He could not say what is false Who said “All
things that the Father hath are Mine,”
John xvi. 15.
but one of the things which the Father hath is knowledge of that day
and of that hour. In the passage in Matthew, then, the Lord made
no mention of His own Person, as a matter beyond controversy, and said
that the angels knew not and that His Father alone knew, tacitly
asserting the knowledge of His Father to be His own knowledge too,
because of what He had said elsewhere, “as the Father knoweth me
even so know I the Father,”
John x. 15. and if the
Father has complete knowledge of the Son, nothing excepted, so that He
knows all knowledge to dwell in Him, He will clearly be known as fully
by the Son with all His inherent wisdom and all His knowledge of things
to come. This modification, I think, may be given to the words of
Matthew, “but my Father only.” Now as to the words of
Mark, who appears distinctly to exclude the Son from the knowledge, my
opinion is this. No man knoweth, neither the angels of God; nor
yet the Son would have known unless the Father had known: that
is, the cause of the Son’s knowing comes from the Father.
To a fair hearer there is no violence in this interpretation, because
the word “only” is not added as it is in Matthew.
Mark’s sense, then, is as follows: of that day and of that
hour knoweth no man, nor the angels of God; but even the Son would not
have known if the Father had not known, for the knowledge naturally His
was given by the Father. This is very decorous and becoming the
divine nature to say of the Son, because He has, His knowledge and His
being, beheld in all the wisdom and glory which become His Godhead,
from Him with Whom He is consubstantial.