If Jesus is God and the second member of a triune being, as fourth century councils would later determine, we would expect him to act in a manner consistent with a divine nature. As deity, we would expect Jesus to come in his own name, that is, to act on his own authority, according to his own will or determination. What we find in Scripture, however, is that Jesus did neither. Instead, Jesus said he came in his Father’s name:
John 5:43 (NASB) “I have come in My Father’s name, and you do not receive Me; if another comes in his own name, you will receive him. (emphasis added)
What does it mean to come in someone’s name?
What did Jesus mean when he said that he came in his Father’s name? According to Biblical scholar D. A. Carson, the idiom to come in someone’s name in this context means that Jesus came “as his Father’s emissary.”[1] Andrew Murray, missionary, pastor, and author, elaborates on the Biblical use of the phrase in his book, In My Name:
What is a person’s name? That word or expression in which the person is called or represented to us. When I mention or hear a name, it calls up before me the whole man, what I know of him, and also the impression he has made on me. The name of a king includes his honour [sic], his power, his kingdom. His name is the symbol of his power….And what is it to do a thing in the name of another? It is to come with power and authority of that other, as his representative and substitute.[2]
Agency
Scripture provides us with examples, prophets in particular, who came as God’s agents or representatives, bearing God’s name. For example, the prophet Daniel recognized that the people of Israel had failed to listen to those whom God had sent in His name: [3]
Daniel 9:6 (NASB) “Moreover, we have not listened to Your servants the prophets, who spoke in Your name to our kings, our princes, our fathers and all the people of the land. (emphasis added)
At the burning bush, God authorized Moses to speak in His name to his fellow Israelites and the pharaoh of Egypt.[4] Later, when the Israelites were preparing to enter into the promised land, God foretold that He would send another prophet, like Moses, who would also be authorized to represent Him:
Deuteronomy 18:18-19 (NASB) ‘I will raise up a prophet from among their countrymen like you, and I will put My words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. 19 ‘It shall come about that whoever will not listen to My words which he shall speak in My name, I Myself will require it of him. (emphasis added)
Jesus was the promised prophet[5] who came in God’s name, speaking only the words God had given him to speak:[6]
John 17:6-8 (NASB) “I have manifested Your name to the men whom You gave Me out of the world; they were Yours and You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word. 7 “Now they have come to know that everything You have given Me is from You; 8 for the words which You gave Me I have given to them; and they received them and truly understood that I came forth from You, and they believed that You sent Me.[7] (emphasis added)
Not only was Jesus the promised prophet, he was also the promised shepherd.[8] God prophesied through Micah that He would send a man to shepherd the people in “the name of the LORD His God.” This shepherd would, in fact, rule for God (not as God as fourth century exegetes would later theorize).[9] The crowd who gathered outside Jerusalem to escort Jesus into the city on what we now call Palm Sunday, understood Jesus to be this ruler sent in the name of the LORD (Yahweh):
John 12:13 (NASB) [the crowd] took the branches of the palm trees and went out to meet Him, and began to shout, “Hosanna! BLESSED IS HE WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD, even the King of Israel.” (emphasis added)
Indeed, Jesus is God’s chosen king (Isaiah 42:1; Matt. 12:18) who came in the name or the authority of the LORD. By virtue of his agency, Jesus made it clear that to receive him meant that you received the One who sent him:
Mark 9:37 (NASB) “Whoever receives one child like this in My name receives Me; and whoever receives Me does not receive Me, but Him who sent Me.” (emphasis added)
What do scholars have to say?
