Angel," "I will _send_ mine angel," "Are they not all ministering
spirits _sent_ forth to minister?" &c.

Now one of the characteristic expressions of the Fourth Gospel--we might
almost have said _the_ characteristic expression--respecting Jesus, is
that He is "sent." To use the noun instead of the verb, He is God's
special messenger, His [Greek: angelos], sent by Him to declare and to
do His will: but this does not imply that He has, or has assumed, the
nature of an angel; just as the application of the same word [Greek:
angelos] to mere human messengers in no way implies that they have any
other nature than human nature. Just as men sent their fellow-men as
their [Greek: angeloi], so God sends One Who, according to Justin, fully
partakes of His Nature, to be His [Greek: angelos].

This sending of our Lord on the part of His Father is one of the chief
characteristics of the Fourth Gospel, and the reader, if he cannot
examine this Gospel for himself, comparing it with the others, has only
to turn to any concordance, Greek or English, to satisfy himself
respecting this matter.

Jesus Christ is said to be "sent of God," _i.e._ to be His [Greek:
angelos], only once in St. Matthew's Gospel (Matthew x. 40: "He that
receiveth me receiveth Him that sent me"), only once in St. Mark (ix.
37), only twice in St. Luke (ix. 48; xx. 13), but in the Fourth Gospel
He is said to be sent of God about forty times. [84:1] In one discourse
alone, that in John vi., Jesus asserts no less than six times that He is
sent of God, or that God sent Him; so that the dictum, "This
representation of the Logos as angel is not only foreign to, but opposed
to, the spirit of the Fourth Gospel," is absolutely contrary to the
truth.