How Can Jesus Be All-knowing If He Said He Didn't Know the Day or Hour?
1) Direct answer
Jesus is all‑knowing as God, but when He said He didn’t know the day or hour, He was speaking from the position of the Son—the servant role in flesh—where that knowledge was veiled and not given to be revealed through that office.
2) Scriptural explanation
- The Bible says, “Of that day and that hour knoweth no man… neither the Son, but the Father” (Mark 13:32). That’s Jesus speaking as the Son.
- Yet the same Scripture declares, “God was manifested in the flesh” (1 Timothy 3:16), and “in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (Colossians 2:9). So the One in Him—the Father—knew all things.
- Jesus said, “The Father that dwelleth in Me, He doeth the works” (John 14:10). The indwelling Father is the all‑knowing God.
- The disciples confessed to Jesus, “Now are we sure that Thou knowest all things” (John 16:30); and Peter said, “Lord, Thou knowest all things” (John 21:17). So He is not ignorant in His Godhead.
- As the Son, He took the form of a servant and humbled Himself (Philippians 2:7-8), grew in wisdom (Luke 2:52), hungered, slept, and wept. That shows the true human vessel.
- After the resurrection He said, “All power is given unto Me” (Matthew 28:18), and He told them, “It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in His own power” (Acts 1:7). The times are held in the Father’s authority—God’s own counsel.
3) Simple clarifying logic
- There is one God. He was above us as Father, came among us in a body as the Son, and now dwells in us as the Holy Spirit. It’s not three Gods, and it’s not three persons—it’s one God revealing Himself in different offices.
- As man, Jesus could say, “I thirst,” and sleep in the boat; as God, He stilled the storm. As man, He wept at Lazarus’ tomb; as God, He called Lazarus out by name. So when He said the Son didn’t know that day and hour, He spoke from the servant position where that mystery was not to be made known.
- If He were merely a limited second person, how could Scripture say He “knows all things”? The answer is simple: the body is the Son; the indwelling is God. The Father in Him knew; the Son, as the obedient servant, did not reveal it.
Short reinforcement
No contradiction—just the mystery of God veiled in flesh. The same Jesus is truly man and truly God manifested: as the Son He submitted; as God He is all‑knowing.
Ask a Follow-up Question
What did the Laodicean Church Age (our age) Angel (- messenger) Say about this?
Ranked passages from the local William Branham sermon and Church Age Book database. Relevance is relative, not a statement of doctrinal certainty.
The Resurrection
53-1205 §70
There, what a time--dark hour. The church has turned them out, because they believed on Jesus. And He'd turned them down, seemingly. My, it was a dark hour. But just at the darkest of hours, then Jesus come along. That's usually the way He does it; just in the darkest of hours Jesus comes along. Maybe it's your darkest of hours, sister, but Jesus comes along. Maybe it's your darkest of hour. There's been women sitting there this week in wheelchairs--walked. There's been those who was on stretchers; there's been tho...
Hebrews, Chapters 5 and 6, part 1
57-0908M §30
Now, Jesus in His coming, of His priesthood, did not come just for a sympathy's sake. Many people teach it like that, that He come saying, "Well, maybe if I suffer, I will be a pitiful sight and people will surely come to Me." That's an error, there's no scripture for that. For every person that ever will be saved, God knew them before the world was ever formed. The Bible said so. God's not willing now that anybody should perish; He wants them all to come to repentance. But, being God, by foreknowledge He knew it....
Godhead explained
61-0119A §33
But why did He give them keys to Peter, then? He just plainly quoted it. "Peter, you never learned this from some church or some seminary, but it was a revelation that come from heaven, and upon this same revelation from heaven, to straighten out the Word of God, I'll build my church." He knowed Peter... He didn't know mathematics. Peter didn't know algebra, perhaps, or neither did he know geometry, or... I think it said that he was an ignorant and an unlearned man, according to Acts, the fourth chapter, or Acts, t...
Christ is the mystery of God revealed
63-0728 §184
. I've heard infidels one time told me that Jesus never did say He was the Son of God. He sure did. He certainly did. You just don't know your Bible. What did He say to the woman at the well? See? What did He tell her? "I know Messiah cometh, and when He comes He'll do these things." He said, "I am He that speaks to you"---and to Paul also and different ones. Notice. But now, the church has the preeminence.
We would see Jesus
60-0708 §47
Now Philip... Nathanael was a well trained scholar. So he said, "Rabbi (which means "teacher"), when did You know me? How did you know that I was a man with no guile? [I'd say today, "a honest, good man."] How did you know it?" He said, "Before Philip called you, when you were under the tree, I saw you." That was Jesus yesterday. If He's the same yesterday, today, and forever, that's Jesus today. You know what Philip said when He... I mean, Nathanael said when He did this? He said, "Rabbi, Thou art the Son of God....