. Introduction
Why is it that Jesus mentions so often ‘…He who sent Me…’ (Tab. 1)? Why did Jesus do that? It is the purpose of this study to prayerfully come to some understanding in that regard. We have written this study so that the opening sections, sections two through four, serve to set things up for us; much of the study is packed into section five, the concluding comments, and certainly table 1.
II. Who Sent Jesus?
We must identify Jesus before we can answer this section’s question. Jesus is the second person of the Holy Trinity Jehovah[1], Jehovah God (Hebrews 1:8-13). Father, Son, Holy Spirit, co-equal, in every conceivable way. Why co-equal? Because Jehovah God, by self-revelation, and by very definition, is infinite[2]. Infinite in space, in time, and essence. Thus, there is equality in the Godhead, as infinity—once, melds into infinity—twice, and again melds into the selfsame infinity—thrice. Infinity has no equal, except itself. It is divine love that thus melds (1John 4:8). Jehovah God is One in, infinite love. And Jehovah God is One in, infinite holiness—innocence, purity, and righteousness (Leviticus 11:44-45). One in love, One in holiness, co-equal. Now it is timely to answer this section’s question: Father God sent Jesus. But Jehovah is co-equal! Should One, send Another, a co-equal? The question beneath the surface spelled out is this: does the Father sending Jesus compromise the equality between Jesus and the Father? Or, to put it in language a worldly reader understands, does it reveal a pecking order within the Godhead? No, that does not follow by an infinity argument. Neither omniscience, nor omnipresence, nor omnipotence is compromised when One thus infinite (Father, or Son, or Holy Spirit) sends another thus infinite (Father, or Son, or Holy Spirit). Infinity has no equal except itself. But let us pose the question differently (please allow a conjecture for the sake of argument only): could Jesus have sent the Father? As co-equals, we believe that He could have, and Father God would have gone, to the extent even that the zeal Jesus manifested on behalf of the Father (John 4:34, Hebrews 10:7) would have been manifested similarly by The Father on behalf of Jesus (John 10:27-30). Please notice carefully—Jesus indicates that the Father was in fact with Him throughout His ministry, except for a time at Calvary when Father God forsook the sin-laden Jesus, not least in fulfillment of Scripture (Psalm 22:1, Mark 15:34) [3]. Self-understood co-equality (that is, Jehovah God recognizes His infinitude), bound in infinite love and holiness, expresses itself in unanimity of purpose. Jehovah is One in purpose. One in love, One in holiness, One in purpose. Jesus was sent as Jehovah, by Jehovah, in the full, in the infinite capacity and exceeding high-plane character of, Jehovah. So, the conclusion drawn in this section is that Father God sent a quite willing Jesus somewhere, to do something, in the way of accomplishing the unanimity of purpose in the Godhead Jehovah concerning that something.
III. Where Was Jesus Sent?
At the most general level, Jesus was sent to the earth He created; an earth fallen, an earth given over to Jehovah’s enemy, Satan. More specifically, Jesus was sent to what we know today as the Middle East; and refining yet another level, Jesus was sent to Israel; and again, to a people Israel (Matthew 15:22-24). A people Israel whom Jehovah God had chosen to be His peculiar people thousands of years before Jesus’ first advent (Gen 28:10-15, cf. John 1:49-51). A peculiar people in the sense that as His people, they were sanctified, distinct from all other people, these others given over to His enemy. A people Israel to whom God had revealed Himself for the express purpose of making them His peculiar people, sanctified. Sanctified, in this character to resonate with the work He had chosen them to start.
