Did Jesus Have to Pray?

One interesting question that came my way was this: Did Jesus have to pray to God? I do not believe Jesus prayed to God in the sense of confession for the forgiveness of sin. Jesus did not have to pray in this sense.

The truth is Jesus does pray. Something that the Gospel writer's sought to communicate was that prayer to be one of the essential components of Christ’s ministry. Mark points out that on one occasion, during a time the Lord ministered miraculous healings to crowds, that “in the early morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house, and went away to a secluded place, and was praying there” (Mark 1:35). Luke tells us that Jesus Himself would often slip away to the wilderness and pray” (Luke 5:16). Elsewhere Luke notes that on occasion Jesus went off to a mountain and spent the night in prayer (Luke 6:12). Jesus taught the disciples how to pray to their Heavenly Father (Luke 11:1-4; cf. Matt. 6:5-13). He even prayed in anticipation of the cross for His Father’s will to be done (Mark 14:36; Matt. 6:42; Luke 22:41-42).

What we find in the ultimate sceme of all things is that Jesus has a unique relationship with the Heavenly Father. The reason for this is that Jesus is both fully human and fully divine, the very incarnation of God on earth, who existed with the Father from all eternity (John 1:1-3, 14; Col. 1:15-20; Phil. 2:6-11). The Bible, moreover, teaches there is one God who is revealed in three co-equal and co-eternal persons — The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit. The three persons of the Godhead do interact with each other. Jesus prays to the Father (cf. John 17), and the Father loves the Son (John 3:35; 5:20; 10:17). The Holy Spirit also makes intercession to God on behalf of those who are in such distress that they are unable to pray (Rom. 8:26-27).
God the Son does pray to God the Father, and this is one side of the interpersonal love relationship between all three persons of the Trinity. One might even say Jesus has to pray to the Father in that authentic relationship does reflects the very nature of a benevolent deity.

Comments

  1. Adam PastorSeptember 23, 2010 at 8:53 PM

    Greetings Warren Nozaki

    On the subject of one God being revealed in three co-equal and co-eternal persons,
    I recommend this video:
    The Human Jesus

    Take a couple of hours to watch it; and prayerfully it will aid you in your quest for truth.

    Yours In Messiah
    Adam Pastor

    ReplyDelete

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