Question: 1. Who does Jesus pray to on the many occasions that he prayed? 2. How is it that Jesus "will sit at God’s right hand?" (Psalm 110:1, Hebrews 10:12-13). 3. Why would it be necessary to "hand over the kingdom to his God" and subject himself to God? (1 Corinthians 15:24, 28).

In the truth,

Niki

Answer: Dear Niki,

The nature of your questions all seem to center on what is historically called "Arianism" or "semi-Arianism". Early Christians rejected the ideas of Arius, who would have Jesus as less than the Father. These ideas have continued for over 1600 years, with one of the most well-known popularizations being through a man named Charles Taze Russell, whose ideas eventually became known as the Watchtower, or the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Unless I am completely mistaken, it would seem that your dilemma is caused by ideas espoused and promulgated by the Watchtower, or those who have been effected by its teachings.

We have many other questions and answers on our website about the incarnation – complete with biblical passages. Please reference them – for they explain the fact that there are three persons in the Godhead. God is one, yet exists eternally as three co-essential yet distinct persons – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Jesus, when he prayed, prayed to the Father. Jesus was and is the Eternal Son – Son of God and son of man – fully human and fully divine. It was in his full humanity that Jesus prayed, that he ate, that he slept, etc. It was in his divinity that he resurrected Lazarus, that he created food for the multitudes, that he (fully God) resurrected his fully human (and fully dead!) body from the grave/tomb.

Jesus sits at the Father’s right hand and hands over the kingdom by virtue of who and what he is within the triune Godhead – the fact that he does is not any kind of proof that he is a created being, an angel (Michael if you happen to believe that – of course there is not biblical evidence for such a belief).

How can anyone be fully human and fully divine? That is the claim of the Bible about Jesus. He was and is the God-man – he is risen, and still lives. That is why Christians have hope – for he is not and was not simply a man, some creation of God – but God in the flesh, who died for our sins, and lives now that we might be saved. That is the message of Easter – the resurrection of our Lord. He is risen! The tomb is empty!

In Christ, who is the Way, the Life and the Truth.

Greg Albrecht