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Jesus increasing in Wisdom and stature?


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Muslims refer to Jesus as a "good teacher" and not God incarnate because He "grew" in [wisdom and in stature] according to the bible. At the same time they believe that He performed miracles using His innate ability given by His Father in Heaven (e.g., clay turning into a dove). This is the devil's sneaky way of "exalting" Jesus only to "dishonor" Him in secret. Don't you just hate Satan? I don't think there's anything wrong with that!

And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man. (Luke 2:52)

As to our Lord growing "Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man" in Luke 2:52, it was because He was 100% human -- but our Lord's (kenoo/κενόω) (cf. Jn. 3:30; Phil. 2:5-8) entailed Him in His humanity having to live as a human being (cf. Matt. 24:36; Jn. 4:6; throughout the entire first advent, right up until the time when He expelled His spirit on the cross. He had to fight the fight we fight (only without ever losing 'also known as the Impeccability of Christ') all the way until the end in order to be the perfect Sacrifice (Isa. 53:9; Jn. 19:4; Heb. 4:15; 1 Pet. 1:18-19; 2:22). So there is no "switching back and forth" from being human to God. The ground rules our Lord had to fight His fight under were absolute, and He followed them perfectly, even though we tested His patience to the limit, and even though He had to push to the absolute end of His human strength on many occasions.

This passage (Lk.2:40-52), though rather short considering it contains by far the bulk of our information about our Lord's life until the commencement of His ministry at about age thirty, is very revealing. For one thing, we see immediately the load and the difficulty that our Lord had to bear just in terms of His normal family life. He was God and the Son of God, and His answer to His parents indicates that without any doubt He was fully aware of these facts. And yet, since in order to be qualified to be our sin-bearer He had to live an absolutely perfect life, free from the slightest tinge of sin (a feat truly beyond our comprehension which He did indeed accomplish), our Lord had to be the perfect son, even as He had to prepare to fulfill the obligations of the Son perfectly. This meant obeying His parents when they were right.

As Jesus perfectly negotiated the mundane hours, days, weeks, months and years until He came upon the scene to fulfill the ministry of ministries many years later, we can say without question that He never did wrong, either by omission or commission, and thus was never in the wrong. However, people being the imperfect creatures that they are, there must have been countless occasions whereupon He had to endure the faulty conclusions, sufferings, impressions, accusations, and applications of others with whom He necessarily had to interact, and, until His majority, interact with in an obedient and submissive way -- even on those numerous occasions where He was in the right and they were in the wrong (cf. Ps. 22:16; Isa. 53:7; Zech. 11:12; 13:7; Matt. 20:17-19; Lk. 24:26; Phil. 3:10; Heb. 2:10; 1 Pet. 1:11; 4:13) This would have been difficult enough for anyone to bear, but considering that He was aware of His status as the Son of God, and that He had to prepare with every spare moment and ounce energy for what was to come, what for the rest of us would constitute mere "daily" life must have been for Him a gauntlet which intensified with every step forward.

We often fail to appreciate the sacrifice that becoming a human being and enduring with perfect patience the years of waiting must have entailed for our Lord, even as He had to take maximum advantage of every opportunity to prepare for what would be the most incomparably difficult three and half year experience any human being would ever know culminating in the passion and the cross, especially since, being God, His existence before the incarnation was blessed to an eternal degree:

For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich. (2 Corinthians 8:9)

Our Lord was well aware from early on, not only that He was the Son of God but also that He had a critical mission to fulfill -- the most critical mission in the history of the world by far (for without it being successfully undertaken we were all doomed and damned). At twelve years old He astonished all of the teachers at the temple and His parents as well (e.g.). What can we learn from this? We all have tests to endure, and sometimes it's things that can "get our goat" if we're not careful, even though we are passing other tests with flying colors.

God Bless! 
 

Edited by (Omega)
Additional bible verse and punctuation.
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