Study source: Chapter 4: “The Childhood of Christ” J.Oswald Sanders, The Incomparable Christ.

Key verses: Luke 2:40: “And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom; and the grace of God was upon Him.“

Hebrews 2:17 “He was made like unto His brethren.”

What do we know about the childhood of Christ?Luke 2:40 is the only thing we know about the childhood of Jesus.  It does not satisfy our curiosity, but what is here revealed is sufficient to assure of His real humanity and full identity with the human race. In His incarnation, Jesus submitted Himself to the sinless limitations of growth and development as all members of the human race.

How does Jesus Christ differ from the gods of Greek and Roman mythology? Jesus began life as a perfect child. He did not burst in upon the world as a mature adult, but as an infant, in striking contrast to the Greek and Roman gods who descended to earth fully grown and well-armed.

Why is there so little written about the childhood of Jesus Christ in the Bible? The Gospels do not undertake to provide us with a biography of Jesus of Nazareth.  The purpose of the Gospels is to give us the history of Jesus the Savior.

What about those Apocryphal books that have stories of Jesus’ childhood? There is an apocryphal gospel that has survived  and is entitled “the Gospel of Infancy.” In it the anonymous writers narrated that when boys interrupted Jesus in His play or ran against Him in the village street, He looked on them and denounced them, and they fell down and died.  This is a blasphemous and absurd untruth as though the Son of God would descend to childish displays of divine power and acts of petty vengeance. Take note that when His disciples James and John wanted to call down fire from heaven to blast the residents of Samaria who wouldn’t receive them, Jesus stopped them.  When Jesus was tempted in the wilderness, He refused to use His divine power for His own benefit to turn stones into bread to ease His own hunger.

What can we gather from this one verse regarding the childhood of Jesus?

1. In order to be ‘made like unto his brethren” our Lord subjected Himself to the common laws of human infancy and childhood.
2. He experience normal physical development: “the child grew and waxed strong”
3. He was an observant child: he remembered the common scenes of ordinary life and used them later as illustrations in His teachings and parables.
4. He advanced in mental attainment.

Did Jesus go to school? His parents would have been his first teachers because the law of Moses commands parents to teach their children.  In their village, there would be a school called “The House of the Book,” where Jesus would have been sent by his parents at the age of six.  The rulers of the synagogue would teach the children the OT until age 10. At age 12, the scholar would become a “son of the law” and he would then be robed in the garments of a man.

What languages did Jesus speak? Jesus spoke Aramaic. When Jews returned from the Babylonian captivity, they spoke Aramaic, the language spoken by the Persian masters.  He also read and learned the original Hebrew of the OT.  He was raised in Galilee where Greek-speaking Jews have settled.  Jesus was approached by Greeks and a Syro-Phoenician woman.

What was Jesus like? The Bible says that “he was filled with wisdom; and the grace of God was upon him.” Horace Bushnell wrote: “In His childhood everyone loved Him.  He is shown growing up in favour with God and man, a child so lovely and beautiful that heaven and earth appear to smile on him together.  So when it is added that the child grew and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom, and more than all, that the grace of beautifying power of God was upon Him, we look on the unfolding of a sacred flower, and seem to scent a fragrance wafter on us from other worlds.”

So what?  How does this affect us today?  If you are like me, raised in a predominantly-Catholic country, your mind is unwittingly filled with supposed “pictures” and “images” of  Christ from the imaginations of human artists.  Some of the pictures are truly beautiful, but Jesus is even more beautiful than our minds can imagine Him to be.

Although Jesus is human, He is also God. God’s holiness is beauty.  His wisdom is beauty. Jesus is beautiful “beyond description, too marvelous for words, too wonderful for comprehension.” He is unmarred by sin except for the scars on his hands, feet and side.

In this ugly sinful world corrupted by sin and disease and deformity, Jesus stands out in sinless perfection and beauty.  And one day, I will see Him as He is.  I will be free to gaze upon His loveliness and then all the things of this sordid earth “will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.” I eagerly await this day.  Waiting for this day when I will see my Savior face to face gives me the strength to go on.