Why Did Jesus Pray to His Father?
by David K. Bernard
Podcast recording (no venue stated in the delivered transcript)
Kind: teaching
Scripture: John 20:28, Colossians 2:9, 2 Corinthians 5:19, 1 Timothy 3:16, Hebrews 5:7

Source: https://acts238.life/repository/sermons/david-k-bernard--why-did-jesus-pray-to-his-father
Published by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon transcript on that page.
Free to copy and share with attribution.

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now let me give you a brief answer and uh then I will go into more detail and you can see this in my book The Oneness of God but also especially in my book The Oneness view of Jesus Christ but the the short answer is is this first of all theay prayers show that Jesus was an authentic human being he was just like us in every way except for sin he had to be like us in every way to be our kinsman redeemer to be our sacrifice for sin to take the penalty of our sins to die to shed blood uh to be our atoning sacrifice they say nothing about whether he's deity or not they simply demonstrate that he was and is a real human being my and as far as the critics that say he was not God well that's another subject but there are many many statements uh John 2028 my Lord and my God Colossians 2:9 in him dwells all the fullness of the godhead bodily 2 Corinthians 5:19 God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself he was worshiped as God People Prayed to him he was acknowledges God so I think the whole of the New Testament and even the prophetic passage of the old Testament demonstrate that Jesus was the true God but the point here is that he was a true man a true human my second major point would be this the doctor of the Trinity doesn't explain anything but it makes it worse because both Oneness and Trinity have to Grapple with the Incarnation it's a mystery that has been revealed uh First Timothy 3:16 great is the mystery of godliness God was manifest In the Flesh so we can know it but as far as us being able to comprehend it it's always going to be mysterious because there's no one in human history who has been both God and human at the same time Jesus is unique in human history and trying to understand the inward psychology how he was born and grew up we will never be able to understand the inner mind of God but we can know it's true and confess it's true because the scriptures declare it but the doctrine of the Trinity superficially explains it but actually makes it worse okay so let me start with that let's say the doctrine of Trinity were two true there are two persons one person is praying to another person well by definition that second person is inferior and needs help from the first person and he says not my will but your will be done if those are two Wills then can God have conflicting Wills how do we know we're praying for the will of God which will of God you know could they be in Conflict so an informed knowledgeable trinitarian will say well wait a minute no no no no there's really only one Divine will that's his human will speaking of the Divine will and actually The ecumenical council of Constantinople in ad 680 said Jesus has two Wills but is one person so superficially you might say well if there are two Wills there have to be two persons but trinitarian scholar say no two Wills do not prove two persons it's the human will submitting to the Divine will because if you had two Divine Wills then there's a major theological problem not only of tritheism but Wills in Conflict so so then uh it proves so if if the prayers of Christ prove two persons it proves too much it proves what kind of persons not co-equal persons as the Trinity says but inferior and Superior uh not two Divine Wills uh you know it would be two Divine Wills so so what's really more interesting there is so the trinitarians will say oh no no he's prayed according to his humanity and then I say well that's my argument then because if you want to prove two persons of the Trinity show me a conversation in eternity past or show me a conversation in eternity future but if you're still if you're only showing me a conversation during the Incarnation in in his human identity he as a man as a human is praying well then all you're proving is Jesus human which is what I'm saying you're not proving they're two Divine persons and in fact if you press the Trinity now you have actually two sons because you have a human son who was praying but you have a Divine son who's the second person of the Trinity so now you have to explain how did the Eternal son relate to the born son how did the Heavenly son relate to the Earthly son but then you have to explain how does the son relate to the father how does the son relate to the Holy Spirit if they're different person how does the father relate to the Eternal son how does the Eternal son relate to the Holy Spirit how does the Holy Spirit relate to the father now we have six relationships to explain so at least under Oneness theology yes it's a challenge to explain how could Jesus pray but you have one relationship Jesus is a man praying to God whereas if you adopt the doctrine of the Trinity you've got six relationships to explain and you