"Many questions arise in the mind concerning the divine consciousness of Jesus. In what manner did it emerge during the conditions of His earthly existence? Was His sense of Sonship subject to development? Was it consciously and directly operative in all that He said and did? Or was it rather the undertone and secret spring of His activity? How far did it arise by intuition and how far through revelation from on high? Was His divine consciousness always at its peak, or were there times when the great moments of revelation had to be recalled, times when for a season it was in eclipse? Theologians have sometimes to ask questions to which they know that no complete answer can be given because they lead to realms of ultimate mystery. Not to ask these questions, however, shows a failure to face relevant issues. The origin of our Lord's consciousness of Sonship, together with the problems connected with it, is one of these. It is easily possible to short-circuit the problems of Christology. Christians who accept the authority of Scripture and the constant witness of the Church through-out the centuries may unwittingly do this very thing. The Son, we may argue, knows who He is because He is the Son. His consciousness of Sonship is grounded in Himself; it is the inevitable expression of His divine nature. I shall return to this view later because I believe that in the end it is a conclusion to which we must come. If, however, we are to apprehend the reality of Christ's Sonship, it is important to recognize that, however great its force may be, this way of thinking reaches its conclusion too quickly and too easily because it does not give sufficient consideration to the reality of Christ's humanity. We have seen again and again how fully the Gospels and the Epistles attest Christ's humanity; His emotions, His fears, His disappointments, His exposure to temptation, and the limitations of His knowledge in matters not essential to His ministry. He shared traditional Jewish beliefs and uttered predictions concerning His Parousia which, in the form in which they were uttered, have not been fulfilled. These facts are not to be accepted in a spirit of resignation. They are part of the Gospel itself concerning Him who for our sakes became poor. The facts, however, are too easily forgotten, or are insufficiently weighed, in the anxiety to insist upon the divinity of Christ; so much so that in all periods, and even today, docetism, the belief that the humanity was but a semblance or phantom, is the constant peril of the Church. Luther powerfully expresses the truth when he writes: 'He ate, drank, slept, waked; was weary, sorrowful, rejoicing; He wept and He laughed; He knew hunger and thirst and sweat; He talked, He toiled, He prayed ... so that there was no difference between Him and other men, save only this, that He was God and had no sin'. Emil Brunner, who cites this passage, goes so far as to say, 'The Son of God in whom we are able to believe, must be such a One that it is possible to mistake Him for in ordinary man'. This opinion, I think, is an exaggeration, but it is the exaggeration characteristic of an epigram. If the reality of the humanity, and of the limitations attendant upon it, are recognized fully, the questions we are considering cannot be ignored. Granted that Christ knows Himself to be the Son of God because of His divine nature, it must still be asked, 'In what way did this consciousness emerge, and what factors and circumstances contributed to its emergence?'" (The person of Christ in NT teaching, Vincent Taylor, 1963, p170)

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Written By Steve Rudd, Used by permission at: www.bible.ca