The gospel comes to us because God sends. The Father sends his Son for the world’s salvation, and the risen Son sends his disciples with his peace and the forgiveness of sins. The church’s message begins in God’s action before it becomes our responsibility to speak.
The Word
ἀποστέλλω (apostellō) means to send or to send out. The related noun Apostolos names someone sent, an apostle or messenger.
A commission receives its authority from the sender and its content from what the sender entrusts to the messenger. The verb alone does not make every act of sending divine or turn every messenger into one of Christ’s apostles.
Range of Meaning
Several Greek verbs appear in the passages about God’s sending. John 20:21 uses apostellō for the Father’s sending of Jesus and πέμπω (pempō) for Jesus’ sending of the disciples. Both contribute to the sentence’s connection between the two missions.
Galatians 4:4 and 4:6 use the compound ἐξαποστέλλω (exapostellō) for God sending his Son and the Spirit of his Son. John 14:26 and 15:26 use pempō for the sending of the Spirit. These are related passages about sending, not six occurrences of the same verb.
Where You’ll Meet It
John explains the purpose of the Son’s mission:
“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world should be saved through him.” (John 3:17, NET)
First John 4:9–10 likewise locates love in God’s sending of his Son so that we might live through him and receive atonement for our sins. The sending answers our need before we have initiated a relationship with God.
Romans 10:14–17 carries the movement outward: people need to hear, preaching requires messengers, and messengers must be sent. Faith comes through hearing the message about Christ. The saving event and its proclamation belong together.
What Confessional Lutherans Hear
Augsburg Confession V teaches that God instituted the ministry of teaching the gospel and administering the sacraments so that we may obtain faith. Through these means the Holy Spirit gives faith where and when God pleases in those who hear the gospel.
The ministry therefore has a received task. Its authority does not arise from a preacher’s personality or from the invention of a religious product people find useful. Its work is to deliver what Christ has entrusted to his church.
The sending of the Son also does not make him a lesser God. Nor can the Spirit’s sending in history, considered by itself, settle every question about his eternal procession. The passages reveal the saving work of Father, Son, and Spirit without dividing the one God into ranks of divinity.
So What
When you hear Christ’s forgiveness preached, the comfort rests on his commission and promise. You are not being asked to place your ultimate trust in the speaker’s personal impressiveness.
Those entrusted with this message can also receive a useful limit: they do not have to manufacture the salvation they announce. Christ has accomplished it. Their task is to speak his Word faithfully and administer his gifts, trusting the Spirit to work through them.