Sent

‘For He whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God: for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto Him. — John iii. 34,

HE pass but slowly over these earlier chapters of
this marvellous Gospel, because they are so
thickly strewn with treasures. And we need not
grudge the time or labour; because they are the
seed-plot of the whole. To understand them is
to have a key to the inner life of our blessed
Lord, and to gain the true standpoint for understanding not
only this Evangel, but the other writings of the beloved
Apostle.

The word which stands at the head of this chapter is full of the music rung out by the Christmas chimes. It was one of the watchwords of Jesus; and, with the exception of the word Father, oftener on his lips than almost any other; occurring twice in this chapter and more than forty times in this book, it challenges our attention. What does it mean? “The Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world.” This is an inquiry which is shrouded in deep and impenetrable mystery, dark with e.xcessive light, before which angels are speechless; and yet it becomes us to know all we may, for employing one of his expressive parallels, on the evening of his first resurrection day, our Master said, “As my Father hath sent Me, even so send I you” (xx. 21). In so far, then, as we can understand the true meaning of the Father’s mission of the Son, we shall be able to understand also the Son’s mission of that little band which included not the Apostles only, but the two who had arrived from Kmmaus, together with several others not formally included in the Apostolic circle (Luke xxiv. 33); and which thus represents the entire Church, of which we are part.

I. The Origin of Our Lord’s Mission. — In his Divine nature our Lord was one with the Father and the Spirit in conceiving the marvellous scheme of man’s redemption. In the essence of his being, the Lord our God is one God; and in the very depths of that absolute oneness, the plan of our redemption was conceived and planned, and its purpose executed. But it is also true that the whole Godhead was one with Christ in every act of his incarnation. “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself.” “God was manifest in the flesh.”

It is a mistake to describe the work of Jesus as if He stepped in between an offended God and a race of sinners, averting the thunderbolts which were being launched upon them, and interposing by his own action to appease an otherwise implacable wrath. It is undeniable that the holy nature of God is absolutely set against the wilful disobedience and ungodhness of sinful men. But, nevertheless, the loving nature of God yearns, with all the love that ever breathed through the being of our Saviour, over the fallen and erring children of our race.

The Roman Catholic errs in attributing more tender love and sympathy to the mother of Jesus than to her Son; and in calling upon her to intercede with Him for sinners, reminding Him of her motherhood. This we condemn, and rightly. We turn away, in spite of their consummate art, from the pictures in which the mother pleads with her enthroned Son, as from his throne He meditates vengeance upon the race that crucified Him. But let us take care lest we fall into a similar exzox and suppose that the Son is more merciful than the Father; when, in point of fact, they are one in an indissoluble unity. Just as you may analyse the ocean brine in the creek that runs far up into the land, so you may analyse the nature of the Godhead in that marvellous inlet of Deity into the life of men, which we know as the Holy Incarnation. “He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.”

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All this lies embedded in these most precious words: “He gave his only-begotten Son.” “The Father seni the Son.” At certain times, it may be desirable to accentuate the willinghood on the part of our dear Lord, which made his incarnation and death his own act and deed of unparalleled love. But just now it is befitting to emphasize the other side of the wondrous mystery, and to insist that the love of the Giver is not less than the love of the Given; and that the compassion of the Sender was every whit as tender as that of the Sent. And in saying this, we surely gratify the heart of the Son, who repeatedly turned the thoughts of men from Himself to Him who had sent Him, as if He would attribute to Him any credit or praise which was due for so marvellous an interposition. “Neither came I of Myself, but He sent Me” (viii. 42). Just as the Holy Spirit deprecates the concentration of attention on Himself, lest aught should be diverted from the ever-blessed Son who sent Him (xvi. 14); so does the Son pass on our love and trust, which gather around Him so fondly, to the Father whose commissions it was his meat and drink, as the Son of Man, to fulfil. To use his own words. He sought the glory of Him that sent Him (vii. 18).

We often meet with those who concentrate all their thought and love on the Lord Jesus, but who have not yet learnt towards the Father that love which casteth out fear. To Jesus they pray. On Jesus they lean. In Jesus they rest. This is natural in the earlier stages of the Christian life. But it should not be ever so, or we shall become stunted and one-sided in our growth. As the Spirit reveals the Son, so we must ask the Son to reveal the Father, as He has promised to do to the weary and heavy-laden who come to Him; and ultimately the Father will reveal Himself to the loving and obedient heart (Matt, xi. 27, 28; John xiv. 23).

IL Our Lord’s Conception of his Mission. — We cannot tell what was in his thought when our Lord spoke so constantly of having been sent. Was there present to Him some parting scene in which the Father gave Him up to the work of our redemption? Is there an allusion in his words to a wrench, a surrender, a sacrifice, like that which rends our hearts when we give up to some necessary but distant and painful expedition, the one who is dearer to us than life? When the mother gives up her boy to the service of his country; when the newlymarried bride waves her heart-breaking farewell to the husband who sails on some distant and perilous enterprise, and the chords of nature are strained to breaking: is there not some faint shadow of the yet more stupendous giving up on the part of the Infinite God? Gifts are only worth the love that makes them; an infinite gift means infinite love; and such love is capable of infinite pain (x. 36).

But whatever it was that the Lord looked back upon, it is clear that the consciousness of his mission was one of the Strongest and most formative factors in his human life. He realized that the Father had sent Him, not to condemn but to save the world (iii. 17); to be its Life, and Light, and Love; to reveal to men the hidden nature of the invisible God; to put down all rule, authority, and power; and to deliver back the kingdom to God the Father, so that God might be all in all.

