Educating Jesus

Jesus was always the voice which spoke from heaven, but only now does He speak His own mind.

And the Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. (Genesis 6:6)

But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. (Matthew 24:36)

Wisdom Beyond Our Years

The relationship between the Father and the Son is an eternal to-and-fro. It is this primary “chiasm,” Forming and Filling, which gave shape to the Creation Week and every event in the Word of God. Every facet of human life is also a “there-and-back-again.”

Most importantly, it is also the shape of human history. All of antiquity up to the Ascension of Christ was a Forming that resulted in a Glorified Adam, the blameless Firstfruits. Pentecost began the Filling, the maturity of humanity in the maturity of Christ. But what if all of history, not just the incarnation, was also part of the process of perfecting the Son?

Based on this correspondence, it would appear that this Forming and Filling of Creation and Man was intimately linked to the One through whom all things were created. All of human history is also a single, but crucial, to-and-fro between the Father and His Son.

This implies that the full intentions of the Father during Old Testament history were only revealed stage by stage not only to humanity (Hebrews 1:1-2) and to the angels (1 Peter 1:12) but also to the Son, who submitted, suffered and matured at every step. The ministry of the preincarnate Son in heaven began the credo which culminated in an ut intelligam for all humanity on earth.¹Credo ut intelligam is Latin for “I believe so that I may understand,” a maxim based on a saying of Augustine of Hippo (crede, ut intelligas, “believe so that you may understand”; Tract. Ev. … Continue reading “The faith of Jesus Christ” is something which began before the foundation of the world.

In Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping, the narrator takes some literary license to describe a God who is appalled by the murder of Abel. He possesses Covenant authority, yet it is a delegated authority. He is a Lord-in-training, a Yahweh who is yet a young man:

Cain killed Abel, and the blood cried out from the ground—a story so sad that even God took notice of it. Maybe it was not the sadness of the story, since worse things have happened every minute since that day, but its novelty that He found striking. In the newness of the world God was a young man, and grew indignant over the slightest things. In the newness of the world God had perhaps not Himself realized the ramifications of certain of His laws, for example, that shock will spend itself in waves; that our images will mimic every gesture, and that shattered they will multiply and mimic every gesture ten, a hundred, or a thousand times.²Marilynne Robinson, Housekeeping, 192.

Is it possible that the reference to Yahweh’s repentance concerning the creation of Man (Genesis 6:6) was more than a mere anthropomorphism? Is it possible that when Yahweh says that child sacrifice had never entered into His heart (Jeremiah 7:31, 19:5; 32:35) He was not condescending to human understanding?

The Father Who Hides His Face

The firmament of Day 2 (Division), unlike the works of other days, was not deemed “good.” Neither was it deemed “bad,” which indicates that it was a temporary veil between heaven and earth, a division for the sake of a greater union. It was like the cutting of Adam’s flesh that he might be united with Eve as “one flesh.” Cells divide that they may be united in a greater way. The darkness and “deep sleep” are for the purpose of multiplication. They are not inherently good but for a greater good. The “deep sleep” of Abraham, a corporate cutting of flesh, served a similar purpose.

The veil is a division which hides God’s face, God’s glorious intentions, from Man. Just as Noah was naked behind a veil, and Moses’ face was veiled, so Yahweh’s throne was hidden behind a veil in the tent. Wise rulers like Joseph temporarily hide their faces, veiling their intentions for the purpose of testing their brothers. This is exactly what the Lord did to qualify Adam.

What if the mind of the Father was also hidden by a “firmament” from the Son, the Creation itself being the greatest good for the Son yet wrapped in a riddle and not yet complete? This would mean that the process of bringing the Son to a “bridal” maturity began not at the incarnation but at the Creation.

Although this is speculation, we do know that the glory Christ received at His enthronement was not the glory which He put off at His incarnation but that which He possessed before the Creation. Take note of Jesus’ own words:

“I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.” (John 17:4-5)

Nothing was created without the Son, yet not all was revealed to the Son from the beginning. His gradual perfection was not only prefigured but expressed—united inextricably—in His guidance of the human figures of Messianic history. Yahweh was always Jesus.

