Question:
When did Jesus know He was God in human form? Was it at birth or as a young child? Also if satan knew Jesus was God why did he offer to give Jesus the cities of the world if he would worship him? As God He already owned them anyway.
Answer:
Psalm 90:1,2 says, “LORD, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even FROM EVERLASTING TO EVERLASTING, THOU ART GOD.” Micah 5:2 says, “But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; WHOSE GOINGS FORTH HAVE BEEN FROM OF OLD, FROM EVERLASTING.” John 1:10-14 says, “He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And THE WORD WAS MADE FLESH, AND DWELT AMONG US, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.”
When Jesus came to earth, He came as God in the flesh. He has been God from everlasting to everlasting. Jesus never had a point in time where He “became God,” because He has always existed, and He has always been God. You will notice in the verses above that He made the world, and all that is in it. Jesus’ physical body had a point of beginning, at conception, but Jesus was fully conscious as God during that whole process of waiting for that body to develop. He did not have to wait for a physical mind to develop to know who He was — He is God, and knows all things. Jeremiah 23:24 says, “Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith the LORD. Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the LORD.”
As to your question about Satan’s offer to Jesus, that does not deal with “ownership,” but with present “influence” and “limited control.” Luke 4:5-8 says, “And the devil, taking him up into an high mountain, showed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it. If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Get thee behind me, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.”
II Corinthians 4:3,4 says, “But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.” Satan is called the “god of this world” in that passage, and in Ephesians 2:1,2, he is called “the prince of the power of the air.” “And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins: Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience.”
The point is that Satan is allowed a certain amount of power over the nations at this time in which we live. He does not own the nations, but is just allowed to influence them. What He was tempting Jesus to do was bypass the suffering and death of the cross, and the years of waiting after that until the kingdom was set up (the Millennium), and to rule and reign on His throne upon earth early. But remember that Satan is the great liar and deceiver (John 8:44 says, “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.”). If Jesus would have listened to Satan, there would have been no real glory or kingdom, because all of us would have been condemned to hell because of our sins, if Jesus had not died for us. I Corinthians 15:3,4 says, “For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures.” Satan’s promises always seem to be glorious, but in the end, they are empty lies.