In Luke 2:52 it says that Jesus grew in wisdom and stature. Now does that mean that Jesus was not always perfect? I realize that He was without sin. How could you be that perfect without perfect wisdom? Someone explain this verse to me please.

-- Chris Fox (martinaj@sprynet.com), January 12, 2001

Answers

Chris,

A personal opinion (as opposed to a scriptural one) here:

Do you agree that Jesus was human? If so, a human newborn has to learn to speak, etc. To be "perfect" as a man, wouldn't Jesus have to learn from experience as men do? If he was just "handed" everything, springing forth from Mary's womb fully grown and with God's complete wisdom how would that make him any more of a savior for mankind than God himself? I don't think that the phrase means going from imperfection TO perfection, but rather growing in the fullness of the Lord with increasing years.

Frank

-- Someone (ChimingIn@twocents.cam), January 12, 2001.

Bingo, Frank. From a book I own...he grew as any boy would. He grew in all ways-physically, intellectually, emotionally, spiritually-for the work that lay ahead of Him.

-- jackiea (jackiea@hotmail.com), January 12, 2001.

Jesus was always the Christ. He had a normal childhood, yes. But His person was True God, True Man. He has not revealed to us the way development of his earthly nature took place.

We should respect the privacy of His early life. If Jesus had wished for us to search through it, examine and understand it, He would probably have allowed the Scriptures to say. Jesus is God made man. Why ask anything more?

-- eugene c. chavez (chavezec@pacbell.net), January 13, 2001.

Jmj
Hi, Chris.
The passage you mentioned (along with some others) has confused some Christians through the centuries, from time to time. Our era is one of those times, when some have theorized that Jesus did not know all things and did not even know who he was until very late in life.

As Catholics, however, we know that Jesus had total knowledge of all things at all times, even when he was in that manger at Bethlehem. Some will ask: But how then could he increase "in wisdom," and how could he claim not to "know" certain things (such as the day that the world will end)?

Long before the year 1000, the Church clarified this for us -- and the teaching is not subject to debate. Remember that Jesus is fully God and fully man. Those are his two "natures," which are perfectly united in a single "Person." From his supernatural "divine nature," he eternally knew ALL things. (While on earth, he remained God and he could not force himself NOT to know all things.) But he CHOSE to "learn" things and to "grow" in his "human nature" -- i.e., becoming familiar with them through his human senses, remembering/thinking with his human brain, etc.. He knew when the end of the world would come from his divinity, but he did not know it from his human learning, making it possible for him say what he said. Similarly, he was totally equal to the Father in his divine nature, but he was able to say (referring to his human nature) that "I go to the Father, for the Father is greater than I."

As Eugene has hinted, all of this is a GREAT mystery, beyond our limited powers of comprehension.

God bless you.
John

-- J. F. Gecik (jgecik@desc.dla.mil), January 13, 2001.