What here is set down imperatively, by way of command is in the gospel indicatively expounded, “I will smite the shepheard, and the sheepe of the flocke shall bee scattered abroad” (Matt. 26:31). He was “stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted,” yea “the Lord layed upon him the iniquity of us all,” yea it “pleased the Lord to bruise him, and to put him to griefe” (Isa. 53:4, 6, 10), “hee made him to bee sinne for us, who knew no sinne, that we might be made the righteousnesse of God in him” (2 Cor. 5:21).

The Peculiar Acts of the Father

Two peculiar acts there are in this work of our redemption by the blood of Jesus, which may be and are properly assigned to the person of the Father. First the sending of his Son into the world, for this employment. Secondly a laying the punishment due to our sin upon him.

Sending the Son

The Father loves the world and sends his Son to die. He “sent his Son into the world that the world through him might be saved” (John 3:16–17), he “sent his Son in the likenesse of sinfull flesh, and for sinne condemned sinne in the flesh, that the righteousnesse of the law might be fulfilled in us” (Rom. 8:3–4), he “set him forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood” (Rom. 3:25), for “when the fulnesse of the time was come, God sent forth his Son made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons” (Gal. 4:4–5).

So more than twenty times in the Gospel of John, there is mention of this sending; and our Savior describes himself by this periphrasis,1 “him whom the Father hath sent” (John 6:39),2 and the Father, by this, “he who sent me” (John 8:16).3 So that this action of sending is appropriate to the Father, according to his promise, that he would “send us a Saviour, a great one to deliver us” (Isa. 19:20), and to the profession of our Savior, “I have not spoken in secret from the beginning, from the time that it was, there am I, and now the Lord God and his Spirit hath sent me” (Isa. 48:16): hence the Father himself is sometimes called our Savior: “according to the commandment θεοῦ σωτῆρος ἡμῶν, of God our Saviour” (1 Tim. 1:1). As also, 1 Timothy 4:10: “We have hoped in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, especially of them that beleeve”: though in this last place, it be not ascribed unto him, with reference to his redeeming us by Christ, but his saving and preserving all by his providence. So also Titus 2:11;8 3:4; Deuteronomy 32:15; 1 Samuel 10:19; Psalms 24:5; 25:5; Isaiah 12:2; 11:10;9 45:15; Jeremiah 16:8;10 Micah 7:7; Hebrews 3:17;11 most of which places, have reference to his sending of Christ, which is also distinguished into three several acts, which in order we must lay down.

Appointing the Son to the Office of Mediator

First, an authoritative imposition of the office of mediator, which Christ closed withal, by his voluntary susception4 of it, willingly undergoing the office, wherein by dispensation the Father had and exercised a kind of superiority, which the Son, though “in the form of God,” humbled himself unto (Phil. 2:6–7).5

Giving the Son the Gifts and Graces for His Work

The second act of the Father’s sending the Son, is the furnishing of him in his sending, with a fullness of all gifts and graces, that might any way be requisite for the office he was to undertake, the work he was to undergo, and the charge he had over the house of God.

There was indeed in Christ a twofold fullness and perfection of all spiritual excellencies. First the natural all-sufficient perfection of his Deity,6 as one with his Father in respect of his divine nature: for his glory was “the glory of the only begotten of the Father” (John 1:14). The second fullness that was in Christ,7 was a communicated fullness, which was in him by dispensation from his Father bestowed upon him to fit him for his work and office, as he was and is the “Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5), not as he is the Lord of hosts, but as he is “Immanuel God with us,”8 as he was a “Sonne given to us, called wonderfull, Counsellour, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of peace, upon whose shoulders the government was to be” (Isa. 9:6).

Entering into Covenant with the Son About This Work

The third act of this sending, is, his entering into covenant, and compact with his Son concerning the work to be undertaken, and the issue or event thereof: of which there be two parts.

First his promise to protect and assist him, in the accomplishment and perfect fulfilling of the whole business and dispensation about which he was employed, or which he was to undertake. The Father engaged himself, that for his part, upon his Son’s undertaking this great work of redemption, he would not be wanting in any assistance in trials, strength against oppositions, encouragement against temptations, and strong consolation in the midst of terrors, which might be any way necessary or requisite to carry him on through all difficulties to the end of so great an employment.

Secondly of success, or a good issue out of all his sufferings, and a happy accomplishment and attainment of the end of his great undertaking: now of all the rest this chiefly is to be considered, as directly conducing to the business proposed, which yet would not have been so clear without the former considerations. 

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