If God and Jesus are the same, having the same mind, knowledge and power, then why would Jesus beg himself in the garden of Gethsemane, to spare himself from having to be crucified?
Jesus is equally God while still not God the father as well as not being God the Holy Spirit. They are three separate entities that all form the single God-head. John’s gospels shows this to us.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. 4 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. 6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 This man came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all through him might believe. 8 He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. 9 That was the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world.10 He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. 11 He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. 12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: 13 who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. 14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” - John 1:1-14
So once we understand that Jesus was not merely talking to Himself in Gethsemane nor upon the Cross. The question becomes. How could Jesus, being part of the God head, ask to be spared from that which he knew he must do?
Answer. Because while being 100% God he was also 100% man while in the flesh. The bible says that he felt every temptation, knew every pain that man feels. Nothing was withheld from him. So then once we understand that we can ask ourselves what person wouldn’t beg to spared of such a painful way to die. Then we are also shown a beautiful example of obedience in that Christ said, “Not my will, but yours.” Even knowing what awaited him he obeyed God.
Now to the second part of the question Why would he ask why he was forsaken? Because for the first and only time in eternity. Christ was separated from God’s presence. All the sins of all mankind were placed upon Jesus. God is so Holy that he -can not- be in the presence of sin. He can’t. It’s not an option. Even for the love of his only begotten. Therefore Jesus was indeed forsaken in that instance. Alternatively, Jesus was fulfilling a prophetic scripture in his crying out as well.
“My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?..” -Psalm 22:1
The doctrine of the Trinity is nowhere to be found in the bible. The only 2 passages that mention the trinity (Matthew 28:19 and 1 John 5:7,8) are considered to be forgeries. The form that they are in the KJV is not consistent with the oldest and most reliable manuscripts that we have.
Simply put, Jesus is not God nor was he ever. The doctrine of the Trinity is a false doctrine that was in development in the Orthodox church during the second and third centuries and was fully developed by the end of the fourth century when the holy ghost was added to make it a full trio.
Jesus, being a mere man, begged God (not himself) to be spared from crucifixion. This shows the very humanistic nature of Jesus. Actually, he was not begging himself, but begging God out of real fear of a long, agonizing death on the cross.
there is strong scriptural evidence that Jesus’s entire life was a life of exemplary dependence on the authority, will, power, and agency of the Father (i.e., “the one he has sent”- John 6:29). (7) The gospel of John speaks more explicitly and repeatedly to this theme than any other gospel. Jesus explained clearly:
I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, to your amazement he will show him even greater things than these. For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it (John 5:19-21).
Jesus continues, “By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me” (30). It is important to note here that what pleases the Father is not contrary to what pleases Christ, but that Christ’s humble motivation for his judgment is not his own pleasure but the corresponding pleasure of the Father. Jesus continues his message, saying, “For the very work that the Father has given me to finish, and which I am doing, testifies that the Father has sent me” (36).
John identifies Jesus’s will as submitted to the corresponding will of the Father when he quotes Jesus: “My teaching is not my own. It comes from him who sent me. If anyone chooses to do God’s will, he will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own” (7:16-17). Look at the next verse: Jesus makes it explicit that to defer to God’s will is to be humble to, not to be contrary to, God’s will: “He who speaks on his own does so to gain honor for himself, but he who speaks for the honor of the one who sent h im is a man of truth; there is nothing false about him” (18).
(This interpretation of “not my will, but yours” also fits similar statements by Jesus in John 5:30 and 6:38. It is not a disharmony between the wills of the Father and Son that is in focus, but the priority of the Father’s will over the Son’s. In other words, Jesus is in exact agreement with the Father, but the submission of Jesus’s words and works to the authority of the Father is the model he lived for all of us. In theology we speak of the fact that we are saved by Christ’s active obedience and passive obedience and by not only what he did, but under what authority he did what he did.)
John quotes Jesus referring to his like-mindedness with the Father concerning his coming crucifixion: “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know who I am and that I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me. The one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases him” (8:28-29).
Although the picture is clearest in John, Jesus’s submission to the Father in all things is the undercurrent of his entire ministry even as described by the other gospel writers. His duty was not merely to die for us, but also to live for us - in the exemplary relationship to his Father that we are to follow as the adopted children of God. The whole tenor of his ministry is that of the dutiful Son coming in the name (power, authority) of his Father. Repeatedly he urged his followers to lives of humility and self-sacrifice - in imitation of Jesus and his relationship to his Father. “Whoever welcomes this little child in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. For he who is least among you all - he is the greatest” (Luke 9:48).
“All things have been committed to me by my Father,” we learn from Jesus as recorded in Matthew 11:27 (cf. Luke 10:22). Jesus reminds his disciples, “to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared by my Father” (Matt. 20:23). Jesus relates his role as a servant to the Father directly to his commandments for his disciples, saying, “But I am among you as one who serves. You are those who have stood by me in my trials. And I confer on you a kingdom, just as my Father conferred one on me” (Luke22:27b-29).
It is overwhelmingly clear that Jesus was submitted to the Father in will, purpose, action, and speech. His will was not contrary to the Father’s will, but in submission to the Father’s authority (will).