He was utterly absorbed in this commission. — He had no thought of Himself, of his own glory, or of the esteem of men. To be about his Father’s business; to do the works which his Father had given Him to finish (v. 36); to speak the words which He had heard from the Father (viii. 26); to fulfil the commandment enjoined on Him by the Father (xii, 49) — these constituted the programme and object of his life. Dear as was the salvation of the world, and the winning of the Bride of his choice, all was subordinated to a higher purpose, and included in the sweep of a wider plan, by the accomplishment of the purpose of his Father’s will. Hence his judgment was unbiassed and just, because his motive was absolutely pure (v. 30).

Surely it would be well if we were animated by the same ardent passion. We set ourselves too low an aim, hence so much of the disappointment that comes in Christian endeavour. We set ourselves to seek the conversion of the unsaved, the building up of believers, the extension of the kingdom of our Lord; and are depressed unless the special aim on which we have set our hearts is realized. But if only we could labour in the spirit of our Master, and understand that we are co-workers with Himself in his devotion to his Father’s purpose, we should feel, that, if only we were true to that, we were fulfilling our life-plan, even though some pet ambition remained unrealized and unfulfilled. “Though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the Lord, and my God shall be my strength.” The sun includes in his march through space, the motions of his satellites; and to live to do the will of God includes all those other motives which enter into the life of men.

Our Lord believed that the Father’s supplies were adequate to the needs of his commission. — God never sends us to do a work for which He does not equip and enable us. And in doing his work, it is wise constantly to be falling back on his resources. The one thing of which we need to be assured, and the only thing concerning which we should be at all anxious, is the assurance that we are where God would have us be, and engaged on his work. Where this is clear, we need have no care for anything beside. God is pledged to find the stuff for every tabernacle which He commissions us to build. He expects no soldier to conduct a campaign at his own charges. If we go down the mine, He will hold the rope, and send down all supplies.

This was our Lord’s attitude. As Son of Man He had emptied Himself of those inherent attributes which were his as the equal and Fellow of God; they were always within his reach, but He forbore to use them; and elected to live a life of complete dependence, yielding up his holy will, and receiving by faith, as we should, all the reinforcements and supplies required in the execution of his commission.

He lived by the Father (vi. 57); He was ever conscious of his Father’s companionship, robbing life of its loneliness (viii. 29); He expressly denied that his works or words were his own, and insisted that they were all given, as He needed them, by Him who had sent Him forth (xiv. 10-24). Remember how He said, “My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent Me” (vii. 16); and how He hastened, amid the gathering shadows, to work the works of Him that had sent Him (ix. 4). It was his sufficient justification to the accusation of his foes, that He was only working out what the Father had wrought within Him, up to that very moment of time. Sabbath though it were (v. 17).

It is a lesson which we need in this busy life to ponder deeply. There are three stages in the dying of self. First, we must die to self as being able to achieve our justification; then as being able to effect our sanctification; and lastly, as being able to accomplish any efficient spiritual work. We must learn to die to the energy of the self-life in our Christian activities. He who sent us must give us the plan, and supply us with the power. The doctrine we teach, the words we speak, the works we do, must be received by us from Him who has sent us, as his were received from the Father who sent Him. Then a great peace would settle down upon us, born of a great faith; and we should be able to say, with the saints of a former age, “Thou wilt ordain peace /or us; for Thou hast wrought all our works in us.” He whom God hath sent has only to speak the words of God.

Difficulties are absolutely nothing to the man who knows that he is on the mission on which God has sent him. They are only opportunities for Him to show His power; problems to manifest His skill in their solution; thunder-clouds on which to paint the frescoes of His unrealized tenderness. Oh to live as Jesus did, putting Him in that place in our lives, which his Father occupied in his own life; so as to say, The living Saviour hath sent me, and I live by Him, eating of his flesh, and drinking of his blood, depending on his help! (vi. 57).

III. The Hidden Power of Our Lord’s Mission. — “God giveth not the Spirit by measure.” What a word is this! It is said that Solomon gave up the task of enumerating the wealth of treasure that he put into the house of the Lord; and our Father puts no limit on the supply of his Spirit to those whom He sends forth.

As the Son was sent forth to do a work unparalleled in its scope, its sufferings, and its results, the blessed Spirit was

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bestowed on Him to a commensurate extent. Conceived of the Holy Ghost in the pure virgin; anointed by the Holy Ghost at his baptism; driven by the Spirit into the wilderness; nerved, empowered, sustained by the Eternal Spirit in his sacrifice on the cross; raised by the Spirit of Holiness from the dead; and ever receiving from the Father new supplies of the Spirit in his ascension and mediatorial reign: let us be glad and rejoice, for if such measureless supplies came down on the head of our Aaron, we may gladly anticipate some droppings for ourselves as they run down to the fringe of his skirts.

That Spirit which rested on Him is ours. And we may have all of Him that our exigencies demand or our faith can take. There is absolutely no limit save that which we ourselves impose. The oil will go on running so long as we can bring vessels, and will only stay when there is not a vessel more. “He is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think.”

On the one hand is our life mission to do the will of Jesus, who has sent us, and who waits to show us what He wants us to do; on the other hand is the unmeasured supply of the measureless Spirit that empowered his earthly life. He is our life-blood, our inspiration, our bond of connection with our Head; nothing shall daunt, nothing overmaster us; the works that He did we will do, yea, greater works than these, because He is gone to the Father, and with added power shall do through us by his Spirit what even He, in his earthly life, could not effect.