Why did Jesus Christ pray to the Father when He was the God Himself?

      We can see Jesus praying to the Father, why does He have to pray if He is God Himself?

 

Matt 14.23

Standing in the position of man (Mat 4.4), the heavenly King, as the beloved Son of the Father (3.17) needed to pray privately to His Father who was in the heavens, that He might be one with the Father and have the Father with Him in whatever He did on the earth for establishing of the kingdom of the heavens.  He did this not in the deserted place but on the mountain, leaving all the people, even His disciples, that He might be alone to contact the Father. 

 

Mark 1.35

To fellowship with God, seeking God’s will and pleasure for His gospel service.  The Slave-Savior performed the evangelistic service not by Himself, independent of God and according to His own will, but according to God’s will and pleasure by being one with God to fulfill His purpose

 

Again in Matt 4, we see Jesus was led up into the wilderness by the Spirit to be tempted by the devil.  As the Son of God, Satan cannot stand against Him to challenge, but as the Son of man, The Lord Jesus intended to follow every human limitations to make His life, death and resurrection a successful mission.  In Matt 4.3, we read that the newly anointed King fasted in His humanity, standing on the ground of man.  On the other hand, He was also the Son of God as God the Father had declared at Christ’s baptism (3.17).  Thus under this criteria, He had to accomplish His ministry for the kingdom of the heavens.  He had to defeat God’s enemy, the devil, Satan as a man as He was the sacrificial Lamb of God for the redemption of Mankind.  Hence, He stood as the Son of man to confront the enemy of God.  The devil knowing this clearly tempted the Lord time and again to leave the standing of man and assume His position as the Son of God.  At the start of the forty days wilderness period, the subtle tempter took the declaration of God the Father that Jesus was His beloved Son to be the ground to tempt Him.  If Christ had assumed His position as the Son of God before the enemy, He would have lost the criteria to defeat Him and save His creation. 

 

Later we read that on many occasions, the evil spirits tried to expose the Lord as the Son of God.  However, Christ’s mission was to accomplish where the first Adam failed by becoming the Second Adam.  As the Second Adam, He submitted to every human limitation, endured trials, and prayed as a man on earth.  This also set a pattern for us today in our walk with God to be like Him. 

 

Summary

Jesus praying doesn’t diminish His glory, but as the incarnation of God on earth, His mission was to accomplish what we couldn’t due to the Law.  He stood on the grounds of human limitation and thus prayed within that limited premise to know the will of God the Father and go on with His mission.

Why did God allow the serpent to deceive Adam and Eve?

      Why did God allow the serpent to deceive Adam and Eve?

God decided to create man and woman in His own image (Gen 1.26).  The purpose of God's creation is to produce the New Jerusalem (Rev 21.2).  Whatever project one undertakes, the end achievement or result is the goal or objective.  The goal of the Lord God, our Triune God’s whole deal about creating humanity is to produce the New Jerusalem which is the bride of God.  The New Jerusalem which constitutes the redeemed, glorified church after the millennial kingdom will be God's partner for eternity.  Hallelujah.  Glorified church is a corporate entity of human beings who with their freewill chose to obey the Lord God, no matter the cost while they were on earth.  These people upheld their testimony and have denied their soul life even unto death.  Their testimonies and their precious lives are the stones on which the Lord Jesus is building His church .  For these testimonies to be perfect and acceptable by God, it need to be without coercing and follow the Lord willingly.  In order to achieve that, the Lord has to show His creation what is evil, since He is good and all that belongs to Him is Holy.  The serpent as an incarnation of Satan introduced a never before entity into the creation, sin.  Eve’s disobedience led to Adam’s fall which gave birth to mankind’s first sin.  Subsequently, man continued to fall from one level to another.  God intervened during man's every fall and judged them accordingly.  At the same time, He set aside for Himself a group of people who would remain faithful to Him.  During the Old Testament time, God gave His people hope and promised a future messiah who will redeem them and save them from their sins.  God’s chosen ones in every age before Christ had faith in Him and the One who was to come.  They were encouraged through the prophecies of the coming Messiah and dispensation of God’s infinite love through Him.  Before Christ, people were battered by the law which induced fear of death, condemnation and slavery until the Word became flesh and dwelt among men.  Lord Jesus as the Lamb of God fulfilled the law through His perfect life, death and resurrection.  As the second Adam, He abolished death and ushered in abundant grace.  Through His great work, a new glorious entity was born out which is the church.  The church as the body of Christ on earth today functions according to God’s will.  God can move and accomplish things on earth through this body.  Secondly, church is the foretaste of the coming God's kingdom.  The church over the course of time will transform mostly through tribulations into the New Jerusalem.  This perfect New creation is possible indirectly through the participation of the devil.  In a negative way, Satan is contributing to the building of the church thought he thinks he is destroying it.  Through the satanic evilness in the world, we can know what God is not, what He hates.  When we choose God over the trampled and crushed serpent we will be the goal of God's creation, the New Jerusalem.    Amen.

Need for Christ's Crucifixion?

          Why was their the need for Christ’s crucifixion when God can forgive the sins of the people from His throne itself?

a)      God is an all powerful, infinite Being perfect in everything and there is none like Him.  All the positive things that we can think about, God possesses that attribute in perfection.  For example, let us consider love; everybody loves, but God’s love is perfect and infinite.  Among all the attributes of a divine Being, love, mercy and righteousness are three major attributes in my understanding.  If God can forgive any sins of men, then he is infinitely merciful, but if the sins are not dealt with justice or compensated, then though God is merciful, He is compromising with His perfect righteousness.  For a just and perfect God, He cannot forgive sins and overlook it by simply commanding it from His throne in heaven.  Having said that we know that our God is an infinitely loving Being.  In the Old Testament, we can see time and again, that our God is rigid against sins like disobedience, idol worship etc.  He is uncompromising and deals harshly with people who have sinned.  He simply cannot overlook the sins, because of His perfect nature.  Christ’s life, death and resurrection are crucial steps for our God to be perfect in all aspects.  With the crucifixion of the Son, God can love and show mercy to sinners without compromising His perfect righteousness, because every sin was paid by the blood of the Lamb.  God can now be merciful and at same time uphold His perfect righteousness.  The fact that our God came in the flesh, lowered Himself to our level and suffered and later rose again, shows us His perfect love for His creation.  Thus Christ’s crucifixion is also a requirement of our infinitely righteous, infinitely merciful and infinitely loving God to deal with His creation.

b)      We understand from the Bible, the Second Person of the Trinity, our Lord Jesus Christ was from the beginning (John 1.1).  However, He took on flesh and manifested to us in the old creation as the Second Adam.  In His resurrection, He became the firstborn Son, which means there will be many more sons to follow Him.  Hallelujah.  This happened after His resurrection.  Now, we in this age needs to be in the resurrected Christ to become the brothers of Christ.  This corporate entity will culminate into the final glorious New Jerusalem (Rev 21.2) which will be the bride of Christ.  The whole point of the Lord’s life and death is to produce the New entity the church which will issue in the New Jerusalem, which will be the partner of the Lord for eternity.  Again, we can see that the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ is accomplishing this.  Hallelujah to the wisdom of the Lord.

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