If Jesus is God, who was He praying to in the Garden? And if He’s God, how can He be seated at the right hand of the Father?
Things like this are admittedly hard to understand and we won’t fully comprehend it until we Get to the Father’s house and hear it straight from Him. But in the mean time consider these things. In Genesis 1:1 the Hebrew word used to denote God is Elohim. It’s a plural word. In Genesis 1:26-27 Elohim said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness.” So Elohim created man in His own image. Speaking of the same event, John 1:1-2 confirmed the Word was both with God and was God. Then John 1:14 says the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld His glory, the glory of the one and only, who came from the Father. Right from the beginning we had two, who were one.
This was the fulfillment of a prophecy in Psalm 2:7 where God said, “You are my Son; today I have become your Father.” That means long before the baby Jesus was born there was a discussion between the Father and the Son where their roles were defined. It was not a biological matter, it was a theological matter. And yet they both still claimed to be one. Israel’s mantra is, “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One” (Deut 6:4). And in John 10:30 Jesus said, “I and the Father are one.”
Isaiah understood this when he said, For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6). These names belong to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, but Isaiah said the Son will be known by all of them.
Here’s how I think it works. In John 14:9 Jesus told Philip, “If you’ve seen me you’ve seen the Father.” Then in Colossians 1:15-16 and Hebrews 1:3 we’re told that Jesus is the visible form of the invisible God. God is a spirit and cannot be seen by man. Jesus is physical and can be seen.
While on Earth Jesus set aside His godly powers and became fully man. That means He had to perform His miracles by the power of the Holy Spirit of God, just like we do. And He had to pray to the Father for guidance just like we do. And from Rev. 5 we see that even after He returned to Heaven, He retained His physical appearance as “the Lamb who was slain.”
In Psalm 110 David wrote of the Father saying to the Son, “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet” (Psalm 110:1) He sits at the Father’s right hand, because it’s still the Father’s throne, and His enemies are not yet under His feet. 1 Cor. 15:26 says the last enemy to be destroyed is death. In the mean time, He’s the visible image of the invisible God.