Those of
you who read my posts will be aware that I base a lot of my knowledge on the
scriptures. I don’t profess to know it all but over the years I have followed suggestions
and instructions from several Church leaders on how to study and understand the
scriptures.
Every once in a while I will get a reader who
will challenge what I write. In one of my recent posts titled “A Clear View” I
attempted to prove that Christ has known everything from His very beginning,
including the extent of the suffering He would go through during His Atonement,
thanks to the Inspired Version which points out that it was the disciples that
were ‘sore amazed’ in Gethsemane and not the Saviour (JST Mark 14:36).
One reader pointed
out the scripture in Matthew 24:36 that quotes the Saviour saying that only His
Father knows the day and the hour of His Second Coming, so in his opinion, the
Saviour doesn’t know everything……this in spite of me citing two references in
the Doctrine and Covenants where the Saviour said that only men and angels don’t
know the day or the hour indicating that He knows too (D&C 39:21; 49:7).
I don’t
need to tell you how aghast I was that a member of the Church considered His
opinion of Christ to be more accurate than what the Saviour has said of Himself,
namely that He knows the end from the beginning (Abraham 2:8); that all things past,
present, and future are before Him continually (D&C 130:7); and that He
knows all things and there is not anything that He doesn’t know (2 Nephi 9:20).
To me, the
Matthew scripture is either mis-translated, as Joseph indicated in his
teachings about certain errors in the Bible (Teachings, p 327) , or the Saviour
was saying to His disciples, ‘I know also but I am not going to tell you the
day and the hour because no man is supposed to know…..as when I come I will
come quickly, meaning suddenly, as a thief in the night so all I will give you
are the signs to watch for’ (Doctrine and Covenants Student Manual commentary
for 34:7-12).
In my mind,
the Saviour didn’t need to spell out that He knows when He will come. He is not
some junior apprentice in the Celestial Kingdom who has to be told what to do
and when to do it. He is a God and He is one with the Father (D&C 50:43;
93:3; 3 Nephi 11:27; John 14:9-11). What the Father thinks, the Saviour thinks,
what the Father knows, the Saviour knows, what the Father wants, the Saviour
wants. He is in all and above all and through all, the light, the truth, and
the way. Why would He not know when He is supposed to come the second time?
My point is
this. How can we have faith in a God who doesn’t know everything? It doesn’t
make sense to me….so it behooves us to know Him like we have never known
anything or anyone before. And this is how we can know Him: “Search the
scriptures……..they are they which testify of me.” (John 5:39; 3 Nephi 23:5).
And in
Joseph’s words: “Search the scriptures – search the revelations which we publish,
and ask your Heavenly Father, in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, to manifest
the truth unto you, and if you do it with an eye single to His glory, nothing
doubting, He will answer you by the power of His Holy Spirit. You will then
know for yourselves and not for another. You will not then be dependent on man
for the knowledge of God, nor will there be any room for speculation. No, for
when men receive their instruction from Him that made them, they know how He
will save them.” (History of the Church, 1:282)
Daily I stand in my holy place
As I feast upon Thy word,
Ever hopeful I will meet You there,
Thy Spirit to embrace
And the cares of this world to
arrest.
I reach for You in darkness
And step up to heaven’s door;
I am bathed in light
And am granted entrance to Your
heart.
