Question: Who knows the exact time and date of the Lord’s Second Coming?
In the book Jesus The Christ, by James Talmage, pg. 575, we read:
All speculation concerning the time of the Lord’s appearing, whether based on assumption, deduction, or calculation of dates, was forestalled by Christ’s averment: “But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.” (Mark 13:32)
This is Mark’s version of the passage. Matthew omits the phrase, neither the Son. The JST leaves the phrase in according to Br. Talmage.
On page 589, the appendix to the chapter, Br. Talmage adds the following explanation:
“The Lord’s statement that the time of His advent in glory was unknown to man, and that the angels knew it not, ‘neither the Son,’ but that it was known to the Father only, appears plain and unambiguous, notwithstanding many and conflicting commentaries thereon.”
He further explains that the statement was made during His mortal sojourn but stops short of saying He now knows. However, Br. Talmage did not say He doesn’t now know.
The ancient Jewish tradition of marriage as depicted in the parable of the 10 virgins, also points to the fact that only the Father knew the exact time and date of the Son’s Second Coming.
Bruce R. McConkie points to the same passages as Br. Talmage but makes this clarifying statement on the Son:
The time for the Second Coming of Christ is as fixed and certain as was the hour of his birth. It will not vary as much as a single second from the divine decree. He will come at the appointed time. The Millennium will not be ushered in prematurely because men turn to righteousness, nor will it be delayed because iniquity abounds. Nephi was able to state with absolute certainty that the god of Israel would come ‘in six hundred years from the time my father left Jerusalem.’ (1 Nephi 19:8)
So shall it be with His return in glory. He knows the set time and so does the Father.
Right after Br. McConkie writes this sentence he quotes the scripture in Matthew that only the Father knows the exact time of the 2nd Coming.
On the surface this is conflicting, but Br. Talmage offers the clearest understanding to the potential that the Father has allowed the exact time to be known to the Son, now that He is exalted and perfected and stands in His stead through the Divine Investiture of Authority.
