The following "Question" was asked by a member of the congregation at Grace Community Church in Panorama City, California, and "Answered" by their pastor, John MacArthur Jr. It was transcribed from the tape, GC 70-17, titled "Bible Questions and Answers."  A copy of the tape can be obtained by writing, Word of Grace, P.O. Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412 or by dialing toll free 1-800-55-GRACE.  Copyright John MacArthur Jr., All Rights Reserved.

Question

I have read that Jesus has faith.  Now if He is Omniscient why would He need Faith?

Answer

The way it is articulated in the New Testament is that Jesus trusted His Father.  Now that's all bound up in the Incarnation.  Let me see if I can define that for you.  When Jesus was Incarnate; when He took on humanity, according to Philippians, chapter two, prior to that He was equal with God, but He thought being equal with God was not something He had to grasp, Philippians 2 said.  Not something He had to hold on to, but He was willing to give up that complete equality with God.  What did that mean?  Did it mean that He ceased to be God?  No.  What it means is: He ceased to freely and independently exercise some of His attributes, and submitted Himself to the Father.  In other words, you have a statement like this, where Jesus says, "No man knows the day or the hour, no, not even the Son of Man."  And Jesus was talking about the time when He would come and establish His kingdom, and at that point, in His incarnation, by the willing restriction of His own Omniscience, He didn't even know when the Second Coming would occur.  

Now, I think that would have been limited to His incarnation; I think once the incarnation ceased, and He went back to the fullness, as John 17 says, back to being face-to-face with God, and returned to the Glory that He had with God before He came into the world, He would again have full exercise of His attributes, full Omniscience, and knows full well when the Second Coming will occur: when He will come and establish His Kingdom.  But in the time of His incarnation, and in the expression of that incarnation, He turned Himself literally into being a servant, and restricted the independent exercise of His attributes, and limited Himself only to that which the Father willed.  Consequently, in those self-imposed limitations, He had to entrust Himself to God, because He didn't at that time, by being willing, He didn't know everything that could be known.  Consequently, He had to operate in a mode of trust.  Prior to incarnation, and since His glorification, that's not necessary, because He is in full communion, with the full Omniscience, Omnipresence, Omnipotence, and Immutability of the Trinity.

Added to Bible Bulletin Board's "MacArthur’s Questions and Answers" by:

Tony Capoccia
Bible Bulletin Board
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