Jesus therefore said to them again, “Most certainly, I tell you, I am the sheep’s door. All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep didn’t listen to them. I am the door. If anyone enters in by me, he will be saved, and will go in and go out, and will find pasture. The thief only comes to steal, kill, and destroy. I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand, and not a shepherd, who doesn’t own the sheep, sees the wolf coming, leaves the sheep, and flees. The wolf snatches the sheep, and scatters them. The hired hand flees because he is a hired hand, and doesn’t care for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own, and I’m known by my own; even as the Father knows me, and I know the Father. I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep, which are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will hear my voice. They will become one flock with one shepherd. Therefore the Father loves me, because I lay down my life, that I may take it again. No one takes it away from me, but I lay it down by myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. I received this commandment from my Father.”
Therefore a division arose again among the Jews because of these words. Many of them said, “He has a demon, and is insane! Why do you listen to him?” Others said, “These are not the sayings of one possessed by a demon. It isn’t possible for a demon to open the eyes of the blind, is it?”
It was the Feast of the Dedication at Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple, in Solomon’s porch. The Jews therefore came around him and said to him, “How long will you hold us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.”
Jesus answered them, “I told you, and you don’t believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name, these testify about me. But you don’t believe, because you are not of my sheep, as I told you.
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv7–26 7. I am the door. If this explanation had…
7. I am the door. If this explanation had not been added, the whole discourse would have been allegorical. He now explains more clearly what was the chief part of the parable when he declares that he is the door The amount of what is stated is, that the principal point of all spiritual doctrine, on which souls are fed, consists in Christ. Hence also Paul, one of the shepherds, says:
I reckon nothing to be worth knowing but Jesus Christ, (1 Corinthians 2:2.)
Read full note →
And this mode of expression conveys the same meaning as if Christ had testified that to him alone we must all be gathered together. Therefore, he invokes and exhorts all who desire salvation to come to him. By these words, he means that in vain do they wander about who leave him to go to God, because there is but one open door, and all approach in any other way is prohibited.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv8, 9, 15, 16, 17, 19, 22, 23, 25, 26 It maketh no matter, how many, neither how old…
It maketh no matter, how many, neither how old the false teachers there have been.
These large terms must be applied to the matter he speaketh of. And therefore when he calleth himself the door, he calleth all them thieves and robbers which take upon them this name of Door, which none of the Prophets can, for they showed the sheep, that Christ was the door.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv7–26 7 Then said Jesus unto them again, Verily, verily,…
7 Then said Jesus unto them again, Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep.
Ver. 7. I am the door] Heaven door, so Christ is pleased to call himself, because "through him we have an access by one Spirit unto the Father," Eph 2:18; and, "in him we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him," Eph 3:12. Why our Saviour compares himself to these ordinary and obvious objects of our senses. {See Trapp on "Joh 15:1"}
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv7–26 Our Saviour had before been speaking of the door…
Our Saviour had before been speaking of the door in another notion; there he spake of the door of the shepherd; here, of the door of the sheep: there, of the door, that is, the true and regular way of entrance into the care, conduct, and government of the church; here, of the true way of entrance, not into the church militant only, but into the church triumphant. It may be also understood of the door, or way of entrance and admission, into the church visible here upon the earth. Circumcision, baptism, external profession, are the doors into the visible Church; but none, unless by Christ, that is, by a true and lively faith wrought by the Spirit of Christ in the soul, can be a true member of Christ’s invisible church here upon the earth, much less a member of his glorious church in heaven.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain On vv7, 11, 16, 17, 19, 22, 23 Observe here, 1. The character which Christ gives of…
Observe here, 1. The character which Christ gives of himself, I am the door of the sheep; that is, the only way and means by which sinners have access to God, and can obtain salvation: the only door by which sinners are entered into the kingdom of grace, and admitted into the kingdom of glory.
Learn hence, That there is no possible way of access to God for fallen man, but by Jesus Christ. As there is no way of entering the house but by the door, and those that so enter are safe: in like manner, such as come unto God through Jesus Christ, in the way of faith and holy obedience, shall be put into a secure condition, and at last obtain eternal salvation.
Read full note →
Observe, 2. The end and design of Christ in coming into the world, asserted and declared by himself; I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.
But had not his people spiritual life before he came into the world?
Yes, he gave life to his people before his coming, in a measure sufficient to supply their necessity; but since his coming, he gives it in such a super-abounding measure, as may testify his divine bounty: they shall not barely live, but live abundantly, that is, their spiritual life shall abound through the upholding, strengthening, quickening, and comforting presence of his holy spirit; for having conveyed spiritual life unto his people, in their regeneration and conversion, he will cause it to increase more and more in their sanctification, until it arrives to a complete perfection in their glorification.
Observe lastly, The character which our Saviour gives of the scribes and pharisees in general, and those false Christs and false prophets, which went before him, in particular; he stiles them thieves and robbers; All that ever come before me, were thieves and robbers.
Observe, He doth not say, All that were sent before me, but all that came before me, were thieves and robbers. So that Christ doth not speak this of the true prophets, who were sent by God before him, but of the false Christ, and false prophets, that came of themselves without an commission from God.
The meaning is, all persons that came before me, pretending to be what I am, the true Messias, as did Theudas and Judas of Galilee, &c. they were thieves and robbers: that is, they only sought their own advantage, while they deceived and ruined you.
Learn hence, That whoever took upon them the office and person of the Messias before Christ, or whosoever have since usurped a lawful calling in his church, without his commission, they are in Christ’s account no better than murderers, thieves and robbers, and they ought to be so in the people’s esteem. The sheep did not hear them.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv19, 22 We have here an account of the people's different…
We have here an account of the people's different sentiments concerning Christ, on occasion of the foregoing discourse; there was a division, a schism, among them; they differed in their opinions, which threw them into heats and parties. Such a ferment as this they had been in before (Joh 7:43; Joh 9:16); and where there has once been a division again. Rents are sooner made than made up or mended. This division was occasioned by the sayings of Christ, which, one would think, should rather have united them all in him as their centre; but they set them at variance, as Christ foresaw, Luk 12:51. But it is better that men should be divided about the doctrine of Christ than united in the service of sin, Luk 11:21. See what the debate was in particular.
I. Some upon this occasion spoke ill of Christ and of his sayings, either openly in the face of the assembly, for his enemies were very impudent, or privately among themselves. They said, He has a devil, and is mad, why do you hear him? 1. They reproach him as a demoniac. The worst of characters is put upon the best of men. He is a distracted man, he raves and is delirious, and no more to be heard than the rambles of a man in bedlam. Thus still, if a man preaches seriously and pressingly of another world, he shall be said to talk like an enthusiast; and his conduct shall be imputed to fancy, a heated brain, and a crazed imagination. 2. They ridicule his hearers: "Why hear you him? Why do you so far encourage him as to take notice of what he says?" Note, Satan ruins many by putting them out of conceit with the word and ordinances, and representing it as a weak and silly thing to attend upon them. Men would not thus be laughed out of their necessary food, and yet suffer themselves to be laughed out of what is more necessary. Those that hear Christ, and mix faith with what they hear, will soon be able to give a good account why they hear him.
Read full note →
II. Others stood up in defence of him and his discourse, and, though the stream ran strong, dared to swim against it; and, though perhaps they did not believe on him as the Messiah, they could not bear to hear him thus abused. If they could say no more of him, this they would maintain, that he was a man in his wits, that he had not a devil, that he was neither senseless nor graceless. The absurd and most unreasonable reproaches, that have sometimes been cast upon Christ and his gospel, have excited those to appear for him and it who otherwise had no great affection to either. Two things they plead: - 1. The excellency of his doctrine: "These are not the words of him that hath a devil; they are not idle words; distracted men are not used to talk at this rate. These are not the words of one that is either violently possessed with a devil or voluntarily in league with the devil." Christianity, if it be not the true religion, is certainly the greatest cheat that ever was put upon the world; and, if so, it must be of the devil, who is the father of all lies: but it is certain that the doctrine of Christ is no doctrine of devils, for it is levelled directly against the devil's kingdom, and Satan is too subtle to be divided against himself. So much of holiness there is in the words of Christ that we may conclude they are not the words of one that has a devil, and therefore are the words of one that was sent of God; are not from hell, and therefore must be from heaven. 2. The power of his miracles: Can a devil, that is, a man that has a devil, open the eyes of the blind? Neither mad men nor bad men can work miracles. Devils are not such lords of the power of nature as to be able to work such miracles; nor are they such friends to mankind as to be willing to work them if they were able. The devil will sooner put out men's eyes than open them. Therefore Jesus had not a devil.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv7–26 Then said Jesus unto them again,.... By way of…
Then said Jesus unto them again,.... By way of explanation of the above parable, since they did not understand it:
verily, verily, I say unto you; this is certainly truth, and what may be depended on as such, whether it will be believed or not:
Read full note →
I am the door of the sheep; and of none but them; not of goats, dogs, or swine; none but sheep enter at this door; and all the sheep do sooner or later: Christ is the door to them, by which they enter into a visible church state, and are let into a participation of the ordinances of it, as baptism and the Lord's supper: no man comes into a church, at the right door, or in a right way, or has a right to partake of Gospel ordinances, but he that truly believes in Christ, and makes a profession of faith in him: Christ is the door of the under shepherds of the sheep; none are fit to be pastors of churches, but who first enter into a Gospel church at this door, and are qualified, and called, and sent forth by Christ: he is the door of the sheep, by which they are let into the presence of his Father, and have communion with him, and partake of all the blessings of grace; it is through him that sanctifying, justifying, pardoning, and adopting grace, are conveyed unto them, and they brought into the enjoyment of them; it is through him they have all their peace, joy, and comfort, and deliverance from, and victory over all their enemies; through him they have heirship, and a right unto eternal life, and that itself; for he is the door into heaven itself, through which they shall have an abundant entrance into it: and he is the only door into each of these; there is no coming to God the Father but by, and through him; nor to a participation of the blessings of the covenant, nor rightly into a Gospel church state, and to the ordinances of it, nor into heaven at last, but in at this door: and this is a door of faith and hope, and an open one, for all sensible sinners, for all the sheep of Christ, to enter in at; though it is a strait gate, the number being few that enter in at it; and those that do, though they are certainly, yet but scarcely saved; for it is through many tribulations and afflictions that they enter.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 21, 22, 23, 26 I am the door - Christ is both the…
I am the door - Christ is both the Door and the Shepherd, and all things.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26 Verse 7. I am the door of the sheep.]…
Verse 7. I am the door of the sheep.] It is through me only that a man can have a lawful entrance into the ministry; and it is through me alone that mankind can be saved. Instead of, I am the door, the Sahidic version reads, I am the shepherd; but this reading is found in no other version, nor in any MS. It is evidently a mistake of the scribe.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv9, 11, 16, 19, 22, 24 Joh 10:9-10. I am the door — I therefore…
Joh 10:9-10. I am the door — I therefore repeat it again, as a most important truth, that I myself am the only right door of entrance into the church of God; if any one, as a sheep, enter in — By me, through faith; he shall be saved — Now and hereafter; or rather, he shall be safe, like a sheep in its fold, safe from the wolf, and from those murdering shepherds; and shall go in and out — Under my care and guidance, and that of the shepherds whom I have sent, whose instructive voice he shall hear, and whose holy example he shall follow; and shall find pasture — Food for his soul in all circumstances: in consequence of his regard to me, his waiting upon me in mine ordinances, and his attendance on the ministry of those whom I appoint to dispense to him the word of life, he shall be fed and nourished with true doctrine, and shall obtain substantial happiness. The thief cometh not but for to kill, &c. — That is, nothing else can be the consequence of a shepherd’s coming, who does not enter in by me. Such assume the character of teachers divinely commissioned, for no other reason but to promote their own interest at the expense of men’s salvation; I am come that they might have life — Life spiritual and eternal; the life of grace and the life of glory. Christ came to quicken his church in general, which was rather like a valley filled with dry bones, than a pasture filled with grazing flocks. He came to vindicate divine truths, to purify divine ordinances, to correct men’s errors, to renew their hearts, to reform their lives, to redress their grievances, to sanctify and support them under their trials and troubles, to seek that which was lost, bind up that which was broken, strengthen that which was weak; and this, to his church, was as life from the dead. He came, that men might have life, as a criminal has when he is pardoned; a sick man when he is cured; a dead man when he is raised; that we might be justified, sanctified, and at last glorified. And that they might have it more abundantly — A life more abundant than that which was lost and forfeited by sin; more abundant than that which was promised by the law of Moses; more abundant than could have been reasonably expected, or than we are able to ask or think; that whatever measure of spiritual life in union with God, through Christ, of conformity to his image, or participation of his nature, we may have received, we may still desire and expect larger measures thereof; or to whatever degrees of holiness and usefulness we may have attained and manifested, we may still proceed to higher degrees, preparing and qualifying us for still higher degrees of future glory.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26 I am the door - I am the way…
I am the door - I am the way by which ministers and people enter the true church. It is by his merits, his intercession, his aid, and his appointment that they enter.
