If Jesus Is God, Why Did He Pray?

Prayer is not an embarrassment tucked behind the claim that Jesus is God. The same Gospel that says the Word was God also shows him praying. Christians have to say what that means.

The question

If Jesus is God, who is he talking to when he prays? God does not need to ask God for help. Jesus also says the Father is greater than he is, and that the Son does not know the day or the hour. He says that eternal life is knowing the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom that God has sent. Those sentences are in the Christian Bible. A Muslim friend who quotes them is reading the book Christians claim, not a hostile summary.

The fair question is how one confession can hold them. The answer Christians give is the incarnation: the Son, who is God, became truly man, and as man he prays, obeys, and does not walk through the world displaying every divine attribute in every sentence. This page says that in plain speech. The longer account of his deity is The deity of Christ. The confession that this is still one God, not two, is The Trinity.

What Muslims say

The Muslim objection is simple, and it is strong if the only Christian sentence on the table is “Jesus is God” with no further explanation. A person who prays is a servant. A person who does not know the hour is not all-knowing. A person who says “the Father is greater than I” has named someone above him. God is not above himself.

The Qur’an states the same picture in Jesus’ own mouth, on its account. He is a servant. He tells people to worship God, his Lord and their Lord. He does not tell them he is the one to be worshipped. If the Gospel also shows him praying and speaking of the Father as the one who sent him, a Muslim hears the Gospel agreeing with the Qur’an, and hears the later church disagreeing with both.

That objection should be answered from the Gospel’s own paragraphs, not by acting as if Mark 13 and John 14 were smuggled in by critics.

What Jesus says in the Gospel

Mark 13:32 (1) is as plain as a sentence can be.

But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.

John 14:28 (2) is just as plain.

Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you. If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father: for my Father is greater than I.

John 17:3 is Jesus praying.

And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.

The prayers in Gethsemane are the same pattern. He asks. He yields. He distinguishes his will from the Father’s will.

And he went a little farther, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.

And he said, Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me: nevertheless not what I will, but what thou wilt.

Hebrews 5:7–8 (4) locates those prayers in “the days of his flesh,” and says that though he was a Son, he learned obedience by what he suffered.

Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared;

Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered;

None of this is a marginal gloss. It is the text.

What the same Gospel says he is

The Gospel of John is one book. John 1:1 says the Word was God. John 1:14 says that Word was made flesh. John 14:9, in the same conversation as “the Father is greater than I,” says that whoever has seen Jesus has seen the Father. John 5:18 reports that his hearers understood “God was his Father” as a claim to be equal with God. John 20:28 records Thomas answering the risen Jesus, “My Lord and my God.”

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was 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.

Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?

Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God.

And Thomas answered and said unto him, My LORD and my God.

Philippians 2:6–8 (3) is the paragraph Christians use for the shape of this claim. He was in the form of God and equal with God. He took the form of a servant. He humbled himself to death, even death on a cross.

Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:

But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:

And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

A Christian reading does not pick the prayer texts and drop John 1, or pick John 1 and drop the prayer texts. Both are in the Bible Christians are asking their neighbors to read. The confession is that the Son is truly God and truly man. As God, the Word was with God and was God. As man, he prays, he obeys, and he can say, in that human life, that he does not know the hour. Prayer is the man Jesus speaking to the Father. It is not the Father talking to himself, and it is not a lesser god petitioning a greater one.

“The Father is greater than I” belongs in that same pattern. In John 14 the Son is the one who is sent, who is going back to the Father who sent him. Greater, in that sentence, names the Father’s place as the one who sends. The next claim in the same chapter, John 14:9, is that seeing Jesus is seeing the Father. Christians hold both lines. They do not erase “greater.”

John 17:3 does the same work inside a prayer. Jesus calls the Father the only true God, and he names himself as the Christ whom that God has sent. Eternal life, on his lips, is knowing both. The verse distinguishes the one who sends from the one who is sent. It does not say the one who is sent is a creature. The book that contains the prayer is the book that says the Word was God, and that ends the resurrection chapter with Thomas’s confession.

Mark 13:32 is the hardest of the three for a reader who wants Jesus to sound omniscient in every sentence. The verse says the Son does not know the day. Christians do not correct Mark. They say the incarnate Son, in his human life, did not know that day, and that this not-knowing belongs to his humanity. The same Jesus is the one Hebrews 5 calls Son while locating his prayers “in the days of his flesh.” Not knowing the hour is like hunger, sleep, and prayer. It shows that the incarnation was a real human life. It does not, by itself, tell you to delete John 1:1.

What the Qur’an has Jesus say

Qur’an 19:30 (6), Saheeh International, has Jesus speak from the cradle as a servant and a prophet.

[Jesus] said, “Indeed, I am the servant of Allāh. He has given me the Scripture and made me a prophet.

Qur’an 5:117 has him say he commanded only the worship of God.

I said not to them except what You commanded me - to worship Allāh, my Lord and your Lord. And I was a witness over them as long as I was among them; but when You took me up, You were the Observer over them, and You are, over all things, Witness.

Qur’an 4:171 draws the conclusion the Qur’an wants.

Indeed, Allāh is but one God. Exalted is He above having a son.

Christians can hear “servant” without panic. Philippians 2:7 says he took the form of a servant. Matthew 26:39 is that servant praying, “not as I will, but as thou wilt.” Servant and prayer are what Christians expect once the Word has become flesh. They are not evidence against John 1:1. They are what John 1:14 looks like in a life.

The Qur’an’s Jesus stops at servant and prophet. The Gospel’s Jesus takes the form of a servant and is confessed as Lord and God. Those are different portraits. Quoting the prayers does not turn the second portrait into the first. It shows that the second portrait includes a real man who prayed.

Follow-up objections

“Two natures is a later patch, invented so the hard verses do not count.” The hard verses and the high verses are already in one Gospel. John holds “the Word was God” and “the Father is greater than I.” Mark holds a Son who does not know the hour. Philippians holds “equal with God” and “the form of a servant” in one paragraph. The Christian way of speaking — truly God and truly man — is how the church keeps those sentences together instead of deleting one set. The definitions are set out in The Trinity and The deity of Christ. They were argued in public because the sentences were already in the books.

“If he did not know the hour, he is not all-knowing, so he is not God.” Mark 13:32 is in the Gospel Christians accept. The claim is not that the incarnate Son displayed all knowledge in every moment of his human life. Hebrews 5:7 puts the prayers in the days of his flesh. A humanity that never lacked, never obeyed, and never prayed would not be the humanity Philippians 2 describes.

“John 17:3 lists only the Father as the true God.” It lists the Father as the only true God, and it lists Jesus Christ as the one he sent, and it says life is knowing both. In that Gospel, the one who is sent is the Word who was God, and the risen Jesus receives “My Lord and my God” from Thomas. “Sent” is the mission. It is not a synonym for “created.”

“Then Christians worship a man.” They worship the Son, who became man. Thomas’s words in John 20:28 are addressed to the risen Jesus. Christians do not say the Father is the Son, and they do not say Mary is a second object of that worship. What “Son” does and does not mean is Can God have a Son?.

Keep reading

• The deity of Christ
• The Trinity
• Can God have a Son?
• Does Jesus do what only God does?
• Jesus in the Qur’an and the Gospels