The Church of Jesus Christ

Greater than I, and praying to the Father

In John 14.28, Christ says, “Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you. If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father: for my Father is greater than I.”

Most Trinitarians will tell you that the Father and Son are eternally co-equal, yet here, Christ says that the Father is greater than the Son. We also, as previously examined, have verses that say that the Father sent the Son. If equality among the three is existent, then who can one be less than the other or one command another? Robertson, pointing to John 10:30 as he comments on the verse and not the Greek itself, says, ‘Not a distinction in nature or essence, but in rank in the Trinity.’ Gill goes on at great length to come to an acceptable idea that Christ could not possibly mean rank, but condition. The editors of the Life Application Study Bible places this thought in the footnotes of this verse, ‘As God the Son, Jesus willingly submits to God the Father.’ This statement is easily made correct and true if you replace the unbiblical language (God the Son) with biblical language (Son of God).

Previously, Christ told His disciples, ‘I tell you the solemn truth, the slave is not greater than his master, nor is the one who is sent as a messenger greater than the one who sent him, (John 13.16)’ again implying that an inequality with the Heavenly existed. If the Logos of God was sent, it had to have a sender. When the word went out, it had did not have its own power or will, but was under the will of God. If it had been a separate entity in the Deity, then the Logos would have had its own power and will and message (John 14.24).

In Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians, we read an ancient hymn,

Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be held onto, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death- even death on a cross!

According to Vincent,

‘ἁρπαγμὸν mean a highly prized possession, (so) we understand Paul to say that Christ, being, before His incarnation, in the form of God, did not regard His divine equality as a prize which was to be grasped at and retained at all hazards, but, on the contrary, laid aside the form of God, and took upon Himself the nature of man.’

The Greek term μορφή indicates a correspondence with reality, thus the meaning of this phrase is that Christ was truly God. So, we have Christ, who is truly God, thought not of His Deity as something to be held so tightly too, that he made himself nothing, taking on the nature of sinful man, humbling himself to do something that was needed to save humanity. We have a supreme picture of love here, and a deep theological statement (not only of the oneness of God, but of the cross as well).

Here, we can began to understand that in humbleness of Christ, in that while in the flesh the Father was Greater than He, so rightly, when praying, He would pray to the Father.

In the 17th chapter of John’s Gospel, we have an excellent example of what a prayer is about. We have the address to the Father, requests not temporal but eternal, and compassion for those around the speaker. Here also is a great theological question. If Christ is the Father, then is Jesus praying to Himself? Modalism was falsely labeled our doctrine as Patripassianism by their opponents, in an erroneous attempt to have us say that the Father died. This is not so. The emanation (ἀπαύγασμα) of the Father, which is the Son, temporarily separated from the Father died, although it is rightly said that the Father suffered with the Son.

The reason for the prayers from the Son becomes clear when we understand that the Incarnation is not a mere indwelling of God in a human shell, but God coming to be a genuine man. The Incarnation does not imply a transmutation of God into a man, but allows that God remained who He was both in and after the manifestation. If God had changed into a man He would cease being God, or at least cease being the same God He was prior to the Incarnation. As God came to exist in flesh, complete the limitations of humanity, Christ had the capacity for and the need for relationships. Because of the reality His humanity He even had need of a relationship with God. As man (servant) Christ experienced the same limitations all humans experience along with a dependence upon God. These prayers are not an example as some Modalists try to say as a cover, but a real act; real, because Christ, as a man, needed to pray because of his dependence on God. His prayers are rooted in His humanity, not in His divinity.

A question begged of the Trinitarians concerns the supposed co-equality in the Godhead. If the Father and Son are equal, then where is the necessity for the Son to ask the Father for anything? Would it not be hypocritical for the Trinitarians to attack Modalists as seeing God praying to Himself while their own theology has an eternally subordinated Son in a co-equal Godhead?

Many times, this prayer is taken as a whole and used against Modalists in one fashion or another, but let us take a few phrases and examine them. The first one is found in verse 3, translated as, ‘that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.’

Here is Christ speaking in the third person, something that Trinitarians accused Modalism of understanding God as doing in John 1.1. In comparing 17.3 to 1st John 5.20, we come across not a striking similarity.

And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life. (KJV)

οἴδαμεν δὲ ὅτι ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ ἥκει, καὶ δέδωκεν ἡμῖν διάνοιαν ἵνα γινώσκωμεν τὸν ἀληθινόν· καὶ ἐσμὲν ἐν τῷ ἀληθινῷ, ἐν τῷ υἱῷ αὐτοῦ Ἰησοῦ Χριστῷ. οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ ἀληθινὸς θεὸς καὶ ζωὴ αἰώνιος. (NA 26/27)

First, then, is the Incarnated Emanation on Earth calling the Father the True God. Second, the very same Apostle that recorded the words of the Lord in His prayer, wrote that Jesus Christ is the True God[1].

The second phrase that bears examining is ‘with the glory which I had with you before the world was.’ God told Israel by Isaiah (42.8) that He would not give His glory to another. The glory of God is God’s alone. Again, we turn to Hebrews 1.3 whose author calls Christ the emanation of His glory. We should rightly understand that if a distinction in God existed, then glory would have to be shared and given to another; yet, if the Son is understood as an emanation, then it is easy to see that the Son emanated from the Father’s glory, without distinction, and only in the flesh does the Son existed without the Glory of God.

Our third phrase is ‘I have manifested Your name’. In reference to Zechariah 14.9, which reads (I have included several different translations):

And the Lord will become king over all the earth; on that day the Lord will be one and his name one. – NETS

καὶ ἔσται κύριος εἰς βασιλέα ἐπὶ πᾶσαν τὴν γῆν· ἐν τῇ ἡμέρᾳ ἐκείνῃ ἔσται κύριος εἷς καὶ τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ ἕν. - LXX

And the LORD shall be king over all the earth: in that day shall there be one LORD, and his name one – KJV

The Lord will then be king over all the earth. In that day the Lord will be seen as one with a single name. – NET

In the Hebrew LORD is (יהוה) while the Greek is κύριος. In Acts 10:36, we learn that Christ is Lord of all. The baby born in Bethlehem was born Christ and named Jesus. Throughout the New Testament, the name of Christ is used for baptism, healing, prayer, and worshipped. The Son did manifest the name of the Father, that of Christ. If the name of God is one, then how can we have three distinct personal names, such as the Father, Son, and Spirit?