Jesus as Agent of the Father in the Gospel of John:
The Fourth Evangelist has presented Jesus as God’s
agent or shaliach (that is, שׁלוח or שׁליח, ‘one who is sent’, from שׁלח), who then commissions
his disciples to carry on his ministry. . . the relationship between the sender
and agent is so close that in a certain sense the agent can be identified with
the sender. We see this in Exod. 7.1 where God tells Moses: ‘I have given you
to Pharaoh as god (θεος)’; and perhaps also when
Moses and Aaron say to the people: ‘Your murmuring is not against us but
against God’ (Exod. 16.8). In the Fourth Gospel the logos is identified
as θεος (1.1), while elsewhere the
Johannine Jesus says, ‘I and the Father are one’ (10.30); and ‘He who believes
in me does not believe in me but in the one who sent me, and he who beholds me
holds the one who sent me’ (12.44-45; cf. 14.1). (Craig A. Evans, Word and Glory: On
the Exegetical and Theological Background of John’s Prologue [Journal for
the Study of the New Testament Supplement Series 59; Sheffield: JSOT Press,
1993], 137, 139)
. . . the shaliach was sometimes expected
to perform signs confirming his claims that he spoke and acted for God (for examples
from the prophets, see Isa. 7.11, 14; Jer. 44.29; Ezek. 4.3). We see this feature
in the ministries of Moses and Jesus, with the Fourth Evangelist once again
deriving his language from the Old Testament. At the beginning of his ministry
Moses ‘did (ποιειν) the signs (σημεια) before the people. And
the people believed (ποστευειν)’ (Exod. 4:30b-31). We are reminded of the
editorial statement that follows Jesus’ first sign: ‘This, the first of his
signs (σημεια), Jesus did (ποιειν) at Cana . . . and his
disciples believed (πιστευειν) in him’ (2.11). But at a later time in
the ministry of Moses God becomes frustrated with an unbelieving Israel: ‘How
long will they not believe (πιστευειν) in me, in spite of all
the signs (σημεια) which I have done (ποιειν) among them?’ (Num.
14.11). At the end of his ministry Moses says to Israel: ‘You have seen all
that the Lord has done (ποιειν) in the land of Egypt . .
. those signs (σημεια) and great wonders. Yet the Lord (κυριος) has not given you a heart
to know, and eyes to see, and ears to hear’ (Deut. 29.2-4). Similarly, the
Fourth Evangelist summarizes Jesus’ public ministry of signs: ‘Though he had
done (ποιειν) so many signs (σημεια) before them, yet they
did not believe (πιστευειν) in him, in order that the word of Isaiah the prophet might
be fulfilled, which he spoke: “Lord (κυριος), who has believed (πιστευειν)
our report?” . . . they were not able to believe (πιστευειν), because again spoke
Isaiah: “He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart . . .”’ (12.37; cf.
Isa. 6.10). It is apparent that the Fourth Evangelist’s understanding of faith,
or the lack of it, is significantly informed by traditions relating to Moses,
especially in reference to God’s mighty works and ‘signs’. (Ibid, 140)
Moses
as a Mediator/Agent of God in The Testament of Moses (First Century A.D.)
But he did design and devise me, who (was)
prepared from the beginning of the world, to be the mediator of his covenant.
(1:14 [Evans, p. 136 notes that “Here creation and covenant are juxtaposed and
related to the person of Moses”])
(when) he solemnly called heaven and earth as
witnesses against us that we should not transgress God’s commandments of which
he had become the mediator for us? (3:12)
