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 Seal of God
54-0514 §103
Jesus said, "A man went out, and he worked. And another man went out in another hour, and he worked. Another man went out and worked. And one man went out for the eleventh hour. And when he stopped at the eleventh hour, he give every one of them the same portion---the eleventh hour. They wondered why. Why did he ... got the eleventh hour, everyone coming in? Martin Luther's that walked under Luther's dispensation, died in grace. There were others, shouting Methodists, that died under Wesley's age, died in grace. We...
We would see Jesus
59-0422 §54
Now, if Jesus is the High Priest and can be touched by the feeling of our infirmities, how would you know you touched Him if He didn't act the same way He did back there? He'd have to act the same way, wouldn't He. Is that right? He'd have to act it, or He wouldn't be the same High Priest. But if He acts the same way He did then, then you know you touched the same High Priest that that was. So, now you without prayer cards, you just start and pray and say, "Lord, that man don't know me. He don't know nothing about...
Adoption, part 2: Manifested sons of God
60-0518 §121
And an hour before ... two hours before he died, about two months later... I thought he was dying then. My wife come in and seen him (he always thought so much of her), and then Mrs. Bosworth. And about two hours... He had been laying sleeping. He raised up, he looked, and he jumped up from his bed. He said, "Mother! Well, I haven't seen you for years! Dad! Brother Jim! Why," said, "let's see, you was one of my converts to the Lord at Joliet, Illinois." [He had been dead for fifty years.] Yes!" He said, "Here's Sis...
We would see Jesus
62-0704 §52
But He had just got through, in St. John 6, where they told Him He looked like He was fifty. But, of course, His work had done that, perhaps. Said, "You're not a man over fifty years old, and say you seen Abraham? We know you're crazy now." He said, "Before Abraham was, I AM." That's right. They didn't understand it, yet being as ecclesiastical and intelligent as they could be. But intelligence ain't to know God; you have to forget all that, to know God. See. No.
Who is this Melchisedec?
65-0221E §70
Now, I don't know you. I know some people. I know this boy sitting here. I know Bill Dauch sitting right there. I want to... Here's Brother Blair, Rodney Cox. It's hard to see out there. On this side, right at the present time I can't see nobody, actually, that I know. Now how many in here that knows that I am a stranger to you? Raise up your hands, knows that I know nothing about you, raise up your hands on both sides. How many in here that has something wrong, or something that you know that I know nothing about?...