As my (better, the) Father hath sent me, even so send I you.--Comp. Note on John 17:18, where the words occur in prayer to the Father. As spoken here to the disciples 'they are the identification of them with Himself in His mediatorial work. He is the great Apostle (Hebrews 3:1); they are ambassadors for Christ, to whom He commits the ministry of reconciliation (2Corinthians 5:18 et seq.). He stands in the same relation to the Father as that in which they stand to Him. He declares to them, and they in His name are to declare to the world, the fulness of the Father's love, and the peace between man and God, witnessed to in His life and death. He and they stand also in the same relation to the world. At this very moment they are assembled with shut doors, for fear of the Jews, who are triumphing over Him as dead. But to that world, which will hate, persecute, and kill them, as it had hated, persecuted, and killed Him, they are sent as He was sent; they are to declare forgiveness, mercy, love, peace, as He had declared them, to every heart that does not harden itself against them; and they are to find in His presence, as He had ever found in the Father's presence, the support which will ever bring peace to their own hearts (John 14:27). . . .

(4) Peace, spiration of the Holy Spirit, and conference of power to remit or retain sin. Verse 21. - Therefore [Jesus] said unto them again, Peace be unto you. With added emphasis, and in obvious reference to his valedictory discourse, he gave to them the essence of his own sublime repose, the blending of an infinite joy with a measureless sorrow; the equilibrium that springs from the spirit mastering the flesh. Not an ecstatic rapture, nor a joy that would make their life on earth insupportable by its contrast with their abiding frame of mind; but peace - "the peace of God, which passeth understanding." The first "peace" gave to all who were assembled a new revelation; the second "peace," a summons to service. The Lord added the memorable words, As the Father hath sent me (ἀπέσταλκε, hath sent me on a special commission), I also send you (πέμπω, charge you to go forth and accomplish this commission of mine); see Westcott's excursus on the New Testament usage of the two verbs, which does much to justify these shades of meaning. Both verbs are used of both the mission of the Son and the mission of believers, but in the two senses,

(1) that sometimes the special service on which he or they are sent is emphasized by the use of ἀποστέλλω; and

(2) that at other times the simple mission or sending forth is the dominant idea when πέμπω is employed. Thus in John 4:38 the Lord says, "I sent (ἀπέστειλα) you to reap that on which ye bestowed no labor;" and John 17:18 (see note) the same word is appropriately used twice - for the Lord's own commission, and also for the commission of the disciples. Then it seems to point back to an event in their history and the work done already and before Christ's death for the world. Now the disciples have a new conception of Christ and of his work, and they must go forth to fulfill it. This usage of ἀποστέλλω is more or less conspicuous in John 1:6; John 3:28; John 5:33; John 18:24. Πέμπω is used often to describe the Father's mission of the Son, the mission of the Comforter, and the mission of the disciples (John 13:20; John 14:26; John 16:7). Moulton says, " Ἀροστέλλω means 'commission' and πέπμω 'mission.' With the first word our thoughts turn to the 'special embassy;' with the second, to the authority of the ' ambassador' and the obedience of the sent." Another peculiarity of this passage is that the Lord uses the perfect tense, ἀπέσταλκε, rather than the aorist used elsewhere, suggesting a complete commission on his own side, whose meaning and effects are still in operation. Those who have received this revelation are to become at once witnesses to the fact of his resurrection, agents and organs of his Spirit. Moulton suggests that τέμπω is used in order to enforce the physical separation between the Lord and his disciples; and that we cannot overlook in the similarity of the ideas the difference in the manner of the sending, by the Savior of the disciples, from the manner in which the Son had been sent by the Father. Christ came forth from the eternal companionship of the Father, in the fact of his incarnation, taking humanity up into his eternal substance. The disciples were sent forth by the risen Lord, who had called them by grace into fellowship with himself, and who equipped them for his service. The difference in these two methods of sending is as conspicuous as the resemblance.

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