The qualification of the disciples for the discharge of the trust
sent them as servants to bid to the marriage. Hence they were called ''apostles'—''men sent'. But how Christ sent them as the Father sent Him is not so easily understood. Certainly their commission and powers were infinitely inferior to His. But:
(a) Their work was of the same kind with His, and they were to go on where He had left off. They were not sent to be priests and kings like Him, but only prophets. As He was sent to bear witness to the truth, so were they; not to be mediators of the reconciliation, but only preachers and publishers of it. Was He sent, "'not to be ministered unto but to minister''; not to do His own will, but the will of Him that sent Him; not to destroy the law and the prophets, but to fill them up? So were they. As the Father sent Him to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, so He sent them into the world.
(b) He had a power to send them equal to that which the Father had to send Him. Here the force of the comparison seems to lie. By the same authority that the Father sent me, so I send you. The commissions He gave were of equal authority with those which the Father gave, and as valid and effective to all intents and purposes; equal with those He gave to the Old Testament prophets in visions. 'he commissions of Peter and John, by the plain word of Christ, are as good as those of Isaiah and Ezekiel by the Lord sitting on His throne; nay, equal with that which was given to the Mediator Himself for His work. Had He an incontestable authority and an irresistible ability for His work? So had they for theirs. He gave authority to them as ministers, to act for Him and in His name, with the children of men; so that they who received them, or rejected them, received or rejected Him and Him that sent Him (John Xili. 20).
4. THE AMBASSADOR'S QUALIFICATION
The qualification of the disciples for the discharge of the trust reposed in them by their commission is simply ''He breathed on them, and said, Receive ye the Holy Ghost". Probably He breathed upon them all together, not upon each severally. And, though Thomas was not with them, yet the Spirit of the Lord knew where to find him, as He did Eldad and Medad (Num. xi. 26). Christ here seems to refer to the creation of man at first by the breathing of the breath of life into him (Gen. ii. 7).