How can Jesus be God if He prayed to God?

Question 3065.

When Jesus prayed, who was listening? It is one of the sharpest questions a sceptic, or a Muslim friend, or an honest child can put to a Christian. If Jesus is God, was he talking to himself in Gethsemane? Does the very fact that Jesus prayed prove he must be something less than God?

I love this question, because answering it takes us straight into the two deepest truths of the Christian faith: the Trinity and the incarnation. Far from embarrassing Christian belief, the prayers of Jesus turn out to reveal something wonderful about who God is and how he has drawn near to us. Let me build the answer step by step.

The Hidden Assumption in the Question

Notice what the question quietly assumes: that God is a single, solitary person, so that if Jesus prays to God, there must be two Gods or Jesus must not be God at all. That assumption is precisely what Scripture denies. The Bible reveals one God, and it reveals him as three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, distinct in person while one in essence.

Once that framework is in place, the puzzle dissolves in principle. When Jesus prayed, one divine person was speaking to another divine person, within the eternal fellowship of the one God. He was not talking to himself, and no second God was involved. The Son addressed the Father, as he had from all eternity. What is new in the Gospels is not that the Son communes with the Father but that he now does so as a man, with a human voice, on his knees, in the hearing of fishermen.

One God, Three Persons

Let me sketch the biblical basis, since everything rests on it. Scripture is emphatic that God is one: ‘Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one’ (Deuteronomy 6:4). Yet the same Scriptures present the Father as God (Philippians 1:2), the Son as God (John 1:1; 20:28; Titus 2:13), and the Spirit as God (Acts 5:3-4), and present them as distinct persons who know, love and address one another. At Jesus’ baptism all three appear at once: the Son in the water, the Spirit descending, the Father speaking from heaven (Matthew 3:16-17).

Jesus could say both ‘I and the Father are one’ (John 10:30), where the Greek hen is neuter, one in essence rather than one person, and also ‘the Father is greater than I’ (John 14:28), speaking of his position in his incarnate mission. Unity of nature, distinction of persons, order in operation. That is the God of the Bible, and I have set out the doctrine fully in my article on the Trinity.

The Incarnation: Why the Son Now Prays

The second key is the incarnation. ‘The Word became flesh and dwelt among us’ (John 1:14). The eternal Son took to himself a complete human nature, body, soul and spirit, without ceasing to be fully God: one person, two natures, unconfused and undivided. As God he upheld the universe; as man he grew hungry, slept in boats, wept at tombs, and prayed.

Philippians 2 tells us that in becoming man the Son ’emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant’ (Philippians 2:7). The emptying was not a subtraction of deity but a veiling of glory and a voluntary refusal to exercise certain divine prerogatives during his mission; the Greek morphe, form, speaks of his real condition in both halves of the verse. Having taken a true human life, he lived it as humans must: dependently. And dependence has a language, which is prayer. When Jesus prayed, his genuine humanity was doing exactly what faithful humanity does before God. See my article on the hypostatic union for the fuller doctrine.

How Jesus Prayed in the Gospels

Watch the practice itself, because the Gospels are saturated with it. Jesus prayed at his baptism (Luke 3:21). He rose ‘very early in the morning, while it was still dark’ to pray in desolate places (Mark 1:35). Before choosing the Twelve ‘he went out to the mountain to pray, and all night he continued in prayer to God’ (Luke 6:12). He prayed before Peter’s confession, at the transfiguration, over the loaves, for little children, and for Peter by name when Satan demanded to sift him (Luke 22:31-32).

In Gethsemane the praying reached its depths: ‘Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will’ (Mark 14:36). Hebrews looks back on that night with awe: ‘he offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears’ (Hebrews 5:7). These are not staged performances for the disciples’ benefit. This is a real man, in real anguish, really entrusting himself to his Father. Any account of Jesus that makes his prayers theatre has stopped believing in the incarnation.

The Prayer That Lifts the Curtain

One prayer above all shows us what was happening whenever Jesus prayed. In John 17, on the night of his betrayal, the Son speaks to the Father with the curtain drawn back: ‘Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed’ (John 17:5). No creature could pray that prayer. He asks for the return of a glory he possessed before creation, shared with the Father from eternity.

He goes on: ‘you loved me before the foundation of the world’ (John 17:24). Here is the eternal life of the Trinity audible in human words: the Son who has forever been loved by the Father, now praying as the man Christ Jesus for his people. The prayers of Jesus are not evidence against his deity; rightly heard, they are windows into it. Where else do we ever overhear one divine person speaking with another? For the wider question of his deity, see my article on whether Jesus is God.

Why This Matters for Your Prayers

This doctrine is intensely practical. Because Jesus prayed as a true man, he knows the life of prayer from the inside: the weariness, the tears, the unanswered-for-now, the surrender of Gethsemane. ‘We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses’ (Hebrews 4:15). And his praying did not end at the ascension. ‘He always lives to make intercession’ for those who draw near to God through him (Hebrews 7:25). At this moment, the risen man in glory is praying for his people.

More than that, his relationship with the Father has become the pattern and the doorway for ours. He taught us to say ‘Our Father’, and sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying ‘Abba! Father!’ (Galatians 4:6). The fellowship the Son has eternally enjoyed is the fellowship into which the Gospel brings us. If you want help with the practice itself, I have written on how Christians should pray.

Praying as Jesus Prayed

Before I close, let the doctrine become discipleship, because the Gospels record not only that Jesus prayed but how, and the pattern is imitable. He prayed early, before the day made its demands (Mark 1:35). He prayed alone, withdrawing from crowds and even from friends (Luke 5:16). He prayed before decisions, spending the night in prayer before naming the Twelve. He prayed honestly in anguish, and he prayed submissively, ‘not what I will, but what you will’. And he prayed for others by name, as he did for Peter before the sifting came.

There is the shape of a praying life, drawn by the Master himself. You will not reproduce it perfectly; he alone prayed with an undivided heart. But you are invited to pray in his name, taught by his words, helped by his Spirit, and heard because of his merit rather than yours. The man who once knelt in Gethsemane now intercedes from the throne, which means every stumbling prayer of yours arrives at the Father already carried by one who prays perfectly. That should get us out of bed early with something like joy.

So, now what?

So how can Jesus be God if he prayed? Because God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and the Son, having become truly man, spoke to his Father as man for us. His prayers prove his humanity is real; their content reveals his deity is eternal; and together they display a God who is not a solitary monad but an everlasting fellowship of love, opened to us at the cross.

The next time someone raises this question with you, do not treat it as an attack to repel. It is a doorway. Walk them through it, to the God whose Son still prays, this hour, for everyone who comes to him. And then, follow your Lord’s own habit: find the quiet place, and pray.

In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence.

Hebrews 5:7, ESV