In John’s Gospel, there is a big emphasis on the Lord Jesus being ‘sent’—‘that you would believe that he has sent me’, etc. Could you elaborate on that?

This text is from a transcript of a talk by David Gooding, entitled ‘Four Journeys to Jerusalem’ (2009).

It is almost one of the titles of Christ throughout the Gospel of John: he is 'sent' by the Father. And when he gave the man sight in chapter 9 he put clay on his eyes and sent him to the pool of Siloam and told him to wash there, and the man came seeing. But John, the Gospel writer, troubles to translate the name of the pool. The pool, in Greek is Siloam; in Hebrew: siloah, anḍ means 'sent'. Christ is the 'sent one' of God.

Of course, that is a term going back to the Old Testament. Moses comes before God, and God sends him. You'll remember the conversation between Moses and God about God sending him to Israel, sending him to Pharaoh, and so on, and the people had to come to believe that he was sent by God (Exodus 3–4). It was crucial for the Israelites in Egypt. If ever they were going to get out of Egypt they would first have to believe that Moses was sent by God! Otherwise the situation was hopeless, and they never would have dared to rise up against Pharaoh and his army. And even so they took a lot of persuading!

Moses said, 'Suppose they ask me who this God is who has sent me to them; what am I to say?' God told him to say, 'I AM has sent me. And here are some signs that you can do as evidence that you have been sent by God.' This is just one of the many ideas from Exodus that are now fulfilled in the Gospel of John. If we are to believe and get free of the thraldom, the slavery to the god of this world (and in that sense, free of this world), we have to believe that Jesus Christ is not just a religious adviser. He is the one 'sent of the Father', and the signs that he did are the witness that he has been sent of the Father, but now in a sense far bigger than ever Moses was.