Posted on 07/28/2007 6:17:10 AM PDT by xzins
When you think of Jesus of Nazareth what descriptions come to mind? Do you imagine a holy man who, while off pondering deep thoughts, is not particularly brilliant? Christians might wear the fashionable bracelets with the initials WWJD, “What would Jesus do?” which demonstrate that they at least think him to be an ethical role model. However, do his followers also think of him as the smartest man in the world? I believe the way in which we think of Jesus’ intelligence directly impacts how we submit to him as Lord and King.
In chapter three of Dallas Willard’s book, The Divine Conspiracy, he writes, “And can we seriously imagine that Jesus could be Lord if he were not smart? If he were divine, would he be dumb? Or uninformed? Once you stop to think about it, how could he be what we take him to be in all other respects and not be the best-informed and most intelligent person of all, the smartest person who ever lived?” Jesus’ closest followers—those he traveled, ate, and lived with—were convinced that he was The Intelligence behind all the universe (John 1:1-5; Col 1:17; 2:3). And they saw his triumph over this world’s greatest weapon—death—to bolster their recognition of him as the rightful king over all minds and bodies in the universe (Rev 1:5, 18).
Consider how Willard explains Jesus’ mental greatness:
Master of Molecules “At the literally mundane level, Jesus knew how to transform the molecular structure of water to make it wine. That knowledge also allowed him to take a few pieces of bread and some little fish and feed thousands of people. He could create matter from the energy he knew how to access from ‘the heavens,’ right where he was.
It cannot be surprising that the feeding of the thousands led the crowds to try to force him to be their king. Surely one who could play on the energy/matter equation like that could do anything. Turn gravel into gold and pay off the national debt! Do you think he could get elected president or prime minister today?
He knew how to transform the tissues of the human body from sickness to health and from death to life. He knew now to suspend gravity, interrupt weather patterns, and eliminate unfruitful trees without saw or ax. He only needed a word. Surely he must be amused at what Nobel prizes are awarded for today.
In the ethical domain he brought an understanding of life that has influenced world thought more than any other. . . .And one of the greatest testimonies to his intelligence is surely that he knew how to enter physical death, actually to die, and than live on beyond death. He seized death by the throat and defeated it. Forget cryonics!
Death was not something others imposed on him. He explained to his followers in the moment of crisis that he could at any time call for 72,000 angels to do whatever he wanted. A mid-sized angel or two would surely have been enough to take care of those who thought they were capturing and killing him. He plainly said, ‘Nobody takes my life! I give it up by choice. I am in position to lay it down, and I am in position to resume it. My father and I have worked all this out” (John 10:18).
All these things show Jesus’ cognitive and practical mastery of every phase of reality: physical, moral, and spiritual. He is Master only because he is Maestro. ‘Jesus is Lord’ can mean little in practice for anyone who has to hesitate before saying, ‘Jesus is smart.’
He is not just nice, he is brilliant. He is the smartest man who ever lived. He is now supervising the entire course of world history (Rev 1:5) while simultaneously preparing the rest of the universe for our future role in it (John 14:2). He always has the best information on everything and certainly also on the things that matter most in human life.”
REFLECTION QUESTIONS: 1. Why is it that we don’t tend to think of Jesus as a master intelligence? 2. How does thinking about Jesus’ supreme intellect inform and impact your understanding of him as your life’s master?
SUGGESTED RESOURCE: For a great short book on Jesus as a philosopher, who valued reasoning and who held a well-developed worldview, see Doug Groothuis’ On Jesus, in the “Wadsworth Philosophers Series” (Wadsworth, 2003
In what way?
He was either the smartest man who ever lived - or a naïve madman. He doesn’t leave much middle ground.
Since Jesus IS God, I never thought aboput this. If he is Gad and all-knowing, this question needs little or no discussion.
I agree.
To give the author a break, maybe he’s using a different definition of intelligence than I am.
On the other hand, I don’t think that healing the man born blind had anything to do with ability to do calculus, manipulate words, solve IQ puzzles, or engage in deep philosophical discussion.
No I didn’t mean it that way....besides, Einstien wasn’t exactly smart, just a pretty good mathmetician, lol, but I wasn’t saying that being smart made you closer to God, just stating that why are we even doubting our Savior’s intelligence? If he created the world then, he’s obviously more intelligent than even the smartest man/woman on the planet.
Fact: Created heaven and earth and everything in them.
