Hi neostarwcc,
It has long been a thoughtful consternation, this 'Jesus is God' understanding. Personally, I like to stick with the Scriptures and I also understand that there are things about God that we just aren't going to understand. He is so far beyond our comprehension of what is possible for and through Him. God is God and we are not! That's a simple truth that we just need to agree with. Many seemingly godly people have struggled to answer the 'Jesus is God' question. Here's my take.
When Isaiah writes to us the revelations given to him through the Holy Spirit about the coming Messiah, God himself refers to him as His servant. That's the word, in English of course, that the Hebrew word would infer to us through it's meaning 2,500 years ago. That this Messiah who was going to come and be beaten and open not his mouth and fulfill the very words of Isaiah's writing of proclaiming the good news and healing the sick and binding up the hurt, was a servant of God. He will be my servant, declares the Lord, God.
Listen to me, you islands; hear this, you distant nations: Before I was born the LORD called me; from my mother’s womb he has spoken my name. He made my mouth like a sharpened sword, in the shadow of his hand he hid me; he made me into a polished arrow and concealed me in his quiver. He said to me, “You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will display my splendor.” But I said, “I have labored in vain; I have spent my strength for nothing at all. Yet what is due me is in the LORD’s hand, and my reward is with my God.” And now the LORD says— he who formed me in the womb to be his servant to bring Jacob back to him and gather Israel to himself, for I am honored in the eyes of the LORD and my God has been my strength— he says: “It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.” This is what the LORD says— the Redeemer and Holy One of Israel— to him who was despised and abhorred by the nation, to the servant of rulers: “Kings will see you and stand up, princes will see and bow down, because of the LORD, who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you.” Isaiah 49:1-7
See, my servant will act wisely ; he will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted. Just as there were many who were appalled at him — his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any human being and his form marred beyond human likeness— so he will sprinkle many nations,and kings will shut their mouths because of him. For what they were not told, they will see, and what they have not heard, they will understand. Isaiah 52:13-15
He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away. Yet who of his generation protested? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was punished. He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the LORD makes his life an offering for sin, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand. After he has suffered, he will see the light of life and be satisfied ; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities. Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,and he will divide the spoils with the strong,because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors. Isaiah 53:1-12
So, it would seem that God expected Israel to understand that this personage who was to come and fulfill all this that had been revealed to Isaiah, as God's servant. As a grown man, when Jesus is being revealed in the Scriptures to us, he is standing in the synagogue and he reads Isaiah's words before the gathered people He then proclaims that what they have for centuries read in Isaiah's words, were being fulfilled to them before their very eyes and in their hearing.
He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me,because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind,to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” Luke 4:16-21
Then we have Jesus' own proclamation of who God is: his Father. And God proclaims who Jesus is: my Son. Finally, in the opening of John's writing of the Revelation of Jesus, he writes:
The revelation from Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who testifies to everything he saw—that is, the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. Revelation 1:1-2
Here we are told that God 'gave' Jesus this revelation and that He gave it to Jesus for the purpose of his making it known by sending an angel to John. Then he seems to separate the 'word of God' and the 'testimony of Jesus Christ' as two proofs of all that John would testify concerning these things.
So, for me, I believe that God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are all a part of God, but that Jesus and the Holy Spirit are not, as we can understand in our feeble humanness, exactly everything that God is. They are each a part of God with their own and individual abilities to work out the will of God. Now I know that there will be those who will disagree with me and that's perfectly ok, but...
Your question is why Jesus didn't know when the end would come and if we believe in this peculiar division between the entities of the Godhead, then it becomes, perhaps, easier to understand. When John testifies that the things he is writing in the Revelation were given by God to Jesus, then we can see that Jesus does apparently depend somewhat on his Father to know all that he knows. Even in the gospels we read the very words of Jesus saying to us:
So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began to persecute him.
In his defense Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.” For this reason they tried all the more to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God. Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, and he will show him even greater works than these, so that you will be amazed. For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it. Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him. “Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life. Very truly I tell you, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. And he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man. “Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out—those who have done what is good will rise to live, and those who have done what is evil will rise to be condemned. By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me. John 5:16-30
These words are just packed with evidence that Jesus believed in a certain separation in who God is and who he is. Knowing that the Jews had heard his proclamation that he was the Son of God, they believed that this meant that he was equal to God. So, Jesus was addressing their misunderstanding by explaining to them the certain and peculiar separation between himself and his Father. You see, in Jewish culture, it was believed that a son had all the rights and authority of a father. That a son was, in effect, the exact same person as his father. The testimony here is fairly clear that the greatest evidence that allowed the Jews to believe that Jesus believed himself to be equal with God was in his saying that he was the Son of God. But Jesus' very next words were addressed to them to correct that idea.
Again in John 14:10 we read Jesus' words to those hearing him:
Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work.
Clearly two separate and distinct personages working together for the work of the Father. And the 'Father living in me' would be the Holy Spirit of God.
So, Jesus didn't know when he would return because God had not revealed that to him at the time he was speaking to them about his return. Just as Jesus would not have given John all that John revealed to us in his writings in the Revelation unless God had not first given it to Jesus to give to his angel to give unto John.
So for me, God is the Father and Jesus is the Son. That's how the Scriptures describe their relationship and that's exactly how I understand their relationship.
Let the battle begin.
God bless,
In Christ, ted
