The Lord who sends

When we talk about the mission of the Holy Spirit or the mission of the Son, what we are talking about is the work that the Father sent the Son to do to redeem us. As he took human nature to himself, walked among us, taught, did miracles, suffered, died on the cross in our place, rose from the dead for us, and ascended to heaven. He ascended to the right hand of the Father from where he poured out the Holy Spirit in his mission. He was sent, and he is sent to sanctify us or to apply the work of the Son to us.

The Son's mission: the work the Father sent him to do to redeem us.

These missions reveal the persons in God. So missions reveal processions or God as our triune God. So it is in the mission of the Son that we learn of the Father and his unbegottenness, and we learn of the eternal begottenness of the Son. And it is the mission of the Holy Spirit and his mission that we learn of his eternal procession from the Father and the Son. So we get this clear revelation of our triune God in the historical missions of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

The missions in time reveal the eternal processions in God.

Think of it like this. The Spirit does not have a separate mission from the mission of the Son. And so when some want to posit that, well, the mission of God is much broader than the church, as if you have a sort of churchly mission.

The Spirit has no mission separate from the Son's.

There cannot be a mission of God outside the church. Otherwise, the Father would have independent divine missions, one mission of the Son and one mission of the Spirit, and then a rift between the persons of the Trinity and their eternal relations of origin.

There cannot be a mission of God outside the church.

Mission implies, in the very word itself, one who is sent. One who does not just stand up and say, "I will go." and of his or her own accord do something, but is sent out. As the Father first sent the Son, and then the Father together with the Son sent the Holy Spirit. This also means, here's good news, that the church's missionary work in the world is the continuation of God's work.

Mission implies being sent, as the Father first sent the Son.

But it's not just methodological, it's theological. In other words, this text makes it clear that while the church is the Lord's instrument for sending and supporting, it is the Lord who sends. Follow the divine action here once more.

The church is the Lord's instrument, but it is the Lord who sends.

And the one whom they've never heard and how can they hear unless someone preaches and how can they preach unless they are sent? So even when we think about the son of God isn't self-sent. Now, I'm not going to get into all the Trinitarian magic that Kevin DeYoung did for us the other day.

Even the Son of God is not self-sent.

Amen indeed. Well, let's consider first the doctrine of unconditional election. The divine rescue mission, wherein God intervenes to save guilty sinners bound for eternal punishment, does not begin when missionaries are sent. It doesn't even begin when the Father sends the Son into the world.

Mike Riccardi: the rescue mission doesn't begin when missionaries are sent, or even when the Son is sent.

And we wanted to say, no, no, no. The mission of God is what we see in the Son's redeeming work and in the sending of the Holy Spirit to apply the Son's redeeming work. And so then we're sent out as the church to continue that work. You know, the Lord Jesus himself continuing to do and teach through us by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Chad Vegas on why the conference theme corrects a generic “mission of God”.