Matthew 24:36
What does Matthew 24:36 mean?
But no one knows of that day and hour, not even the angels of heaven, but my Father only.
The short answer
In Matthew 24:36, Jesus draws a firm line under all speculation about the end. He has just been describing the signs of his coming, and now he says plainly that the timing itself is hidden: "no one knows of that day and hour"—not the angels of heaven, but the Father only. In the parallel saying in Mark 13:32, and in many ancient copies of Matthew, Jesus goes further still: not even the Son knows. Whatever else Christians may say about the future, the calendar belongs to God alone.
Donald McKim takes this as Jesus' own teaching about his return: we simply do not know when it will happen, and trying to calculate beyond what Jesus said is, in McKim's word, fruitless. That is a pastoral relief as much as a warning. The verse frees us from every prediction chart and every confident date-setter, because Jesus himself said the information is not available. At the same time, McKim notes that this is not the end of the conversation—there are still real things Christians can say about their hope, even without a timetable.
But how can the Son not know something? Ian McFarland's account of the incarnation helps here. He argues that capacities belong to a person's nature, not to the person as such—so the Word made flesh genuinely grows, learns, and lives within human limits, just as Luke 2:52 says Jesus increased in wisdom. On this reading, the Son's not-knowing is not a flaw or an embarrassment. It is what a real human life looks like. Jesus did not merely appear to share our condition; he actually shared it, limits and all. The verse, then, moves us from anxious calculation to a different question: what does it mean to trust a Father who alone holds the hour?
What scholars say
McKim answers the question most readers bring to this verse—can we know when Christ will return?—by taking Jesus at his word, while McFarland addresses a deeper puzzle: how the incarnate Word can genuinely grow, learn, and live within human limits, since capacities belong to a nature rather than to the person.
“We don’t know when the return of Jesus Christ will take place. This was what Jesus himself taught when he said, “But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father” (Matt. 24:36). Speculation beyond this is fruitless. Yet there are some things we can say.”
“Because human nature is finite, it does not follow that Jesus’ human nature acquires any special powers in virtue of its enhypostatization by the Word. Insofar as human beings naturally grow, learn, and are subject to various other sorts of limitation, so it is with the incarnate Word (Luke 2:52; John 4:7; 11:35; cf. Matt. 26:38 and pars.). 43 Capacities are a function of nature, not hypostasis. Consequently, a person’s identity (i.e., who they are) cannot be determined on the basis of possessing any given set of capacities, since the latter change over the course of a lifetime, as particular abilities are acquired—and lost—with varying degrees of permanence and rapidity. To be sure, personal identity is exhibited in and to some extent defined by one’s acts, in the sense that it is natural to identify a person by referring to what she or he has done or typically does (e.”
What it means for you
This verse quietly retires an entire industry of end-times prediction. If Jesus said the day and hour are unknown, then no headline, chart, or confident preacher can tell you otherwise—and you can stop carrying that anxiety. What remains is something better than a date: a posture. The chapter around this verse calls it watchfulness—living each ordinary day as someone who belongs to Christ and expects him, without needing to know when.
Practically, that means faithfulness in the meantime: doing your work, loving your people, and holding your hope loosely enough to trust the Father with the timing. The future is certain in its promise, even while it stays hidden in its schedule.
Matthew 24 in context
Matthew 24 is part of what's often called the Olivet Discourse. The disciples, admiring the temple, ask Jesus when it will be destroyed and what will signal his coming and the end of the age. Jesus describes wars, false messiahs, persecution, and cosmic upheaval—but then verse 36 pivots the whole conversation. Signs or no signs, the actual day and hour are unknown. From here Jesus compares his coming to the flood in Noah's day, arriving while life carried on as usual, and repeatedly urges one response: watch, and be ready.