--- title: "Doesn’t sending prove two persons?" description: "The objection “The Father sent the Son, and you can’t send yourself, so the Son must be a distinct person who existed before He was sent.”, stated at full strength and answered from Scripture." url: "https://onegodapologetics.com/academy/lab/the-father-sent-the-son/" source: "One God Apologetics" section: "The Objection Lab" tags: ["godhead"] license: "Free to read and quote with attribution." --- # Doesn’t sending prove two persons? > The objection, in the words its strongest advocate would use: “The Father sent the Son, and you can’t send yourself, so the Son must be a distinct person who existed before He was sent.” *An objection answered at https://onegodapologetics.com/academy/lab/the-father-sent-the-son/* ## The objection at full strength Sending requires two: one who sends and one who is sent, and both exist before the sending. Scripture uses exactly that language. “God sent forth his Son” (Gal 4:4). “God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world” (John 3:17). The Son says, “I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world” (John 16:28), and “I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me” (John 6:38). He was not made in Bethlehem and then commissioned. He came *into* the world *from* the Father. Nor does being sent make the Son lesser. Trinitarians distinguish the Son’s equality of nature from the order of His mission: the sending in time reveals the Son’s eternal relation to the Father, without making Him any less divine. ## The ninety-second answer In Scripture, “sent” is commission language; it doesn’t prove a pre-existing second person. John the Baptist was “a man sent from God” (John 1:6), and Jesus sends His disciples the same way He was sent (John 17:18). The Son God sent was “made of a woman” (Gal 4:4): the sending is the incarnation. And the Sender came too: “he that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone” (John 8:29). ## The five-minute answer **1. “Sent” is the language of commission.** Scripture speaks of sending prophets and messengers whose mission began on earth. John the Baptist was “a man sent from God” (John 1:6). The LORD told Jeremiah, “thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee” (Jer 1:7). The anointed one says, “he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted” (Isa 61:1). Jesus uses the same word for His disciples: > As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world. > > — John 17:18 (KJV) > Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you. > > — John 20:21 (KJV) Sending, by itself, tells us about a mission. It does not tell us where the one sent was before it. **2. The Son who is sent is the incarnate Son.** > But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, > > — Galatians 4:4 (KJV) The Son God sent is the one “made of a woman, made under the law.” Romans 8:3 says God sent “his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh.” The Son is sent in the flesh. God provided a Son, born of Mary, and gave Him a mission. That is why the angel says that the child born of Mary “shall be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:35). **3. The Sender comes with the one He sends.** In ordinary sending, the sender stays home. Here He does not: > And he that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him. > > — John 8:29 (KJV) > Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works. > > — John 14:10 (KJV) God did not dispatch a second person and remain behind. He came in the Son. That is what Paul means by “God was in Christ” (2 Cor 5:19). **4. “Came down from heaven” proves too much for the objection.** Jesus said that *the Son of man* came down from heaven, and would ascend “where he was before” (John 3:13; 6:62). Trinitarians agree that Christ’s humanity did not exist in heaven before Bethlehem. So both sides must read these sayings as the one Christ speaking of what is true of Him because of the deity in Him. The Oneness reading is that what came down from heaven is God Himself, “manifest in the flesh” (1 Tim 3:16), not a second divine person. The same holds for “I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world” (John 16:28). The Son’s origin is from God, because the child born of Mary was conceived by God’s own power (Luke 1:35), and what came into the world is God’s Word made flesh (John 1:14). The verse describes where the Son came from, not a second divine person leaving the first. **5. The sending raises a question for the Trinitarian.** If an eternal Son is sent by an eternal Father and always does the will of the one who sent Him (John 6:38), it is hard to avoid ranking one divine person under another. Trinitarians give careful answers here, and they do not all agree. Oneness theology has no such difficulty. The sending, like “my Father is greater than I” (John 14:28), belongs to the Son as incarnate: the man Christ Jesus is sent, submits and obeys, and the God who dwells in Him is subordinate to no one. ## The trap to avoid Don’t claim that “sent” *never* implies prior existence. Sometimes the one sent plainly existed beforehand; the disciples did. Your point is narrower: sending does not *require* existence in heaven, and the Son who was sent is the Son “made of a woman.” Also avoid saying that God sent “a part of Himself,” or that the Son was only a “plan” with no deity. The Son is God manifest in flesh. The sending is the incarnation, and the Sender is in the one He sent (John 14:10). ## A model answer Yes, the Father sent the Son. I believe that. The question is what “sent” means. In Scripture, sending is commission. John 1:6: “There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.” Nobody thinks John the Baptist lived in heaven before he was born. Jesus says to His disciples, “as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.” Same idea: a mission. And look at which Son was sent. Galatians 4:4: “God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law.” The Son who is sent is the Son born of Mary. The sending is the incarnation. Here’s what makes this sending unlike any other: the Sender came too. Jesus said, “he that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone,” and “the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.” God didn’t send someone else and stay behind. God was in Christ. And if you tell me the Son came down from heaven, remember that Jesus said *the Son of man* came down from heaven. You don’t believe His humanity was in heaven before Bethlehem, and neither do I. What came from heaven was God Himself, manifest in the flesh. ## The verses - John 1:6 - John 17:18 - Galatians 4:4 - Romans 8:3 - John 8:29 - John 14:10 - John 3:13 - John 14:28 ## Read the case in full - [Oneness Theology: A Working Compendium](https://onegodapologetics.com/library/oneness-theology-a-working-compendium/) — A short but complete map of Oneness theology: the one God of Israel, manifested in flesh as Jesus Christ. It works through the Hebrew and Greek of the key Old and New Testament texts, the typology of the angel, the tabernacle and the priesthood, and the apostolic practice of baptism in Jesus’ name. Each contested text is set beside the strongest Trinitarian reading before it is answered. - [Ten Objections to Oneness, Answered](https://onegodapologetics.com/library/ten-objections-to-oneness-answered/) — The ten objections Oneness believers hear most often, each stated first in its strongest Trinitarian form and then answered from Scripture. The final section tests the claim that the church always confessed three persons, with names and dates from Noetus and Praxeas to the councils of 325 and 381.