A teacher began his Sunday School class by starting a
discussion. He said he was reading in the Bible about a living
dog and a dead lion, and he asked the class which they would
rather be? There was a pause, and then Jack spoke up and
said, "I'd rather be the living dog. It's better to be alive than
dead any day." Alec spoke up and said, "Oh, I don't know
about that. A dead lion has been a living lion while a living
dog will be a dead dog someday. I think I'd rather be the
dead lion." A third child had just sat in silence, but then he
responded, "Well, I'd like to be a little of both. I'd like to be
a lion like the one, and alive like the other." I am sure the
teacher was surprised at this clever solution. Children can
often surprise us with their ability to answer questions in
ways that we would not think of.
This was the case with Jesus when He was a child. One of
the very first impressions we get of Jesus is that He was a
brilliant boy. He had a keen mind, and Luke makes a point
of this fact. In 2:40 he writes, "The child grew and became
strong, filled with wisdom, and the favor of God was upon
Him." Luke goes on to show just how sharp His mental
growth was by telling us of His experience in the temple with
the scholars. In verses 46-47 he says that Jesus was listening
and asking questions, and all who heard Him were amazed at
His understanding and answers. Jesus was only 12 years old,
but He was already a diligent student, and was able to carry
on intelligent conversations with mature theologians.
We are not to read into this that Jesus was putting the
teachers of the temple to shame by His superior wisdom.
The language indicates that He was a student. He was
learning from them, but was a very keen student with
provocative questions and perceptive answers. Luke closes
the chapter with another reference to the growth of Jesus in
the four basic areas of manhood: The physical, the
intellectual, the spiritual, and the social. We want to focus on
His intellect.
The very fact of the growth of Christ in knowledge and
wisdom is a clear demonstration of the reality of His full
humanity. As a child He was not only not the omniscient
God that He was in pre-incarnate state, but He was not even
a mature man. Jesus was a true child, and was immature
and ignorant of a great deal about life. He had to learn and
mature by means of study, observation, and by asking
questions and listening to others. This is one obvious reason
why we do not have any record of the words and acts of Jesus
as a boy and a young man. In that state when He had not yet
grown to full maturity of wisdom and perfection of mind, His
words were not of eternal value. His wisdom at that point
was not worthy of being recorded for all generations, for it
would not yet be greater than the wisdom of the scholars of
His day.
Jesus waited until His preparation was complete to begin
His ministry of public teaching. His years of silence up to
that point were years of profound preparation in thought.
Jesus was not just killing time. He had a mother and family
to provide for, but He was also developing His mind through
the study of Scripture. Jesus only had three and a half years
of ministry, but He changed the world because He developed
quality of thinking. His mind was in perfect accord with the
mind of God before He acted. We can never know the IQ of
Jesus, but we can assume that as a strong healthy child with
the pure human heritage of Mary, and the perfect divine
heritage of the Holy Spirit, that He was a genius.
Apocryphal stories have Him teaching astronomy and other
sciences of the day, and there is no reason to doubt that Jesus
could have done so. It is only doubtful that He did because
this was not His ministry. He did reveal, however, that He
was a well educated man, even though He did not attend any
formal school of higher education.
In John 7:15 we see the response of the people to the
teaching of Jesus in the temple. "The Jews marveled at it,
saying, how is it that this man has learning, when He has
never studied?" G. Campbell Morgan comments: "The
emphasis of their question lay, not upon the spiritual
teaching of Jesus, but upon the illustrations He used, and
upon the evident acquaintance with what was then spoken of
as learning. It was not that they were overwhelmed by t a
sense of His spiritual insight, for, then as now, men knew that
spiritual insight often belonged to those who had no learning.
They were impressed by the beauty of His expression, the
wealth of His illustration, and His evident familiarity with
those things, to become acquainted with which, men gave
themselves up to long courses of study. The mind of Christ
was refined, cultured, and beautiful..."
Jesus was self educated, and was an intellectual of His
day. He knew His nations past history well through His
study of the Old Testament. He used it often in His teaching,
and for sake of argument He could refer back to the stories of
Naaman, and the widow of Zarephath. He was alert to the
contemporary events, and He used them for illustrations, as
in the case of the Galileans whose blood Pilate mixed with
their sacrifices, and the 18 on whom the tower of Siloam fell.
He was exceptionally perceptive in the use of nature and the
common events of life for illustrating spiritual truth.