Jesus’s Prayer Was Answered: He Survived the Garden to Go to the Cross
We have seen that in the Garden Jesus was in imminent danger of death; that he prayed for the Father to rescue him; that he was fully cognizant of and committed to the cross; and that his will was not contrary to the Father but in submission to him. The only piece of our Garden puzzle left to insert is evidence that his prayer was answered affirmatively.
Earlier we cited Hebrews 5:7 as evidence that Christ prayed to be delivered from death in the Garden. The conclusion to that verse is clear: “and he was heard because of his reverent submission” (Heb. 5:7). The common biblical idiom is that when one’s prayer is “heard” it is answered in the affirmative. (8)
This corresponds perfectly with the gospel account, “an angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him” (Luke 22:43). Matthew and Mark note that immediately after his recovery: “Then he returned to the disciples and said to them, 'Are you still sleeping and resting? Look, the hour is near, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners” (Matt. 26:45, cf. Mark 14:41).
John also records Jesus’s description of himself as the “bread” from heaven - “it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven” (John 6:32). He also says, “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me” (37-38). Again, Jesus will is not contrary to the will of the Father, but Christ is motivated by his humility to the Father’s will, in harmony with (but not motivated by) his own will. This is the same humility that Christ urges on his followers, completing his message on the bread of heaven by urging, “Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me” (57).
John records Jesus’s words in the midst of the temple courts to the doubting leaders of his day: “Yes, you know me, and you know where I am from. I am not here on my own, but he who sent me is true. You do not know him, but I know him because I am from him and he sent me” (7:28-29).
John understood that Jesus meant his hearers to understand that he will was in complete harmony with the Father’s will as he quotes, “. . . I am not alone. I stand with the Father who sent me. In your own Law it is written that the testimony of two men is valid. I am one who testifies for myself; my other witness is the one who sent me - the Father” (8:16b-17). It is clear from this that Jesus means his hearers to understand that his testimony is identical to that of the Father, continuing, “You do not know me or my father . . . . If you knew me, you would know my father also” (19b).
Other quotes from Jesus in John include, “I am telling you what I have seen in the Father’s presence” (8:38); “I came from God and now am here. I have not come on my own; but he sent me” (42b); “I honor my Father and you dishonor me. I am not seeking glory for myself” (49-50); “If I glorify myself, my glory means nothing. My Father, whom you claim as your God, is the one who glorifies me” (54); “we must do the work of him who sent me” (9:4); “My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one” (10:29-30); “Do not believe me unless I do what my Father does. But if I do it, even though you do not believe me, believe the miracles, that you may learn and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father” (10:37-38); “When a man believes in me, he does not believe in me only, but in the one who sent me. When he looks at me, he sees the one who sent me” (12:44-45); “Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me: The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me” (14:10-11); “the world must learn that I love the Father and that I do exactly what my Father has commanded me” (14:31); “just as I have obeyed my Father’s command and remain in his love” (15:10); “everything I have learned from my Father I have made known to you” (15:15).
In Jesus’s great prayer at the end of his ministry (John 17:1-26) we find the following affirmations of Christ’s submission to the Father: “Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. For you grated him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. . . . Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work your gave me to do. . . . I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. . . . Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you. For I gave them the words you gave me. . . . They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me. . . . All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. . . . just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. . . . They know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”
The seeming conflict between the will of Jesus and the will of God in Matthew 26:39, 42 was not, I think, in the will of Jesus, but in the will of God. It was God who was “struggling” with what to do; not Jesus. God was having to face a decision on whether He would let mankind suffer for our own sin, or if He would take all that sin and pour it out upon His one and only, perfectly righteous, everlasting Son. If He did that, their eternal relationship would never be exactly the same.
Which of us could ever make such a decision as God made here? He had to decide between His own Son, and all of wretched, sinful, rebellious humanity.
So Jesus, in His prayers to His Father, is saying,
God, this is why I have come. This is why I am here. This has been our plan from the very beginning. I want this. I want to drink this cup. I want to drink it fully. I want to drink every drop. I will not pass any bit of it on to the rest of humanity. I want to drink fully of the cup of your wrath (cf. Jer 25:17-38; Isa 51:17-23). This is how much I love them. This is how much I long for their redemption and forgiveness. Let me do this. This is my will. But ultimately, God, it is up to you. It is your choice.
If Jesus was uncertain of anything, it was not His own will to drink of the cup, but of the will of God to take the sin of all mankind and pour it out upon His Son. In His prayer, Jesus was asking God to finish what they had started.
This is what I love so much about Jesus. He truly is our Great High Priest, the Mediator between God and man. He did not try to pray Himself out of the pain and suffering of the cross at the last minute. No, He embraced it to the very end, praying and pleading with God to stay the course, despite how painful it would be for both of them to sever their relationship, and make Jesus become sin for us (2 Cor 5:21).
Oh, and by the way, I don’t think God hesitated for a second either. Jesus says that if we have seen Him, we have seen the Father. Therefore, God the Father loves us just as much as Jesus does. There was never any question about what would happen on the cross. Jesus did not change His mind about the cross, and neither did God the Father. Together, they endured the cross, despised it’s shame, so that Jesus could once again sit down at the right hand of God the Father in heaven, and we could be offered eternal life.