Of the sheep - Of the church.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv8, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 23, 24, 25, 26 All they who come are thieves, meaning those who…
All they who come are thieves, meaning those who came of their own accord, without being sent: not so the prophets, who had their mission from God. (Witham)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On vv22, 24 The separation between the friends and foes of Christ,…
FOURTH SECTION
The separation between the friends and foes of Christ, the children of light and the children of darkness
Read full note →
s Joh_10:22 to Joh_13:30
I
ANTITHESIS BETWEEN THE UNBELIEVERS IN JUDEA, WHO WISH TO KILL THELORD, AND THE BELIEVERS IN PEREA, AMONG WHOM HE FINDS REFUGE. THE FEAST OF THEDEDICATION OF THE TEMPLE. THE FINAL CONFLICT BETWEEN THE FALSE MESSIANIC HOPE ANDTHE TRUE MESSIANIC WORK; FOLLOWED SPEEDILY BY THE STONING. THE TRUE AND THE FALSEDEDICATION OF THE TEMPLE. CHRIST THE SON OF GOD. THE ACTUAL REALIZATION OF THE DIVINEAND MESSIANIC FORMS OF THE OLD COVENANT
Joh_10:22-42
22And it was at Jerusalem the feast of the dedication [Then the feast of the dedication 23occurred at Jerusalem], and [omit and] it [It] was winter [,]. And Jesus walked [was walking, περιεπάτει] in the temple in Solomon’s porch. 24Then came the Jews round about him, and said unto him, How long dost thou make us to doubt [agitate our souls, hold our minds in suspense]? If thou be [art] the Christ, tell us plainly [frankly]. 25Jesus answered them, I told you [spoke to you], and ye believed [believe]30 not: the works that I do in my Father’s name, they [these] bear 26witness of me. But [Nevertheless] ye believe not, because [for, γάρ] ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you.31 27My sheep hear [heed] my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: 28And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man [and no one shall] pluck [tear] them out of my hand. 29My Father, which gave them me [who hath given them to me], is greater [something greater, μεῖζον] than all,32 and no man [no one] is able to pluck [tear] them 30[anything (at all) ] out of my Father’s hand. I and my [the] Father are one [Ἐγὼ χαὶ ὁ Πατὴρ ἕν ἐσμεν].
31Then the Jews [The Jews therefore] took up stones again to [in order to, ἵνα] stone him. 32Jesus answered them, Many good works have I shewed you from my [the] Father; for which of those [these] works do ye stone me ? 33The Jews answered him, saying, [omit saying].33 For a good work we stone thee not; [,] but for blasphemy; and because that [omit that] thou, being a man, makest thyself God. 34Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law,’ I said, Ye are gods?’ (Psa_82:6). 35If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the Scripture cannot be broken [made void], 36Say ye of him, whom the Father hath [omit hath] sanctified, and sent into the world, ‘ Thou blasphemest;’ because I said, I am the 37Son of God? If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. 38But if I do [them], though ye believe not me, believe the works; that ye may know, and believe [understand],34 that the Father is in me, and I in him [in the Father].35
39Therefore they sought again to take [seize] him; but [and] he escaped [passed out, went forth, ἐξῆλθεν] out of their hand, 40And went away again beyond [the] Jordan into [to] the place where John at first baptized [was baptizing]; and there he abode. 41And many resorted [came] unto him, and said, John did no miracle [John indeed wrought no sign]: but all things that John spake [said] of this man were true. 42And many believed on [in] him there.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
[Lücke introduces this Discourse at the Feast of Dedication, Joh_10:22-42, with the remark: “The conflict thickens, the issue looms up with certainty, the great hour approaches swiftly.” The section is remarkable for one of the strongest assertions of Jesus concerning His dynamic and essential oneness with, and personal distinction from, God the Father, Joh_10:30.—P. S.]
Joh_10:22. The feast of the dedication of the temple.—Christ, after His appearance at the Feast of Tabernacles, returned to Galilee (Leben Jesu, vol. II. p. 1004), in order to prepare the great body of His disciples for the last decisive journey to Jerusalem. The proof of this is given above. According to the testimony of the Synoptists, Jesus was followed at his final departure from Galilee by great multitudes that accompanied him through Peræa, whereas the greatest secrecy had been observed on the occasion of His journey to the Feast of Tabernacles.36 The charge of “harmonistic hypothesis,” made against this assumption, is utterly without weight; πάλιν, Joh_10:40, assuredly has reference to the presupposition that Jesus had before sojourned in Peræa. Tholuck alleges, in opposition to the view of Paulus, Ebrard, P. Lange and Neander, that the feast of the dedication of the temple might be celebrated out of Jerusalem; it, however, by no means follows that it must be celebrated out of that city. The evangelical history is made to exhibit a strange anomaly by the supposition that Jesus passed two entire months (between the Feast of Tabernacles and that of the Dedication of the Temple) in Jerusalem, without leaving any traces or reminiscences of His stay. This journey to the Feast of the Dedication may be regarded as an episode in the journey to the last Passover,—the latter journey being begun with full decision of purpose as openly and at as early a period as possible.
The Feast of the Dedication of the Temple was by no means so insignificant; it must, from its nature, draw the Israelite, and hence the Lord individually to the temple, so long as He had not come to a positive rupture with the temple. It was the feast of renovation (חֲנֻכָּה, ἐγκαίνια) instituted by Judas Maccabæus (1Ma_4:36; 2Ma_10:6; Joseph. Antiqu. X. 7, 6 [XII. 7, 7]) in commemoration of the purification and fresh dedication of the temple after its profanation by Antiochus Epiphanes; it was the type of the Christian festival of church dedication (which is also called ἐγκαίνια). The celebration lasted eight days, commencing with the 25th of the month Kislev (the middle of December); its jubilant pageantry resembled that of the Feast of Tabernacles; there was especially a general illumination of the city, and hence the feast was also called τὰ ψῶτα, while from its fundamental idea it derived the name of ἡμέραι ἐγκαινιαμοῦ τοῦ θυσιαστηρίου.
At Jerusalem.—Even if there was a general observance of the feast throughout the country, its centre was of course the temple.37
It was winter (-weather).—As this remark is designed as an explanation of what follows, it is not to be regarded (with Lücke [Meyer, Alford]) as merely denoting the wintry season, in order thus to explain [to Greek readers] why Jesus walked in a porch of the temple, particularly as the temple was ordinarily the constant resort of Jesus when He was in Jerusalem. The raw wintry weather is at the same time indicated (Mat_16:3, Clericus, Lampe), very probably in explanation of the circumstance that Jesus was, for the instant not encircled and protected by the customary throngs of faithful followers, when the Jews suddenly surrounded Him.38
Joh_10:23. In Solomon’s porch [arcade, colonnade].—The στοὰ Σολομῶνος (Act_3:11) was according to tradition incorporated into the new temple buildings as a venerable remnant of the temple of Solomon (Josephus Antiqu. XX. 9, 7). It was situated on the eastern side of the temple-porch (στοὰ ἀνατολική in Josephus). Exegetes direct attention to the trace of eye-witness-ship in this remark (comp. Joh_8:20).39
[In the same place the apostles afterwards wrought miracles and proclaimed the gospel of Christ, Act_3:11; Act_5:12. Large portions of massive masonry, evidently belonging to the early ages of the temple, are still found on the temple area. Dr. Robinson (Researches, Am. ed., 1856, vol. Ι. p. 289), after describing these ruins, says: “The former temple was destroyed by fire, which would not affect these foundations; nor is it probable that a feeble colony of returning exiles could have accomplished works like these. There seems, therefore, little room for hesitation in referring them back to the days of Solomon, or rather of his successors, who, according to Josephus, built up here immense walls, ‘immovable for all time’ (ἀκινήτους τῷ παντὶ ξρόνῳ, Antiq. XV. 11, 3). Ages upon ages have since rolled away, yet these foundations still endure, and are immovable as at the beginning. Nor is there aught in the present physical condition of these remains, to prevent them from continuing so long as the world shall last. It was the temple of the living God; and, like the everlasting hills on which it stood, its foundations were laid for all time.”—P. S.]
Joh_10:24. Then came the Jews around him [lit. gathered around him in a circle, ἐκύκλωσαναὐτόν].—It is manifest that Jesus is at this time destitute of adherents,—a situation of which the hostile Jews promptly take advantage.40 He finds Himself unawares encircled by them. He must, however, have had His reasons for permitting the arrival of this moment. Here again are things spoken, by which their most secret thoughts are laid bare and exposed to the illumination of the word of Christ. As a matter of course, these Jews are Pharisees; the position assumed by them and Jesus’ answer to them, Joh_10:26, prove that they are likewise members of the Sanhedrin.
How long dost thou agitate our soul? [Ἕως πότε τὴν ψυχὴν ἡμῶν αἴρεις;]—Not: how long dost Thou take possession of our hearts, but, how long dost Thou raise us up, excite us, how long dost Thou hold our souls in suspense? See the illustrations from the Classics and Josephus in Meyer. [In Josephus ψυχὴν αἴρειν means to uplift the soul, to raise the courage (Antiq. III. 2, 3; III. 5, 1), but it has also the more general sense to excite the soul (= μετεωρίζειν), which in this case was done by Messianic expectations.—P. S.]
If thou art the Christ.—The usual explanation, that they design from the first hypocritically to draw from Him some expression whereupon they may ground His condemnation, leaves unnoticed the ardent longing of the Jews for a temporal Messiah after their own heart,—a longing which occupies a conspicuous place in the gospel history. Hypocrisy certainly is at work, but only inasmuch as they have a presentiment that He will not answer their chiliastic cravings. There is then a visionary longing as well as a fanatical irony in their question (comp. chap. 8) The feast of the dedication was the festival of Judas Maccabæus who had driven the heathenish Syrians out of Jerusalem. On that day did the Jews wish more ardently than ever that a new Maccabee or Hammerer might arise and beat down the Romans.
Joh_10:25. I have spoken to you.—The εἰπον ὑμῖν must not be translated: I have told you so. For that would be an unmistakable affirmative, and would at once present to them the alternative either of paying Him homage as the Messiah, or of seizing and trying Him as a false prophet. The εἷπον might indeed be considered to have a positive reference to the foregoing εἰπὲ ἡμῖν παῤῥησίᾳ: “I have (plainly) told you, but,” etc.41 Christ subsequently, however, Sets forth His desire to be first acknowledged by them in the works that He does in the Father’s name (not in the official Messianic name). Therefore we read: “I have spoken to you—and ye believe not—: the works,” etc.,—i.e. I have given you a token of what I am. This answer is not really evasive, for it is Christ’s will to be known as the Messiah by what He is to them, and not by their Messianic idea in what He is. According to Meyer Jesus had already told them many times that He was the Messiah, though not so directly as He had told the Samaritan woman. But the tragical part of this history and the proof of how far a would-be orthodox theology may depart from the living word of God, is contained in the very fact that it was necessary for Him to lock up His Messianic name from them in His own heart, until the moment (Mat_26:64) when their fanatical Messianic conception condemns Him to the cross.
Joh_10:26. For ye are not of my sheep.—A statement of the reason of their unbelief. Ye do not recognize Me in My word and work, and, not knowing Me, ye do not subordinate yourselves to Me and trust in My guidance; on the contrary, ye desire a Messiah, that he may be the subservient tool of your passions.—As I said unto you.—The omission (see the Text. Notes) was probably occasioned by the fact that no verbal declaration to this effect is to be found. Such a declaration is, however, conveyed in intention by the parables of the Good Shepherd, John 10. Hence we must not with Euthymius and others refer these words to the subsequent discourse of Jesus. And so much the less, since entirely new considerations are therein presented to us: 1. that the sheep follow the Shepherd, 2. that He gives His sheep eternal life, etc. Neither can any importance be attached to the doubts of Strauss and others concerning the probability of the assumption that Jesus is reminding His hearers of a parabolical discourse uttered by Him two months before; and Meyer justly observes that it was not characteristic of Jesus to repeat His more lengthy discourses.
Joh_10:27-29. My sheep hoar my voice, etc.—Bengel: “Tria sententiarum paria, quorum singula et ovium fidem et pastoris bonitatem exprimunt per correlata.” But we apprehend the three correlative members somewhat differently, always placing the Shepherd before the sheep. In advance, however, comes the saying which embraces the whole: the sheep that are Mine, they hear My voice [τὰ πρόβατα τὰ ἐμὰ τῆς φωνῆς γου ἀκούουσιν]. The unfolding of this personal connection: a. I know them [κἀγὼ γινώσκω αὐτά]: and they follow Me [καῖ ἀκολουθοῦσίν μοι]; b. I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish [κἀγὼ δίδωμι αὐτοῖς ζωὴν αἰώνιον, καὶ οὐ μὴ ἀπόλωνται εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα]; c. none shall tear them out of My handοὐχ ἁρπάσει τις αὐτὰ ἐκ τῆς χειρός μου]: the Father gave them to Me, and He is greater than all: none can tear them out of the Father’s hand.
In this arrangement of the propositions, Christ is the Shepherd, the principle of the relationship; with His personal conduct the conduct and relationship of the flock correspond. The first proposition (a) declares the foundation and condition of salvation; the second proposition (b) declares the blessing, internally and externally considered: because Christ gives them eternal life, they shall never perish in the terrors of eternity, death and judgment. The third proposition (c) is descriptive of the absolute protection which they enjoy. It has reference to the former word concerning the wolf. Exegesis, however, should not overlook the fact that the Jews at that time beheld the wolf in the Roman power which threatened destruction to their nation. If, then, Jesus means to say that the spiritual safety of believers, as the Church of Christ, should be secured in His hand, so too He says that in the hand of the Father who is exalted above every power of this world, they should at the same time be preserved from destructive oppression on the part of the Roman temporal power. Therefore, what the Jews in carnal and fanatical excitement sought in vain in their Messiah, they should really and truly find in Christ.
