Instead of brooding on the limits of Christ’s secular knowledge, it is more instructive to ask, as his contemporaries asked, how he came by his astonishing understanding of the spiritual world? Part of the answer is that until you believe yourself the Saviour of the World, you do not have any worth while thoughts about the way in which the world is to be saved. The thoughts of a carpenter on the way to save the world are hardly worth listening to. You must envisage the prospect of having to do it yourself! No wonder he went into the desert; and when he had thought about it, his answer was to show us the Father; to show us how he thought life ought to be lived if you believe the Father’s spirit is within yourself.
The historical Jesus was surely very much a realist: not in the sense that “Politics is the art of the possible”, which tends to mean cynical compliance with the world; but in his realizing the consequences of his stepping outside his own competence. He must have realized the great limitations in his knowledge of the secular world. After all he never sought to accommodate the secular world, often insulted those with power who sought to befriend him, and behaved as if he had no comprehension that it was the secular world which actually kept his little band alive and fed. In general he demonstrated a complete ignorance of the idea that bad government is better than no government at all. If you want to learn how the secular world works, go to those who had great experience of it; Julius Caesar or Winston Churchill, and read them.
I do not believe Jesus attempted to give serious guidance about conduct in the secular world; he realized his advice was not worth having. What he wanted was a new political, other worldly order, which did not call in question the supremacy of Rome. I think Professor Sir John Seeley’s analysis in his book, Ecce Homo, is as correct as one is likely to get. If one reads how Jesus wept over Jerusalem, when he foresaw the city’s fate in his mind’s eye, one cannot think he ever intended to challenge Rome.
If he did, he was mad! God would not have backed him. But I believe that in explaining his temptations to his disciples, as only he can have done, he made it plain that he renounced supernatural force as a means of establishing his Kingdom. My own opinion is that it was not available; although he appears to have thought it was. Nor was his Kingdom on the other side of death; it was to be very much in this world, at any rate to begin with. What he attempted to do at first was to preach the good-news: that the kingdom of heaven was at hand. Why else did he later condemn Bethsaida and Capernaum for not repenting? Fantasy it may have been, but I have little doubt he dreamed of a new political order within the Roman peace. And the question everyone must ask himself, who disagrees with Professor Seeley yet takes Jesus seriously, is whether the Christian life is an attempt to get into heaven, or an attempt to live life properly in this world? No doubt Christ wanted to fulfil the messianic prophesies so far as he could; and a Theocracy was in the tradition of Israel. But maybe even in Christ’s day a return to a theocracy was just a dream. Certainly it is not an option for us today; we experienced one attempt in the Middle Ages, and there is going to be no second attempt.
The question is crucial, although there may be no clear cut answer. And in seeking to learn Jesus’ answer, we must remember he only had a sense of indwelling with God, whom he called Father, to inspire him. The only means at his disposal for saving the world was to behave as he believed the Father would have behaved, if He had come back himself. So of course he believed he could do anything, though it may not have been true; but he wisely used any power he had only to do good. And what is the difference between the Father coming back himself, and His sending a man whom He fills with his spirit, and in whom He reposes complete confidence? So Jesus told us about the nature of an indwelling with God, as he knew it. He could not at the same time tell us about an indwelling with man. It was not that it was too difficult for him; circumstances compelled him to choose one or the other.