IV. Why Was Jesus Sent?
Jesus was sent to do the work that infinite love is pleased to do. He, thus Chosen (Isaiah 42:1, 49:6-7, Luke 23:35, 1Peter 1:19-20, 2:4), was sent to consummate the work that Jehovah’s chosen people Israel were sent to start. Specifically, Jehovah’s chosen were to be a blessing to all people. Blessing is, identically and exclusively, oneness with the triune God Jehovah; it is oneness, with the divine Oneness. Oneness, with the divine Oneness, demands sanctification, because Jehovah is holy. In their person, in their spirit, in their heart, the people Israel, privileged with the knowledge of the one true God Jehovah, were to reveal Jehovah, a Lover of people, and Holy, to all people, so that others might be attracted to Jehovah, and embrace His demands of sanctification for their consummate good. This they did not do. The portrait of God His privileged chosen people painted misrepresented God; it stymied the demands of sanctification that allow oneness with the divine Oneness to unfold, like a flower unfolds, when it blooms. But for a sanctified few, privileged Israel, privileged with the knowledge of the one true God Jehovah, embraced the demands of Satan, for which it was, for which it stands, sorely judged. Jesus was sent to these lost sheep, Israel, as Messiah (Daniel 7:13-14, 9:25, Micah 5:2, Matthew 1:16-17, 2:4-6, Mark 14:61-62, John 1:41, 4:25-26). Messiah, One of whom Jehovah had aplenty foretold, One whom they expected, One about whom they were well versed, so that they might recognize Him when He came, and hear Him. But they did not recognize Him, nor did they hear Him, when He told them that He had come to gather them together into the divine Oneness, like a mother hen gathers her chicks, even they, whom He declared outside of that Oneness and in desperate need of gathering (Luke 20:9-15, 16-18). So they cruelly despised and rejected Him, to His death at their hands, in keeping with the demands of Satan, to which many of them had given themselves over. But in their cruelty to their Messiah, they brought about that which Omniscience purposed from the beginning, in keeping with the infinite love and holiness of Jehovah, which was the possibility for their sanctification and restoration into the divine Oneness through the vicarious death of Messiah on their behalf. And not only them, but all people, whom Jehovah created, and deeply loves, might enter the divine Oneness through Jesus, Messiah, Savior, a great savior God, who loves people with an infinite love, and desires that they be holy, like He is holy, for their sanctification, and entry into the divine Oneness. And there is another reason why Jesus was sent. Jesus was sent to pay a Price. Jesus was sent to pay a steep price, for Sin, which must be accounted for by the counsels of the Divine Justice, because Jehovah cannot overlook Sin (“A Letter of Invitation”). Because He loves the sinner, with an infinite love, with divine love, Jesus was sent to pay the wages of Sin, which is death, by the immutable adjudication of the Divine Justice (Rom 6:23, John 19:30).
V. Concluding Comments
This study was inevitably centered in the makeup and function of the blessed Holy Trinity, whom we referred to as Jehovah throughout—Father God, Jesus the Son of God, and the Holy Spirit; the triune Jehovah God[4]. Jehovah is a transliteration of the original Hebrew Yahweh (I AM, Exodus 3:13-15). The Name Jehovah has the ring of eternality to it, of infinity. Jehovah indeed is infinite, by self-revelation, and very definition, and we hold that said infinitude, specifically, is why Jehovah is co-equal in the Godhead. Infinity has no equal except itself.
Jehovah is, among myriad other blessed things, a God who “sends.” He sends Himself, He sends His angels, He sends members of His extended family. He sends. We were interested in one aspect in this regard, and that was His sending Himself in the person of Jesus Christ. It had caught our attention for quite some time that Jesus frequently spoke of “…He who sent Me…”. Those four words on the lips of Jesus again and again we thought was profound and significant, and so we wanted to pull together those utterances, and prayerfully look at them and try to understand Jesus’ message in this glaringly redundant pointing of His, pointing so often to the One who sent Him. Table 1 pulls together what we found, and some thoughts in each case. Much of the study is in that table. In the balance of this section, we are going to summarize the sections above, and then lastly, we shall draw some conclusions with God’s help.
We started by asking “who sent Jesus,” and in the way of addressing this it became necessary to identify Jesus as best as we could. Already the blessed Trinity entered the study at that point, and the identification proceeded along the lines of Jesus’ person if you will in the triune God Jehovah. We said that Jesus is the second person of the Holy Trinity Jehovah, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, a Trinity co-equal, in every conceivable way. The reason given for co-equality was based on an argument of infinity: The Godhead is infinite, as are necessarily they which comprise the Godhead, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The basis of the argument is entirely this-worldly, and very simple—infinity has no equal, except itself. That is all well and good, but theological studies need more than arguments from logic, so we wanted to think of this as an argument from logic tempered with divine applications and implications, such that infinity here, its salient application and implication, was understood to be with respect to the self-revealed nature of Jehovah, which is love, and holiness. Jehovah is One in infinite love—we mentioned that this is divine love, totally foreign to the human experience, as is very infinity, the measure of divine love; and Jehovah is certainly One in infinite holiness—quintessential innocence, purity, and righteousness. One in love, One in holiness, co-equal. We tried to think of God’s infinitude from His perspective, and thought it was self-understood (by Him), and therefore self-understood too is the co-equality in the Godhead—that is, Jehovah God certainly recognizes His infinitude. And self-understood co-equality, bound in infinite love and holiness, expresses itself in unanimity of purpose; anything less would suggest asymmetry in the Godhead, which simply cannot hold by the arguments above, at least. And so we said Jehovah is One in purpose. One in love, one in holiness, one in purpose. Thus, we said Jesus was sent as Jehovah, by Jehovah, in the full capacity and exceeding high-plane character of Jehovah; sent somewhere, to do something, in the way of accomplishing the unanimity of purpose in the Godhead.