According to Augustine and Calvin, Christ’s words declare the doctrine of the grace of final perseverance; Tholuck agrees, but insists upon the condition which Augustinian and Calvinistic divines imply, that the marks of a true sheep must be discoverable in them that are kept, and that according to 1Jn_2:19, the apostate is regarded as not really belonging to the Church, because of his failure to comply with the condition of walking in the light. Meyer, on the other hand, remarks in accordance with the Lutheran belief, that the possibility of falling away is not excluded by the words of Christ. What is excluded is, above all things, the confounding of different stages: he who is awakened may fall away as an awakened man; he who is sealed is sealed. A dispute upon this subject, without distinction of the different stages, is a battle of words.42
Joh_10:30. I and the Father are one.—This grand saying of Jesus serves primarily as a proof of the preceding statement; hence its primary signification is: land the Father are one in the work of salvation. The heart of the Shepherd corresponds with the nature of the sheep, which nature the Father created by His gratia præveniens. The Shepherd’s call of grace corresponds with the divine vocation in them. His eternal life that He puts into their hearts, corresponds with the destiny prepared for them by God,—that they shall never perish. His spiritual preservation corresponds with the historical preservation ordained by God: the triumphant church of Christ, is the triumphant Kingdom of God. But this soteriological oneness of Father and Son in work and government is at the same time expressive of their ontological oneness in power and substance. This saying, therefore, has not a mere soteriological reference to the oneness of the hand or the oneness in power, as set forth in this syllogism: (a) No man can pluck them out of My Father’s hand; (b) I and My Father are one; (c) consequently no man can pluck them out of My hand. (Chrysostom, Calvin, and others, Lücke). It is rather the unity of the whole parallel, “ the co-operation of Father and Son in the whole economy of salvation.” Tholuck after Tertullian and others; comp. 1Co_3:8. “In the Arian controversies Alexander, Athanasius and many others made use of this passage against the Arians as a dictum probans, declaring it to mean the unitas naturæ of the Logos and the Father, while the Arians on the other hand held that it signified the consensus voluntatis. The interpretation of the Socinians, who regarded it as signifying the unitas voluntatis et potestatis, was not indeed rejected by the representatives of the Church, but the latter considered the unitas naturæ to be implied by the unitas potentiæ. See Gerhard I. p. 252, Lyser and others. Even Calvin—although on this account accused by Hunnius of a scelus—brought forward this argument. The point treated of by this saying is, in fact, not the Trinitarian relationship, but the relation of the Incarnate One to the Father.” Tholuck. Meyer is also of this opinion.43 In upholding this view, however, they overlook these facts: 1. That the economical Trinity [of revelation] points back to the ontological Trinity [of essence]; 2. that the Jews apprehend this expression ontologically, and hence accuse Christ of blasphemy against God; 3. that Christ does not correct their ontologicai conception of His meaning, but favors it, and in conclusion, as they fully believe, confirms it, Joh_10:38.
[The neuter ἕν denotes, according to the connection and for the purpose of the argument, unity of will and power, which rests on the unity of essence or nature; for power is one of the divine attributes which are not outside of the divine essence, but constitute it. Even if we confine ἕν to dynamic unity, we have hero one of the strongest arguments for the strict divinity of Christ. It is implied even more in ἐσμεν than in ἕν. No creature could possibly thus associate himself in one common plural with God Almighty without shocking blasphemy or downright madness. In this brief sentence we have, as Augustine and Bengel observe, a refutation both of Arianism and Sabellianism; ἕν refutes the former by asserting the dynamic (and, by implication, the essential) unity of the Father and the Son, Ἐγώ καὶ ὁ πατήρ and ἐσμεν refute the latter by asserting the personal distinction. Sabellianism would require the masculine εἶς instead of the neuter, and this would be inconsistent with ἐσμεν and the self-conscious Ἐγώ.44—P. S.]
Joh_10:31. Took up stones again.—Again as Joh_8:59 and for a similar cause. The arrival of the decisive turning point in their wavering mood is again induced by Christ’s asseveration concerning His divine nature. They have no use for such a Messiah who contradicts their consciousness, that has become unitarian.—They have already caught up stones and raised them high in air (ἐβάστασαν); nevertheless the word of Jesus fetters their arm. It is the counteraction of the might of His Spirit; no doubt assisted, however, by the want of a literal formula, upon the strength of which they might securely bring Him to trial. His words are everywhere peculiar to Himself, the Man of the Spirit, and they are forever in doubt as to whether they have rightly understood Him. But the matter with which they think they can reproach Him, they subsequently declare.
Joh_10:32. Many good works have I shewed you from my Father.—Jesus answers them; that is, He replies to their sign-language. He has thoroughly understood them in their malice, but designates them as incomprehensible, in accordance with their own consciences to which He appeals.Καλὰ ἔργα, 1. Works of love: Baumg.-Crusius; 2. præclara opera, excellent works: Meyer; 3. irreproachable works: Luthardt. Special importance attaches to the ἔργον itself. The ἔργον ἐκ τοῦ πατρός is a miracle. Similarly, the ἔδειξα without doubt contains the idea of sign-giving. Καλόν is indicative of moral beauty, beneficence.—For which of these works do ye stone me? The ironicalness of this expression is unmistakable and invites an elucidation of biblical irony in general (comp. 2Co_12:13. A principal passage is Psalms 2). At the foundation, however, of this ironical speech lies the deeper meaning that He, in all His words and works, is but the representative of the Father; so that their every assault upon Him is a declaration of war against God Himself. Furthermore these words seem to assume 1. that capital punishment should not be inflicted on account of a word; 2. that it should be inflicted on account of a work, only inasmuch as that work is proved to be deserving of death. Execution should be preceded by a regular trial. Above all things we should fix our eyes upon the sublime composure of Jesus as manifested by His ironical speech in this condition of affairs.
Joh_10:33. For blasphemy, and because thou, being a man, makest thyself God.—It is questioned whether the following καὶ ὄτι σύ, etc., is simply an explanation; according to Meyer: “For blasphemy and that because.” The καί would then be superfluous. They reproach Him with two things: first, that He places God on a par with Himself—and this they call blasphemy; secondly, that He makes Himself God—and in this they think they recognize the false prophet; although both ideas undoubtedly play into each other.
Joh_10:34. Is it not written in your law, I said ye are gods?—In your law (see Joh_8:17), a reference to Psa_82:6. According to Tholuck and Ewald the psalm does not refer to angels or foreign princes but to unjust theocratic judges. אֱלחִֹים, Exo_21:6; Exo_22:28 (comp. 2Ch_19:5-7). “Moses uses it in a collective sense—Sept. to τὸ κριτήριον τοῦ θεοῦ; here in the Psalm it is a personal appellation of individuals; in parallel with θεοί is υἱοὶ ὑψίστου” Tholuck.—I said, εἶπα Ewald explains this: I thought ye were. Tholuck thinks it has reference to the institution of Moses; according to the subsequent explanation of the Lord, the expression refers to the fact that the λόγος τοῦ came to them,—that they were called to their office by the word of God. Full of meaning, then, is the idea of Cyril who considers the passage as significant of the λόγος ἄσαρκος; and that of Theodor-Mopsuest. (and Olshausen) who take it to mean the word of God’s revelations to the judges. In opposition to this Tholuck remarks that revelations were attributed only to the. Law-giver as judge. This latter view is, however, contrary to the Old Testament: every judge in the time of the judges was called by a λόγος θεοῦ, David and Solomon were so called and every royal or priestly Mashiach was assumed to have received such a call, inasmuch as he did at least receive it through the typical anointing. A principal consideration is this: the theocratical callings came by the Angel of the Lord, i.e., by Christ in the Old Testament, the λόγος ἄσαρκος, and hence those who were called received the name of Elohim.
Joh_10:35. If he called them gods.—Conclusion: a minori ad majus. In what respect: 1. from those blameworthy judges and their lofty title—to Christ (Bengel, Lücke); 2. from those who derived their dignity from the Mosaic institution, to Him whom God hath sanctified (Gerhard, Tholuck); 3. from those to whom the λόγος τοῦ θεοῦ did but come, to Him whom God sanctified and sent into the world, i.e., whom He has actually made His λόγος to the world; the Logos-nature of Christ is here implied though not expressed (Cyril, etc.). This last we hold to be the only correct conception, the only one satisfactory to the Old Testament Christology.
[Alford: “The argument is a minori ad majus. If in any sense they could be called gods,—how I much more properly He, whom, etc. They were only officially so called, onlyλεγόμενοι θεοί—but He, the only One, sealed and hallowed by the Father, and sent into the world (the aorists refer to the time of the Incarnation), is essentially θεός, inasmuch as He is υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ. The deeper aim of this argument is, to show them that the idea of man and God being one, was not alien from their Old Testament spirit, but set forth there in types and shadows of Him, the real God-Man.”—P. S.]
And the Scripture cannot be broken; λυθῆναι, Mat_5:19; Joh_5:18; Joh_7:23. Be made invalid, subverted. Meyer: “The auctoritas normativa et judicialis of the Scripture cannot be done away with. Note here the idea of the unity of the Scriptures.” This practical sense of the Scripture certainly prevails here, although it is founded upon the inspiration of the sacred writings. (Gaussen, Stier). Inspiration is undoubtedly modifiable, though not by the distinction of important and “unimportant” words.
[Webster and Wilkinson: “This remark proves that the terms in which God made His revelation to man were regarded by our Lord as Divinely inspired; that the form as well as the substance of Scripture is given by inspiration of God, for His argument here is founded upon the mode of expression adopted by the sacred writers.” Godet: “ The expression shows the boundless confidence with which the Scripture word inspired Jesus.”—P. S.]
Joh_10:35. Whom the Father hath sanctified, etc.—Interpretations: 1. Melanchthon and others: the unctio with divine gifts and attributes; 2. Tholuck: consecration to the Messianic office, one with the σφραγίζειν, Joh_6:27, etc. (?). The meaning, in accordance with the idea of sanctification, is as follows: He has taken Him out from the world in order to appropriate Him to the world; i.e., He has made Him the God-Man, the now Man, the wonder of the new life, and has also accredited Him to you by His sinlessness and miraculous works. This is spoken in antithesis to the typical sanctification, or consecration to office, enjoyed by the Old Testament judges or messiahs. They were consecrated by men, by means of outward anointing or calling; He is consecrated by the Father, by the anointing of the Spirit and the attestation of works. This circumstance, then, contains the strongest intimation that He is in truth the Messiah, and at the same time furnishes the most conclusive evidence that He is no typical Messiah, but the real Messiah.
I am the Son of God.—Christ’s reasoning receives additional force from the antithesis between the real dignities and the titles. In respect of the dignities He proceeds a minori ad majus; in respect of the title a majors ad minus (gods, Son of God),—i.e., at least according to the literal expression as apprehended by them. This expression is also an explanation of the words: I and My Father are one. The conclusion, Joh_10:38, proves that the υἱὸς might, in accordance with rationalistic interpretation, be primarily understood as a mere official name.
Joh_10:37. If I do not the works.—The works of Christ are the Father’s works as new works, creative works, such as He can do only in oneness with the Father, Joh_9:3.—Believe me not.—A conditional absolution from belief; at once real and ironical.
Joh_10:38. And ye believe not me (might not—are not able to believe).—Distinction of a gradation in faith. They cannot, perchance, soar up to the direct view of His personality. This flight of faith is not allotted to every one. But they are able and are morally bound to set foot upon the first step of faith: to recognize the divinity of His mission by His works. Hence they will derive the knowledge that Christ stands in the closest communion with God, and thus a higher belief in His personality will be produced in them. There would hardly be an immediate knowledge on their part of His divine personality; and this also is unfavorable to the reading quoted above and recommended by Meyer [see Text. Notes].
That the Father is in me.—This is not the full import of that oneness with the Father, declared by Christ, Joh_10:30, but the living manifestation of it in His works; if they would not harden themselves, they would be in a condition believingly to take knowledge of that revelation, and their further progress in faith would be assured. In a sense, then, the περιχώρησις essentialis is but intimated here.45 Christ in His character as the Redeemer is in the Father by submersion, contemplation, by the seeing of His works; the Father is in Christ by revelation, appearance, co-operation in the works of Christ.
Joh_10:39. Again to take him.—(See Joh_8:30; Joh_8:32). This denotes a milder ebullition of their rage in comparison with their previous attempt to stone Him. The apparently obscurer and more indefinite saying of Christ seemed to demand a preliminary trial.
And he escaped out of their hands.—“Something in this of a miraculous nature (a rendering of Himself invisible), although assumed by many ancient exegetes and still by Baumg.-Crusius and Luthardt, is not intimated by John.” Meyer. But John has just shown that Christ was able so to impress His enemies as to render them powerless.
Joh_10:40. Again beyond the Jordan.—Peræa. See Note on Joh_10:22. In thus doing He has not given up the people, but He withdraws into a region of greater susceptibility. He was still bound to the last trial, as to whether the dynamical power of His friends would overcome that of His enemies or succumb to it, when the whole nation should be assembled at the Paschal Feast. He remained in that place from the time of the feast of the dedication until His journey to Bethany.
Joh_10:41. And many resorted unto him.—Bengel: Fructus posthumus officii Johannis. But we must not overlook the fact that Christ had before sojourned in Peræa and worked there.—John did no miracle.—Nevertheless he is attested by Christ. Himself in what he said of Him. And thus his testimony to Christ lives again and continues working to the furtherance of faith.
Starke: The different dedications of the Jewish temple: 1. Under Solomon, 1Ki_8:2; 1 Kings 2. under Hezekiah, 2Ch_29:17; 2Ch_29:19; 2 Chronicles 3. by Zerubbabel, Ezr_6:16; Ezra 4. by Judas Maccabæus, 1Ma_4:41; 2Ma_5:1; 2 Maccabees 5. in the time of Herod. Joseph. Antiqu. xv.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. See the Exeg. Notes Joh_10:24-30 and Joh_10:34.
