Although in each Gospel the Lord Jesus speaks of Himself as the Sent One of God, this precious truth is specially brought out in John’s Gospel, being one of the main themes of this unique presentation of the Son of God. The Lord, in John’s Gospel, speaks of Himself as sent of God the Father more than forty times, whereas in the Synoptic Gospels combined there are but ten mentions of it.
In each of the Synoptic Gospels we read of Jesus saying, He that receives me, receives Him that sent me; and in each we also read of Him as the Son sent to the husbandmen to receive from them the fruit of God’s vineyard. Only in Matthew have we the record of the Lord speaking of Himself as sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and only Luke, of the Synoptic writers, records, “He that rejects me rejects Him that sent me.” Twice in Luke 4 Jesus speaks of being sent to preach, first, in the synagogue of Nazareth, then to the crowds who sought Him in the desert.
There are three mentions of Jesus as sent in John’s First Epistle, all in chapter 4, the first in verse 9, “Herein as to us has been manifested the love of God, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him.” God could have revealed something of His power by sending one of “the angels of His power,” but only by sending His Son could He reveal the deep, deep love of His heart. The sending of the Son could have been to call men to account for their grave dishonouring of God before the universe, but instead, it was to give eternal life to those who had forfeited their natural life, and who were dead in trespasses and sins. Only the only-begotten Son, who knew the secrets of the heart of God, and who, in His Person, is co-equal with God, could tell out what lay in the heart of God, and reveal and communicate the eternal life.
The second mention of Jesus as sent in John’s Epistle is “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son a propitiation for our sins.” The law fully manifested the utter inability of man to procure life by his own acts: it demonstrated his failure and powerlessness to love God or his neighbour, which the law required of him. Now, in richest grace, God brings to light His great love, not by demanding anything from man, but by giving His own Son to die for men, and in this way procuring the propitiation that glorifies Him and enables Him to forgive in righteousness all our sins. The Son is not spoken of here as making propitiation, but as being a propitiation: He is sent as One, who, in His own Person, is competent to accomplish this great work which no other could, and in whom all the efficacy of propitiation abides, and is available for all (see 1 John 2:2). We never could have received or enjoyed divine life had not our sins been put away: the conscience must be freed from all sense of guilt and defilement before we can enjoy the divine relationships and affections that God, in His great love, has given us.
The third mention in this epistle is in 1 John 4:14, “And we have seen, and testify, that the Father has sent the Son (as) Saviour of the world.” It may be that in one sense this is apostolic, but it cannot be confined to the apostles, for it follows the words, “Hereby we know that we abide in Him and He in us, that He has given to us of His Spirit.” All true believers have received “of His Spirit,” and it is by the Spirit that we perceive and testify that the Father sent the Son as Saviour of the world. What the Samaritans heard from Jesus (John 4:42), enabled them to testify that He was “The Saviour of the world;” and we testify the same thing as having received of God’s Spirit. We know that Jesus came not only to save His people Israel from their sins, but also to be our Saviour, and if ours, a Saviour for all who will believe in Him.
In John’s Gospel, the first mention of the Lord as sent also blessedly presents Him as come into the world to save: “For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through Him might be saved” (John 3:17). There are many precious truths connected with the Lord as the Sent One, but before we could understand any of them we must be saved; and God has provided and given to us this great salvation in His own Son, sending Him into the world for this express purpose.
Every mention of the Lord Jesus as sent has its own peculiar ray of glory, bringing before us some special feature of His mission. Each chapter of John’s Gospel from chapter 3 to chapter 17, speaks of Jesus in this way, and it is also found in John 20:21, where the Lord in resurrection says, “As my Father has sent me, even so send I you.”
It is not our present purpose to examine every mention of Jesus as the Sent One in this Gospel, but having mentioned the first time the Lord speaks of it, and the last time, we might also look at the last time the Lord speaks of it in His public testimony, namely in John 12:49-50, where He says, “For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, He gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak; and I know that His commandment is life everlasting.” How perfect was the obedience and subjection of the Son to the will of His Father: not only the substance of His message, but the very details and words were from the Father, and He spoke them as receiving them from the Father.
In John 17, where we have the privilege of hearing the Son speak to the Father, the Lord refers to Himself as sent six times, and these are full of divine instruction for us. The first of these concerns the truth of eternal life, which the Lord had spoken of at the close of chapter 12: here He says, “And this is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent.” The Father sent the Son not only to save us, but to manifest eternal life, and to communicate it to us.
