Luke 10:22 teaches that Jesus has received all things from the Father, and that the knowledge of who the Father is and who the Son is belongs to a close, mutual relationship that only they fully share. Jesus then says he chooses to reveal the Father to whomever he wishes. The words come from Jesus himself, spoken in the Gospel of Luke, and they are addressed to his disciples after the seventy-two return from their mission full of joy.
Turning to the disciples, he said, “All things have been delivered to me by my Father. No one knows who the Son is, except the Father, and who the Father is, except the Son, and he to whomever the Son desires to reveal him.”
Luke 10:22 (WEB)
What Luke 10:22 Means
The verse opens with “All things have been delivered to me by my Father.” The word “delivered” means handed over or entrusted. Jesus is saying that his authority and everything that belongs to God’s rule has been given to him by the Father, not something he has seized or invented for himself. The phrase points to a settled, personal transfer of trust between them.
Next comes the central idea: “No one knows who the Son is, except the Father, and who the Father is, except the Son.” Here knowledge means something deeper than information. It describes an intimate understanding that flows between the two of them. Jesus is not claiming that people are shut out from God altogether, but that the full truth about their relationship is known only within it.
The verse ends with a promise of revelation: the Son reveals the Father “to whomever the Son desires to reveal him.” This is a gift that comes from Jesus’s own choice and generosity. It does not promise that everyone will receive this understanding in the same way or at the same time, and it does not describe a method anyone can manufacture. It does affirm that God can be known, because the Son makes him known.
The Context of Luke 10:22
Luke wrote this Gospel, traditionally attributed to a companion of Paul who was a physician, for a largely Gentile audience that wanted an orderly account of Jesus’s life and teaching. The surrounding passage moves quickly. Jesus has just sent out seventy-two followers with authority, and they have come back amazed that even demons submitted to them. Jesus tells them not to rejoice mainly in that power, but in the fact that their names are written in heaven.
Verse 21 then shows Jesus rejoicing in the Holy Spirit as he thanks the Father for hiding these things from the wise and revealing them to little children. Verse 22 grows directly out of that moment of thanksgiving. Read in this setting, the verse is less a cold statement about divine information and more a warm expression of a Father who gives knowledge of himself to humble, ordinary people through his Son.
Key Phrases in Luke 10:22
John 14:9
Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you such a long time, and do you not know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father. How do you say, ‘Show us the Father?’
(WEB)
In this verse Jesus tells Philip that whoever has seen him has seen the Father. It expands the idea in Luke 10:22 by showing that the Son does not just describe the Father in words but makes him visible in his own life and actions.
Matthew 11:27
All things have been delivered to me by my Father. No one knows the Son, except the Father; neither does anyone know the Father, except the Son, and he to whom the Son desires to reveal him.
(WEB)
This parallel saying appears in Matthew’s Gospel and nearly repeats the wording of Luke 10:22. Reading the two side by side shows how the early church treasured this teaching about the mutual knowledge of the Father and the Son.
A Short Prayer From Luke 10:22
Father, thank you that you have given all things into the hands of your Son, and that you make yourself known through him. I confess that I often want to understand you on my own terms, and I ask you to forgive that pride. Son, reveal the Father to me today, in the ordinary moments of my life and in the questions I carry. Make me willing to receive what you choose to show me, and help me to share the knowledge of you with others who are searching. Amen.
