13:32 –
This verse is a stern warning to anyone
who would seek to put a specific date to the events of the future. Jesus here
proclaims that no one but the Father knows such things—not the angels, and not
even the Son! If this is true, then we absolutely must maintain enough humility
to resist the temptation to play the fortune-teller. Too many good Christian
leaders have attempted to play that role, and every single one of them has seen
their system of predictions fall into ruin. Besides the warning to maintain
humility, however, another concern arises: if we believe that Christ shares the
same nature as God the Father, that they are members of the same Godhead, “very
God of very God”—then how can there be things that God knows, but which Christ,
the Son of God, does not know. Doesn’t this imply a differentiation, a
subordination in the Godhead that Christian theology has overlooked? No—the traditional
answer, upheld by the Scriptures of the New Testament, is that in this instance
Christ was speaking of his present knowledge. That is to say, he did not know
the dates of times of the events he foretold while he was incarnate as a man.
Scripture teaches clearly that the pre-existent Christ “emptied himself” (Phil.
2) of some of his divine prerogatives in order to be fashioned according to our
nature; likewise, the evangelist Luke tells us that the young Jesus “grew in
wisdom” (Luke 2:52), which implies that Jesus Christ, while certainly
possessing knowledge far beyond human capacities, nonetheless emptied himself
of the timeless aspect of divine omniscience while he entered our temporal
realm, so that he could be made like us. This verse, then, is a reflection of the
humility of Christ rather than of any eternal subordination in the Godhead.
13:33-37
– The repeated exhortations at the end of
this chapter are clear and firm. Only the most obtuse could fail to see the
main thrust of Jesus’ teaching on this point: our ultimate response to the
future, and particularly to the future return of Christ, is simply to be ready.
It’s not to figure out all the times and dates, nor to waste time speculating
which political figures or nations might presage the rise of Antichrist, nor
even to worry about the tribulations to come. It’s simply to be ready. How do
we do this? Jesus is very clear. Be alert. Watch. Essentially, this is a
command to be living our daily lives in such exemplary fashion that we would be
ready on any given day for the return of the Lord, just like a faithful servant
awaiting the return of his master. Be ready for Christ’s return, and the way to
be ready is to be watchful over one’s own life, to be tending to one’s duties,
just like a faithful servant. That means not that we are watching the world,
tracking prophecy schematics along with the evening news, but rather that we
are watching ourselves, making ourselves ready for that final day. It’s
instructive that many ancient manuscripts inserted “Be alert and pray” into verse 33—our attention is
not to be on the world, but on Christ himself, and making sure that we are
ready to receive him.