have this conundrum between the Eternal son and and the human son um now it is true he prayed Hebrews 5:7 says he prayed in the days of his flesh so his prayers do not relate to his ET Eternal godhead his prayers relate to his human identity in fact it should shock us if Jesus didn't pray because he was a real human well we know a real human will get hungry thirsty tired without having to say so and of course Jesus did he was a a righteous holy human well we know without saying if you're righteous and holy you pray you submit to God you obey God so the shocking thing would be if he didn't pray in other words he had to be just like us in every way except for sin every way we relate to God every way we talk to God every way we talk about God Jesus had to have that same capacity or he wouldn't really be human so can we pray yes we should pray he gives us an example for us to follow should we submit our will to God's will yes so Jesus had to do the same so all these things Show Jesus Jesus's authentic Humanity so if you still say well it sounds like Jesus praying to himself well that's because you're trying to force his the Incarnation onto a template of our experience of being only human so that's the wrong way to say it here's the right way to say it Jesus prayed as an authentic human being he who did he pray to he prayed to God at the same time realizing God was in Christ God was in him not as a separate person so the answer is Jesus prayed to God do we say Jesus prayed to himself no that's confusing his identity as human and his identity as God uh and so the that would be a wrong way to say it but we should simply say Jesus prayed to God as all humans should pray to God just at the same time realizing that God was incarnate in Christ in a unique way different from any other human so God was in Christ now another little thought of the Trinity if you really study it out when you pray to God they say God's a trinity so whatever name or title to you use you're praying to the whole godhead you're praying to the whole Trinity so even if you pray say Jehovah or you say father or you say son or you say Jesus or you say spirit that prayer goes the whole godhead uh I remember being in the audience someone asked the question should we divide our prayers equally to father son and spirit and the answer is no it doesn't matter there's no jealousy in the godhead you pray to anyone you want but the theological answer is they the three members of the Trinity all share in all the works of the other you cannot differentiate themselves on the basis of The Works they all receive the same prayers so take that a step further and probably the most famous Catholic Theologian of the 20th century Carl ronner r a n r and I quote it in my book The Glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ he delves into that and he says when Jesus prayed as a man he was praying to God right so if he's praying to God that means logically he's praying to the Trinity not just to one person logically that means he's praying to the Eternal son so the human Jesus is praying to the Eternal son and then roner says in theological terms I'll kind of translate he said while that is theologically correct it's not charismatically appropriate charismatically means in the context of preaching so he's saying while technically theologically according to the do of the Trinity when Jesus prayed he's praying to the whole godhead including the Eternal son the human Jesus pray praying to the Eternal Son of God as a second member of the Trinity but we shouldn't preach that because it will confuse people because nobody would understand that if you tried to preach it to your church Jesus prayed to the Eternal Son of God that would confuse them endlessly well I think he's making a big admission but notice the point here the trinitarians have the same issues that we have how could Jesus as a human pray to God that's the real issue so saying they're two persons doesn't answer that question the still have the same conundrum how do we explain that Jesus is praying to the godhead and the answer is cu he's human and the F further answer then is well there's no need to have two persons to explain it because two persons doesn't explain it the true explanation is the Incarnation Jesus as a true human representing us giving us an example and actually undergoing our the same experience we would submitted his will to the will of God his human will was submitted to the Divine will Jesus prayed in the days of his flesh as a human we don't imagine him still praying to someone else today even if you're a trinitarian do you really imagine Jesus kneeling into heaven asking the father uh and I want to go down there and help these people out would you Empower me you know that that would be a mockery of the Trinity so the answer is Jesus prayed and demonstrated his authentic genuine Humanity I also quote from a very well-known Baptist theologian Frank stag who basically say said the same thing the prayers of Christ are not although he was a trinitarian he said the prayers of Christ do not teach us anything about the Trinity they only teach us about the authentic Humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