Mark 13:32 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Mark 13:32

Comments

The disciples have asked when these things will take place, but that will not be revealed to any man until it takes place, not even to the angelic spirits who surround the throne of God in heaven, not even to the Son. That day and hour is known only to the Father and it is one of those secret things that belong to God alone. But if Christ is divine as well as human, how can it be that he does not know this? Obviously, we are viewing the Son in his humanity. He is God, and he is man, but he has chosen to make this to be one of the things he will not be aware of, even though he knows all things on earth. One of the things he chooses not to know, when he lives as a man, is the end of the age: its date, and it's time. Of course, in his Godhead, he knows it. This is a great mystery, but if Christ in his human nature knew absolutely everything – which, as God, he did,– he could not be our perfect representative. There would be one virtue he wouldn't be able to exercise, and that virtue would be faith. Because he would have perfect sight and would know absolutely everything, he would not need faith. But he is living a perfect life as our representative; he has got to be the perfect man. He has got to be in our place and earn heaven for us. So there is something, or some things, he must choose in his divine power to shut out of his humanity, so that he has faith, and exercises it on our behalf, to earn heaven for us. His atonement takes away our sin. His perfect life secures heaven. For this reason the church has defined the nature of Christ with great precision and carefully worded language. ‘The Son of God, the second person of the Holy Trinity, being true and eternal God, the brightness of the Father’s glory, of the same substance and equal with Him … was born to a woman from the tribe of Judah, a descendant of Abraham and David … thus two whole, perfect and distinct natures were inseparably joined together in one person, without conversion, composition, or confusion so that the Lord Jesus Christ is truly God and truly man, yet He is one Christ, the only Mediator between God and man’ (The Baptist Confession of Faith 1689). The Chalcedon Formula had taught that Christ was ‘recognized in two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation.’ There was no mixture of his two natures so that his divine nature became less than divine, nor his human nature became more than human.

Application

Do not let anyone tell you that he knows the day or hour when Christ will return. Some in their pride think that they can by secret knowledge discover the day. They think they can know what no one else knows. But Christ has told us plainly that this is not among the things that God has revealed to man, or else the Son in his human nature would know it. The cults tell us that it has been revealed to them when Christ will return, and when the world will end. The Jehovah’s Witnesses have their roots in the teaching of William Miller, a Baptist preacher, who declared that Christ would return in 1843. The date passed and his movement broke up. After that the 1^st president of the Witnesses, Charles Taze Russel, taught that Christ returned invisibly in 1874. Russell also predicted the rapture in 1878. Later Fred Franz taught Christ’s invisible return took place in 1914 not 1878. But this Lord Jesus says this has not been and will not be revealed.

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Mark 13:32 Commentary and Bible Study