In addressing the question posed by the opening section, we said that it was Father God who sent Jesus, and discussed the implications for co-equality in the Godhead because of this charge, and again we thought that the argument of infinity held. To here then is a summary of the opening section.
The next section asked where was Jesus sent. We said that at the most general level, Jesus was sent to the earth He created; an earth fallen, an earth given over to Jehovah’s enemy, Satan. Ultimately, Jesus was sent to Israel, the people Israel, whom Jehovah God had chosen to be His peculiar people thousands of years before Jesus’ first advent. A peculiar people in the sense that as His people, they were sanctified, distinct from all other people, a people Israel to whom God had revealed Himself for the express purpose of making them His peculiar, His sanctified, people, in this character resonating with the work He sent them to start.
The final section asked why was Jesus sent. We said that Jesus was sent to do the work that infinite love is pleased to do. That He was sent to complete the work that Jehovah’s chosen people Israel were sent to start. In that regard we said that Jehovah’s chosen were to be a blessing to all people, where blessing was understood to be oneness with the triune God Jehovah; oneness with the divine Oneness. We said that oneness with the divine Oneness, demands sanctification, because Jehovah is holy. That in their person, in their spirit, in their heart, the people Israel, who were privileged with the knowledge of the one true God Jehovah, were to reveal (=”preach”) Jehovah to all people, so that others might be attracted to Jehovah, and embrace His demands of sanctification for their consummate good. We said that Israel did not do this, that the portrait of God they painted misrepresented God, and thereby His demands for sanctification that allow oneness with the divine Oneness to unfold. In fact, Jehovah’s chosen people but for a sanctified few were as unsanctified, or worse, than those round about them that they were to minister to. Jesus was sent to this Israel because Israel was in trouble, physically, and spiritually (the former trouble always follows the latter trouble). Hanging in the balance were Jehovah’s covenantal promises to Israel, which would stand no matter what, and manifestly so, thanks to Jesus (in the end Covenant always stands because of Jehovah’s activities). We said Jesus was sent to Israel as Messiah, One of whom Jehovah had aplenty foretold, One whom Israel expected, One about whom they were well versed, so that they might recognize Him when He came, and hear Him, and be saved, and restored unto the physical and spiritual utility and vitality Jehovah had long before intended for them. Of course, they did not recognize Jesus, their Christ, nor did they hear Him; they cruelly despised and rejected Him, to His death at their hands. Nevertheless, despite this, they brought about that which Omniscience purposed from the beginning, in keeping with the infinite love and holiness of Jehovah, which was the possibility for their sanctification and restoration, their sweep up into the divine Oneness, through the vicarious death of Messiah on their behalf, and the impartation of His righteousness through embracing Him as He who came to them in the Name of the LORD—Jehovah—thus sent, by Jehovah, in the full, in the infinite, capacity and exceeding high-plane character of Jehovah, very righteousness, acknowledging the need for His righteousness, with gratitude, with a repentant, grateful heart. Here is the Gospel, first preached to Israel by He who was sent; preached to Israel, who was chosen to do this preaching, not to be preached to. Significantly, not only Israel, but all people would soon hear this Gospel. It was said that there was another very important reason why Jesus was sent, and that was that Jesus was to pay the price for Sin—everybody’s—which payment is Redemption, which clears the way for Salvation, life eternal in the presence of Jehovah God; oneness with the divine Oneness. In this way, Jesus was in fact a blessing to all people, consummating the work that Israel was sent to start. This completes the summarizing of the sections above.
Now we would like to discuss the crux of the study:
(1) why did Jesus point so often to the One, Father God, who sent Him? And,
(2) is there a message from Him in that?