I'd say He was above average.
“Were not the Nestorians a group of people that your group still refers to as heretics??? “
Yes...because they denied the unified nature of Christ’s divinity and humanity.
“And were murdered by your group because they wouldn’t bow down to your religion???”
not sure what you’re referring to here.
Nestorius was not put to death.
“I don’t give a flip who the Nestorians were but I know a little bit of what the bible says...”
If you don’t give a flip who they were then why are you claiming to know who they were?
“Here’s your problem...You just don’t want to believe what it says...”
wrong.
I believe what it says, I just don’t believe it says what YOU say it says.
Big difference.
“How Jesus could be tempted as a man as we are and still be God is something I won’t understand til I get to Heaven...But I don’t worry about it, I just believe it...”
agreed, but again...the fact that Jesus WAS tempted as a man does not mean he was emptied of his divine nature.
“On the other hand, I don’t think that healing the man born blind had anything to do with ability to do calculus, manipulate words, solve IQ puzzles, or engage in deep philosophical discussion.”
But it probably didn’t hurt either.
We dont understand HOW God does what He does, but certainly healing a man of blindness involved manipulation of the laws of nature.
I agree that Jesus was smart, but His miracles were due to supernatural authority, not “knowing how” to change the physical world, as though we could do the same thing if we just knew enough facts. If you want evidence that Jesus was highly intelligent, I’d instead appeal to the numerous layers and nuances of His teaching, and the way He was able to confound the leading scholars of the day, addressing their trick questions, etc.
I think the author means by intelligence, "human intellectual potential," for which our shorthand is "IQ."
On the other hand, I don’t think that healing the man born blind had anything to do with ability to do calculus, manipulate words, solve IQ puzzles, or engage in deep philosophical discussion.
No, I don't either. None of these is really connected to IQ, either, as many people with average to above average IQs master these subjects through diligent effort. And of course, neither basic intelligence nor academic knowledge correllates with holiness or Holy Spirit power.
I would summarize at a very high level (because if I try to go into detail, I'll just confuse myself :-) by saying that I believe Jesus's intelligence and knowledge are qualitatively different from ours in many ways.
I would whole-heartedly endorse what you've summarized there.
So what's it say to YOU??? Jesus didn't know when the 2nd coming would happen...Only the Father knew...What's that say to you???
So what does it mean???
Christ's human-scale intelligence is made unmeasurable by His prior, Godly knowledge and power. What, after all, was there for Him to learn?
Freedom, Wealth, and Peace,
Francis W. Porretto
Eternity Road
“So what’s it say to YOU??? Jesus didn’t know when the 2nd coming would happen...Only the Father knew...What’s that say to you???”
It says to me that there are 3 persons within the Trinity.
Their relationship to each other is a mystery to me.
Their status as “God” is due to their membership in this Trinity.
That one person in the Trinity would know something that another does not know, tells me more of their relationship to each other than it does about their status as God.
So again...when the Father knows something that the Son does not know - that does not mean Jesus’s divine attributes were taken away from Him.
“So what does it mean???”
it tells me what I already know...that I don’t fully understand the nature of “God” as the Holy Trinity. I won’t ever fully understand it, because in the end - you have to BE God to fully understand it.
But again...I don’t see how any of the passages cited as proof here are any proof at all - that Jesus was somehow devoid of his divine attributes while he walked the earth.
I firmly believe the opposite....that He retained his divinity while participating in our humanity.
He showed us the nature of God, because He IS God.
He was intelligent enough to be obedient unto death and to finish perfectly what He was sent to do. You can’t get much smarter than that.
That's an excellent point! The purpose of human intelligence is to enable us to do the will of God ... and Jesus did that more than anyone else.
True, if all existence falls within the laws of nature. I think our spirits know things we're unable to wrap our minds around, because they are partially outside of the laws of nature as we know them.
“Intelligence” is one of the gods of our age.
Our culture greatly reverences (worships?) the intelligence quotient...
Therefore, Jesus had to have the highest....right???
Can we safely assume, too, that Jesus would have been the Star Quarterback on the football team, a match Michael Jordan couldn’t handle on the B-ball court, and Lord know that Tiger Woods has read each and every Moses, Jesus, and Father were playing golf jokes, so he’d be best at that, too?
B-D and Tax-chick hit it, I think. Jesus was bright enough to be FAITHFUL. You don’t need a calculator to do that.
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