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Was Christ Omniscient, Omnipotent, and Omnipresent

by Tony Warren



    The mysterious association between Christ's human and divine natures tends to provoke many questions about the Lord's attributes in relationship to the Father and Holy Spirit. In this article we will attempt to enlighten many regarding that paradoxical relationship through a studied consideration of the Scriptures that speak to this subject. The three "Omni" prefixes attached to the words illustrating "all" all-science [scientia] meaning all knowing, all-potence [potentialis] meaning all powerful, and all-presence [praesentia] meaning all or everywhere present, are at the heart of what it is to be God. Seeing how Christ was fully divine (Colossians 1:19; John 14:10), plausibly requires having the properties of being omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent. This is confirmed as Colossians chapter two says:

Colossians 2:9

The phrase "of the Godhead" is the Greek is [theotes] which means the very nature and full authoritative power of the Godhead. It is not simply putting forth an idea of Christ having some divine perfections or limited attributes of divinity. That limitation would involve the Greek word [theiotes] and not [theotes]. These Scriptures are assuring us that Christ was not simply God-like, a limited form of God, or God-empowered, but that He in the fullest sense of the word, was God. When one saw Christ, they saw God who alone has these divine attributes that demonstrated throughout Scripture. It is these abilities and powers that indeed defined Him as God. i.e., if Christ was good, then He was God (Matthew 19:17), or if Christ could forgive sins, He was God (Luke 5:21). The central tenet of faithful Christianity is the belief Jesus was fully God and fully man. To be fully God is to have "all" or the full divine attributes of God, else He cannot be "fully" God. We can show with Scripture that Christ not only had all these attributes, but demonstrated them in various ways throughout His ministry. This careful and thorough study of the Scriptures gives us a better understanding of the integral union inherent in God coming to earth in the flesh (the second Adam) to accomplish His task as man.

1st Corinthians 15:45-47

One might ask, "What has all this to do with Christ being fully God?" And I would reply, everything! Because it was Adam or literally Man that sinned, it would have to be man that was accountable for those sins. And no mere man, or even a super man, could take upon his own body his sins (much less the sins of the world), suffer the wages of death for them, and be raised again from that death free of those sins. That atonement would take a man that was "fully God" in order to pay all that was required for those sins. Thus Christ, as a man, had to also be fully God in order to overcome [nikao] or gain the victory over death. Only Christ as fully God and fully man was capable of conquering or prevailing over death. Not for Himself, but as a scapegoat for us.

John 16:33

He alone had power to prevail because He was the all-powerful God. The reason we can be of good cheer to overcome or prevail over this world is because Christ not only overcame the world before us, but more importantly, through His faith, "for us." God performed this task so that we might be able to do the same (1st John 5:4-5). Often some Christians come away from certain studies with more questions about this Spiritual union than before they started. I don't think that anyone can deny that this is a difficult topic, but it is also one that the Scriptures give reassuring answers in that the man Christ being fully God was the only way mankind could be saved. Since His children were slaves to sin wherein they could not save themselves, God predetermined to save His people by His own arm (Psalms 44:3-4). In other words, through His own all encompassing knowledge, power, and presence, God delivered His people Israel from bondage and freed them from the captivity wherein they could not free themselves. That is the Bible portrait of the omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent deliverer of Israel. Indeed, the Scriptural report of the necessary efficacious God / Man union is Biblically unassailable.

Philippians 2:5-9

Here we see the testimony of Jesus Christ being in the form of almighty God the father, decided to humble Himself the suffering servant in the image of man, that through means of death and resurrection, God might by His own arm or power (Deuteronomy 9:29; 2nd Kings 17:36) deliver His people from death. There is no testimony in any Scripture that God gave up His divine attributes, it only states that He humbled Himself in becoming flesh and blood as a man. And that so that mankind might be delivered from the power of death wherein the Devil held them. And this because it was the only way that man could have the curse of sin removed and the strong man who was their taskmaster destroyed.

Hebrews 2:14

It was man in the flesh that sinned, it had to be man in the flesh paying for those sins. The problem was, man could not fulfill the debt required for sin and come out the other end free from it. It would take a God/Man to endure the wages of sin in suffering death for man, and yet be resurrected afterward free from all that sin. This is why there needed to be a union between God and man, for the deliverance of man. Because it was man who sinned, man had to pay for those sins. There was no "get out of prison free card" because the righteous law of God required that sin must be paid for. We read that "the soul that sinneth, it shall die" (Ezekiel 18:4). Without the chosen experiencing death in Christ, and being resurrected unto new life with Christ, there should no flesh be saved. This is basically the synopsis of why the Savior had to be a God Man. Because no mere human man could do it.

