Thanking God for Dying for Us!

Is it permissible for one to pray to God when remembering the death of Jesus in the breaking of bread—and thanking the Father for dying for us on the cross?

Most of our readers will immediately recognize the problem with this. They would definitely object to such a practice. Yet I’ve heard this kind of prayer again and again when visiting churches!

The person giving God the Father thanks for the bread or the cup may say, “Dear Father, thank you for shedding your blood and dying for us.” We have been amazed at this common but totally wrong and heretical conception. God the Father didn’t shed His blood! He never had blood! He never did die! He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross—but He didn’t die Himself. Oneness Sabellians did claim that the Father died and the orthodox denounced them as believing in Patripassianism. What is this false doctrine?

[This is] derived from the Greek words pater (father) and pascho (to suffer), the term refers to an early type of modalism that suggested that the one God (the Father) became incarnate in the form of the Son, was born of a virgin and suffered and died on the cross. This belief was declared heretical by the early church. (Pocket Dictionary of Theological Terms, Stanley J. Grenz, et. al.)

Probably many of those who thank God for dying for them on the cross are superficial thinkers or don’t really think through their words as they pray. But this is no excuse for uttering such false and misleading words. All of the accounts of the giving of the remembrance of the death of Christ have Him giving thanks to God or blessing God the Father (Matthew 26; Mark 14; Luke 22; 1 Corinthians 11), but there is no indication that Jesus thanked the Father for dying on the cross. Jesus knew that it was He, Himself, who would be offering the perfect sacrifice for our sins.

Let’s be careful how we give thanks for the bread and cup. And let’s be aware of how we pray at other times.  Let’s worship “in spirit and truth” in our praying, our thanksgiving, and our singing (John 4:23-24).

–Richard Hollerman