures do not “know”, it is a Person who knows, by their natures of being human, divine etc. So if this knowledge of the hour is only ascribed to the Divine Nature and not the Human Nature could only be possible is each was a separate person. Thus you get two Persons, which is the Nestorian heresy. The problem with that? Well it would simply mean that God did not really become man, he stuck a man onto him (or onto his Person). There is no true union of God with the Human nature.

Objection- Why not the Holy Spirit too?

It gets brought up in polemics that Jesus aside from apparently excluding himself from the “knowledge of the hour”, also excludes the Holy Spirit from this knowledge. This is once again Jesus declaring whose “role” it is to reveal the hour.

Conclusion

Even in his human intellect and soul, Christ Jesus knew – with an “unlimited,” “universal,” and “infallible” knowledge – “everything, past, present and future.” As God, Christ most certainly knew and knows all things without any qualification whatsoever. And, even as man, we affirm that our Savior knew and knows all things. Jesus meant “did not know” only in the sense of declarative knowledge, not in the sense of possessed knowledge. Jesus in the very same narrative is the king sitting upon the throne of glory with the holy angels, in judgement upon all the nations of the earth, who are gathered before him. To them he metes out either the rewards of his Father’s Kingdom or the punishment of eternal damnation, separating them one from another as a shepherd separates sheep from goats. His divinity is never in question here and in that context it is impossible that he be literally ignorant of any facts whatsoever.