Your questions answered: Jesus in the temple

One of our readers recently asked: Why wasn’t it sinful for Jesus as a boy to have gone off to the temple and not informed his parents of his whereabouts? It doesn’t seem to be obeying the fifth commandment, to honour your father and mother.

Great question, and a tricky one! It’s important, too, because this is the only episode from Jesus’ childhood we know about (Luke 2 v 41-52), and of course in order to be our perfect sacrifice and our righteousness-giver, Jesus must be sinless. If He is being anything less than perfect here, He’s out of the running to die in our place or give us His relationship with God almost before His human life has begun.

I have been mulling it over and here’s what I’ve come up with: I’d love to know if there are other ways to think about this issue.

Jesus didn’t go off to the temple, in fact. His family were already “in Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover “ (v 41); part of this trip would have involved going to the temple. The next thing we know, his “parents were returning home” while “the boy Jesus stayed behind”, which they were “unaware of” (v 43). It was Joseph and Mary who (unwittingly) set off for home without their son; not their son who hid out in the temple so they’d leave without Him. I suppose any blame here ought to attach to the parents. But when they realize He’s not there, the question isn’t “Who’s to blame?” but “Where is our child?”

Jesus isn’t with “their relatives and friends” (v 44); and He isn’t anywhere in Jerusalem. It takes them “three days” (v 46) to think of looking in the temple. When they find Him there, Jesus suggests that there shouldn’t have been a need to be “searching”: “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” (v 49). His point seems to be: Where else would I be? My heavenly Father comes first, so of course I’d be in my Father’s house? Why look for me anywhere else before looking for me here?

So, Jesus isn’t disobeying the Fifth Commandment, to honour your parents (which, being fully human, He is obligated to obey); and He is obeying the First Commandment, to honour God. He has a heavenly Parent who comes first, before all others; His parents should have known He would be in His Father’s house.

If you’re a parent (or have ever looked after a child), it’s natural to read this as a story about a boy who ran away, and didn’t come back, and is at fault. But I think Luke probably wants us to read it as the divine Son being with (and learning and teaching about) His Father, and His earthly parents having forgotten who He is, whose He is, and where He will be, and being at fault. So verse 51—“then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them”—isn’t saying: After this aberration in Jerusalem, Jesus then remembered to obey His parents. It’s saying: Despite Joseph and Mary not really getting who Jesus was, still as a human child He humbly obeyed them.

Mary’s response is interesting. In verse 48 she is “astonished” and her tone seems to be frustration or even anger: “Why have you treated us like this?” She thinks Jesus is in the wrong. In v 50, she “did not understand” Jesus' point. In v51, she “treasured all these things in her heart”, which is how she reacts when she realizes that her son is too great for her to really grasp (2 v 16-20). By the end of the episode, Mary herself doesn’t seem to think Jesus did anything wrong; and she knows that any fault there is, lies with her for not really understanding what’s going on.

Finally, it’s worth remembering that Scripture is the best interpreter of Scripture. Since the Bible tells us that Jesus was “tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin” (Hebrews 4 v 15). So whatever Luke is wanting to teach us in Luke 2 v 41-52, it can’t be that Jesus sinned! And I think that a close reading of the text brings us to the same conclusion. Jesus was an obedient child: honouring to His parents, and supremely honouring to His Father.