Romans 6:3-5

Only God could be laden with all our sins, suffer death, be resurrected without them, and we resurrected with Him free from our sins, regenerated with a new nature and as the new man. There are some Christians who contend that the Lord had to give up His powerful divine attributes, like omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence when He took on the form of a man in Christ Jesus. But not only do I not see that demonstrated anywhere in Scripture, I see just the opposite. Christ was always demonstrating that He knew all, that He was all powerful, and that He can see what is occurring anywhere while in the flesh standing in one location. To be sure, Christ did willingly refrain from certain rights and privileges that attend to being God ( i.e., His throne in heaven, His right to judgment, His right to the glory of the father, etc.), but as far as His power, knowledge, and nature, He was fully God while being fully man. He suffered as a man, He hungered as a man, he was tempted as a man, but He never ceased having the power of God (John 8:29). For if that were true, our sins would remain because only all-powerful God could have endured the wrath that was poured out upon Christ, by His own arm (Isaiah 53:4). God smiting God because He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows with Him to the cross. That is why God was smitten of God and afflicted--to redeem us from our sins. It is reasonable to conclude that in the days of his flesh, Christ willingly curtailed some of His divine glory to humble Himself, because clearly what He could have done, He didn't do. Not because He couldn't do them, but because to do so would thwart His divine purpose and will in the redemption of man. But what He could do was demonstrate His all knowing, all powerful, all-presence attributes revealing that He was truly fully God. Let's look at these attributes one by one.

 

The Omniscience of Christ

At the risk of appearing arrogant, for Bible-believing Christians to postulate that Christ's knowledge was somehow limited is quite absurd "considering all of the pertinent scriptures that demonstrate quite explicitly" that He knew all. All throughout His ministry He unambiguously established His divine knowledge of the past (John 4:17-18), the present (Luke 9:46-47), and the future (Luke 22:33-34; 22:55-62). In fact, Christ could always be perfectly aligned with the truth "specifically because" He had full and perfect knowledge of all that was true and false. It makes no sense to postulate otherwise. His omniscience and omnipresence is what allowed Him to fully know people’s thoughts and their whereabouts. This is an attribute that no one but God possesses.

Luke 6:7-8

Christ had total knowledge of not only His friends thoughts (Luke 9:46-47), but also the thoughts of the wicked (Luke 6:7-8), so that there was nothing of anyone hid from His eyes. That is what it means to be fully God (Hebrews 4:12-13). If Christ possessed full divine knowledge of the thoughts of both His friends and His enemies, how then is it possible for Him to be surprised by anything that anyone said? In some "seemingly" conflicting Scriptures that may appear so, but that makes no sense because it isn't true. To be fully God means to have knowledge of all the thoughts and words of men making it impossible for Christ to be caught off-guard or surprised at anything that mankind would say or do.

John 2:23-25

Clearly, Jesus was not surprised by what any man said or did because He was omniscient. He knew every single man thoroughly. Nothing was ever hid from Christ's eyes because He knew the end "from the very beginning." For example, He was aware that Judas would betray Him (John 6:64) and yet He did not cast Judas out nor make a big spectacle of his coming betrayal because an Omniscient God knew it had to be done for the Scriptures to be fulfilled. It was for this reason that God took upon Himself the form of a man in order to suffer unjustly as a substitute for those that were justly condemned. Many other Scriptures illustrate Christ's eternal knowledge (John 16:19). Just because Christ may "appear" not to know something (for His own divine will and purposes) doesn't mean that He was ignorant of a person's heart. For example, as He knew that Peter loved Him (because He first loved Peter) and yet Christ's words questioning him were meant as a teaching example and portrait for us. It is recorded that we might learn from it that true love is revealed in the promulgation of the gospel to those who hunger and thirst after righteousness. Here we see the true import and definition of our love for Christ is in evangelism rather than lip service.

John 21:17

Clearly this isn't to put forth the idea that Christ wasn't sure Peter loved Him, rather it is to illustrate that faith without works is dead. In other words, a tree is known by its fruits, so that we ought to bear good fruit if we are to live through His root and be called by His name. Christ knew all, including the apostle Peter's three denials of Him, the purpose of questioning his love for Him three times, and that many years later we would read of all this and be encouraged that in His divine knowledge is revealed that His strength is made perfect in our weakness. None of this revelation of God's will and purpose is a mystery or surprise to Him. It was ordained and written in stone.

John 16:30

His disciples stated that they were sure that He was omniscient to know all things, and that assuredly meant that He was the Son of God. Jesus replied, "do you now believe?" There's no ambiguity about His omniscience here. They understood Christ knew all things. Indeed, He had to because only God in the flesh of man could take the punishment required of man, in order to "fully" satisfy (Isaiah 53:11) the wages of the sins of the chosen world. Because Only a man being fully God could do it.

John 21:17

Indeed Christ did know all things, because He truly was Emmanuel (God with us), and not in name only, but fully God in the flesh with them. The phrase "fully God" cannot be distorted or twisted to mean "not fully God" in knowledge, power, or presence. Selah.

John 14:7-9

Is the Father not fully God in knowledge, power of presence? You can't separate the Son from the Father anymore than you can separate God's Spirit from God. God works in the person of all three in order to carry out specific works according to His divine fiat or decrees. But these three are one, all having God's divine attributes. There is not one single Scripture where I see stated or demonstrated explicitly that Christ had a lack of Omniscience. In fact, quite the opposite, because clearly He knew of all things inside and out.