2. The longing of the Jews for a Messiah in its relation to the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness, to Joh_6:15, and to similar moments in the evangelical history.
3. The temptation of Christ by the Jews, in connection with the temptation, Joh_8:1-11, and the temptation in the history of the Passion.
4. Christ here also evades their Messianic idea in order, on the other hand, to establish His own.—The life of Christ the ideal realization of Maccabæan heroism and of the new Dedication of the Temple.
5. The sheep of Christ, or the germs of the New Testament biblical doctrine of election, predestination and vocation, Rom_8:29.
6. “I and the Father are one.” (Joh_10:30). The soteriological foreground, the ontological background of this word. The distinction of Person: We; the oneness of substance: One.
[Comp. the Exeg. Notes.—Wordsworth in loc.: “We are one. Listen to both words ‘are’ and ‘one’. The word ‘ are’ delivers you from the heresy of Sabellius; the word ‘one’ (‘unum’) delivers you from that of Arius. (Aug.). Sail thou in the midst, between the Scylla of the one and the Charybdis of the other. Christians framed a new word, ‘Homoousion Patris (consubstantial with the Father), against the impiety of Arianism; but they did not coin a new thing by a new word. For the doctrine of the Homoousion is contained in our Lord’s own words,—‘I and My Father are one’—‘unum,’ one substance (Aug. Tract, xcvii. See also Aug. Serm. 139). And there were Christians in fact, before the name ‘Christians,’ was given to believers at Antioch. (Act_11:26). The same remark applies to the words ‘Trinity,’ θεοτόκος, and some others; against which exceptions have been made by some in modern times. It has been objected by Socinians and others, that these words of Christ do not signify oneness of substance, because our Lord used a similar expression when speaking of His disciples, in His prayer,—ἵνα πάντες ἔν ὦσιν, καθὼς σὺ, πάτερ, ἐν ἐμοὶ, κἀγὼ ἑν σοὶ, ἴνα καὶ αὐτοὶ ἐν ἡμῖν ἕν ὦσιν, Joh_17:21; comp. Joh_10:22-23. That language of Christ does indeed prove that the Father and the Son are not the same person; and so it is valid against the Sabellian heresy. But it does not show that they are not consubstantial. It is a comparison; and things compared are not identical. It contains a prayer, that all believers may be one in heart and will, as the Persons of the Trinity are; that by virtue of Christ’s Incarnation, by which He became Emmanuel,—God with us, God manifest in the flesh, or, as He there expresses it, ἐγὼ ἐν αὐτοῖς (Joh_17:23; Joh_17:26)—they may be united in the One Godhead. Indeed that language proves the consubstantiality of the Three Persons. Men are not different natures from each other; they are all of one blood (Act_17:26), of one substance,—being all from Adam and Eve. If the Son is inferior in nature to the Father, and different in substance from Him, the comparison could not have been made. The consubstantiality of all men, with a diversity of persons in each individual, and their union in God, is an apt illustration, as far as human things can be, of the true doctrine of the One Nature and Plurality of Persons in the Godhead.”—Owen: “Some refer this unity to one of purpose merely. But the context refers to power, as the attribute of the Father specially referred to. This shows that unity of power, rather than unity of purpose, is here predicated of the Father and Son. But a oneness of power—which with God is omnipotent power—involves the idea of a unity of being or essence, and shows that the Father and Son are essentially one. But even if a unity of will and purpose only is meant in the unity here spoken of, does not an absolute oneness in this respect presuppose essential unity? In either case, whether unity of power or purpose be intended, the passage teaches most clearly an essential unity of the Father and Son. The manifest design of the declaration is to prevent any misconception, which arises from the fact, that the sheep are spoken of as being in the hand of both the Father and the Son. The question might arise, how, at one and the same time, they could be in the hand of two distinct beings, each so powerful that none could pluck them from their hand. The answer, simple, concise, and unmistakable, is that these Persons are one and the same in essence; and that so united are they in their essential being, that whoever claims the protection and care of one, has an equal demand, upon that of the other. Hence there was nothing strange in the assertion, that the sheep were in His hand, and also in that of his Father. That this is the great argument of the passage, seems too plain to be for a moment questioned. To claim that a mere unity of will and purpose, aside from an essential unity of being, meets the requisitions of this declaration, when considered in relation to the context so clear and well defined, is as absurd as to say that two persons may have distinct and personal possession of a thing at one and the same time, merely because there exists between them a unity of will and purpose. That essential unity is here intended is clear, not only, as we have shown, from the scope of the passage, which requires something more than oneness of purpose, but also from the following context, and especially Joh_10:33, where the mutual indwelling of the Father and Son is expressly declared, in terms which admit of no other interpretation, than as referring to the mysterious and ineffable union taught so clearly in the passage before us. The numeral one is the Greek neuter, the idea of essence and not of personality being predominant. Had the masculine form been employed, it would have been I and My Father are one person, which would involve an untruth and an absurdity.”—P. S.]
7. The authority of Holy Scripture. Be it observed that Christ by His quotation also reminded the unjust judges who stood opposed to Him of the threat in the Psalm cited: ye shall die.
8. Foretokens of the doctrine of the divinity of Christ in the Old Testament. Whom the Father hath sanctified, i.e., really consecrated by the anointing of the Spirit (after Psalms 2), in antithesis to the typical consecrations under the Old Covenant.
9. The majestic escapes and flights of Christ.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
The Jewish dedication of the temple: 1. In respect of its noble destination, 2. in respect of its degeneracy, 3. in respect of its terrible end in our text.—The degeneration of Christian church dedications. Its gradation: 1. The church is glorified more than Christ its Lord; 2. the festival is more a cause of rejoicing than the church; 3. attempts are finally made to cast out the Lord as the disturber of this joy.—Nevertheless, church dedication, as the birth-day feast of individual congregations of the Reformation, has the qualities of a delightful festival.—Christ suddenly surrounded by enemies in Solomon’s porch: provocative of a query as to the whereabouts of His friends.—Hindrances of Christians from the public assembling around the Lord, a measure of their fervor and faithfulness: 1. Wind and weather; 2. amusements; 3. contagious example.—Enemies around! The ever fresh experience of the always victorious Christ.—How long dost thou make us to doubt? or the wicked, temptations ambiguity of the Jews’ question: 1. The old and fading desire that He might become a Christ in their sense; 2. the ver new and over higher blazing enmity unto death.—Christ’s presence of mind at the moment when He sees Himself surrounded by enemies: 1. In His cautious and yet decided reply to their question, Joh_10:25-28; John 2. in the calm and triumphant answer and throat, Joh_10:31-32; John 3. in the profound and yet clear response to their charge of heresy, Joh_10:34-38; John 4. in the majestic answer in deed to their attempt, Joh_10:39-40.—The import of Christ’s answer, Joh_10:25 ff.: I am not a Christ in your sense, but the Christ in the name of the Father.—They do not know the Shepherd because they are not His sheep.—The word of Christ concerning His sheep a presentation of their cordial reciprocal conduct: 1. He is their Shepherd; they hear His voice; 2. He knows them; they follow Him; 3. He gives them eternal life; they do not” perish; 4. He keeps them securely in His hand; they rest safely through Him in the Father’s hand.—The great word of Christ: I and the Father are one—how it holds good: 1. Of His work of redemption in the life of His people and in the world; 2. of His redemptive impulse and His consciousness; 3. of His divine essence in the eternity of God.—” Ye are gods,” or the presages in the Old Testament of the doctrine of the divinity of Christ.—” The Scripture cannot be broken.” In particular not in its testimony to Christ. Christ sanctified by the Father; this, to a comprehender of the Old Testament, presented the following meaning: consecrated and anointed by the Holy Ghost as the real Messiah, in accordance with Psalms 2; Isa_61:1.
The fearful contradictions in the conduct of fanatical passion: 1. First flattering, hypocritical questions, then murderous threats and assaults; 2. first the stoning, then the accusation; 3. first the charge of blasphemy, then the proposal of investigation (wished to take Him).—The charge of blasphemy brought against the Lord by the Jews, on account of the holy revelation of His divine consciousness of being one with the Father.
The three great vouchers for the divinity of Christ: 1. The Scriptures; 2. His works; 3. the direct impression of His personality.—The separation between the friends and enemies of Christ.
The retreat of Christ into Peræa a prelude to the flight of the Christians into Peræa before the destruction of Jerusalem.—Peræa, or the mountain sanctuaries of the Church of Christ (in the Piedmontese mountains, the mountains of Bohemia, the Cevennes, the Scottish hills, the mountains of Switzerland.—But principally in spiritual hill-countries, or in a popular life in which the heights of spirituality and the depths of simplicity and humility are united).—The believers of Peræa, or how John’s work revives, glorified, in the work of Christ.—The flights of Christ lay the foundation for the refuge of sinners.
Starke: Nova. Bibl. Tub.: Church dedication an old but abused custom.—Zeisius: A Christian can, in pursuance of his Saviour’s example, with a good conscience observe those festivals which, though instituted by men, have a single aim to the glory of God and the edification of the Church.—Quesnel: The walks of our Saviour are not idle ones, etc.—The concourse of many men even to a holy place is not invariably an indication of zeal for learning.—As Christ proved by His work that He is the Messiah and Son of God, so shouldest thou prove by thy works that thou art a Christian and a child of God.—Zeisius: Believers may be entirely certain of the divine favor and of their salvation in this world and the next, Rom_8:31-39.—Cramer: Steadfastness in the faith does not rest in human strength, but we are by the grace of God preserved unto salvation.—The hand of the Father is God’s omnipotence.—Ibid.: The Father is one Person, the Son is another, and yet Father and Son are not divided but are one in substance. See the mystery of the Holy Trinity.—Holy Scripture is the sword wherewith we may strike our adversaries.—On Joh_10:35. Magistrates are indued by God Himself with a lofty title; hence they must not be despised, but honored.—Majus: Christ goes from one place to another with His Gospel.—Ibid.: Yet truth triumphs finally.—Zeisius: Godly meditation upon the strange and wonderful things that formerly came to pass in this or that place, may be a powerful incentive to repentance and faith.
Gerlach: He and the Father are not εἶς, one Person, but ἕν, one divine Being.—Lisco: Since He (the Father) is greater, mightier than all, than all hostile powers, Christ’s friends are safe under the protection and guidance of the Almighty, nay, safe under the protection of both (Father and Son).—It is only malefactors that are usually persecuted; why then do ye persecute Me, who have conferred only benefits upon you?—Braune: He believes the works, who through them experiences suggestions and presentiments of the divine in Jesus; he believes Jesus, who knows that God is truly in Him.—Gossner: If Thou be Christ, tell us plainly.—Ye are not of My sheep: ye are in the Church, but not of the Church.—I know My sheep. The whole world may judge them as it will; He knows what to think of them.—My sheep follow Me. It is the magnet of love, that draws and drives, voluntarily on both sides.—Eternal Life.—Who can resist the hand of the Almighty or despoil it of anything? How sweetly and securely, then, may we repose in His hand!—The salvation of the chosen sheep of Christ stands firm, for 1. they belong to Christ, from whom no violence can ravish anything; 2. they are the gift of the Father, a gift of infinite love, presented by Him to His Song of Solomon 3. they are an irrevocable gift that can never be taken back; 4. they are the gift of a Father who is mightier and greater than all creatures.—To their stony reply He makes a right loving rejoinder.—As they caught up stones, He once more laid hold of their hearts.—Can it be wondered at, that the holiest truths we preach are railed at as errors and fanaticism, when Jesus Christ Himself was treated as a blasphemer because He spake the truth?—On Joh_10:37. A ghostly-man must be ghostly-minded, a Christian must have the mind of Christ, a child of God must be godly-minded; they must lead lives spiritual, Christian, and worthy of God, or make no professions so to live.—He escaped out of their hands, but they shall not escape Him.—He stays as long as He can,—until they begin stoning Him, until He finds everything walled up and petrified.
Heubner: The Church is permitted [within proper limits] to institute festivals in commemoration of great benefits from the Lord (Festival of the Reformation; Days of Prayer and Humiliation, of Thanksgiving).
Joh_10:23. He who here walked in a porch was more than all the Peripatetics and Stoics.—Jesus reveals Himself only to still and deep souls.—Many scoff at the figure: “Sheep, Flock of Jesus.” O were they but sensible of the warmth and tenderness of that love which chose the figure!—A believer must lose his faith in Jesus before he can be torn away from Him.—The enemy can disperse and scatter outward societies but not the confederation of hearts.
Joh_10:33. They themselves were the blasphemers.
Joh_10:41. John did no miracles. In this very thing Jesus was to have the preeminence over John.
Joh_10:42. Thus John’s preaching is working even to this day.
Schleiermacher: Art thou the Christ? No doubt they said as did others: Never man did such miracles before, etc.; but because they found in Him no food for their carnal natures, no encouragement for their lust of outward distinctions among men, their souls were kept in suspense: they wavered and fluctuated between faith and unbelief,—nothing firm took form in them. Hence they demanded only the letter and hoped for good from it. (All their fanatical claims, however, were attached to the letter; they held that if Jesus were the Messiah, He must be a Messiah in their sense of the term, opposed as that sense was to the divine Word).—But why did the Redeemer keep from them this trifling gift of the letter? In the first place, He would permit nothing to turn Him from the path on which He had once entered; secondly, the time was approaching when (at a formal trial) the Lord should hear this same question from those who, as the spiritual superiors of the people, deriving their superiority from the gradual conformation of time, had a right to demand of Him the decisive letter. So for that occasion He reserved it. Then that letter, being in the right place, also possessed the highest fulness of spirit and life.
