The Sending of the Son
A Oneness reading of the Father sending Jesus as divine origin, appointment, empowerment, and mission rather than spatial dispatch of a preexistent human or second divine person.
Overview
The Gospel of John repeatedly says the Father sent Jesus. David K. Bernard asks what the verb sent establishes. His Oneness answer is that it names divine origin, appointment, empowerment, and mission. It does not by itself require a preexistent human Son—or a second divine person—traveling from a location beside the Father to earth.
Jesus is genuinely the sent one: the man brought forth by God’s supernatural action, consecrated for God’s saving purpose, and obedient to God’s command. At the same time, the Father who sends is the deity personally dwelling and acting in Jesus (John 14:10). The mission is therefore both authentically human and God’s own saving presence.
Sending as commission
John 1:6 describes John the Baptist as a man sent from God. No reader concludes that John personally lived in heaven before his birth. His sending means that God called, authorized, and commissioned him.
Jesus later tells the disciples, “As the Father has sent me, I also send you” (John 20:21). Their mission does not involve preexistence or downward travel. Bernard uses these parallels to show that sending-language is fundamentally vocational. Jesus’ mission is unique in identity and scope, but the verb itself does not settle the metaphysics of preexistence.
Origin in God’s plan and action
The Messiah comes from God in a deeper sense than any ordinary messenger. His conception is the Spirit’s act (Luke 1:35); he arrives in the fullness of time, born of a woman (Galatians 4:4); and he is sanctified and sent into the world (John 10:36). Bernard describes two connected dimensions:
- Jesus originates in God’s supernatural purpose and action.
- Jesus carries a divine assignment, authority, and commission.
“From heaven” language likewise identifies heavenly origin and quality. Jesus embodies God’s Word, will, life, and saving initiative. Bernard does not imagine the human body descending before Mary.
The sent one obeys
John joins sending to obedience. Jesus seeks the sender’s will (John 5:30), does the work given to him, speaks what he receives, and completes the mission. This language matters because Bernard’s Christology includes a real human will and vocation.
The man Jesus is not the Father pretending to address himself. He is the authentic Messiah living in perfect dependence on the one God. The relationship can be described with “I” and “he,” command and obedience, because humanity and deity are truly distinguishable.
The sender is present in the mission
Oneness theology adds a claim that prevents Jesus from becoming only a commissioned prophet: the sender dwells fully in the sent one. “The Father who dwells in me does his works” (John 14:10). God is in Christ reconciling the world (2 Corinthians 5:19).
Thus Jesus is more than John the Baptist or the disciples. Their sending clarifies the meaning of commission; Jesus’ unique divine identity comes from the fullness of God personally manifested in him. The one who sends is not another God at a distance.
Key passages
- Isaiah 42:1–7; 61:1 — the promised, Spirit-anointed mission.
- John 1:6 — John the Baptist as a man sent from God.
- John 3:17; 10:36 — the Son sent to save and sanctified for mission.
- John 5:30; 6:38; 8:29 — obedience to the sender.
- John 14:10 — the Father dwelling and working in Jesus.
- John 17:18; 20:21 — disciples sent in analogy to Jesus.
- Galatians 4:4 — sent in time and born of a woman.
Where traditions disagree
Nicene theology reads the missions of Son and Spirit as temporal manifestations of eternal personal relations. Bernard rejects that inference: the eternal deity and Word preexist, while the Son is the human manifestation and role sent in history. Both readings affirm divine initiative and Jesus’ real obedience, but they identify the preexistent subject differently.
Connected Atlas concepts
Why Jesus Prays to the Father · Sonship: Beginning, Purpose, and Fulfillment · The Word Before Bethlehem · Father as Source and Sender · Divine Missions
Primary source
This article paraphrases Bernard’s section “The Son Sent from the Father” in The Oneness of God, chapter 8, especially pp. 182–186.