A Gap in Jesus’ Story
Jesus is the most famous person to ever live. Yet we know relatively little about most of his life. We know a lot about the first couple months of his life, a lot about the last three years of his life, and a whole lot about the last week of his life. It’s interesting that the first and last week of his life receives so much attention, perhaps because one shows us who he is and the other shows us what he came to do.
If a biographer were to write Jesus’ life story, they’d have to skip from Jesus’ infancy to when he was thirty years old. There are heretical “Infancy Gospels” that claim to tell us about his childhood but they aren’t based on the testimony of the apostles and tell us more about the religious beliefs of the people who wrote them than about Jesus’ life.
There’s only one thing we know for sure about Jesus’ life between his birth and when he started his public ministry around age thirty (Lk. 3:23). And it’s found at the end of Luke chapter 2.
In this text, we find a story of when Jesus was twelve years old and we learn some important things about his identity, who he is, and about his self-understanding, or who he understood himself to be. In this text, we learn that Jesus is fully human and fully aware of his divinity.
Today, I want to address to two questions from this text: what do we learn about Jesus and what do we learn about ourselves?
What Do We Learn about Jesus?
First, what do we learn about Jesus? Luke notes again that Jesus’ parents are doing “everything according to the Law of the Lord” (v. 39), and faithfully worshipping God at the time of Passover (v. 41). Jesus was raised in a God-centered home that made the sacrifices necessary to worship God in Jerusalem, despite coming from meager circumstances.
But then on their way home from Jerusalem back to Nazareth, they realize Jesus isn’t with them, so they go back to Jerusalem and spend three days looking for him until they find him in the temple hanging out with the teachers. This is amazing because what kid wants to stay in “school” for longer than required!
Jesus is Lost
It’s tempting to assume that Joseph and Mary were negligent as parents by forgetting to get Jesus when they went home. But we need to make sure we aren’t applying our cultural standards onto them. In their day and time, parenting was much more communal and not like the “helicopter parenting” prevalent today.
Families back then would travel in large caravans of family members and friends when they went to Jerusalem for Passover. These caravans protected people from criminals on the roads and reflected how families did life together with the community much more than we do.
Joseph and Mary not keeping up with Jesus is perfectly understandable when you consider that parents didn’t keep up with their kids we do today. When the caravan left Jerusalem, they assumed Jesus was part of the caravan because that’s just what you did.
But alas, Jesus wasn’t with the caravan. The one who came to seek the lost was lost himself! But it turns out, he wasn’t lost at all. He knew exactly where he was and what he was doing. It was Mary and Joseph who needed further information about, not where, but who their son was.
Some Things We Learn about the Boy Jesus
This incident shows us several things about the boy Jesus. It shows us that he loved the word of God. When his parents found him, he was with the teachers in the temple talking about the Bible. He listened carefully and asked good questions (v. 46). He was talking intelligently with people three and four and five times his age about the word of God. The boy Jesus was eager and hungry to learn and grow.
This incident also shows us that Jesus at age twelve had a clear understanding of his identity as the Son of God. Scholars debate when Jesus really understood his divinity. But in this text we see that, after his parents find him in the temple, he tells them, “Did you now know that I must be in my Father’s house?” (v. 49). Jesus knew that his true Father was in heaven, not on earth.
Joseph and Mary didn’t understand what he was talking about (v. 50). But Jesus clearly identifies the temple of the Lord as his “Father’s house” (v. 49). He would grow into a robust trinitarian understanding of his union with the Father and the Holy Spirit’s filling in his life. [1] But his self-understanding as God the Son was already present at age twelve.
We also learn that Jesus submitted to and obeyed his parents perfectly. Even though he was separated from his parents when the caravan left Jerusalem, that doesn’t mean that he did anything wrong. If he’d dishonored or disobeyed his parents, he would’ve broken the fifth commandment (Ex. 20:12) and sinned against God. But he didn’t, which is why Luke points out that in verse 51 that he “was submissive (or “obedient”) to them.” Jesus never disobeyed his parents.
Jesus’ Life Summarized
Verses 40 and 52 serve as transitional statements between Jesus’ infancy and his childhood (v. 40), and between his childhood and his adulthood (v. 52). Verse 52 summarizes Jesus’ life from this moment until he begins his public ministry around age thirty (3:23).
There are lots of things we don’t know about Jesus’ teenage and adult years, but we do know the most important things. Verse 52 tells us that Jesus grew “in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man.” This is an almost exact quote from 1 Samuel 2 about the boy Samuel, that says, “Now the young man Samuel continued to grow both in stature and in favor with the Lord and also with man” (v. 26). This is Luke’s way of saying that Jesus is the new Samuel.
