If Jesus is God, why did He pray to the Father?

Question

Sun Myung Moon · Accepted Answer

If Jesus were God Himself, His prayer life would be one of the strangest puzzles in the Bible. Jesus prayed constantly. He prayed all night before choosing His disciples; He withdrew to lonely places to pray; He wept and pleaded in the Garden of Gethsemane; and He cried out from the cross, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46). These are not the actions of someone talking to himself; they are the actions of a son speaking to his Father. To understand why Jesus prayed, we must understand who Jesus actually was and what kind of relationship with God He had achieved. What the Bible Actually Says Jesus Himself drew a clear line between Himself and God the Father. He said plainly, "My Father is greater than I" (John 14:28) and "I can of mine own self do nothing" (John 5:30). He described Himself as the one whom the Father had sent: "This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent" (John 17:3). In that single verse, Jesus distinguishes "the only true God" from Himself, the one God sent. When a rich man called Him "good teacher," Jesus answered, "Why callest thou me good? There is none good but one, that is, God" (Mark 10:18). And after the resurrection, He told Mary Magdalene, "I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God" (John 20:17). Jesus has a God — the same God we have. At the same time, the Bible also says, "I and my Father are one" (John 10:30) and "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father" (John 14:9). Christians have wrestled with these two sets of verses for two thousand years. The doctrine of the Trinity tried to hold both together by declaring Jesus to be God the Son, the second person of a triune God. But that solution creates the very problem this question asks about: if Jesus is fully and literally God, then His prayers become God praying to God, His temptation in the wilderness becomes God being tempted by Satan, and His cry of abandonment on the cross becomes God forsaking God. None of that fits the plain sense of Scripture. The Principle's Answer: Perfect Oneness, Not Identity The Principle resolves the puzzle by returning to the purpose of creation itself. God created human beings to grow to perfection and become one with Him in heart and love. Jesus was the first person in history to actually do that. Because Adam fell before reaching maturity, Jesus came as the second Adam (1 Corinthians 15:45) — a man born without sin who perfectly fulfilled the original ideal that Adam was meant to fulfill. When Jesus said, "I am in the Father, and the Father in me" (John 14:10), He was describing the state of perfected oneness with God that every human being was originally created to attain. In that sense, Jesus is divine. He is the complete temple of God, the visible image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15), the one in whom the fullness of God dwells. When you see Jesus, you truly see the character and heart of the Father, because a perfected human being is God's full dwelling place. But oneness is not identity. A husband and wife who become "one flesh" remain two distinct people. Jesus is one with God in heart, will, and love — while remaining God's Son, a distinct being who relates to God as a child to a parent. That is exactly why He prayed. Prayer is the language of relationship between a child and a parent. Jesus prayed because He was a real human being in a living, breathing relationship with His Heavenly Father. The Holy Scriptures declare, "But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light" (1 Peter 2:9). This relationship is a gift. Why His Prayers Were So Desperate Look again at Gethsemane with this understanding. Jesus fell on His face and prayed, "O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt" (Matthew 26:39). This was not theater. Jesus carried an agonizing mission: He had come to be received by His people and to establish God's kingdom with them, yet the leaders and the nation were rejecting Him. He knew the cross would mean the salvation of humanity through His sacrifice rather than the full restoration of the kingdom in His lifetime. His sweat became "as it were great drops of blood" (Luke 22:44) because He was a real man facing a real death, wrestling with real anguish before His Father. A God who could not suffer could not have prayed that prayer. A son who loved His Father and loved humanity could — and did. "For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin" (Hebrews 4:15). His prayer life also shows us what our own relationship with God is meant to look like. Jesus taught us to pray, "Our Father which art in heaven" (Matthew 6:9) — the same Father He prayed to. He opened the

If Jesus is God, why did He pray to the Father?

What the Bible Actually Says

The Principle's Answer: Perfect Oneness, Not Identity

Why His Prayers Were So Desperate

Living the Principle

Sources and further reading