---
title: John 17:18
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/john-17-18/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/john-17-18.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: John 17:18
testament: NT
section: Gospels
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# John 17:18

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> As You sent Me into the world, I have also sent them into the world.

## NWT Wording of the Key Phrase

- NWT (2013 revision): "Just as you sent me into the world, I also sent them into the world."

## JW Usage

Read as Jesus commissioning his followers for the preaching work, on the pattern of his own sending by Jehovah. The sending language is also used more broadly to argue subordination — one who is sent is lesser than the sender.

## Protestant Usage

This verse is most useful as a control on how "just as" comparisons work in John. Jesus says: just as you sent me into the world, I also sent them into the world. Nobody reads that as meaning the apostles were sent from eternity, or that their sending matches his in kind and degree. The comparison is about pattern. Keep that in hand for the next verse but five, where Jesus prays that believers may be one just as he and the Father are one — the standard Watchtower answer to John 10:30. The same "just as" is at work, and it no more flattens the Father-Son relationship to agreement than this one elevates the apostles to pre-existence. This verse also settles the frame for John 6:57. "I live because of the Father" sits inside exactly this sending-into-the-world language. The life in view is the life of the one sent on a mission, which is why the same sentence can go on to say believers live because of Jesus. Compare John 17:23, John 6:57, John 5:26.

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [I Live Because of the Father](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/john-6-57-i-live-because.md) — John 6:57 — incarnation context, not pre-existent origin [Deity of Christ]