[Craven: From Chrysostom: Joh_10:30. I and My Father are one; this is added that we may not suppose that the Father protects while He is too weak to do so.
Joh_10:34-35. Our Lord did not correct the Jews as if they misunderstood His speech, but confirmed and defended it in the very sense in which they had taken it.
Joh_10:39-40. Christ after discoursing on some high truth commonly retired immediately, to give time to the fury of the people to abate.—From Augustine: Joh_10:27-29. Of these sheep, 1. the wolf robbeth none, 2. the thief taketh none, 3. the robber killeth none.
Joh_10:30. We are one; what He is, that am I, in respect of essence, not of relation.
Joh_10:34-35. If men by partaking of the word of God are made gods, much more is the Word, of which they partake, God.—From Theophylact: Joh_10:41. Our Lord often brings His people into solitary places, thus ridding them of the society of the unbelieving, for their furtherance in the faith.—Christ departs from Jerusalem, i.e., the Jewish people, and goes to a place where are springs of water, i.e., the Gentile church [?].—From Alcuin: They follow Me—1. here, by walking in gentleness and innocence, 2. hereafter, by entering into the joys of eternal life.—From Zeller: Joh_10:27. Hear My voice; one may hear the words of the Lord without submitting to His voice; the voice of the Lord is the spiritually quickening influence of His words upon the heart.—From Burkitt: Joh_10:24. The subtlety of Christ’s enemies, expressing earnest desire for information that they might entrap.
Joh_10:25. The wisdom and caution of Jesus: He, 1. (refuses a direct answer, E. R. C.), 2. refers to His miracles.
Joh_10:26. The true cause of infidelity, 1. not obscurity of doctrine, but 2. not having the properties of Christ’s sheep.
Joh_10:27. All Christ’s sheep follow Him in His, 1. doctrine, 2. example.
Joh_10:28. Eternal life Isaiah , 1. the portion of Christ’s sheep, 2. the gift of Christ, 3. now given to the sheep, in (1) purchase, (2) promise, (3) first fruits.
Joh_10:32. Such was the perfect innocence of Christ that He dared appeal to the consciences of His most inveterate adversaries.—From Henry: If Wisdom’s sayings appear doubtful, the fault is not in the object, but in the eye.
Joh_10:24-25. The Jews pretended that they only doubted, Christ declared that they did not believe; skepticism in religion is no better than infidelity.
Joh_10:26. Ye are not of My sheep, i.e., ye are not 1. disposed to be My followers, 2. designed to be My followers.
Joh_10:27-29. Jesus described concerning His sheep, their—1. gracious disposition, they (1) hear His voice, (2) follow Him; 2. happy state, He (1) takes cognizance of them, (2) has provided happiness for them (a) eternal life, (b) freely bestowed, (3) has undertaken for their security and preservation.
Joh_10:37. Christ does not require a blind and implicit faith, nor an assent to His divine mission further than He gave proof of it.
Joh_10:39. The flight of Jesus, 1. not an inglorious retreat, but 2. a glorious retirement. He escaped, 1. not because He was afraid to suffer, but 2. because His hour was not come, Joh_8:30.
Joh_10:40. Though persecutors may drive Christ and His gospel out of their city, they cannot drive Him or it out of the world.
Joh_10:41. The result of John’s ministry after his death; the success of the word preached not confined to the life of the preacher.
Joh_10:42. Where the preaching of repentance has had success, there the preaching of gospel-grace is most likely to be prosperous.—From Barnes: Joh_10:29. It is implied that God will so control all other beings and things as that they shall be safe.
Joh_10:28-29. We are taught concerning Christians that—1. they are given by the Father to Christ, 2. Christ gives to them eternal life, i.e., (1) procures by His death and intercession, and (2) imparts by His Spirit, that religion which results in eternal life, 3. both the Father and the Son are pledged to keep them, 4. there is no power in man or devil to defeat Christ’s purpose.
Joh_10:39-42. The opposition of the wicked resulted in the increased success of the cause they persecuted.—From Ryle: Joh_10:26. “My sheep” indicates the close connection between Christ and believers; they are His, 1. by gift from the Father, 2. by purchase, 3. by choice and calling, 4. by their own consent.—Believers are called sheep, because they are, 1. helpless and dependent on their Shepherd, 2. harmless, 3. foolish and liable to go astray [?].
Joh_10:27. Christ knows His people with, 1. approbation, 2. interest, 3. affection.
Joh_10:28. Christ, 1. often withholds worldly prosperity, 2. never fails to give eternal life, i.e., (1) grace, (2) peace, (3) glory.
Joh_10:35. The high honor Christ puts on the Scriptures.
Joh_10:37-38. The importance Christ attached to His miracles.]
Footnotes:
[30]Joh_10:25.—[Tischend., Alf., etc., read οὐ πιστεὐετε instead of οὐκ ἐπιστεύσατε.—P. S.]
[31]Joh_10:20.—Καθὼς εἶπον ὑμῖν probably erroneously considered a superfluous addition, on which account it is wanting in Codd., B. K. L., etc. [It is wanting also in Cod. Sin., omitted by Tischend., bracketed by Alford.—P. S.]
[32]Joh_10:29.—[The received text reads: ὁ πατήρ μου ὃς δέδεκέ μοι, μείζων ἐστιν, the Father who hath given (them) to me is greater than all; but the best authorities omit μου, and read ὅ for ὅς, and μεῖζον for μείζων. Tert.: Pater quod mihi dedit, majus est omnibus. So Tischendorf: ὁ πατὴρ ὁ δεδωκέν μοι πάντων μεῖζόν ἐστιν, that which the Father hath given me is greater than all. But this gives no good sense. The neuter μεῖζον was no doubt the original reading, but as transcribers did not understand it as belonging to πατήρ, they changed ὅς into the neuter. Restoring ὅς, we get the sense: “The Father (or, My Father, if we retain μου) who hath given (them) to me, is something greater (a greater power) than, all.” On the different readings see the apparatus in Tischend., ed. 8.—P. S.]
[33]Joh_10:33.—λέγοντες must be dropped in accordance with preponderant authorities. [λέγοντες is omitted in Sin., A. B. K. L., etc.; it occurs in D. e.g. H., etc.]
[34]Joh_10:38.—Meyer, in company with Lachmann and Tischendorf [Alford], prefers the reading: ἵνα γνῶτε καὶ γινώσκητε [learn and know, or, know and understand], in accordance with B. L. X., supposing the γινώσκητε, on account of a failure to comprehend it, to have been changed into πιστεύστεύσητε [believe]. But manifestly the lect. recepta might at an earlier period have appeared strange to minds of the Alexandrian school. Yet its sense, notwithstanding the objections raised against it, is rich and pertinent.
[35]Joh_10:38.—Instead of ἐν αὐτῷ, B. D. L. [Sin.], etc., most versions, etc., read ἐν τῷ πατρί.
[36][The same view a new visit to Jerusalem to taken by Neander, Ebrard, Luthardt, Godet, Alford; while Meyer, Wieseler, Hengstenberg, Ewald and Owen assume that Jesus during the two months intervening between the feast of Tabernacles and that of the Dedication remained at or in the neighborhood of Jerusalem. The words ἐν τοῖς ̔Ιερουσ. favor Dr. Lange’s view and seem to indicate a previous absences from the city.—P. S.)
[37][The temple was soon to be profaned again and to be destroyed by the Romans. But Christ raised His own body, and with it the indestructible temple of the true worship of God. Hooker and Wordsworth infer from the feasts of Dedication and of Purim the lawfulness of appointing religious festivals by human authority.—P. S.]
[38][Wordsworth has a long note here on the supposed spiritual signification of this remark (χειμὼν ἦν) and the inner sympathy between the world of nature and the world of grace. But it is imposition rather than exposition.—P. S.]
[39][So Meyer: “The indication of this specific locality belongs to the traces of eye-witness-ship (Augenzeugenschaft), which impressed such events indelibly upon the memory of the author.” But he objects to the far-fetched view of Thiersch and Luthardt, that by walking in Solomon’s porch Christ intended symbolically to set forth the unity of the O. and N. covenant.—P. S.]
[40][“How grateful,” says Bengel, “would their approach have been to the Saviour, had they approached in faith.”—P. S.]
[41][So most commentators, referring to such passages as Joh_5:19; Joh_8:36; Joh_8:56; Joh_8:58; Joh_10:1, etc. Yet He did not expressly and directly reveal His Messiahship to the people, as He did to the Samaritan woman and to the blind man; the chief proof was His Messianic works, v. 36, and here.—P. S.]
[42][Joh_10:27-29 characterize the true sheep of Christ with a glorious promise as to their future, and draw a clear line of demarcation between His true disciples and the unbelieving and persecuting Jews, as well as all that are merely nominal Christians. 1. Subjective marks: (a) “They hear My voice;” the receptive side, faith, (b) “They follow Me;” the active side, love, obedience. 2. Objective marks: (a) “I know them;” this knowledge implies recognition of the sheep by Christ and corresponds to their faith. (b) I give unto them eternal life (δίδωμι, even now in this world). This life is eternal both intensively and extensively, and implies (aa) “that they shall never perish;” lit. “they shall not at all,” in wise οὐ μή, double negation) “perish for ever “(εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα); (bb) that “no one” (no wolf, no robber, no hireling, no enemy) “can tear them out of the hand,” (i.e. the possession and protecting power of Christ; for to tear them out of His hand Would be to tear them out of the hand of His Father, who is greater (μεῖζον, neuter, something greater, a greater power) than all (πάντων) the enemies and opposing forces, singly or combined; since Christ and the Father are one in power because they are one in essence (Joh_10:30), Reduced to a syllogism the argument is this: No one can tear My sheep from, the hand of My Father, God Almighty; I and My Father are one; consequently no one can tear them out of My hand. This is the strongest possible assurance of the faithfulness of Christ to His chosen followers and a protection on His part that will prevail over all opposition, including the devil and his host. We have no right to weaken the language by arbitrary insertions and qualifications in the interest of a particular system of theology or sect. It will not do for instance to exempt sin from the opposing forces (πάντων), for, as Hengstenberg in loc. well remarks, this would deprive Christ’s promise of its chief weight and comfort, since we require first of all a guarantee against ourselves; sin being our greatest enemy.—There is therefore a kind of election which implies the grace of perseverance to the end and which can in no way be defeated. This is taught not only here, but also in Joh_4:14; Joh_6:37; Joh_6:39-40; Joh_6:44-45; Joh_17:2; Joh_17:9-10; 1Jn_2:19; 1Jn_3:9; 1Jn_5:18; Rom_8:28-39; Eph_1:4 ff. Eph_1:13-14; 2Ti_2:13; 2Ti_2:19; 1Co_1:8-9, etc. On the other hand the Scriptures are full of exhortation and warning addressed to believers against the danger of unfaithfulness and apostasy (Heb_6:4 ff; Heb_10:35; Gal_5:4, etc.), which are strengthened by not a few examples (Adam and Eve, David, Solomon, Peter, etc.) The apparent contradiction between these passages involves the great problem of the relation of God’s sovereignty to man’s freedom, which we are unable fully to solve theoretically in our present limited state of knowledge. Practically there is no serious difficulty among true Christians, who are all agreed that their ultimate salvation depends entirely on the power and grace of God, and implies faithful perseverance on their part. Looking to Christ, we are perfectly safe, looking to ourselves, we are surrounded by danger. Genuine faith and trust in God always implies distrust in ourselves, but controls and overrules it by constant prayer and watchfulness. Paul puts both together, Php_2:12-13 : “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who worketh in you both to will and to work for His good pleasure.” Pious Lutherans and Methodists pray like Calvinists, as if all depended on God, and pious Calvinists work like Arminians, as if all depended on themselves. Theologically at war, they are devotionally agreed, and, forgetting the doctrinal antagonisms of their great hymnists in the days of their flesh, they unite all over the world in singing the hymns of Paul Gerhardt and Tersteegen, Toplady and Wesley, as if they had been of one creed. I discussed the question here involved more at length in my treatise on the Sin against the Holy Ghost (Halle, 1841) pp. 103–125. Alford and Wordsworth, perhaps from aversion to Calvinism, do not enter into an exegesis of this passage. Owen in loc. says: “The doctrine of the saints’ perseverance in holiness is here most expressly taught. If one of the elect should finally perish, it would not only falsify the declaration here made by Christ, but would be a violation of the compact between the Father and the Son (see Joh_6:37), and contrary to the expressly declared will of the Father (Joh_6:39-40). Yet this great truth, which so illustrates the sovereign mercy of God through Jesus Christ, and which is the only sure foundation upon which the believer rests his hope of eternal life, must not be abused to justify any laxity of effort on his part to make his calling and election sure, by a life of prayer and holy living, such as becometh the disciples of Christ.”—P. S.]
[43][Meyer understands ἕν ἐσμεν of the dynamic union, or union of power, and rejects both the Arian and Socinian interpretation of moral union, and the orthodox interpretation of essential union, but ho admits that, especially in the theological system of John, the essential union, the homoousia, though not required hero for the argument, is the presupposed basis of the dynamic union. See p. 409 f. (5th ed.)—P. S.]
