What Does Matthew 24:36 Mean?

(36) **No, not the angels of heaven.**—St. Mark’s addition (Mark 13:32), “neither the Son”—or better, *not even the Son*—is every way remarkable. Assuming, what is well-nigh certain (see *Introduction to St. Mark*)*,* the close connection of that Gospel with St. Peter, it is as if the Apostle who heard the discourse desired, for some special reason, to place on record the *ipsissima verba* of his Master. And that reason may be found in his own teaching. The over-eager expectations of some, and the inevitable reaction of doubt and scorn in others, both rested on their assumption that the Son of Man had definitely fixed the time of His appearing, and on their consequent forgetfulness of the “long-suffering” which might extend a day into a thousand years (2Peter 3:3-8). It is obviously doing violence to the plain meaning of the words to dilute them into the statement that the Son of Man did, not communicate the knowledge which He possessed as the Son of God. If we are perplexed at the mystery of this confession in One in whom we recosniise the presence of “the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (Colossians 1:19; Colossians 2:9), we may find that which may help us at least to wait patiently for the full understanding of the mystery in St. Paul’s teaching, that the eternal Word in becoming flesh, “emptied Himself” (see Note on Philippians 2:7) of the infinity which belongs to the divine attributes, and took upon Him the limitations necessarily incidental to man’s nature, even when untainted by evil and in fullest fellowship, through the Eternal Spirit, with the Father.