As concerns (1), besides identifying (revealing) Father God by association, a major reason is simply practical, and had to do with the settings. Oftentimes in His ministry Jesus came under hostile fire, Pharisaic fire. Jesus came under hostile fire from punctilious keepers of the letter of the Law—Pharisees and otherwise—hostile fire designed to discredit Him, to show Him a blasphemer, a self-motivated doctrinal battering ram pleased to focus its energy on their long-standing traditions and the letter of the Law as they understood and inculcated them. Jesus leaned on Father God in His responses to validate Himself, to validate His actions and His words. To Jesus’ Jewish hearers, specifically Jehovah, was Father (please notice that to Jesus’ antagonists, Exodus 3:13-15, that revelation of God, was “Father God” [Jehovah | Yahweh, I AM]). The notion of Father God is prevalent in the Old Testament thematically, though with few specific references (a very short list of implied references to give the reader a feel for the possibilities: Exodus 4:22, Job 31:15, Hosea 11:1-3; specific references: Deuteronomy 32:6, 2Samuel 7:14, Psalm 68:5, Isaiah 9:6, 64:8, Malachi 2:10—we might have missed some, but there surely isn’t much more than this; the former list is short here, but it could easily be made huge). Jesus was not self-motivated, He was sent, to do, and to say, things consistent with the Truth, and will, of Father God, so oftentimes Jesus’ validations are dressed in words like: ‘…I speak as the Father (Jehovah to His Jewish hearers) taught me; I have not come on my own initiative, but to do the will of Him who sent me; this commandment I have from my Father…’, and so on, blessed words you will notice in the table below. And moreover, Jesus’ validations did not simply lean on the Father with lip service, but came with works, attestations, things the Jews “required.” He reminded them of the works that He performed, and that these bore witness to the One who sent Him (John 10:25). Jesus is the Centerpiece of Scripture; we know that today in hindsight; it is an easy call when one searches for Him in Scripture. But to the Pharisees the Law was that centerpiece—that is what they searched for in Scripture, for in the Law, was God, because the Law came to Israel from the finger of God (to Moses, from God, at Sinai). From their perspective, Jesus broke the Law, thus in their thinking Jesus could not possibly have been sent by Jehovah. And Jesus’ works, not limited to miracles—command of the (His) natural laws, FUSIKOS | physics—were also rejected (Matthew 12:24), even though said works came with power, certainly, and were consistent with Jesus’, with Jehovah’s, TheoLogos, which was at their fingertips, ever so intelligibly spelled out in Scripture. Beautiful, blessed, elegant, excellent, TheoLogos. So exceeding superior, at every turn, to the convoluted, super-added theology upon which these Pharisees and other pious frauds like them rejected Jesus’ claims (they built out of the framework of the TheoLogos a grotesque thing, a choker-monster, that resembled not anymore its Origins).
‘…Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord [=Jehovah]: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these…’ (Mark 12:28-31, KJV). And the point is that the learned scribes quite concurred (Mark 12:32-34). Now if Matthew 5-7 does not ring that Father-bell upon which they concurred, nothing else in the world does either. The Sermon on the Mount is just one example we mention to show their motivations had other bases. Of course it is easy to point a better-than-thou finger at these pious frauds from the distance of millennia removed; let us by God’s grace watch ourselves in our dealings with Jehovah God and others lest be like them; God forbid.
So as concerns (1), besides identifying (revealing) Father God, a major reason is simply practical, and had to do with the settings. Another reason had to do with love, and respect, and co-equality. No way would Jesus hijack from the Father the honor accruing to the things He Jesus did—which things were true, noble, just, pure, lovely, of good report and virtue, praiseworthy… (cf. Philippians 4:8, NKJV). In this way, Jesus honored the Father, whom He loves with an infinite love (and vice-versa of course). Co-equality at the scale of deity needs no such hijacking; co-equality at the scale of deity stands at ease in the servant’s role. So Jesus gives credit to the Father to whom He Jesus is tethered in the unanimity of purpose behind these lovely things that Jesus took from the point of design: ‘…Go ye thus, my beloved Son…’, to the point of execution: ‘…Here am I, send me…’, in the oneness of the divine Oneness (Fig. 1).
Now as concerns (2), restated: is there a message from Jesus in these glaringly redundant pointings to the One who sent Him, in these Father-bells? As far as we know there is nothing explicit in Scripture to that effect. If there is a message, maybe more than one, Jehovah God shall by His grace grant His children, those that ask, seek, knock, that insight.
Praised be thy Name great Jehovah God, thou true, noble, just, pure, lovely, of good report and virtue, thou praiseworthy; thou Papa, whom we adore and love…