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.
An Exposition Of The Seven Church Ages
CAB 1:E-45
When the woman at the well heard Him discern the thoughts of her heart she acclaimed Him a prophet, declaring that Messiah would be known for that great ability. John 4:7-26, "There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, Give Me to drink. (For His disciples were gone away unto the city to buy meat). Then saith the woman of Samaria unto Him, How is it that Thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. Jesus answered and...
Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and forever
58-0223 §48
Now, you say, "Brother Branham, you mean to say a message like that, and a people here of about a thousand people setting in the church tonight maybe less, under that? Certainly. The people don't know their day. They've never knowed it. Let me ask you Protestants. Did they know Elisha? He was--he's just a man like we are. They didn't know him till he was gone. Did they know John? Even the disciples didn't know him. They said, "Why do they say Elisha must first come?" Jesus said, "He's already come and you didn't kn...
Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and forever
52-0810E §13
Some of them come up to Jesus, one time... Do you believe He was a prophet? Well, they put a rag around His face one day, and smote Him on the head, and said, "If You be a prophet, tell us who hit you, and then we'll believe you." Jesus didn't clown for no one. He had the will of the Father to do. But yet, He stood and told a woman her sins. He told... He knowed where there was a fish at had a coin in its mouth. He knew where two mules was hitched, where two ways met. Is that right? See? He knew those things, but H...
Sir, we would see Jesus
62-0724 §49
And Jesus said in St. John, the 1st chapter; also in the 10th chapter, and the 37th verse, He said, "If I do not the works of my Father, then don't believe me." In other words, what the Father had expressed that He was, if He didn't do that, then don't believe Him. That's only sensible, see. And in St. John 5:39, said, "Search the scriptures; for in them you think you have eternal life: and they are they that testify of me." In other words, He was the living Word. He was God's Word made manifest. Oh, how I like to...
Five junctions of time
56-0122 §37
Did you ever read over there in Romans 9, how He said before either boy was born, Esau and Jacob, said, "I hate one and love the other one." How could He be just in doing that? By foreknowledge He knew what a rascal Esau was, see, and He could predestinate. Now just say ... set up a word "predestinate" is not a good word to use; it's "foreknowledge." Because He wouldn't just deliberately turn you because that He wanted you to go away. He's not willing that any of you should perish, but by foreknowledge He knows wha...