The Chain Link Principle

The Son is subordinate to the Father. The Spirit is subordinate to the Son. If we can’t understand how the cosmic hierarchy functions, then how will we play a role? How will we serve God at all if we don't understand how the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit interact?

And we must serve God if we'll ever add value to our existence. We must serve God if we'll ever get a reward. But where do we fit in? We fit in after Jesus. We obey our Lord Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit.

If Jesus sends us, he sends us just as he was sent. He sends us under authority, an authority to which we submit. Being sent by a higher authority is a fundamental principle under which we must operate if we’re going to be useful for the Kingdom.

Let’s examine this sending principle. To visualize it, consider a chain link. Can you picture a 3-link chain? On it, we are the last link. It's a chain of authority, and the authority passes from God to Jesus, and from Jesus to us.

How It Works: A Warm Welcome

To understand the way this 3-link chain works, reflect on this saying of Christ:

Anyone who welcomes you welcomes me, and anyone who welcomes me welcomes the One who sent me (Matthew 10:40; Luke 9:48).

Got that? They welcome you, they welcome Jesus. They welcome Jesus, they welcome God. It's a 3-link chain.

We are bound together to Jesus, and through him we are indirectly bound to God. We are bound to the two like the last link of a chain--the result being that anyone who is hospitable to us, is being hospitable to God. They welcome God into their home when they welcome us because we are in a covenant with God and his Spirit is in us!

Listening or Rejecting

Let's try another. Jesus said this:

Whoever listens to you listens to me;

whoever rejects you rejects me;

but whoever rejects me 

rejects Him who sent me (Luke 10:16).

Did you get it again? He who listens to us, listens to Jesus. He who rejects us, rejects the One who sent Jesus, God the Father. Again, there is a very consequential relationship between how people treat us, and how they treat God. So, their attitude towards us is the very attitude they have towards God!

Accept Jesus in Your Heart

The next of these sayings of Christ is recognizable to mathematicians. They would call it a "syllogism." That's a logical structure or "argument" which mathemeticians teach, and it follows this pattern:

If A then B,

and if B then C,

then if A then C.

Jesus formulated a syllogism when he spoke these words:

Whoever accepts anyone I send

accepts me;

and whoever accepts me

accepts the One who sent me (John 13:20).

Can you see the three links of this chain? Can you see the unbreakable logic? It goes like this:

Accept someone sent by Jesus,

and you accept Jesus.

Accept Jesus,

and you accept the Father.

We're the first link, Jesus is the middle link, and God is the last. So, whoever claims that they had a subjective experience "accepting Jesus in their heart as their personal Lord and Savior" without having received someone legitimately sent by Jesus into their home, has actually not received Jesus.

And why do Evangelical churches treat "accepting Jesus" the goal anyways? The goal is to accept the Father through Jesus. If you're going to follow the Bible's principles, your aim is to accept the Father. To do that, they must accept the ones Jesus sends: 'Whoever accepts anyone I send... accepts the One who sent me (John 13:20).

Who Sends Who?

Here's one more example of the three-link chain. Jesus said this:

As the Father has sent me, I am sending you (John 20:21).

So, you must interpret this verse in its bare simplicity: God is the Maximum authority, and he sends Jesus. Then Jesus sends us. Therefore, we're indirectly sent by God.

To be sent by God is no minor matter. It means you have the full backing of the Supreme Authority of the Universe. It means you can be confident God is with you in whatever circumstance you find yourself in, if you're on a mission.

Living in Him

If this were merely about being sent by Jesus the same way Jesus was sent by God—we could simply feel good about such strong support, and move on to another teaching. However, this 3-link chain reaches beyond that.

This truth is also about living in Christ just as he lived through the Father. Jesus invites us to assume a lifestyle of devotion and dependence. And that lifestyle will only be firm and inspire you if you live according to the pattern the Lord Jesus gave us.

Are you following Jesus’ example? It looks like this:

Just as the Living Father sent me

and I live because of the Father,

so the one who feeds on me

will live because of me (John 6:57).

Let's interpret this text. This is a portion of spiritual meat and you'll only digest it well if you chew well. So, let's masticate. To do so, we recommend that you focus your attention on that word so.

