Senior Weekly Devotional

By: Noah Barr

The Growth of the Son of God

Luke 2:39-40

³⁹ When Joseph and Mary had done everything required by the Law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee to their own town of Nazareth. ⁴⁰ 

You may have asked yourself; how much did Jesus know as a child? Did He know everything at birth? As God in the flesh what was Christ’s mental state? Did He know the thoughts of those around Him growing up? Did He immediately know right from wrong? He never sinned even accidentally as a child, so how much did He know as child? I must admit that the answers to these questions are not easy to find.

Joseph and Mary completed all the ceremonial conditions that God had set out for the Israelites. Sometime after Jesus’ birth; His father was warned in a dream that he had to run away to Egypt to protect his son (Matt. 2:13-15). After this and the temple visit, they were able to return from their journey and finally come home. In Matthew we are told that Jesus moves from Bethlehem to Egypt and then from Egypt to Nazareth in order to fulfill prophecy. Jesus’ movements actually went to show that He was the Messiah and fulfilled the Old Testament.

In verse 40 we are told: “And the child grew and became strong; he was filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was on him.” We must always keep in mind that Jesus was fully God and fully man. He did not have God’s mind in a human body. There was no disconnection between Jesus being God and being human. He was not more human than God or more God than human. He was both. God becoming man is called the incarnation. The incarnation is a mystery that we don’t fully understand. Jesus had a fully human brain that was actually limited in some knowledge. Therefore there are two ideas that will help us understand Jesus’ incredible knowledge here on earth.

First, Jesus never gave up His rights as God. Philippians 2:6-7 tells us: “Who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness”. Jesus always was God at every point. From the womb to His death He was God. What Jesus did on earth could be said like this “I am God yet I am going to do everything as a human and live as a human lives and not use my power”. In Matthew 26:53 Jesus spoke to Peter saying: “Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels?” The next question in your mind might be: how then did Jesus do all the miracles and know people’s thoughts if He had chosen not to use His power on earth?  

The second idea that helps us understand Jesus’ time on earth is that the Holy Spirit was always with Jesus. Jesus throughout His time on earth relied solely on the Holy Spirit for His power. Something to consider is that even as Jesus had a human mind, that mind was not affected by sin as our minds are. It is because of sin that we forget things. It is because of sin that we wrongly interpret the Bible at times or don’t understand. Sin greatly hinders our physical being. Jesus would have been affected by sin outside of Him and would have experienced the pain and weakness of a human body that was affected by sin of the world, yet His mind would have been greatly beyond ours. He would not have forgotten things easily. When He read the Bible as a child He would have had perfect understanding of what He was reading from a very young age. He would have understood very early that He was God. He would have understood that the Old Testament was talking about Him. Furthermore, unlike us, He would have remembered and retained much of what He read. He would also have had perfect fellowship with the Father and the Spirit because Jesus was without sin. He knew people’s thoughts because the Holy Spirit told Him people’s thoughts. Jesus came to know the Scriptures so well that everyone was amazed. Our passage says that Jesus grew and became strong. He grew in wisdom. He did this by reading the Scriptures and communicating with the Father and the Spirit. The Spirit gave Jesus the power to fulfill His ministry. This Spirit that empowered Jesus is the same Spirit that empowers us.

We often go too far to one side when we talk about Jesus being fully God and fully human. We often push more to the side that Jesus was God. However, Scripture brings us to see that Jesus was fully human as well. He was as human as you are with the same limitations. All His power to do miracles and wonders was put on hold, and for 33 years our Lord relied on the Holy Spirit for power. Christ is an example for us. Just as Christ relied on the Holy Spirit so must we. Our strength comes from the Lord, not from ourselves. Of course, Jesus could have at any time taken up His power as God; He chose not to do that in order to go to the cross for us and be the acceptable sacrifice for sin. What love Christ has for us! Be encouraged this week, that God became a man for you, and suffered more than anyone as an innocent God-man so that you would be saved.

“Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk (the Word), so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.” 1 Peter 2:2-3