[44][The best commentators (with the exception of Calvin who understands the passage de consensu cum Patre), support the interpretation given in the text, as the following quotations from different ages and churches will show. Euthymius Zigabenus: ἕν κατα δύναμιν, ἤγουν ταὐτοδύναμοι; εἰ δὲ έ̔ν κατὰ δύναμιν, ἕν αρα καὶ κατὰ τὴν θεότητα καὶ οὐσίαν καὶ φύσιν. Bengel: “Unum sumus non solum voluntatis consensu, sad unitate potentiæ, adeoque naturæ. Nam omnipotentia est attributum naturale.” Godet (II. 307): “Ce pluriel ‘Nous Sommes,’ ne serait-il pas un blasphéme dans la bouche d ‘une crtature? Le minislre d’ état qui se permit un jour de dire: Le roi et moi, nous … provoqua le rire de tout le Parlement; que mériterait la créature qui oserait dire: ‘Moi et Dieu nous.’…” Alford: “One in essence primarily, but therefore also one in working, and power and in will. This certainly is implied in the words, and so the Jews understood them, Joh_10:33.” Comp. also the long notes of Webster and Wilkinson, and Wordsworth in loc.—Two objections are raised against the orthodox interpretation: (1) The reply of Jesus, Joh_10:34-36; but this is evidently an argumentum a fortiori. See below. (2) The passages, Joh_18:11; Joh_18:21, where Christ applies the same language to the unity of believers among themselves and with Him: “that they may be one as we,” and “that they also in us may be one.” But the imperfection of the copy does not prove the imperfection of the original; and then the union of believers with Christ is really more than a moral union, it is a vital union, a community of life.godet (II. p. 307): “ L’ union de Jésus et des fidéles n ‘est point un simple accord de volonté, c ’est une action consubstantielle. L’incarnation a fondé entre Jésus et nous un rapport de nature tellement complet, qu’il embrasse notre personalité tout entiére, physique et morale.” Compare also Hengstenberg in loc.—P. S.]
[45][The patristic and scholastic terms περιχώρησις (from περιχωρέω, to circulate, to go about), ἐνύπαρξις, inexistentia, inhavitatio, intercommunio, circumincessio (also circuminsessio), are intended to express the reciprocal indwelling and vital communion to the Persons of the Trinity. The doctrine is based upon such passages as: “I am in the Father and the Father in Me;” “The Father that dwelleth in Me,” Joh_14:10-11.—P. S.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26 I am the door of the sheep--that is, the…
I am the door of the sheep--that is, the way in to the fold, with all blessed privileges, both for shepherds and sheep (compare Joh 14:6; Eph 2:18).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26 8. All that ever came before me—Few texts have…
8. All that ever came before me—Few texts have more perplexed commentators than this. It seems, at first sight, to say that all the previous religious teachers of mankind were impostors. The ancient Gnostics (a professedly Christian sect who rejected the Old Testament) quoted it to disprove the divine mission of Moses. There are three interpretations worthy of notice. The first supposes that the words condemn all who ever came as Messiahs before Christ. But, unfortunately, history shows that the false Messiahs did not precede but succeeded Jesus. There were, indeed, insurgent leaders in the times of Salinus and Varus, who assumed the title of king; but it is not said that they claimed to be the Messiah of ancient prophecy. Nor is it as political leaders that our Lord asserts that others are thieves and robbers, but as false guides and teachers of the people. The second would make the words mean, All who ever came with my pretensions so as to supersede or interfere with my claims or authority. Neither Moses, nor any other teacher, so far as he taught truth, would then be condemned; for all such, so far as they were true teachers, would be viewed as being like John the Baptist, the prophets, the true priests of Israel, and Moses himself, preparers and servants of the Messiah. We were inclined to adopt this as the true view; but, on the whole, prefer the third, proposed by Stier, as follows: The words before me are opposed to the words by me in Joh_10:9; and the me in both cases is equivalent to the door. To come before the door is to come into the fold before getting as far as to the door. The impetuous robber finds a leaping place previous to, or before, the door. The man who enters before the door, namely, Christ, rather than by the door, is a thief and a robber. A clear and proper contrast is then stated in Joh_10:8-9 between the interlopers and the true shepherds. And then Joh_10:8 stands as the parallel and explanation of Joh_10:1.
Ever—This is not properly a word of time. The phrase All that ever came, would be more accurately rendered All whoso come. The tense of came is aorist or indefinite, covering time present and future as well as past. Sheep did not hear them—Just as the simple blind-born did not hear the Pharisees, (Joh_9:33.) The honest firm inquirer for the truth attains to saving truth.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv7–26 7. Then said Jesus unto them again] Better, Therefore…
7. Then said Jesus unto them again] Better, Therefore said Jesus again. They did not understand; therefore He went through the allegory again more explicitly, interpreting the main features. ‘Unto them’ is of doubtful authority.
Verily, verily] This is the important point, to recognise that the one door of the fold, through which the sheep and the shepherds enter, is Christ. I (with great emphasis) am the Door. Comp. ‘I am the Way’ (Joh_14:6).
Read full note →
the door of the sheep] Better, ‘the Door to the sheep’ (Joh_10:1-2), and also ‘the Door for the sheep’ (Joh_10:9). Sheep and shepherds alike have one and the same door. The elect enter the Church through Christ; the ministers who would visit the flocks must receive their commission from Christ. Note that Christ does not say, ‘the Door of the fold,’ but ‘the Door of the sheep.’ The fold has no meaning apart from the sheep.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv7–26 (7) Then said Jesus unto them again.—Better, Therefore said…
(7) Then said Jesus unto them again.—Better, Therefore said Jesus again, the words “unto them” being of uncertain authority. He says what follows because they did not understand what He had said before. It is not that a new allegory begins at this place. He spake in the beginning of the door and of the shepherd (Joh_10:1-2). He now proceeds to unfold the meaning of both.
Verily, verily, I say unto you.—Comp. Note on Joh_10:1.
Read full note →
I am the door of the sheep.—Taking these words in connection with Joh_10:1-2, they seem to mean not “the door for the sheep,” but “the door to the sheep,” “the door into the sheep-fold.” Our Lord returns to the words, and explains them more fully, in Joh_10:9.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26 Vers. 7-10. (2) Allegory of the door and the…
Vers. 7-10. (2) Allegory of the door and the fold, in which Christ claims to be "the Door of the sheep.
Jesus therefore (oun , with its resumptive force, introduces the effect upon Christ of the unsusceptible character of the Pharisees). Some pause may have occurred, during which these men displayed their bitter feeling and utter lack of appreciation, and he proceeds first to give them an explanation of the words, which should leave them in no doubt as to one emphatic meaning which they contained; Said again unto them, I am the Door of the sheep, This exposition of the allegory is introduced by the solemn Amen, amen. Christ first calls attention to the "door" into the sacred fellowship of men with God. On a subsequent occasion, (Joh_14:6) he said, "I am the Way" to the Father; "no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." The parable as it stands refers to true and false teachers of the people, and to just and unjust claims to confer upon the sheep of God"s pasture safe and sure access to God, and all privileges of Divine life. In interpreting it, he declares first that he is the one Door, not of "the fold" so much as of the sheep, in their individual capacity. This corresponds with every claim made by him and made in his Name, that he, in all the fullness of his Personality, had always been the one Medium by which, in the theocracy or beyond it, men have drawn near to the Father. The Loges is the Angel of the covenant, the Rock in the wilderness, the great High Priest, the Yell over the holy place, the propitiatory Sacrifice, the Prophet, the King. He it is who ever and always has given consolation and peace to his people. He is the one method, agency, reality, by which not only the shepherds, but the sheep, enter into the fold, and go forth thence to pasture.
Read full note →
Vers. 7-10. Allegory of the door.
The Jews could not understand the previous allegory. Our Lord utters another, which carries the truth to a higher point.
I CHRIST IS THE WAY OF SALVATION TO THE BELIEVER. "I am the Door of the sheep.
1. He is the Door of access to the Father. (Eph_2:18)
2. He is the Door to heaven itself. (Joh_14:2)
3. The Door is ever open.
4. It may be strait, but those who enter will assuredly be saved.
II CHRIST WARNS AGAINST ALL FALSE SAVIORS. "All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers.
1. He does not refer to the prophets, who only clearly foretold his office and work.
2. But to such as assume the office of mediatorship, as made themselves the door. There is but one Mediator between God and man. (1Ti_2:5)
3. Believers were, by a spiritual instinct, preserved from the wiles of such false teachers. "And the sheep did not hear them.
III THE SAFETY AND THE PRIVILEGES OF THE SHEEP. "By me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.
1. The sheep will have safely.
a. They are saved from sin through Christ. (1Jn_1:7)
b. They are so sat in his hands that no man can pluck them out of his grasp (ver. 29).
2. The sheep will have liberty. "They shall go in and out," either for food or for rest. They enjoy the liberty of the sons of God.
3. The sheep will have food. "And find pasture." They find the fullest satisfaction in Christ and in his salvation words of faith and good doctrine, the wholesome words of Christ Jesus.
IV THE CONTRAST BETWEEN CHRIST AND THE FALSE GUIDES OF THE JEWS.
1. The Pharisees pursued a course that involved the spiritual ruin of the Jews. "The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy.
(1) They insidiously obtained and dexterously upheld a monopoly of influence over the Jewish mind.
(2) They corrupted the hearts of the people so as to bring moral death.
(3) They effected their total perdition.
2. Christ pursued a course that guaranteed life in its abounding greatness. "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.
(1) Christ gives life to dead souls. (Eph_2:1-5)
(2) He makes provision for the expansion of this life, in all grace, blessing, joy, glory, and happiness hereafter.
HOMILIES BY B. THOMAS Vers. 7-9. Christ as the Door.
Notice
I THE POSITION OF CHRIST IN RELATION TO SPIRITUAL BLESSINGS. "I am the Door.
1. He is the Medium of admission to these blessings.
(1) He effected an entrance to them. "He is the Way." When man sinned, the door of heaven was closed to him; and when he looked up thither, there was no opened door there. But Christ opened it and established communication between heaven and earth; and as man gazed up, he saw a door opened in heaven. When Christ left heaven for earth he left the door ajar, and opened a new and a living way for man to enter.
(2) He is the absolute Provider and Proprietor of these blessings. By sin, man contracted new wants; by suffering, Jesus provided for them, and purchased for man all the spiritual blessings he requires. Thus he is their absolute Provider and Proprietor.
(3) As such he is naturally the Guardian of these blessings. He has an absolute right and power to admit or reject. He is the Door. He has made a fold for the sheep, his visible Church, and fenced it round with his commandments and directions, where his faithful followers enjoy fellowship with each other and with him during their pilgrimage here. He is the Door of this visible fold, as well as that of the invisible and vaster realm of all spiritual blessings. He is the Door, not arbitrarily but naturally, in virtue of what he is in himself, the Son of God; and in virtue of what he is to the sheep, their Purchaser, Provider, and sole Proprietor.
2. He is the only Medium of admission to spiritual blessings.
(1) There is but one medium of admission. This is Christ, and he is one. He here is but "one Lord, one faith," etc. There is but one Door, "one Mediator between God and man, Christ Jesus.
(2) Others may assume the position. And, as a fact, this was the case, and our Lord refers to it. Some had come before him, professing to be Messiahs, assuming his titles, prerogatives, and position as the doors and shepherds of the sheep. As before Christ, so after him, many assume his position as the mediums of admission to God and the blessings of his love and mercy.
(3) Their assumption of his position at once fixed their character in the spiritual world. They are thieves and robbers, lacking the right to and adaptation for the position they assume. In our world there is evil as welt as good, the false as well as the true, the counterfeit as welt as the genuine coin. There is spiritual wickedness in high places, and one of its most cunning and villainous forms is to assume the position of Christ as the door of spiritual privileges, as they stand between sinners and the Savior, between the world and the light, and is pronounced by our Lord as the most daring usurpation, and the vilest spiritual theft and robbery.
(4) Their claims to this position were resisted by the true and faithful. "But the sheep did not hear their voice." Christ has had sheep in every age, and they instinctively distinguish between the true and the false. The instincts of truth are against falsehood, and those of right are against wrong. Those who have truth will be on its side. Spiritual thieves anti robbers are betrayed by their voice, their principles, doctrines, and practices, and the ear of truth and faith will not listen to them; their voice is repelling, and not attractive. So that the position of Christ as the Door is defended not only by his absolute right and fitness, but by the sheep.
II THE CONDITION ON WHICH THESE BLESSINGS ARE TO BE ENJOYED. "By me if any man enter in." This involves:
1. Full recognition of Christs authority as the medium of admission, lie is the Door, and must be acknowledged as such.
2. Genuine faith in his fitness and resources as the spiritual Provider of the soul.
3. Implicit submission and obedience to his will and commands. Entrance must be made, and that by him.
4. There is but one condition for all. "By me if any man enter," let him be rich or poor, Jew or Gentile. There is but one door. There is not one door for the rich and another for the poor, etc.; but only one. And as there is only one door, there is but one condition of enjoyment, viz. entrance by it.
III THE PRECIOUS BLESSINGS ENJOYED ON THIS CONDITION. Sonic of them are pointed out here. "By me if any man enter," etc.
1. Perfect safety.
(1) Safety from inward damagers. We are in great danger from our inward foes, the corruption of our nature, our evil passions, our inordinate appetites, our secret and besetting sins, the treachery and deceptiveness of our hearts. And often we are in greater danger from treachery within than from open hostility without (Gordon at Khartoum). But in the fold of Christ we are safe from all this.
(2) Safety from outward dangers. Believers have a host of outward and open foes, headed by the arch-enemy of the soul, the devil, who is as a "roaring lion," etc. But in the custody of Christ they shall be safe from these.
2. Perfect freedom. The Christian while in this world cannot be always in the holy of holies of devotion; he must go out into his daily occupation. It is a Divine and general law that "man goeth forth unto his work and to his labor until the evening.