John 2:24-25

Jesus knew all men because His Omniscience was universal, as only a man who was fully God could have such power. He knew who He was, He knew the awesome miraculous power at His command, and he knew what his mission was, having seen its ultimate success in the end, from the beginning. In truth, if the omniscience of Christ is denied, then all the biblical evidence of His miracles, mission, and self-directed work of saving individual undeserving sinners, makes no sense. Christ's power to know everything was all pervasive, which brings us to the topic of His omnipotence. For if knowledge is power, then the only question is how much power.

 

The Omnipotence of Christ

The Omnipotence of God illustrates that He is all powerful. So if the Son Christ was fully God, of necessity He had the same full power as God the Father, and as God the Holy Spirit. The Holy Bible makes it clear that all things were created by Christ (John 1:3-5) and only in Him is there life. In other words, by definition, Christ the light of the world is all-powerful. So unless we are going to theorize that Jesus is not God, or that Christ did not create all things, then Christ was all powerful. He had power to stay on the cross, and He had power to come down from off the cross. Just because He doesn't do something, doesn't mean that He had no ability to do it. For His power is also governed by His faithfulness. Even as things were done and were not done by Him, it was all so that the Scriptures may be fulfilled as He had promised. It was always in His power of being fully God to do anything that was the will of God. But He only did what He preordained to do from before the foundation of the world.

Matthew 26:52-54

Clearly, Christ had all-power to thwart His accusers if He wanted, but was His will for Scripture to be fulfilled in the salvation of mankind through the sacrificial shedding of blood. In fact, Christ demonstrated His all-powerful attribute as He performed all sorts of eye-popping miracles that no man on earth could perform outside of the power of God. He changed water to wine instantly (John 2:9) demonstrating His divine governing of the power of creation. He spoke and the world was miraculously created. He spoke and the wine was miraculously created from water. The same when the all-powerful Christ miraculously multiplied the loaves and fishes (Matthew 14:19-21) as a sign of His creation in extending of the bread of the gospel to the whole world. Even as the all-powerful God raised Lazarus from the dead demonstrating He had all-power over life and death. Christ was fully God with full miraculous power or [dunamis], which He demonstrated constantly throughout His ministry. This is the very essence of being fully man in the flesh nature, and yet fully God in His Spirit nature. This is the synergy that is the all-powerful, all-mighty, God of creation.

Romans 1:3-4

Christ is declared to be the Son of God with (in possession of) the full power of the Godhead unto salvation. That is power that belongs only to an inherently omnipotent God. It took the full power of a God/Man to deliver mankind by washing him free from the bondage to sin. The uncleanness of sin that we were all in when we were under servitude to the Devil. The full power of God through Christ was the only power that could set us free from that captivity, and loose our bands of wickedness.

Colossians 1:12-19

Mankind has no strength to save himself. The only force that could deliver every single chosen sinner from the power of darkness was the might of the all-powerful Christ. A Christ that had the power to step off of that cross if that was His will to do so, but His righteousness constrained Him. He had that power specifically because He was, is, and always shall be, omnipotent. In the body of Christ was all the fullness of power of God in the flesh. The fact that He chose not to abandon the cross does not negate the fact that, as God, He had the power to do so.

Colossians 2:9

In other words, all the fullness of God was dwelling in the body of Christ. So let no man contradict to say that Christ was limited in His Godly powers. When we study scripture carefully, we see everywhere that Christ was illustrating that He was all-powerful, that He was everywhere-present, and that He was unaware of nothing that was, is, or will be. Even as He declared in the flesh after He was crucified, but was not yet glorified (John 20:17) and not yet in Spiritual form of God as He was originally (Philippians 2:6-7). To be fully God means that there is no part of His divine nature that is not God, else He logically, rationally, and biblically, was not fully God. And as fully God, He had all the power of God. In a word, He was Omnipotent.

Matthew 28:17-20

All power was given to Christ, with the key words being "in heaven and in earth," meaning that as God, there was no power in heaven and earth that He didn't posess. And that is why as a man He had full power unto salvation of sinners to complete His work on the cross. No power was ever taken away from Him prior to His resurrection, and His own words confirm He had all power in heaven and earth as He was still in the flesh. God's law that the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23) prevented any life without payment, a law which a righteous and just God could not break. But with Christ being laden with our sins and suffering death, God broke the power of death that hung over us. And He did so though the glorious all-powerful redemption of God "specifically" because God's power is the only thing that could accomplish that task of redeeming us by law.

Mark 2:6-7

They were right about the fact that only an omnipotent God could forgive sins, but what they didn't perceive was that Christ "was" that Omnipotent God, and therefore there was no blasphemy. Christ had the full power of God to forgive sins, and He did so "lawfully" through His work in being laden with our iniquities and dying as our substitute sacrifice for those sin. Christ went to the cross willingly and benevolently, and not because He had no power not to go. He went because only an all-powerful God could redeem us. It is true that there are those who suppose that Christ was just another prophet, but that is antithetical to the word of God upon which Christianity stands.

