It seems to me that the Gospel of John in particular is relating the “word-commission” of Father-to-Son more to depict the intended Human Agency of the Son within time and space as reflective of and even modeling the human agency entailed in the Great Commission (“as the Father has sent me, so send I you”).

This is analogous to the thrust of the similar picture of human agency in Hebrews 2:5-11, in which the Creation commission to humanity (citing Psalm 8) is reflected and modeled in the life of Christ as promoting that commission among those who receive this “word” through Divine revelation.

It seems that Ward is indeed exerting far too much leverage in an attempt to—as you so aptly put it, Kyle—’push these “words” back to eternity’ and thereby somehow put more “knowable substance” into an otherwise ineffable Trinitarian relationship. The Johannine pictures, as is so characteristic of the NT writers in general, are showing us Jesus’ incarnated human agency for the Father on our behalf as precedent, guide, and empowerment for living out our own human agency for the Father. In light of this human agency, we can see how the Creation Commission is consummated and fulfilled in the Great Commission and how this will necessarily entail our conformity (“who is man…the son of man…?”) to the image of Christ.