(1) This freedom is perfect. It is the freedom of the highest law, the proper law of the soul, the law of filial obedience, reverence, and love. The safety of the soul in Christ is not that of bondage, but of perfect freedom freedom which is compatible with and productive of the most perfect order, harmony, and happiness. "He shall go in and out." He goes out, but comes in again.
(2) There is freedom of movement. "Shall go in and out," at home or abroad. The believer is free to go to any part of this world; it is his Father"s house and his own inheritance.
(3) There is freedom of action. Within the law of his new life, the Christian may do whatever he likes, and be engaged in any trade or business which is legitimate, from wielding a shovel to wielding a scepter. He is the very man for this; he sanctifies every labor and service.
(4) There is freedom of thought. The only real free thinker in the world is he who has been made free by the truth, tic who thinks without Divine guidance is a slave and a libertine; but the custody of Christ is safe freedom and free safety,
1. Intimate fellowship with Christ. How intimate we are with the doors of our houses! We can neither come in nor go out but by the door a faint symbol of believers" intimate fellowship with Christ. He is the Door.
2. Ample provisions. "And find pasture.
(1) It is sought. Finding implies seeking. The sheep go in and out in search of pasture. The soul, by faith in all its movements, seeks spiritual food and support. It is to be found in connection with intense desire, effort, and search.
(2) By seeking it is certainly found. "And shall find pasture." In Christ there are spiritual provisions for the soul, in abundance, suitability, and variety; they are as various and abundant as the soul"s wants. Supporting grace, Divine forgiveness and peace, etc.
(3) It is found without, in the occupations of life. If the Christian is an agriculturist, in the garden the flowers will naturally remind him of the "Rose of Sharon," etc. When following the flock, naturally wilt he think of the "Lamb of God." The beautiful landscape around will bring to faith visions of a more beautiful land the fair land of promise; and even the failure of his crops will often give him a rich feast of joy in the Lord. If he is a mariner, the storms of the voyage will make him strive and sigh for the desired haven, where every storm will be forever hushed. If he is a merchant, this will bring his mind in closer contact with treasures more to be desired than gold, and more precious than rubies. If he is a man of science, he can hear the heavens declare the glory of God, and see the works of his fingers everywhere; and should the Christian happen to wander into the land of doubt and sin, he will find there the bitter herb of godly sorrow, which will act as a tonic to his soul. And even the valley of the shadow of death to him will not be barren, for even there he will find the comfort of his Shepherd"s staff and rod; yea, the Shepherd himself.
(4) It is found withies. In God"s Word; in private devotion; in quiet meditations; in Christ"s fold; in the fellowship of saints; in the services of the sanctuary, which is the house of God and the very gate of heaven; and often in thought and faith he steals away to the happy land, and revels in the green pastures beside the still waters. He spends many a happy moment beyond the stars, among the redeemed throng, gazing upon the throne, and on him who sits upon it. Whether in or out, in Christ he shall find pasture, until at last, by Divine invitation, he shall enter into the joy of his Lord, to go out no more forever.
LESSONS.
1. The revelation of Christ as the Door of spiritual blessings was now very natural and timely. He saw the multitudes like sheep without a shepherd. Judaism had become barren and persecuting, and incapable of supplying the spiritual wants of the people. Souls were hungry for food, and longing for shelter. The healed blind man was among the first to knock for admittance, and, as Christ was the Door, it was now time for him to say so openly.
2. Christ as the Door is a befitting introduction to the blessings within. You can form a fair opinion by the door of what to expect inside. Sometimes we are not inclined to go further than the door. But Christ, as the Door to God and all spiritual blessings, is most attractive and worthy, and when you enter there is no disappointment in it.
3. The great thing in order to enjoy the riches of Divine grace is to find the door. Christ as the Door is most conspicuous and convenient. Where the gospel is fully known, the difficulty almost is not to find it. It publishes itself. "I am the Door.
4. There are thousands in search for the door and cannot find it. And, alas! there are thousands in gospel lands dying at the door, and will not enter. There is only a door between them and life eternal. B.T.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv11, 19, 22, 24 I am the Good Shepherd
Joh_10:11-15
I am the Good Shepherd
Read full note →
Christ the Good Shepherd
Christ is the Good Shepherd.
He is this because
I. He OWNS the sheep. He is the Proprietor of the flock. They are His
1. By the gift of the Father. Thine they were, and Thou gavest them Me.
2. By creative ties. His own--sheep which are His even before they are called.
3. By purchase. The Good Shepherd giveth as a deposit, layeth down as a pledge, His life for the sheep (Heb_13:20). The blood He shed was not in His own defence, but for the sake of those whom He came to rescue.
II. He KNOWS His sheep.
1. By their faces. An ancient and convenient custom among shepherds is to put a mark upon their sheep, an ear-mark, as they call it; and by the mark they know them in years to come. Jesus Christ, too, puts a mark on His sheep, not on the ear, but on the forehead (Rev_14:1).
2. By their names. He knows His followers, not as men and women only, but as Peter and Andrew, Mary and Martha. The saints have queer names in the Epistles. I cannot remember them, but Jesus does. He calls the stars by name too, but then the stars are very big things. The wonder is that He calls the tiny sheep by name, scattered as they are. Whats in a name? A great deal, especially in a Christian name, given at the font, and accepted by Christ.
3. Their circumstances (Rev_2:13). The Good Shepherd knows where you live--the town, the street, the house (Act_9:11; Act_10:5-6).
4. By a thorough apprehension of their character. In the fourth and fifth verses know signifies outside acquaintance--that Christ and man have come within the same circle. But in the fourteenth verse it means a clear discerning insight into the springs of life and the motives of action.
III. He FEEDS His sheep (Joh_10:9).
1. They go in first to the fold. Rest after wandering. He leadeth me beside the still waters (services of Gods House: perusal of the Bible).
2. They go out to graze. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures (marg. in pastures of tender grass). The Bible pasture is green pasture. Every truth as fresh as if it were spoken but yesterday. Not only is the grass green, but there is plenty of it (Joh_10:10).
IV. He LEADS the sheep (Joh_10:3).
1. He leads the sheep. Exceedingly simple and helpless is a sheep gone astray. And when the Bible speaks of sinners it compares them to erring Isa_53:6).
2. He leads them gently (verse 4). He is not behind them, searing them with the lashes of the law, but in front of them, drawing them with the cords of His love, and adapting His steps to theirs.
3. He leads them safely along the paths of righteousness for His names sake. This is, to me, one of the most cogent reasons for believing in His Divinity, that He was able to stamp His feet so deeply on the rock of history, that their prints have not yet been erased. The weight of Godhead was in His steps, the emphasis of the Infinite in His tread.
4. Not only does He lead us through life, but He goes before us through Psa_23:4). Not a single sheep will be wanting, they shall all be safely folded by Divine love (verse 16). (J. C. Jones, D. D.)
Christ the Good Shepherd
This is one of those Divine sayings in which there is so much of truth and love, that we seem able to do little more than to record it and ponder on it, to express it by symbols, and to draw from it a multitude of peaceful and heavenly thoughts. It was the symbol under which, in times of persecution, His presence was shadowed forth. It was sculptured on the walls of sepulchres and catacombs; it was painted in upper chambers and in oratories; it was traced upon their sacred books; it was graven on the vessels of the altar. The image of the Good Shepherd has expressed, as in a parable, all their deepest affections, fondest musings, most docile obedience, most devoted trust. It is a title in which all other titles meet, in the light of which they blend and lose themselves. Priest, Prophet, King, Saviour, and Guide, are all summed up in this more than royal, paternal, saving name. It recalls in one word all the mercies and lovingkindness of God to His people of old, when the Shepherd of Israel made His own people to go forth like sheep, and guided them in the wilderness like a flock. It recites, as it were, all the prophecies and types of the Divine care which were then yet to be revealed to His elect: it revives the visions of Isaiah and Ezekiel (Isa_40:11; Eze_34:12-27; Eze_37:24; Isa_49:9-10). And, moreover, by this title He appropriates to Himself the fulfilment of His own most deep and touching parable of the lost sheep. There is no thought or emotion of pity, compassion, gentleness, patience, and love which is not here expressed. It is the peculiar consolation of the weak, or of them that are out of the way; of the lost and wandering; of the whole flock of God here scattered abroad in the midst of this naughty world. And though it be an office taken on earth, and in the time of our infirmity, it is a name which He will never lay aside. Even in the heavenly glory it still is among His titles. He is even there the chief Shepherd, that great Shepherd of the sheep; and in the state of bliss shall still guide His flock: though more fully to express the unity of His nature with theirs, and His own spotless sacrifice in their behalf, He is called the Lamb (Rev_7:17). Let us then consider awhile the surpassing and peculiar goodness of the One True Shepherd. And this He has revealed to the world in His voluntary death. There was never any other but He who came down from heaven that He might lay down His life for the sheep. This is the one perpetual token of His great love to all mankind--a token ever fresh, quickened with life, full of power to persuade the hearts of His people to Himself. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends; and therefore the death of the good Shepherd is the subject of all the Churchs testimony. Again, His surpassing goodness is shown in the provision He has made of all things necessary for the salvation of His flock in this state of mortality and sin. For this He has provided, first, in the external foundation and visible perpetuity of His Church. He has secured it by the commission to baptize all nations, by the universal preaching of His apostles, by shedding abroad the Holy Ghost, by the revelation of all truth, by the universal tradition of the faith in all the world. And, secondly, His love and care are shown, not only in the external and visible provision which He thus made beforehand for the perpetual wants of His flock, but in the continual and internal providence wherewith He still watches over it. The whole history of His Church from the beginning--the ages of persecution, and times of refreshing; the great conflicts of faith with falsehood, and of the saints with the seed of the serpent; the whole career of His Church amid the kingdoms of the earth and changes of the world, are a perpetual revelation of His love and power. (Archdeacon Manning.)
Christ the Good Shepherd
He is the Good Shepherd in the sense of real or genuine. He is the Shepherd from the very centre of His being. Every instinct of His nature, every feeling of His heart, every thought of His brain, every touch of His hand are those of the true Shepherd, whose constant purpose is to guide and feed and save the flock, and for that purpose He counts no toil too severe, no suffering too intense, no sacrifice too costly. He has thoroughly identified Himself with the sheep, and whatever adds to their well-being He gladly does and bears. He is the Good Shepherd in contrast with the hireling, whose care is selfish and whose aim is wages. Jesus here gives us a distinction that applies in the most direct way to every phase of life. Interests of all kinds are intrusted with paid workers. Some of these are good shepherds, putting the very best of their lives into their toil; some are hirelings, faithful only so long as fidelity is easy, safe, and profitable. The railroad engineer who sees imminent danger and remains at his post, hoping to save precious lives entrusted to his care, is the good shepherd. The need today in the State, the bank, the factory, the store, the kitchen, is for good shepherds. The presence of hirelings brings disaster to every cause. The Good Shepherd guides His sheep by going before them. Those who follow where Jesus led are safe. He was at times in a very whirlwind of human beings who were wrought to the highest pitch by diverse passions, but His feet never made a misstep, His face never turned in the wrong direction. His lips spoke the right word, His hands wrought the most helpful work always. Jesus said, I know My sheep, and am known of Mine. I lay down My life for the sheep. These were the proofs that He was the true Shepherd. He certainly knew what was in man. He saw the treachery working in the heart of Judas. He saw in Peters self-trusting, impulsive nature the flame that soon burnt itself out to leave only the ashes of his boasted faith and devotion. But further than this, He saw the repentant Peter converted into the brave hero. He looked into the very soul of Zaccheus in the sycamore tree and taw in him a stedfast purpose of righteousness. He knew that back of the cleanly appearance of the Pharisees there was moral leprosy. On the briefest acquaintance with Nathanael He spoke of him as one in whom there was no guile. The young man who came to Him with eager inquiries for eternal life was before Him as an open book--a man with a kindly heart, but too weak to brave danger and privation and sacrifice. There was no martyr stuff in him. Sin blunts the faculties. The most exalted natures have the keenest insight. Jesus, the Perfect One, knew instantly the false and the true. (Boston Homilies.)
The Good Shepherd
These words are equivalent to
I. I am A Shepherd. I stand in a peculiar relation to a peculiar people, who are My sheep.
II. I am a GOOD Shepherd. I possess the appropriate qualifications and perform the appropriate duties of the character I sustain.
III. I am THE Shepherd--the one Shepherd--not like him of Joh_10:2, one of the shepherds, but the great, chief, proprietor Shepherd, whose own the sheep are--the Shepherd of shepherds as well as of sheep.
IV. I am THE GOOD Shepherd. I possess in the most perfect degree all the qualifications that are requisite for the discharge of the numerous, varied, and difficult duties of this most exalted office.
V. I am THAT GOOD Shepherd, i.e., the Divine Guardian foreshadowed in prophecy (Eze_34:11-24), and answering in every respect to the type. Christ is all this
1. As He secures for His peculiar people all the blessings they require.
2. As He secures these advantages to them at the greatest conceivable expense to Himself.
3. As there subsists the most endearing mutual acquaintance and intercourse between Him and His people.
4. As He cares for the happiness, so He secures the salvation of all. (J. Brown, D. D.)
The Good Shepherd
The truth here is Christs exceeding love and care for the Church. He would show that He sustained towards it a relationship beyond parallel. Not a king, however wise his rule; not a parent, however fond his care; not a friend, however great his service, for all these are kindnesses of beings of the same nature only. They suggest nothing of that condescension by which a Being of the highest order could embrace one reduced to the condition of fallen man. Hence Christ selected as the type of our lost race the most helpless of animals, and compares Himself to one of the kindest of guardians. Let us consider some of His pastoral offices in which His love is set forth.