Hebrews 1:1-3

It is by the power of Christ that all things are upheld, meaning that He is the very foundation and rock of all things. Indeed, He created all things and all things consist through Him. The earth, the sea, the wind, the earth, and all the planets, everything was created and rules by His power. A truth Christ again demonstrated in the episode of His trip on a ship where He demonstrated His great power over all things concerning this world:

Mark 4:37-39

Mark 4:41 The question is not what manner of man this was, but what manner of God man this was. Was it a God that ruled creation in His all-powerful demonstrations, or was it a god limited by the theories and finite thoughts of men? Did not Christ demonstrate His omnipotence by stilling the creation that He had set in order? Surely Christ did not give up His omnipotence when He chose to veil the glory of the Father in Heaven--in the person of the Son on earth. The omnipotence of God was always demonstrated as being present with Him, and it could have been used (and was) at any time that this God of creation saw fit. But all according to the will and divine purpose of God, and in the time and place that He saw fit to reveal it. Even as His omnipresence was revealed in Scripture through cryptic revelation to men.

 

The Omnipresence of Christ

We have seen that Christ never ceased to be the Omniscient God as He dwelled on earth, nor did He give up His divine and supreme power as the Omnipotent God. Likewise, we can glean from Scripture that He never ceased to be the Omnipresent God while He dwelled in the flesh. This is another area of disagreement among some theologians. But if Christ was fully God (as we of the reformed faith believe), then as God He was present to see everything that was going on throughout His creation. Not in his Man/Flesh nature, but in His God/Spirit nature, and these two are one. This is something that we can see demonstrated in His preaching (more about that later) as not only being present elsewhere in His earthly ministry, but also in being the great "I AM," always present. As with Moses, Abraham, and with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery Furnace. He has always existed fully as God throughout time and space. So if we believe what the Bible says about Christ, then He was, is, and always will exist as The great "I AM." God come to earth as a man, yet retaining all His divine attributes that permitted Him to know all things, have power over all things, and be present in every situation. In other words, fully God.

1st Timothy 3:16

In this passage we have set before believers the mystery of the whole divine nature, power, knowledge, and the ever present grandeur and majesty of Christ's person. If He were not at His very core the God/Man (Titus 2:13), then how does the infallible word declare Him as God manifested (revealed) in the flesh as a man, that through Man He might conquer death. For God was the only one who had the divine power to conquer death for every man. Conquer it throughout time and space, through perfect knowledge of whomever, whenever and wherever that man to be saved exists. Ask yourself, does God being present with His apostles preclude Him from being anywhere else present? Was Christ not with the Apostles and yet with Nathaniel while he was under a fig tree to see him as he sat there? If the answer is yes, then necessarily Christ was omnipresent. If the answer is no, then the second member of the trinity was somehow blind to that which was going on outside of his fleshly presence. But that goes against Scripture, as Christ clearly confirmed His omnipresence by telling His disciples that wherever they were, He was there in the middle of them. And it wasn't said as a metaphor, because Christ was, is, and always will be with every elect to watch over us.

Matthew 18:20

How is that possible if Christ was not omnipresent? Is it true that He was present with them wherever they went to "watch" over them, or was Christ simply exaggerating and could not really be there with them? Both cannot be true. Christ has promised them that whenever and wherever they were gathered together, He would be there with them. In a word, He promised them that He was indeed omnipresent with all His disciples (and indeed all believers) wherever and whenever they were gathered. In fact, knowing that Christ was and is aware of everything that is going on everywhere, we are forced to deal with the inconsistencies of the theory that Christ was not omnipresent on earth. If He is not truly present, then how does he "watch" over them or be present to "see" what is going on in other places? For example, the passage where Jesus had not yet ascended to heaven and continues to walk in the flesh among the disciples, we read there that He plainly declared that He was with them always. As a man? Not as a man, but as God whom He had never ceased to be:

Matthew 28:19-20

Not I will be with you, but I AM with you. If Christ is with every single elect always, then by definition He has the God nature and attribute of being omnipresent. That is to say, if we believe that Christ was indeed "fully" God, even as He dwelled in the robe of flesh here before the ascension. Was Christ with the Apostles as He sent seventy of them out two by two endowed with the miraculous power and authority of God to heal? Absolutely He was, because He never left them as they sojourned, and it was indeed He who was that power they demonstrated. A power that they could only have because He was with them every step of the way.

Luke 10:17-19

Satan fell because of the work of Christ, not by anything they did. They possessed power only because Christ was with them and by His presence and His authority the Devils were subject unto them. They had the power of God through Christ who was always with them to strengthen them, and by whom they were sealed (Ephesians 4:20) or secured with His Spirit that nothing could hurt them. As He promised, those who gather together in His name He was there with them. His Spirit secured them so that no one could hurt them as His eyes always watched over them. Their security was based on Him taking all their sins with Him to the cross along with all the sins of every elect everywhere in the world. From the Beginning even unto our time, because He was fully God to be with them everywhere. Now if we do not believe that He was fully God, then that's another problem altogether, which is not the scope of this article.