Orthodox scholars are quick to recognize that when Jesus said in John 5:43 that he came in his Father’s name, it meant that he came representing God:
Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers – I am come in my Father’s name. —So far from self-assertion or honour-seeking, He came in the name of, as representing, the Father, guided only by His will, doing only His work (John 4:34).[10]
Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible – I am come in my Father’s name,…. Power and authority; by his consent, with his will, and according to a covenant with him: Christ came not of himself, of his own accord, by a separate power and will of his own, but was called, and sent, and came by mutual agree meat [sic]; and brought his credentials with him, doing the works and miracles which his Father gave him to finish.[11]
Expositor’s Greek Testament – It is just because I have come in the Father’s name that you do not receive me. Not really loving God, they could not appreciate and accept Jesus who came in God’s name, that is, who truly represented God.[12]
Craig S. Keener, The Gospel of John – That Jesus was rejected though he came in the Father’s name (5:43a) indicates that his adversaries are rejecting God, for to come in the Father’s name meant to come as his representative (cf. 12:13).[13]
Jesus freely confessed that he came as God’s representative, but never stated that he was God. Instead, he came as one having been sent by the authority of God the Father, “guided only by His will, doing only His work.”[14]
The works proved Jesus had come in God’s name
Some wrongly attribute the miraculous works Jesus performed to an innate divine power. However, we are told that it was God who worked through Jesus the Christ:[15]
John 10:24-25 (NASB) The Jews then gathered around Him, and were saying to Him, “How long will You keep us in suspense? If You are the Christ, tell us plainly.” 25 Jesus answered them, “I told you, and you do not believe; the works that I do in My Father’s name, these testify of Me. (emphasis added)
The works Jesus performed proved that he was the Christ who had come in God’s name, but they would not believe him. Unfortunately, another kind of unbelief is happening today. Many simply refuse to believe that Jesus is a man who came in the name of his God, insisting instead that he is God who came as a man. But if Jesus is God, why didn’t he come in his own divine name and intrinsic authority? Why would the supposed second member of the Trinity, something the Bible never speaks of, come as a representative of the first member of the Trinity? What’s more, why didn’t he come as a representative of the Holy Spirit? Or the entire Trinity, for that matter? It’s because the Trinity is a post-Biblical development that contradicts Scripture.[16] Jesus himself said that the Father is the only true God, while he is the Christ whom God sent.[17] Surely Jesus’ testimony is trustworthy.
Some will claim that Philippians 2 indicates that Jesus set aside a theorized god-nature, as some interpret the passage to mean, choosing instead to come under his Father’s authority. But the context reveals that the passage is better understood to mean that Jesus set aside the rights and privileges afforded to him as God’s Christ (Messiah), that is, the appointed king, in order to set an example of humble servanthood.
Scripture repeatedly teaches that Jesus did not come of his own initiative or authority, rather his message and the works he performed were because God had sent him and was working through him. Pastor and Biblical scholar Matthew Poole’s paraphrase of John 5:43 summarizes this truth well:
I am come clothed with an authority from my Father, sent by him for this very purpose, to reveal his will to men for their salvation; I speak, I do nothing but by the authority of my Father which sent me; nor do I aim at my own glory, but the glory of him that sent me: yet you give no credit to my words, nor embrace me, as him whom God hath sent for the Saviour of man.[18] (emphasis added)
Orthodoxy continues to impose its post-Biblical view on the man from Nazareth despite Jesus’ oft-repeated testimony that he is God the Father’s representative, not God himself:
John 5:43 (NASB) “I have come in My Father’s name, and you do not receive Me; if another comes in his own name, you will receive him. (emphasis added)
[1] D.A. Carson, The Gospel According to John, Vol. 43, (Grand Rapids: Wm B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1991), p. 505.
[2] Andrew Murray, In My Name, (Henry Altemus Company, Philadelphia, 1896), p. 4.
[3] But for those who said they came in God’s name, but were not sent by Him, God commanded a fatal rebuke. Deuteronomy 18:20-22.
[4] Exodus 3:10-22; 5:23.
[5] Acts 3:22-26; 7:37 and 52; John 6:14; 7:40; 9:17; Matthew 21:11; 23:37-39; Luke 7:16; 24:19.
[6] John 7:14, 16; 8:26, 28, 38, 40; 12:49-50; 14:10, 24; 17:6-8.
[8] John 10:11, 14.
[9] Micah 5:2 and 4. Some interpret verse two to mean that Jesus pre-existed in heaven as God. However, the phrase “His goings forth are from long ago, from the days of eternity,” indicates that the human leader was a part of God’s plan from before the foundation of the world, not that Jesus literally pre-existed. See also Acts 2:23; 1 Peter 1:20; Revelation 13:8.
[10] Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers, https://biblehub.com/commentaries/john/5-43.htm
[11] Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible, https://biblehub.com/commentaries/john/5-43.htm
[12] Expositor’s Greek Testament, https://biblehub.com/commentaries/john/5-43.htm
[13] Craig S. Keener, The Gospel of John: A Commentary, Volume 1 (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2012), p. 660.
[14] Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers, https://biblehub.com/commentaries/john/5-43.htm
[15] Acts 2:22; 10:38; 14:10; John 5:36, etc.
[16] 1 Corinthians 8:6; 1 Timothy 2:5; Ephesians 4:6; John 17:1,3.
[18] Matthew Poole’s Commentary, https://biblehub.com/commentaries/john/5-43.htm