The implications of such a vision of the full obedience of the Son, blind obedience in the Creation of Light, are worth meditating upon. 

What perfect trust the Son demonstrated as He continued to obey the Father despite the horrors of Old Testament history. The events were as heartbreaking a revelation to the Son as they are to humanity. Yet His faith in the Father did not waver.

Since the Old Covenant was administered by angels, the servants of God, the Son Himself was humbled as an angel, “the angel of the Lord,” that is, a heavenly servant.³For more discussion, see “Better Angels” in Michael Bull,  Sweet Counsel: Essays to Brighten the Eyes. He was like the angels in His submission, but unlike them because He was the Son (Galatians 4:1-7).

No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. (John 15:14-15)

From the act of Creation, the Son’s submission would continue by degrees until His death on the cross. His obedience in entering history as a man and obeying “unto death” is breathtaking. Most heartbreaking of all is His willingness to actually become the veil, the flesh that was torn away to reveal the “naked” mind of the Father, the unhidden face of His mission for a bride for His Son (Hebrews 10:20). The firmament, as a veil between heaven and earth, was an image of the delegation of the Son by the Father, a garment “stretched out” like Joseph’s robe, a covering that would be bloodied and torn throughout history until the death of Jesus.

The Son Who Reveals the Father

Since true wisdom comes only through faithful obedience, it makes sense that Jesus did not know all the Father’s will. We ourselves are justified by “the faith of Jesus Christ,” and faith assumes an absence of sight. As “Israel,” Jesus obeyed God step by step, day by day. He did not know Lazarus was going to die. He did not know that He was going to be abandoned on the cross. The Father’s will was revealed only on a “need to know” basis. His entire life was the credo ut intelligam experienced by all the sons of God. Perhaps even the knowledge of His coming death was obscure, revealed in a “dark saying” just as Paul’s fate was revealed to him by the prophet Agabus (Numbers 12:6-8; Acts 21:11).

As an earthly prophet, Christ was told what to say. He only spoke face to face with the Father, thus becoming a “better Moses” (Hebrews 3:3) at His ascension, when He opened the sealed scroll containing His inheritance. He was always the voice which spoke from heaven, but only now does He speak His own mind. 

Jesus is the truth, but the truth is a process because it is relational: submission before dominion, humility before exaltation. The fact is that all the Scriptures used to prove a stasis in the glory of Christ before and after His incarnation were written after His ascension. Jesus did not simply leave the perfection of heaven and become flesh. He had submitted to the Father at every step of history from the foundation of the world.

In His earthly life, Jesus demonstrated the good nature of the Father. In His death, Jesus as the torn veil revealed the good intentions of the Father. He showed us God’s true face.

The Hidden Wisdom

Before you charge me with “open theism,” this divine “education” concerned only the Son. All the authority of the Father over the Creation has now been given to the Son, indicating that He did not previously possess full authority over it. He served as a steward, doing only what the Father instructed Him to do (John 10:22-39). The Father’s omni-potence in history (Forming) is now fully realized in the wisdom of His pleni-potent Son (Filling).⁴For more discussion, see “Images of God” in Michael Bull, Sweet Counsel: Essays to Brighten the Eyes. All has now been revealed to Him, and in Him. He obeyed from the very beginning, and now He is a better Solomon, a king of peace who has sought God with all His heart and obtained an even greater glory, the glory of His Bride (Proverbs 25:2).

It is no longer the mystery of the mind of God which needs revealing. All has been revealed to those who possess the mind of Christ by the Spirit (1 Corinthians 2; Colossians 2:1-7). In the one who served faithfully in heaven and fulfilled the Law on earth, we, like David, have a wisdom beyond our years (Psalm 119:100).

Further reading: The Eternal Perfection of the Son.

This is an essay from Inquiétude: Essays for a People Without Eyes.
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Art: St Joseph the Worker, Michael O’Brien www.studiobrien.com