Why did God send Jesus?

We must begin with the One who came, for apart from Him there is no gospel for men, no Saviour for sinners. It was Christ Jesus who came. But who is He? The Bible leaves us in no doubt as to this. When John was moved by the Holy Ghost to write of Him he scorned and discarded all introductions and preambles and made haste to get at once to his great subject, as he declared, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made … and the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us." He is God, the Creator, eternal in being, almighty in power, infinite in wisdom, and He came into the world to save sinners. Of old, when the corrupt and guilty cities of the plain were to be judged and destroyed, two angels were sent to do it; and when rebellious men were to be rebuked for their iniquities, the Word was sent by holy prophets. But now the time had come, not for judgment, nor for rebuke, but for salvation; and neither angels nor prophets were equal to this great work. For this the Word must become flesh, the only-begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father must become man. The day of salvation could not dawn until He appeared, but when Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners the light of that glorious day began to shine for all.

“And He has sent me.” Coming from the Father, He had been sent, and this to accomplish the Father’s will. More than forty times in John’s Gospel Jesus speaks of Himself as “sent,” indicating the importance the Son attached to His mission to men from the Father. For the world it was of the greatest possible moment, for “The Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world.” In no other way could salvation come to the world. The wisdom of the world was proved to be foolishness by God; what had the wise of this world, the scribe or the disputer been able to do for man? Could they bring Him salvation? Yet, when the only One who could save the world came, the wise men of this world rejected and crucified Him. But God, in His wisdom, took the very occasion of man’s rejection of His Son to procure a salvation that He could offer to all who accepted His Son. The sending of the Son expressed the infinite love of God towards men, for He sent Him to communicate eternal life to those who believe, and to be the propitiation for their sins. He sent His Son because no created being could accomplish the Father’s will, either in glorifying Him in regard to the question of sin, or in bringing His blessing to fallen men.

We become familiar with the great truths that are revealed to us in the Word, and consequently they often lose their greatness in our eyes, yet how wonderful it is that the Son of God should come into the world, and should come as the Saviour. Two things made this necessary, first, that God might be revealed, second, our need of salvation. It was God who sent Him not to condemn the world but that the world through Him might be saved. More than thirty times in the Gospel of John the Lord speaks of Himself as being sent into the world by the Father. He glories in it, and so shall we if we understand it. No angel could have fulfilled His mission, He only could make the Father known, and the Father sent Him to do this. The only begotten Son shone as the light in the darkness, He came near to men full of grace and truth, seeking for them in their misery, to take them out of it and lead them to His Father. David cried: “O send out Thy light and Thy truth: let them lead me . . . Then will I go unto the altar of God, my exceeding joy: yea, upon the harp will I praise Thee, O God, my God.” But David could never have imagined that God's light and truth would come forth in the person of God's Son, in order to lead multitudes to the Father Himself. But this has happened, and in it our souls do greatly rejoice.

But for what purpose was God in the midst of men? There could be only one reason for this great event. If He had desired to send some message of warning, entreaty, or command, a servant like to the prophets would have served the purpose, for at sundry times and in divers manners He thus addressed the fathers of old. If He had intended to make an example of sinners by executing His righteous judgment against them for their sins, an angel or two would have sufficed, as in the case of the guilty cities of the plain. But neither men nor angels would do for the purpose and will of God which was now to be unfolded; only Emmanuel, who came, saying, "Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God." When Emmanuel appears, men and angels stand aside, for every ear must be attentive to Him, for He comes to declare and bring to pass the intentions of divine and infinite love. "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).

Christ came into the world to save sinners. He died for the ungodly. Prophets had repeatedly declared that "salvation is of the Lord," and had long spoken of Jehovah as "a just God and a Saviour." The gospel prominently sets this forth. He was called Jesus or Saviour, because He would "save His people from their sins;" and when the angel of the Lord announced His birth to the shepherds, he said, "Unto you is born this day, in the city of David, a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord." Jesus Himself taught His disciples that He came, "not to destroy men's lives, but to save them;" and when a sin-convicted woman received Him as such, He pronounced her "saved;" and when another joyfully received Him, He declared, "This day is salvation come to this house." Paul testified that the grace of God bringeth salvation, and He counted it "a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." How blessed is the contemplation of the fact, that God still proclaims salvation for the chief of sinners, through the atoning death of Christ! Well may we sing — "Salvation! let the echo fly The spacious earth around; While all the armies of the sky Conspire to raise the sound. "Salvation! O thou bleeding Lamb, To thee the praise belongs; Salvation shall inspire our hearts, And dwell upon our tongues."

Here then we are face to face with a fact — an event which should bow down all our hearts in deepest adoration. God has been manifested amongst us in flesh. In our midst He lived and laboured; eating, drinking, weeping, praying even as ourselves; and then, His testimony being finished, He suffered and died. What grace is this; what transcendent love! Concern for men's salvation brought Him thus from on high. Sin can only be expiated by blood, but how could creature blood avail for this? How could the effusion of it settle a moral question, such as the question of human guilt? Angels and men were alike powerless for this stupendous undertaking. Only He against whom the sin had been committed was competent to purge it away. And it was for this He descended from heaven. "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners," and this salvation is based entirely upon His atoning blood.

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.

Therefore must the Son of Man be lifted up upon the cross, if men were to partake of that life which, as I have indicated already, is the life of the Father’s house. This life is the life of the believer, and “In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we should live through Him.” He sent His Son indeed to be the propitiation for our sins, but the great thought of God for us was not forgiveness, that was a necessity for us as sinners, but that we should live through Him. Life was in His eternal purpose for us, and it was His supreme thought in sending His Son to die for us. In the knowledge of the Father and of His Son Jesus Christ this life is possessed and enjoyed, and its home is that home into which the Son has entered, for He is it, and in having Him we have that life.

In John 17 the Lord is speaking to the Father regarding His disciples, and in verse 25 He declares the result of His ministry while here upon earth. He had come into the world and had brought the Father into it, that is to say, the Father was declared in Him. He could say, “He that believes on Me, believes not on Me, but on Him that sent Me. And he that sees Me sees Him that sent Me” (John 12:44-45). Until Jesus came into the world it could be said, “No man has seen God at any time.” There had been no full revelation of God. Creation had borne witness to His power and divinity, but what He is in His nature remained unrevealed. But the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him. Wonderful words! “In the bosom of Father.” It was in that bosom He dwelt; His home was there. He knew the secrets of that bosom, and He came to tell them out into the ears of men. Moses knew nothing about that bosom. He could only set before the people the demand of God. Jesus came to tell us of the Father’s heart. He did not come to condemn, He might justly have done so, neither did He come to set before men the evil and wickedness of the human heart, though by His coming the heart of man was laid bare in all its badness, but the object of His coming was to bring the light of God here. The Father that dwelt in Jesus was the Doer of those mighty works, and the words He uttered were the Father’s words, for the Father had given Him a commandment what He should say and what He should speak, and that commandment was life everlasting.

In this same Gospel we read “God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son,” but we cannot rightly separate those words from what goes before them. “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up.” “Must” is a hard word. There is no word in any language that presents with greater force what is inexorable. He must be lifted up. If eternal life was to reach a ruined race, carried far from God and under the judgment and power of death by their sins, a Son of man must be lifted up in their stead, as their substitute and representative. Divine and eternal justice demanded this; nothing less could avail. But this Son of Man must be unlike every other man, He must be entirely free from the taint and offence of sin that brought in the ruin, and upon Him death must have no claim. Where shall He be found? He was found in God's bosom. “God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son.” The Son of man is the Son of God.