Another example is when Jesus said, "before Abraham was, I AM." He didn't say before Abraham was, I was, nor did He say before Abraham was, I was forecast to come, He said before Abraham was, I AM! In other words, He eternally exists. This indicating that He was (formerly) Omnipresent, that He is (presently) Omnipresent, and that He will be (in the future) Omnipresent. He was, is, and always will be (Revelation 4:8) the omnipresent God of Moses, Abraham, and every other saint anywhere in the past, present, or future. He was standing there with the Jews saying He was the great "I AM," the ever present God (Exodus 3:14). Not He would be after He ascended to heaven, but that He was fully "that" omnipresent God that stood with Moses. Unlike many today, the Jews there understood perfectly what He meant (John 8:58-59). Moreover, He also demonstrated His Omnipresence by revealing He was present "to see" things that were not present where He stood in the flesh. So if we are going to continue to preach that Jesus was in fact fully God, then He (by definition) had to know everything, be all powerful, and be omnipresent to see everything everywhere. Else how could He be in the presence of His apostles He sent out in one place, and yet be somewhere else to be with someone else and see what was happening in that place simultaneously? The scriptures teach us that He had all these powers. Consider carefully when Christ spoke to His servant Nathanael saying that He had seen Him in another place before he had come into His fleshly presence with the Disciples. The Lord could not have seen him somewhere else unless He was not under constraint that He couldn't be there to actually see him under that tree. The same principle as when He said wherever they were gathered together, He was with them. He was with Nathaniel to see Him under that tree, even as He was with the other disciples.

John 1:46-49

Nathanael by demonstration of His omnipresence understood that this was indeed God. As He was coming to Christ, the Lord revealed His omniscience as He already knew him as a man with no guile. He knew this "because" as fully God He was the one who would secure the gift that had made him guileless. Then Nathanael asked Christ, "Whence" [pothen] knowest thou me? That word translated whence means "from where" or from what place do you know me? In other words, where do you know me from (the source). Christ responds that He "saw" him in the place under the fig tree "before" Philip had even called him. Very clearly Christ illustrated His consciousness or foreknowledge (omniscience) of the fact of Him being guileless, and now Christ is also demonstrating His "omnipresence" by declaring when asked whence, that He saw him under the fig tree before Philip called him. The Lord was present with Him as He sat under the fig tree because as promised He is always with His people to "watch" over them. Certainly not in His flesh and blood presence, but Christ was there in His divine Spiritual presence. He saw Him with His very own spiritual eyes because the Lord Jesus Christ as fully God is present everywhere. In order to be in one place and "see" a person in another place simultaneously, that's the very definition of omnipresence. Christ said He both knew him and saw him as he sat under the fig tree. This is a great portrait of the hypostatic union explaining how our Savior can be present with His people in all places and at all times because He is Fully God. He alone possessed this attribute.

Psalms 139:7-10

This omnipresence is a power that no man has, but that a man who was fully God had to possess. And as a side note, Christ saying He saw Nathanael while he was under the fig tree, this tree is a type or "representation" of the covenant congregation of God. And because Christ unambiguously demonstrated His omnipresence, Nathanael answered and confessed to Christ that He was the Son of God and the King of Israel (John 1:49).

John 3:12-13

This necessarily means that Christ was there in the flesh on earth speaking with Nicodemus while He was also simultaneously present in heaven. There's no contradiction in that He both came down from heaven "and" is also in heaven. Because He was fully man and fully God. In Christ's essential and eternal nature he has that hypostatic union where He is still fully God. These verses explicitly speak of His omnipresence. The same way He both was with His apostles and also was with Nathanael seeing him sitting under the fig tree. Because He is the great I Am, the infinite, ever existing God.

John 1:17-18

Here we see another remarkable confirmation that Christ's conscious earthly existence as God in the flesh on earth was distinct from the Father, and yet clearly delineating that He was presently in the bosom of the Father God in heaven. God coming to earth didn't preclude Him from being God in heaven as the second person of the Godhead. It's not a contradiction, it is the word of God declaring the persons of God are distinct and yet are one (1st John 5:8). Some Christians speak of Christ our Lord's Omnipresence as meaning he is in everything. That to me is very close to Pantheism, which is the belief that all material and God are one where there is no distinction between them. For example, God is the universe and the universe is God. I believe that this is taking too many liberties with God's omnipresence. For example, I don't believe God is in a book of Wiccan and Witchcraft spells, or a block of wood carved as an idol, or that God is in Satan. I believe Omnipresent means that since God’s knowledge and power is "absolute" and extending throughout all creation, He himself has knowledgeable presence to not only know but to see everywhere. His eyes see everything, everywhere and nothing is hid from Him. Again, even as He saw Himself in the bosom of the Father, while talking to His disciples. Or as Christ Knew that Lazarus was dead (John 11:11-14) and told His disciples. He was there when He died because He never ceased to be God in heaven. Christ and the father was, is, and always will be, one.