Eternal life, in this Scripture, is viewed as consisting in divine knowledge, the knowledge of the Father as the only true God, and of Jesus Christ, the Son, as sent by Him to make Him known. God revealed Himself to Abraham as The Almighty, and to Moses and Israel as Jehovah, but in the Son God has revealed Himself in the fulness of His love, as Father, in all that precious Name means, the living Father, the holy Father, the righteous Father. The Father is the only true God, the only One in whom we can trust implicitly, who is ever the same, and ever reliable. Twice over the Son said “He that sent me is true” (John 7:28; 8:26); and how deep must have been the grief of His soul to witness the unbelief of God’s earthly people in the grace and love of His Father. The Lord does not say That they might know the Son of God, but rather “Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent.” It was in the Person of Jesus, the Christ whom Israel had refused, that the eternal life was; even as John writes in his First Epistle, “He is the true God, and eternal life.”
The second reference to this subject is in John 17:8, “For I have given unto them the words which Thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from Thee, and they have believed that Thou didst send me.” If the refusal of the leaders of Israel, and of the mass of the people, to believe that the Son was sent by the Father, filled Jesus with sorrow, how deep must have been His pleasure in saying to the Father, of His disciples, “They have believed that Thou didst send me.”
This precious faith had been produced in the hearts of the disciples through their reception of the words of the Father spoken to them by the Son. How blessed it is to see how the Son attributes all to the Father, just as in John 6:44 He had said, “No man can come to me, except the Father which has sent me draw him.” Here, the words of the Father, received into the heart, had given the disciples of the Lord the knowledge that He had come from the Father. They were words that revealed to those in whose hearts God had wrought, their divine origin, and the glory of Him who spoke them. Only One who had come from the Father could speak such words, even as Peter had confessed, “Thou hast the words of eternal life.”
Having made requests on behalf of His own, the Lord says to the Father, “As Thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I sent them into the world.” This is indeed wonderful, that the Son of God should give His disciples to share His own place of testimony before the world. First of all He commits them to the care of the Holy Father, then gives to them His joy and the Father’s word; He prays that they might be kept from the evil of the world, and sanctified through the truth. He gives them this place because, like Himself, they are not of the world; and He sanctifies Himself that they might be kept in holy separation to God for His will.
In verse 20, the Lord prays for those who should believe through the testimony of His disciples, whom He sends into the world. His desire is for the unity of the whole Christian company, so that there might be a fresh opportunity for the world to believe that the Father had sent Him. This divine unity is to be according to the perfection of the Father’s testimony, for the Father was seen perfectly in the Son; and as the Son is in the Father, in the unity of purpose, life, communion and desire. However great the failure of the true Christian company on earth, the essential unity of the divine life and nature, possessed by every believer, remains as a testimony to the Father sending the Son. Had not the Father sent the Son, there never would have been a company on earth in which the life of the Son was seen. The world will never be able to plead the failure of the Christian company for its unbelief, for it refused the perfect expression of the divine life, the perfect testimony of the Father in the Person of the Son.
Although the world has refused to believe that the Father sent the Son, having rejected the testimony given by the Son, and also His word through His disciples; it will yet know that the Son is the Sent One of the Father (verse 23). When the saints are displayed in glory with the Son, they will be seen by the world as the fruit of the work of Him whom they refused. Those whose witness they refused, they will see sharing the glory of the Son, and this displaying that they share His place in the affections of the Father.
The closing words of the Son are addressed to the “Righteous Father,” to whom He is compelled to say, “The world has not known Thee.” In spite of the perfection and fulness of the testimony rendered by the Son of the Father in His Person, in His words, and in His works, the world remained in ignorance of God. The knowledge of the Father was only to be found in the Son; and of the disciples, who had received His testimony, the Son was able to say, “These have known that Thou hast sent me.” Earlier, in verse 8, He had said, “They have believed that Thou didst send me; now He can say, “These have known that Thou hast sent me.” How blessed for us not only to believe, but also to know that the Father sent the Son, and to enjoy all that this precious knowledge brings to the heart. Now that the Son has gone to heaven, and the Holy Spirit has been given to us, the Spirit is the power within us that gives us the knowledge of the things of God.
Rich indeed are the blessings involved in knowing that the Father sent the Son. To know the Son as sent by the Father is, as we have already heard from the lips of the Son, to have eternal life, a life that introduces us to a world where all things are eternal, and where all takes character from the living Father, and from the Son who is one with Him. Knowing the Son in this way is to know the love of the Father who sent Him, and to know the Son as our Saviour and the propitiation for our sins.
To be occupied with the Father sending the Son engages the heart and mind with the counsels of the Father, and with the divine affections and relationships which are outside of time, things which death cannot touch. And how blessed for us to ponder the Son as the Sent One carrying out the Father’s will! What a wondrous object for our hearts: to learn from Him the will, words, works and affections of the Father, and to see Him carry out in perfection all that the Father gave Him to do for the completion of His eternal purposes of love.
R. 30.1.62