Charles Ellicott Commentary Luke 2:52

"And Jesus advanced in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men." — Luke 2:52 (ASV)

Jesus increased in wisdom and stature.—Here again we have nothing but a normal, orderly development. With Him, as with others, wisdom widened with the years, and came into His human soul through the same channels and by the same processes as into the souls of others—instruction, e.g., in the school of Nazareth, and attendance at its synagogue. The difference was that He, in every stage, attained the perfection of moral and spiritual wisdom which belongs to that stage, there being in Him no sin, selfishness, or pride, such as checks the growth of wisdom in all others.

In striking contrast with the true record of the growth of the Son of Man is what grew out of the fantastic imaginations of the writers of the Apocryphal Gospels. There, the child Jesus is continually working signs and wonders: He fashions Joseph’s clumsy work into shape; He molds sparrows out of clay, claps His hands, and commands them to fly; He strikes a playmate who offends Him with dumbness; and so on, ad nauseam.

In favour with God and man.—This, it will be noted, is an addition to what had been stated in Luke 2:40, and gives the effect, while that earlier statement gave the cause. The boy grew into youth, and the young man into manhood; and His purity, lowliness, and unselfish sympathy drew even then the hearts of all men.

In that highest instance, as in all lower analogies, men admired holiness until it became aggressive, and then it roused them to an antagonism bitter in proportion to their previous admiration. On the history of the eighteen years that followed, see the Excursus on Matthew 2.