John 3:13

A contradiction? No, because God the father, God the son, and God the holy spirit, are one. The son of man had presence in heaven because He never ceased to be fully God. Jesus in the flesh was not standing there when Lazarus died, in fact He was two days journey away. But Jesus, the Holy Spirit was there and saw Lazarus die. Indeed, He ordained it so that He could show the great power of God in His resurrection days later. It was the purpose of God in divine providence that Christ in the flesh of His physical body was not there so that days later He could perform the glorious sign/miracle of raising Lazarus up, prefiguring our spiritual resurrection in Him.. Even though He was there as God right in the midst of mary, lazarus, and all the other believers. Even as He said plainly:

Matthew 18:20

Christ was always omnipresent and that never ceased to be His nature as God. We should not forget that just because Christ emptied Himself of being in the positional Glory of the Lord in heaven, didn't make him any less fully God. In fact, if Christ wasn't fully God, He could have never suffered on the cross and paid for the sins of the whole elect Human race. No man could do that, no special man could do that, and no super man could do that, It would take the "God/Man" to accomplish that work in the flesh and be risen from the dead free from all those sins He carried to the cross with him. A man that was fully God. Unfortunately, there are some Christians that have the idea that the Crucifixion was His suffering/payment for sin. Many Men were crucified on a tree and they paid for nothing by it. We must come to grips with the divine truth that if the Son is truly and fully God, then there cannot be a lack of God's divine attributes that alone was the power of His restitution and cleansing resurrection.

 

Some Difficult Passages

I fully understand that the concept of Christ being fully God and fully man is not an easy thing to wrap our minds around so I don't want to paint the picture that this is an easy thing to understand, or that every Christian should understand this perfectly. I'll be the first to admit that there are "difficult" passages that might seem to imply that Christ didn't know something, was not all powerful, or that He didn't see what was going on somewhere else. But once we understood those Scriptures in their proper context, light, and spirit, the "apparent" conflicts are resolved. Paramount is that there are many scriptures that unambiguously tell us that Christ has all power to know and see everything. Nothing is hid from His eyes. e.g.:

John 17:5

That's not man surmising that Christ knew everything, that's the divinely inspired, inerrant, unadulterated testimony of the word. Omniscience is "all-knowing," which by definition is being in the state of having knowledge of everything. Including this divine will and purpose of God through Christ, and His ultimate returning to the glory He had with the Father in heaven before He emptied Himself to save mankind. He knew the when, the how, and the why, and He had all power to see it through to its consummation.

Luke 22:37

Christ knew the end from the beginning. We was well aware that He was the consummation of prophecy and that His destiny and conscious purpose (Isaiah 53:12) on earth could not be thwarted. His purpose in heaven was worked out on earth because they were one and the same. How then can we seriously postulate that Christ didn't know everything when He clearly spoke of them? That he doubted when He had full confidence of success? Christ spoke of existence with God in the beginning, so it's not as if He was unaware of all these things, or as if they had somehow been erased from His mind. Clearly, He understood it perfectly because He had that divine knowledge of being in the form of God in heaven. Indeed He was the Glory of God who made the worlds, wherein John testified to this truth and of His glory.

John 1:1-5

John 1:14

In Christ's words of John 17:5 where He asks the Father to glorify Him with God's own self, that He had with Him before the world began, that was proof that this was not unknown to Him or that His knowledge was somehow being limited. He knew He was God in the flesh and would return to the form of our God in heaven. He knows He created the worlds. His Omniscience and Omnipresence is how He knew who was sitting under a fig tree before they even sat there. He knew Peter, Luke John, and everyone else from the dawn of time "because" He never ceased to be fully God, even in the flesh.

[b]John 8:54-59

How would anyone even attempt to explain what Christ is saying if they are going to insist He didn't still have this Omniscience of knowing all? Unlike many Christians today, the Jews understood " and knew perfectly well" that Christ was plainly saying that He pre-knew Abraham because He was the Omniscient, omnipresent God--and that is why immediately after He spoke those words they took up stone to murder Him. How is it that the context shows that they clearly understood what Jesus was saying, but many Christians today don't appear to understand. The Phrase "I AM" clearly refers to the God of Abraham. The all-powerful and all-knowing God who plainly said His name was, "I AM."

Exodus 3:14

This is why the Jews immediately took up rocks to stone Christ when He said that, because they thought He blasphemed by saying He was God. Well, He did say He was God, but it was not blasphemy because He truly was God. Indeed, before Abraham was, He was God. He knew Abraham then, and He was there with Abraham, as He is with Abraham now. So from Scripture I believe that we can conclude that Christ had full knowledge and presence because His testimony is full of evidences that there was nothing that Christ didn't know or couldn't see anywhere. e.g. John 16:7

That necessarily means that Christ was fully aware of exactly who He was, what his mission was, what it would entail, and the resulting salvation for the world it would bring.