Here it is the passage again, and we'll read it, but let's focus on the word so when we read it:

Just as the Living Father sent me

and I live because of the Father,

so the one who feeds on me

will live because of me (John 6:57).

Other translations say: so also. The meaning is in the same manner. Therefore, Jesus’ message is that in the same manner he was sent by God and lives because of God, so also are we sent by Jesus and live because of Jesus.

Therefore, the foundational principle of this teaching, a very practical one, is that Jesus was sent by God. Jesus was subordinate to God. He obeyed God. That’s the foundation.

But the conclusion is that if the Lord Jesus was sent by God, and was subordinate to God, then we too must be subordinate! And we must be subordinate to Jesus. If we are, then we can expect to get glory just as he did.

You and I must be subordinate to Jesus.

Don’t forget: People never reject this teaching because of their lack of comprehensio. It's not because they don't understand it. They reject this teaching because they hate obedience. It goes against their rebellious heart.

They reject the subordination of Christ to the Father not for any intellectual reason, but for a heart reason. They reject God’s hierarchy because they reject obedience. This denial that the One God is the Father (what they call "Trinitarianism") is not based on ignorance, it's based on rebelliousness. People hate submitting to authority.

A Lesson in Logic

Anyone sent by another is subordinate to that one because that’s what it means to be sent by another. To be sent by another makes you their servant. Jesus himself affirmed this truth: that the relationship of a messenger to the one who sent him is a subordinate relationship.

He said:

Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master,

nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him (John 13:16).

The Apostles believed in this reasoning. They believed in the logic of Christ. And according to his wish, they applied it to Jesus. They understood that he was from the Father.

The Apostles understood that Jesus served the Father. They saw Jesus as God’s Messenger. Their grand conclusion after three years of intense, intimate fellowship with the Lord Jesus was this: that he had come from God.

In fact, on one particular occasion, they said directly to Jesus:

Now we can see that you know all things... This makes us believe that you came from God (John 16:30).

What’s the logic of their statement? Well, if Jesus knew all things, it was because the One God, who is omniscient, gave him the knowledge of ‘all things.’ In other words, if you ever run into someone who knows ‘all things,’ it’s because that person is in close contact with the All-Knowing God.

Sound like Jesus to you? We hope so, because it's exactly his relationship to God. In fact, the Lord Jesus was in such close contact with the Father that the Bible says that Jesus was ‘in the bosom of the Father’ (John 1:18, NASB 1995). These two are tight!

God’s Revelation to Jesus

Drill this into your head: The way to interpret Jesus’ vast knowledge is not that “he was God” (which is the conclusion most people draw). They think along the lines of: “Anyone who is God is omniscient.” That’s not the Jesus of the Bible.

Rather, the true Jesus was constantly getting prophecies, words of wisdom, insights, and words of knowledge from God. He lived a life in which God revealed massive amounts of things to Jesus. The Apostles called those ‘all things.’ What they meant was all the things they heard from Jesus.

If you can grasp this true perspective on Jesus, then you'll understand why God has reserved the knowledge of the day and time of Jesus’ coming to Himself. God did that to prove that he is the ultimate source of all knowledge. If he chooses to withhold a piece of information from Jesus, that’s God’s prerogative—he does it to demonstrate to all that his authority is absolute.

But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in Heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father (Matthew 24:36; Mark 13:32).

A Conclusion Drawn

Coherent, rock-solid logic leads you to the conclusion that Jesus’ relationship with God is what makes Jesus our all-knowing Lord. Have you studied Jesus with the same fierce logic? Have you drawn the same conclusion the Apostles drew? Can you recognize that because he knows all things, he was sent by God?

If so, then you have eternal life! You know the true Jesus--the Jesus of the Bible. And you understand his relationship to the Father. That knowledge saves you. Because it gives you the same purpose Jesus has. It binds you to both the Father and the Son in an unbreakable chain-link experience.

That experience, the "being sent" experience, is an experience we share with Jesus. He was sent by God, and we are sent by Jesus. His example inspires obedience. Because he went when God sent him, we go when Jesus sends us.

What does all this mean? It's salvation. It's eternal life, and it's not only what motivated Jesus to fulfill God's mission. It's not only what motivates us today. It's what motivated Jesus to pray with these words:

Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the Only True God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent (John 17:3).