Last time, I examined how the humanness of Christ was something I had never really thought about. During my years growing up in a Southern Baptist Church, the deity of Christ was strongly impressed upon me. Even to the point that His humanity was a sidenote.

You may know what I'm talking about.

If you've ever sat in a class where Christology (the study of Christ) is discussed, the topic of His full humanity will arise. It did in my seminary education as well as in my Southern Baptist undergraduate studies. When it was brought up, it was pretty quick and droll. It went something like, "We know Jesus was fully human. He got tired, he got hungry, he wept, etc." Then, we moved on to His deity.

I think we miss something when we skip over the humanity of Christ. I'm going to sum up the importance of Christ's humanity and deity in the last post, but I want to share with you one of the biggest shockers I ever heard at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

I struggled there. I was having doubts about my faith after reading the critics and liberals. It was, overall, a great experience. It forced me to tear down everything that wasn't essential to my faith and rebuild it from the ground up. For a while, I really wasn't sure where the ground was. I finally found it. It was in the person of Jesus Christ. Historical figure. A man who lived, breathed and ministered. A man who was witnessed to have risen from the dead.

I still wasn't sure how the whole humanity/deity thing worked out. Sure, some said it was a paradox. Christ was 100% God and 100% man and it was impossible for us to reconcile it. But my mind had to make sense of it.

Before that time came, I had an excellent hermeneutics teacher. He was very conservative and taught me how to appreciate the different genres of literature within the bible. He had even written several books, one of them dealt with challenging passages in the New Testament.

<a href="http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/noman.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-2865" style="margin-left: 6px;margin-right: 6px" src="http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/noman-300x225.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="225" /></a>One day, we came to Matthew 24:36. Jesus, speaking of His return said, “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only."

That's been a troublesome verse for a lot of people. Our professor discussed the different ideas people have thrown out. He mainly discussed the one that most conservatives use - "Jesus, in his humanity, pushed aside this knowledge while He was on earth." That's been a standard response. It gives the Christian the ability to move strongly to the deity of Christ while still acknowledging His humanity in some form.

Our professor, one of my favorites, began walking back to the podium then spun around with his finger in the air. "How about this? What if He just didn't know?"

Friends, you could have heard an audible gasp in the room. Immediately, some of the more bellicose pastors in training objected. "Well, He had to know, He was fully divine! He had all knowledge."

The professor smiled, looked down at the floor and then back up. He said, "I always enjoy it when we say we take the bible for face value, then attempt to twist it around. What does the passage say? <em>It says He doesn't know.</em>"

More silence. We were waiting on him to bail us out. To give us some surprise trap door out that verified our orthodoxy. But he didn't. Because he wasn't denying orthodoxy.

He said, "Christ was fully human for us. And the Son just didn't know. There shouldn't really be a problem with that. It doesn't make Him at that moment less divine. It makes us appreciate His humanity that much more."

The wheels were turning again for me, but would not find resolve until my Theology II class . . .