Often we are asked, "What about passages like Matthew chapter 8 where it says Christ marveled or was suprised and in admiration of what certain men had said?" e.g.:

Matthew 8:8-12

We read that Jesus marveled [thaumazo], meaning to "show admiration," because in this example the Lord is teaching "us" what is well-pleasing to God, not that he was in surprized admiration of what someone said. Christ already knew ahead of time the centurion's heart, his understanding, and how he was moved to humility. That's not what is being taught here, rather it is to illustrate that this is how we should approach God. Humbly. Another example is the way that God called out to Adam and asked where he was (Genesis 3:9) not because He was not omniscient and was unaware of it, but as a teaching example illustrating how man attempts to hide the nakedness of his sin (Revelation 3:17). It may appear to the reader that the Lord was searching for Adam and didn't know where he was, but we know this is not the case because God is fully aware of exactly where anyone at anytime is or was.

By the grace of God the Matthew chapter 8 passages demonstrates in this centurion the expression of the humility of faith "for us," that we might learn from them. He most certainly is not illustrating that He admired or was actually impressed or surprised by what this centurion unexpectedly did. Christ was not a mere man that He could be surprised by a man's actions, whether good or bad. He knew the centurion's faith and He knew exactly how he had received it. He knew had drawn (John 6:44) him to "humbly" come for a healing. Christ was omniscient and thus knew exactly who had predetermined the centurion would come in order to give us a glimpse of his conforming to the image of the Son. Under no circumstances was this man's motives and predetermination hidden from Him.

These Scriptures are in no way meant to deny that Christ was omniscient. Rather, it is an example to demonstrate the blessedness of such fruits of the Spirit. Even as Christ said that His Father was greater than He (John 14:28). He is greater because in His human nature Christ is the suffering servant man, ordained to be laden with our sins. But as fully God He is able to withstand the sufferings for us. He put Himself in subjection to God, illustrating that positionally the person of the Father was thus greater than the person Christ as Man. God rules over man, God instructs man, Christ as man was obedient unto death because God in Him was the greater power that the Man Christ must be in subjection to--without sin. We can faithfully conclude that this is because God the father has none of the flesh of God the Son. Part of being a suffering servant is to be lowered so that He could take on the sins of man in the flesh and be humiliated as He paid the wages for them. In this sense, of course the Father was greater than the Son. The Son was born in the flesh to be punished for the sins of man, by the Father. As a Man Christ had no power to redeem anything, but as the God man Christ had the knowledge, the power, and the presence unto miraculous healings, signs, and determination. There was not a man that Christ wasn't "fully" aware of their lives, sins, and thoughts (Mark 2:8), even before they revealed them:

Luke 6:7-8

Christ had full knowledge of all men's thoughts and all the intents of their hearts because He retained those powers reserved only for God, even in the body of Christ. We would be wrong to suppose that Christ lived the greater part of his life in childlike ignorance of His ultimate knowledge, power, and destiny. Because though He advanced in knowledge and strength according to the eyes and understanding of men, He never ceased to be God where He was about His Father's work. In other words, from the outward experience of the people around Him watching and listening, He grew physically as they perceived Him as increasing in wisdom as He got older. In actuality, He was simply naturally expounding more about complicated things as he grew older and came nearer to His appointed ministry. For example, as a two year old babe, Christ did not expound upon the intricacies of the fulfillment of the old testament prophesies (although as God from birth He most assuredly could have) because this would have made Him worshipped as divine rather than being the lowly carpenter's son come as a suffering servant. Doing so would not have been according to His will, prophecy, divine purpose, or wisdom as God. For example, it is like when Christ walked away when Israel would have made Him a earthly king (John 6:14-15) because that wasn't in His divine plan according to the way things were ordained. So from childhood He increased in reputation according to the establishment of the divine promise of His earthly ministry. He increased or expanded His outward ministry and thus (in His human nature) His perceived strength and wisdom.

Luke 2:41-52

Christ in the flesh had human growth and development, but He obviously could not "grow" as God, because God is perfect and knows all so that there is no knowledge He can grow in. If He was indeed fully God, there can be no growth in knowledge, power, or presence. Christ grew in wisdom, stature, and favor with God and men only in the sense that He was the second Adam in the flesh, and was doing what the first Adam could not do. Namely, live a good sinless life from childhood to the beginning of His ministry when He began to "reveal" His predestinated mission. Christ grew in human terms because He was simply moving toward the appointed time of the start of His divine ministry. This is why His parents didn't understand the significance of what He said to them in the Holy Temple. The great knowledge, presence, and power in Christ's words escaped them. However, that did not make those words any less powerful or effectual. The point being, from our earthly perspective in His human nature, He was increasing in knowledge, gaining wisdom, and stature. While from the reality of His divine nature, He was simply preparing for His ministry in the divine. In all this testimony we see vividly the illustrations of the two natures of Christ. The divine nature that was always there but wasn't fully revealed to men, and His human nature wherein men perceive Christ as advancing in wisdom because He begins consciously revealing His knowledge of His destiny.

