To Whom do we Pray?

by Michael Shackleton · July 9, 2017

St Paul tells us that Jesus stands at the right hand of the Father interceding for us (Rom 8:34) and that when we don’t know how to pray the Spirit himself expresses our plea in a way that could never be put into words (Rom 8:26). Jesus is the second Person of the Trinity and the Holy Spirit is the third Person of the one God. So how can we ask God to intercede for us with God? -Carmen Smith

We don’t. It would be absurd to imagine God offering prayers of intercession to himself. To pray is a very human activity, implying that the one who prays is dependent on the one to whom one prays. In this case, prayer is the expression of our acknowledgement of our total subordination to the will of God.

St Paul put it this way: For there is only one God and there is only one mediator between God and mankind, himself a man, Jesus Christ (1 Tim 2:5). (CNS photo/Eric Gaillard, Reuters)

But there is no way we can pray to God except in the name of his Son Jesus Christ, our high priest. St Paul put it this way: For there is only one God and there is only one mediator between God and mankind, himself a man, Jesus Christ (1 Tim 2:5).

Jesus standing at the right hand of the Father is the second Person of the Trinity in his human nature, which emphasises his relationship with humanity rather than his relationship with the Trinity. In interceding for us Christ is actually mediating our prayers to God the Father, he is not praying in the sense that we pray as dependent on God’s compassion.

Regarding the way in which the Spirit expresses our pleas (Rom 8:34), refer to Rom 8:14 where St Paul talks of being moved by the Spirit. This gives us the context of his narrative, that is, the inspiration that the Holy Spirit gives us, prompting us to pray. Again, St Paul sums it up nicely when he writes: No one can say Jesus is Lord unless he is under the influence of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 12:3).

What this implies is that we cannot approach God in prayer unless he first approaches us. He has done so in sending his Son to become incarnate in order to reopen the way to him, and in sending the Holy Spirit to nudge us to turn to him prayerfully in faith and confidence.

We must not forget that finite human nature wallows in its impotence until God lifts it up to himself by means of his loving gift of grace.