The Humanity of Jesus
But the main thing Luke is telling us is that Jesus is truly human. He’s saying that, like Samuel, Jesus grew mentally (“in wisdom”), physically (“in stature”), spiritually (“in favor with God”), and socially (“in favor with…man”). Today, many people struggle with Jesus’ divinity, but many of Christianity’s earliest critics doubted that he was truly and fully human. This one verse shows us that he is.
Saying that Jesus is truly human raises several interesting and important questions. One scholar, Rhyne Putman, says it this way:
“In what sense does the all-knowing and all-wise God increase in his wisdom? How can the God who exists outside of time and space occupy a human body that physically grows over time? Perhaps most puzzling: How is it possible for God to increase ‘in favor with God’”?[2]
Putman points out that the fourth-century theologian Gregory of Nazianzus solved this puzzle rather simply. Gregory taught that some of the things said about Jesus refer to his human nature and some refer to his divine nature. Passages like this one that talk about his growth and obedience, or other ones that talk about him being tired or hungry, refer to his human nature. Other passages that talk about his involvement in creation (eg. Jn. 1:1-2) refer to his divine nature. And the passages that refer to his moral perfections refer to both his divine and human natures. Gregory taught that we always need to ask which nature did a particular statement refer to, divine or human or both. Some passages refer to Jesus’ humanity, some to his divinity.[3]
In Luke 2, verses 40 and 52 refer to Jesus’ humanity, not his divinity. The divine Son of God cannot grow or increase in any way. But the human Son of God can, and did. Jesus, the baby, learned how to crawl, walk, and talk. He had growth spurts and went through puberty. He didn’t have physical, mental, spiritual, or social perfections as a newborn. When he put on human flesh, the Son of God subjected himself to physical weaknesses and limitations, the possibility of illness and eventually, mortality.
But Luke says Jesus “increased in wisdom” (v. 52)? How does the Son of God grow in wisdom? Jesus didn’t have all knowledge as a man, which is why he says that only the Father knows the day of the Son’s return (Mk. 13:32, Acts 1:7). He had to grow mentally in his human nature, even though in his divine nature he knows all things. He went through every stage of cognitive development as a boy. He didn’t start preaching to Mary when he was born! He had to be taught the vocabulary and syntax of the Aramaic language spoken by first-century Jews. By twelve years of age, he was able to engage in conversations using abstract language about complex things.
Jesus also grew “in favor with…man” (v. 52). He developed socially, learning how to relate to other humans made in his divine image. But because, unlike us, he didn’t have a sin nature or depraved desires, his social development would’ve looked much different than ours. Again Putman says, “Much of our early social growth is about overcoming impulsive, irrational, and selfish behavior. But Christ, who is Wisdom personified (Pro. 8:22-31), would have learned how to relate to others in ways that embodied Israel’s wisdom tradition.”[4] As Proverbs 3:1-4 says, “My son, don’t forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commands; for they will bring you many days, a full life, and well-being. Never let loyalty and faithfulness leave you. Tie them around your neck; write them on the tablet of your heart. Then you will find favor and high regard with God and people.” This is how Jesus lived. Those who didn’t understand him or hated him wasn’t because he was hard to get along with but because of their own sinful hearts.
Jesus also grew spiritually, “in favor with God” (Lk. 2:52). The Son of God grew, in his humanity, in his theological understanding, intimacy with, and obedience to God. The author of Hebrews says, “Although he was a son, he (Jesus) learned obedience through what he suffered” (5:8). This growth in obedience to God implies two wills in Jesus, a human and divine will. Jesus, like all of us, had to learn how to submit his human will to “the Father, the Spirit, and even the Son.”[5]
In the incarnation, Jesus experiences the perfect and complete knowledge of God in his divine nature and the imperfect and incomplete knowledge of God in his human nature. Only Jesus, as the God-Man, knows what it’s like to have perfect and imperfect knowledge of God at the same time. Putman says it well, “Christ both gave the law of Moses and learned it for himself.”[6] And as the church father Jerome put it, Jesus advanced in wisdom as “his human nature was instructed by his own divinity.”[7]
Jesus was fully human, growing mentally, physically, spiritually, and socially. God the Son putting on human flesh is a mystery so profound we’ll never get to the bottom of it, and a truth so beautiful we should never get tired of contemplating it.
What Do We Learn about Ourselves?
