The Shaliach Principle

Agency as a Synonymic Identity

In the Tanakh, there are several instances where a man is identified as Yahuwah. Moses said the following in Deuteronomy 29 (NASB):

And Moses summoned all Israel and said to them, “You have seen all that the Lord did before your eyes in the land of Egypt to Pharaoh and all his servants, and to all his land;the great trials which your eyes have seen, those great signs and wonders. Yet to this day the Lord has not given you a heart to know, nor eyes to see, nor ears to hear. And I have led you in the wilderness for forty years; your clothes have not worn out on you, and your sandal has not worn out on your foot. You have not eaten bread, nor have you drunk wine or other strong drink, in order that you might know that I am the Lord your God…”

Moses said, “I am Yahuwah, your God.”

This is because, in Scripture, an authorized agent may be spoken of synonymically with his sender. The agent is not numerically identical to the sender; he bears the sender’s identity within the commissioned act. His words are the sender’s words, his authority is the sender’s authority, and receiving or rejecting him constitutes receiving or rejecting the one who sent him.

This was even foreshadowed at the burning bush, where Moses was told that, because he would not speak, the people would see him and God and Aaron as prophet.

He also says, “Now it is not with you alone that I am making this covenant and this oath, but both with those who stand here with us today in the presence of the Lord our God, and with those who are not with us here today…”

This stands in stark contrast with Jeremiah 31:31-32, which reads:

“Behold, days are coming,” declares Yahuwah, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Yisra’el and the house of Yehudah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers on the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Mitsrayim, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares Yahuwah.

So, who made the covenant? Yahuwah, or Moshe?

Zechariah 11 contains this conflation:

“So, I pastured the flock doomed to slaughter… And I took my staff Favor and cut it in pieces, to break my covenant which I had made with all the peoples… And I said to them, ‘If it is good in your sight, give me my wages; but if not, never mind!’ So they weighed out thirty shekels of silver as my wages… And then Yahuwah said to me, ‘Throw it to the potter, that magnificent price at which I was valued by them.’”

Zechariah did the work and received the money, but Yahuwah regarded it as His own valuation. This is because the prophet plays to role of God in these stories. This should not be a surprise.

“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 everything that I command him. And it shall come about that whoever does not listen to My words which he shall speak in My name, I Myself will require it of him.”
—Deuteronomy 18:18–19

Moshe told the people to expect people who speak the words of Yah. A man speaks them, yet those words remain the words of the Father. Compare the following verses:

“The Ruach of Yahuwah spoke through me, and His word was on my tongue.”
—2 Samuel 23:2

“My teaching is not Mine, but His who sent Me.”
—John 7:16

“I do nothing on My own initiative, but I speak these things as the Father taught Me.”
—John 8:28

“For I did not speak on My own initiative, but the Father Himself who sent Me has given Me a commandment as to what to say and what to speak.”
—John 12:49

“The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father remaining in Me does His works.”
—John 14:10

“The one who has seen Me has seen the Father.”
—John 14:9

All of the above are statements of an agent co-identifying with his principal.

Even better, we have Yahuwah saying that this exists from his perspective in Exodus 7:

“Then Yahuwah said to Moshe, ‘See, I appoint you as Elohim to Pharaoh, and your brother Aharon shall be your prophet.’” Note: I will make you God to Pharaoh.

Yahushua explains this in John 10:

“Has it not been written in your Torah, ‘I said, you are gods’? If he called them gods, to whom the word of Elohim came—and the Scripture cannot be nullified…”
—John 10:34-35

Here Yahushua cites Psalm 82 to make a claim that much of later Christianity has been trained to resist: Scripture may apply the designation elohim to beings other than Yahuwah without identifying them as Yahuwah or making them equal to Him. Psalm 82 calls them both elohim and “sons of the Most High,” yet they remain subordinate, accountable, and subject to death:

“I said, ‘You are gods, and all of you are sons of the Most High. Nevertheless, you will die like men and fall like any one of the rulers.’”

Their divine designation therefore describes neither immortality nor equality with Yahuwah. It describes a derived position within Yahuwah’s government. They bear divine authority, but they may still exercise it corruptly and be judged by the One who stands over them.

Likewise, those who receive Yahushua are granted the authority to become children of Elohim:

“But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of Elohim, to those who believe in His name.” —John 1:12

This does not make them numerically identical with Elohim. It gives them a derived identity, status, and authority originating in Him. Those subsequently sent by Yahushua represent him just as Yahushua represents the Father.

Immediately before Yahushua cited Psalm 82, his opponents accused him:

“We are not stoning You for a good work, but for blasphemy; and because You, being a man, make Yourself out to be Elohim.”
—John 10:33

Yahushua does not answer by declaring himself the one Elohim of Yisra’el, which was within his capabilities to state clearly. Instead, he challenges their assumption that applying divine language to an authorized man must constitute blasphemy. Scripture itself calls subordinate recipients of divine authority elohim. How much less can it be blasphemy for the man whom the Father sanctified and sent to call himself the Son of Elohim?

This also governs the meaning of his preceding statement:

“I and the Father are one.” —John 10:30

The immediate context defines that oneness through their united work:

“No one will snatch them out of My hand.”

“No one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.”

Yahushua and the Father are “one” in the preservation of the sheep because the Father’s authority and work operate through the Son. That unity is real and important, but it does not collapse the sender into the one sent.

Yahushua later prays that his disciples may share the same kind of oneness:

“That they may all be one; just as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us.” —John 17:21

The disciples do not become consubstantial members of Elohim by becoming one with the Father and Son. They become united participants in the Father’s word, work, love, and purpose. John therefore interprets John: the oneness of John 10 is the representational and covenantal unity extended to the disciples in John 17.

The Shaliach principle explains all of these statements without dissolving their distinctions:

The Father acts through Yahushua, as he did with the prophets. Yahushua acts through those whom he sends. The agent may bear the sender’s words, works, authority, honor, and identity without becoming the sender himself.