Jesus was a student of all times, and He was aware of
what was, what is, and what was to be. The point we are
emphasizing, however, is that He was this as a man and not
as God. He emptied Himself of His omniscience when He
became a man, and clearly took upon Himself the limitations
of finite intelligence. When He was a child in Nazareth He,
like Paul in Tarsus, spoke like a child, thought like a child,
and acted like a child, but as He matured He put away
childish things. Jesus had to develop His capacity just as all
men do. Percy Ainsworth said, "Nazareth was silent
concerning the great One who had stooped to share its lowly
life, because it did not know that He was great, or that He
had stooped." He was only an ordinary carpenter to them
until He began to express His wisdom and power in teaching
and miracles.
Jesus had wisdom superior to any man who ever lived.
Solomon had this distinction before, but Jesus said a greater
than Solomon is here, and He was referring to Himself. His
wisdom and knowledge was supernatural in that it was often
beyond what even a perfect could know, but it was
nevertheless human knowledge in the sense that it was
possible only because of His perfect relationship to God.
What I am saying is one of the paradoxes of Christ's
humanity. Both His growth and wisdom and His perfection
of wisdom demonstrate the full reality of His humanity. His
growth and limitation show Him to be like us, but His
perfection shows Him to beyond us, but as an ideal to which
we can strive, because He reached that point by developing
to its full capacity the relationship of one's humanity to God.
To put it simply, everything that Jesus did and knew which
was supernatural, He did as a man, and thus revealed the
possibilities of manhood in perfect relationship to God.
S. D. Gordon in Quiet Talks About Jesus states his view of
this same idea. He says of Jesus, "He was as truly human as
though only human....In His ability to read men's thoughts
and know their lives without finding out by ordinary means,
His knowledge ahead of coming events, His knowledge of and
control over nature, He clearly was more than the human we
know. Yet until we know more than we seem to now of the
proper powers of an unfallen man matured and growing in
the use and control of those powers we cannot draw here any
line between human and divine. But the whole presumption
is in favor of believing that in all of this Jesus was simply
exercising the proper human power which with Him were not
hurt by sin but ever increasing in use." This is all the more
likely when we consider that men who were imperfect and
sinners were endowed by God with supernatural knowledge
and power.
Men before and after Jesus did miracles, and foresaw the
future. Jesus said men after Him would do even greater
things than He did. Jesus demonstrated the great potential
of manhood in the realm of the mind if it is centered on God
and His will. The secret of the wisdom and power of Jesus
was in His total dependence upon God His Father. Listen to
His own words in John 5:19-20. "Truly, truly, I say to you,
the Son can do nothing of His own accord, but only what He
sees the Father doing, for what ever He does, that the Son
does likewise. For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him
all that He Himself is doing, and greater works than these
will He show Him, that you may marvel."
The perfect submission of His manhood to God allowed
His humanity to be an instrument of supernatural knowledge
and power. Knowledge in a human mind becomes a force for
God in the world when the mind is open to God's leading to
fulfill His purpose. If intellectuals are often fools, and
promoters of evil, it is not due to their being intellectuals, but
due to the lack of their vision of God and yieldedness to His
will.
Jesus would have us learn all we can to the glory of God.
All knowledge can be so used. Jesus was a keen user of logic,
and He used it constantly in His teaching to persuade, and in
His arguments with His opponents. Jesus would have us
develop our minds as instruments for God's purpose, even as
He did. He said to His disciples that they should be wise as
serpents and harmless as doves. He urged men to come to
Him and learn of Him. He was the fulfillment of the ideal
man of the Old Testament. He was a man of knowledge and
wisdom. John says He was full of grace and truth. Paul says
that in Him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and
knowledge. The mind of Christ has had a great impact on
this world, greater than any other mind. His church has
done more to influence the intellectual development of
mankind than any other institution.
Bill Harvey wrote,
He never wrote a book with pen and ink,
But with His life, He caused more men to think
Then any other man. He never played
Upon an instrument, and yet He made
More hearts to sing and made more fingers glide
Along the string and ivory and guide
More melodies of praise to Him than all
The symphonies this world could e'er recall.
Neither architect nor artist He
Was ever called in rugged Galilee,
And yet, a steeple seldom points above
But what a builder has been thinking of
The Carpenter, the Craftsman of Ages.
He built and He is building yet, and sages
Who are wise still recognized this King
And say He's Lord of all; of everything.
He is Lord of our minds, and He commands us to love
God with all of our mind. Paul says that we are to let the
mind of Christ be in us. To learn of and submit to the mind
of the Master is to begin a journey toward the highest
possible intellectual development of your humanity.