Another passage considered difficult is in John 5:18-20:

John 5:18-20

Of course the son of Man could do nothing of himself. But the Son of God, the other part of His nature, could do all things. How does Christ say whatever He sees the father do, the Son does? It can only be because of the two natures working in unison that Christ as fully man, did all that Christ as fully God showed Him. These verses are confirming that if Christ was simply fully man, He could do nothing. But Because He is also fully God, He could (and did) have the power to take upon Himself the sins of the world and redeem him from the power of death. It is because the Father loves the Son and therefore shows in Him all things. i.e., there is nothing He does not know, nothing He cannot see, and no power He cannot call upon. Here we don't see Christ denying He has power, rather it is a declaration that as fully man, He could do nothing. On the other hand, as fully man and fully God, He possesses all the power of the Godhead bodily, demonstrating yet again the Son of God's omnipotence to do what the Son of man could not do on His own. This is the truth as summed up in John chapter 10:

John 10:30-31

The Jews took up stones to stone Him when He said that because they "fully understood" something that many professing Christians to this day do not fully understand. That Christ was declaring that He and God were one and the same. If that were not true, it would be blasphemy and worthy of stoning. But it was true. Christ had said that He gives unto men eternal life wherein they will never perish because He and the Father were one. This is how He knew all things, was all powerful, and was everywhere present. This, to the Jewish people that were questioning Him, was blasphemy. But to us who know the power and the glory of the Son of God, it is the gospel truth. If Christ was indeed fully man and fully God, then the three “omni” attributes that characterize the nature of God must be retained. The Nature of God is by definition, Omniscience (all-knowing), Omnipotent (all-powerful), and omnipresent (always and everywhere present). In the testimony of the Scriptures surrounding His life we see a demonstration of all these divine attributes of God in Our Lord and savior Jesus Christ.

Some people ask, "what about when Scripture says Christ learned obedience by His suffering: Hebrews 5:8

Christ learned obedience means that in His human nature He learned to conform His human will to the divine will of God, even unto death. Because He was the Son, Christ can only be said to learn obedience through having an experience of it in its undertaking. This does not mean that Christ sinned, and through sin learned to be obedient afterward, rather it means that He experienced the human will to sin, and yet did not succumb to it to mar His perfection even once. In the days of His flesh (in his human nature) He offered up prayers and supplications with tears unto the father that was able to save him from death. Because He was God, the second Adam overcame or prevailed over the death that God the father required as the wages of sin. ...our sin, which He carried with Him to the cross.

Hebrews 4:15

Christ never sinned in His human nature, and thus it is antithetical to Scripture to suppose that He sinned in the flesh and had to learn obedience (learn not to sin). No, He learned or experienced obedience by being in the flesh and yet not falling into the sins of the flesh as a mere man inevitably would.

In the episode of the centurion, Some Christians also contend that when the Bible say Christ marveled at an act of that person, it means that He truly was shocked or surprised by the faith of the centurion. I do not believe that to be the case at all. I believe we read that Jesus marveled at Him in order to give us an example of the actions of a righteous man. We can't forget that Christ already knew this man, and He already had full knowledge of his thoughts, will, and desires. God giving us a teaching example is not a reason to negate all the Scriptures that show He knew everything. For example: If we look at the first part of John 4:16 where Christ tells the Samaritan woman to go and call her husband, without further explanation, we might think that Christ was unaware that she had no husband. But understanding how the Scriptures are inspired written as a source of education, then we can understand that Christ used that appeal to her simply as a teaching tool that we might understand that there is nothing that is hid from Him. He knew she had no husband before He asked her to go call her husband. Or again, even as God called Adam in the Garden of Eden inquiring, "where art thou!" God knew perfectly well where He was hiding. But it is a teaching exercise that we might learn some spiritual truths in the event. i.e., the nakedness of sin, how it separates men from God, and the covering of it through a sacrifice that God ultimately supplies. Selah. Likewise, Christ knew everything about this woman before she ever approached Him.

John 4:16-18

As with the event with Adam, the Lord in his Omniscience knew all along about this Samaritan woman, that she had no husband, and that she before had five, and the man that she was with now was not her husband. There are just so many great scriptures that reveal the omniscience of Christ so that we should not doubt one minute that Christ knew all things. Even if it might "appear" from scriptures taken out of context or read in a vacuum, that He was unaware.

In conclusion, from what we have read from the word of God, we see the Lord Jesus Christ was, is, and always will be all-knowing, all-powerful, and everywhere-present. Omniscient, Omnipotent, and Omnipresent. Because He always is the Great "I AM!" It is proven that whether in the flesh, heaven, or extending the kingdom on earth, He is Infinite, present everywhere, and abides with us always. He moves us to produce good fruit, and puts in our mouths what we should speak. Wherever we are gathered together to give praise, worship, or witness, there is Christ right in the midst of us. He moves with every single person wherever they go and He is with every single Christian wherever they settle, or whenever they are in trouble. All these can only apply to one being, and that is, the Omniscient, Omnipotent, and Omnipresent God.

May the Lord Jesus Christ, who is merciful above all, give us the wisdom to understand His most Holy word.

Amen!

Peace,

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Copyright ©2022 Tony Warren
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