But there’s also a lesson for us to learn here. Luke’s statements here about Jesus’ growth as a man gives us a model to follow.
Sinclair Ferguson, in his book on Christian maturity, says it like this:
“Jesus developed. He grew up. He was never a man disguised as a boy. For all his serious and sincerely asked questions as a twelve-year-old, he was still a boy, not an adult. It was appropriate that he obeyed his parents (Lk. 2:51). He had to grow. He did not have the wisdom which only divinely ordained experience would bring him in the twenty years that followed. He had to mature. In a sense he too responded to the divine word of exhortation, ‘let us…go on to maturity.’ As it was with the Master, so it is with the servant.”[8]
In the letter to the Hebrews, Jesus’s life is used to encourage us to “go on to maturity.” For example, Hebrews 3:14 says, “We share in Christ if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end (literally, “to maturity”).” Jesus gives us an example of growing in maturity, but this text says that we know we’re in Christ if we’re growing in maturity.
“Go On to Maturity”
Ferguson points out that Hebrews gives us a number of ways to see whether we’re growing in maturity. One of them is a poor appetite. Not for food, but for truth (5:12-14). Infants aren’t expected to digest solid food, but adults are. “Solid food is for the mature.”
The Hebrews were unable or unwilling to live on solids, and as a result they were under-nourished spiritually. They’d lost their appetite for the deep things of God and were content with rehearsing the basics (6:1). And this was weakening them and stunting their growth. Ferguson says that the “Ability to focus our gaze, fill our minds, and devote our hearts to Jesus Christ is a basic element in real Christian growth. Inability to do so is a sign of immaturity.”[9]
Another way we can see if we’re growing in maturity is if our powers of discernment are growing. This is Hebrews 5:14. Ferguson again, “Spiritual discernment involves the ability to distinguish the good from the bad, the better from the best, the important from the insignificant, the permanent from the transient.” These Christians lacked discernment and were in spiritual danger as a result. Not being able to discern good from evil sets us up to be deceived.
How do we overcome our discernment deficits? We live in God’s wisdom. We ingest good, solid, spiritual food on a regular basis. A regular diet of Bible reading and Bible teaching grows in us instincts of wisdom. Ferguson again, “Our lives are shaped in part by our ability to persevere in the important but unspectacular exercises that build Christian character – the ministry and study of the word, worship and fellowship, prayer, and serving the Lord day by day in all the ordinariness of life. This is what forms Christian character. So if we want to become mature Christians we must set our hearts on long-term goals and devote ourselves privately and steadfastly to their accomplishment.”[10]
Did you notice the athletic language of Hebrews 5:14, “trained…constant practice.” Maturity is something you build into to not wake up with. Maturity is a process, not an event. To get there you have to get in the gym of God’s word. Our character is the fruit of the habits of our life.
Samuel James says, “Very often, maturity is not loud.”[11] Maturity, in Jesus’ life and ours, is a slow and quiet process driven forward by the ordinary means of grace. Eugene Peterson’s book A Long Obedience in the Same Direction captures well the mature life. Maturity grows as we walk by faith, not by sight, when we’re not driven by immediacy but by faithfulness, when we pay the price to follow Jesus day after day. James again says, “Most spiritual maturity doesn’t come from big urgent changes, but from the accumulation of many small, non-urgent changes.”
Christlikeness is the Goal
We’ve learned from Luke 2 that even Jesus, the Son of God, grew and matured as a man. His maturity was tested in ways ours never will be, as God’s path for him ended on a Roman cross, where the most mature man to ever live died for immature people like us.
As we look to him and admit our need and do whatever we have to do to learn from him, we too can grow into the people and the church God wants us to be.
The goal of maturity isn’t a self-satisfied knowledge that we’re finally better than everyone else. The goal of maturity is becoming like Jesus. Paul says it this way:
“Until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ” (Eph. 4:13-15).
[1]Rhyne R. Putman, Conceived by the Holy Spirit: The Virgin Birth in Scripture and Theology (Brentwood, TN: B&H Academic, 2024), 207, n. 7.
[2]Ibid., 208.
[3]Ibid., 208-9.
[4]Ibid., 210.
[5]Ibid., 211.
[6]Ibid., 212.
[7]Quoted in ibid.
[8]Sinclair B. Ferguson, Maturity: Growing Up and Going On in the Christian Life (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2019), 9-10.
[9]Ibid., 21.
[10]Ibid., 27.
[11]On Maturity – 9Marks. Also see this article on the same topic, Does Maturity Still Matter? – by Samuel D. James.