I. HE PROVIDES FOR THEIR SPIRITUAL WANTS. This would be the first thing looked for according to the predictions (Psa_23:1-6).
1. Pasture for the flock--enough for all; variety for each.
2. Wisdom to guide.
3. Watchfulness to tend.
4. Constraint to rule.
5. Diligence to seek out.
6. Power to restore.
II. HE PRESERVES THEM FROM FOES AND DANGERS (Joh_10:12). It is our lot to be sent forth as sheep in the midst of wolves. If our soul escapes at all it is because the snare is broken by our Deliverer. That which enables the Good Shepherd to effect our deliverance is His profound and comprehensive knowledge (Joh_10:14). These perils are foreseen and provided for. How many tempted ones have derived comfort from the thought that when Satan has desired to have them, he has prayed, etc. Hence the encouragement, Fear not little flock. He that keepeth Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps.
III. HE IS DILIGENT IN RECOVERING THOSE WHO STRAY (Eze_34:1-31; Isa_53:1-12). In relation to the whole human family Christ came to seek and save the lost. The whole history of the Church has been the gathering in of outcasts. He is found of them that sought Him not; and under backslidings after conversion, will He go after us again. He may leave us to eat the bitter fruits of our ways for a time, and make us contrast the misery of the wilderness with the blessedness of the fold. He, who of all the saints of God lived nearest to Him, and yet wandered furthest, said, He restoreth my soul.
IV. HE HAS SPECIAL CARE OF THE YOUNG, whether young in years or in grace (Isa_40:1-31). An untended lamb is the very type of helplessness and folly. The temptations are many which beset the flock in early life from the example of companions, worldly pleasures, buoyant spirits, etc.; but for these and every spiritual danger the Good Shepherd provides. Still, there are special dangers which account for this pastoral care. The very warmth and freshness of their religious feelings render them more liable to fall. Hence the first duty enjoined on restored Peter was Feed My lambs.
V. HE IS WITH THE FLOCK TO THE END. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, etc. (D. Moore, M. A.)
The Good Shepherd
I. THE PASTORAL CHARACTER CLAIMED BY CHRIST.
1. We shall learn nothing from the text unless we enter humbly and affectionately into its spirit. We must dismiss all Western ideas. Here the connection between shepherd and sheep is simply one of pecuniary interest; but beneath the burning skies and clear starry nights of Palestine there grows up between the man and the dumb creatures he protects, often at the peril of his life, a kind of friendship. For this is after all the true school in which love is taught; dangers and hardships mutually shared, alone in those vast solitudes the shepherd and the sheep feel a life in common. The vast interval between the man and the brute disappears, and the single point of union is felt strongly--the love of the protector, and the love of the grateful life. Those to whom Christ spoke felt all this and more. He appealed to associations which had been familiar from childhood, and unless we try, by realizing such scenes, to feel what they felt by association, these words will only be dry and lifeless.
2. To the name shepherd Christ adds the significant word Good--not in the sense of benevolent, but true born, genuine, just as wine of a noble quality is good compared with the cheaper sort; and a soldier who is one in heart and not by mere profession, or for pay. This expression distinguishes the Good Shepherd from
(1) The robbers who may guard the sheep simply for their flesh and fleece: they have not a true shepherds heart any more than a pirate has the true sailors heart. There were many such marauders in Palestine. David protected Nabals flock from them. Many such nominal shepherds had Israel in by-gone years: rulers whose rule had been but kingcraft: teachers whose instruction had been but priestcraft. Government, teachership are sublime pastoral callings; but when the work is even well done for the sake of party, or place, or honour, or consistency, it is the spirit of the robber.
(2) The hirelings, who are tested by danger. A man is a hireling who does his duty for pay. He may do it in his way faithfully. The paid shepherd will not desert the sheep for a shower or a cold night. But he is not paid to risk his life against the lion or bear, and so the sheep are left to their fate. So a man may be a hired priest, or a paid demagogue, a great champion of rights paid by applause; and while popularity lasts he will be a reformer--deserting the people when danger comes. The cause of the sheep is not his.
3. Exactly the reverse is the Good Shepherd. The cause of man was His, and His only pay the cross. He might have escaped it all, and been an honoured leader by prudent time service. But this would have been the desertion of Gods cause and mans.
II. THE PROOFS WHICH SUBSTANTIATE THE CLAIM.
1. I know My sheep as the Father knoweth Me, and not simply by omniscience. There is a certain mysterious tact of sympathy and antipathy by which we discover the like and unlike of ourselves in others character. A man may hide his opinions, but not his character. There is a something in an impure heart which purity detects afar off. The truer we become, the more unerringly we know the ring of truth. Therefore Christ knows His sheep by the mystic power, always finest in the best natures, by which like detects what is like and unlike itself; and how unerringly did He read men--the enthusiastic populace, Nathanael, the rich ruler, Zacchaeus, Judas, the Pharisees! It was as if His bosom was some mysterious mirror, on which all that came near Him left a sullied or unsullied surface, detecting themselves by every breath. This Divine power must be distinguished from that cunning sagacity which men call knowingness. The worldly wise have maxims and rules; but the finer shades of character escape. Eternal judgment is nothing more than the carrying out of these words, I know My sheep; for their obverse is I never knew you.
2. Christs sheep know Him, not by some lengthened investigation, whether the shepherds dress be the identical dress, the crozier genuine--but instinctively. Truth is like light; risible in itself, not distinguished by the shadow it casts.
3. Pastoral fidelity, I lay down My life. Here is the doctrine of vicarious sacrifice. Unitarians say He died as a martyr in attestation of His truths; but we cannot explain away the for. This sacrificing love is paralleled by the love of the Father to the Son. Therefore that sacrifice is but a mirror of the heart of God. (F. W. Robertson, M. A.)
The Good Shepherd
We have here
I. THE COMPLETE CHARACTER. There is more in Jesus than you can pack away in shepherd or any other emblem. But note
1. He sets Himself forth as a shepherd: not such as is employed in England to look after sheep a few months till they are slaughtered. The Eastern shepherd is
(1) The owner or his son. His wealth consists in sheep. He has seldom much of a house, or much land. Ask him How much are you worth? He answers, So many sheep. We are Christs wealth, the riches of the glory of His inheritance is in the saints. The Lords portion is His people. For their sakes He gave not only Ethiopia and Seba, but Himself.
(2) The Caretaker. Christ is never off duty. He has constant care for His people day and night. He knows and prescribes for their every complaint.
(3) The Provider. There is not one in the flock who knows about the selecting of pasturage. For time and eternity, body and soul, Christ supplies all our need.
(4) The Leader.
(5) The Defender.
2. Christ completely fills this character.
(1) He is the Good Shepherd--neither thief nor hireling. What He does is con amore.
(2) He is the Good Shepherd. Of others we can only say a shepherd. All the rest are shadows: He is the substance.
3. Christ rejoices in this character. He repeats it so many times here that it almost reads like the refrain of a song. And if He is so pleased to be our Shepherd, we should be pleased to be His sheep, and avail ourselves of all the privileges wrapped up in the name.
II. THE COMPLETE KNOWLEDGE.
1. Christs knowledge of His own, As the Father, etc. Do you know how much the Father knows the Son who is His glory, other self, yea, one with Him? Just so intimately does the Good Shepherd know His sheep.
(1) Their number.
(2) Their persons--age, character, hairs, constitution; and never mistakes one for another
(3) Trials.
(4) Sins.
(5) This ought to be a great comfort, inasmuch as it is not cold, intellectual knowledge, but that of love. He knows you--
(a) By acquaintance.
(b) By communion.
(c) Sympathy. Though He were a Son yet learned He, etc.
2. Our knowledge of the Lord, as I know the rather. This is
(1) By delight.
(2) By union.
(3) By love.
III. THE COMPLETE SACRIFICE. These words are repeated in different forms four times (Joh_10:11; Joh_10:15; Joh_10:17; Joh_10:13), and mean that
1. He was always doing so. All the life He had He was constantly laying out for the sheep.
2. It was actively performed. He did not die merely.
3. It was voluntary.
4. It was for the sheep. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The Good Shepherd
I. HIS QUALIFICATIONS TO MEET THE NEED OF THE SHEEP.
1. His knowledge of all the wants of the sheep is perfect.
2. His wisdom to provide is infinite.
3. His power enables Him to carry out all His will.
4. His kindness endures through all their waywardness.
5. His faithfulness will never forsake them.
6. His undying interest forgets and omits nothing for their good.
II. HIS ACTIVE WORK FOR THE SHEEP.
1. He rescues them from the great robber.
2. Brings them into His own fold.
3. Provides them with all the nourishment needed.
4. Given them refreshing repose amid the cares and toils of life.
5. Guards them from all danger.
6. Guides them in all perplexity.
7. Heals all their diseases.
8. Reclaims them from all their wanderings.
9. Folds them at last in heaven. (W. H. Van Doren, D. D.)
The slain Shepherd
I. FORESAW THAT HE SHOULD DIE FOR THE SHEEP. The termination of the Saviours life was not accidental nor unforeseen. Many were the intimations He gave of it, which disproves the notion that His death was the disappointment of His hopes.
II. SPONTANEOUSLY UNDERTOOK TO DIE FOR THE SHEEP. He might have saved Himself; He made no attempt at escape; He prayed for no legion of angels to rescue Him; He told Pilate that there was a limitation of his power in regard to his apparently helpless captive; He committed His spirit into His Fathers hands.
III. DIED IN THE STEAD OF THE SHEEP. A shepherd while defending his sheep sometimes falls a victim to his faithfulness. So Christ died a vicarious death, the just for the unjust, which exempted the sinner from the doom deserved. Not that there was a commercial equivalent, as when a debt is paid; but a moral equivalent accepted by a righteous and gracious God.
IV. DIED ON BEHALF OF THE SHEEP. It was not for His own but our advantage. By His sacrifice we are redeemed from the curse of the law and the power of sin, and have secured for us eternal life. Application:
1. Adore and bless the love which animated the Good Shepherd.
2. Live as those who have been bought with a price, and have returned to the Shepherd and Bishop of souls. (Family Churchman.)
The Good Shepherd giveth His life for the sheep
In this statement we notice the following characteristics of this sacrifice which the Good Shepherd makes for His sheep.
1. It was deliberate. For this purpose He came into the world.
2. It was voluntary. No man taketh My life. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.
3. It is vicarious. Not for them in defence, but for them vicariously. He died for them as a substitute, bearing their own sins in His own body.
4. It was an accepted sacrifice. Therefore doth the Father love Me, because I lay down My life, that I may take it again (Joh_10:17). (G. F. Pentecost, D. D.)
The Shepherd and the sheep
I. THE FLOCK. Were we to take a walk some spring morning among the Yorkshire hills or on the downs of Sussex or Bedfordshire, we should see thousands of sheep belonging to different flocks and masters. Christ has members of His flock not only in Sussex, etc., but in Africa, India, etc.; yes, all the world over. This flock
1. Is an exceedingly large one. If you were to go on counting for a whole year you could not count them all. The patriarchs had large flocks, so have many English farmers, but not altogether one so large. Some say all who are baptized, or take the Lords Supper, or belong to this or that Church, are the Lords sheep. But many of these are wicked, and so cannot be Christs, while some where there are no churches and sacrament are Christs because they love and obey Him. Ever since Abel died men have been gathered in, and thousands are joining the upper fold every day, and still millions are left behind.
2. While it is so large it is increasing very rapidly. Other flocks are to decrease. Every new convert is an addition, and what numbers are sometimes converted in a day (Act_2:1-47)! Missionaries tell us of whole tribes casting away their idols, etc. It ought to increase more than it does when we consider the agencies at work Bibles, tracts, churches, schools, ministers, teachers, Christian fathers and mothers.
3. Christs sheep are very much alike.
(1) In their actions. Just as we can tell wolves from sheep, so we can tell who are Christs and who are not. When we see a man roar like a lion, or greedy like a wolf, we know he is not of Christs fold.
(2) In their colour. If I wash thee not thou hast no part with Me.
(3) In their disposition. If any man have not the spirit of Christ, etc.
(4) In the treatment they require. None can do without the Shepherds care.
4. They bear His mark. What strange marks farmers sometimes put upon their sheep--circles, crosses, initials. Some of Christs sheep have got His mark in greater boldness, but the porter can detect it however faint. If a king were to attempt to enter without it he would be turned away, while a prodigal with it would be welcomed.
(1) This mark is not being an Episcopalian, Independent, etc. We may have the Churchs mark and not Christs.
(2) It is likeness to Christ, and we cannot be like Him without being born again. Some try to imitate this mark and affix Morality, Liberality, Good resolution, Fasting, etc.
5. This is a loving flock. Members of the same family, school, place of worship, ought to be kind and gentle, but Christs flock is the most loving in the world. By this the world knows Christs disciples.
II. THE SHEPHERD.
1. He is awake and watchful. A good many people are awake but not watchful. Sometimes lambs are worried by strange dogs when the shepherd was asleep, and sometimes stray into danger when he is awake but inattentive. But nothing escapes Christs sleepless vigilance. He that keepeth Israel, etc.
2. He is patient. A shepherd cannot have too much patience: much as he may have it will be sorely tried. In all trials Christs patience never left Him; and were it to leave Him now how many would be expelled the fold!
3. He is strong. Look at what He has done in Nature. All power is given unto Me. All ministers, teachers, and angels combined would be unable to provide for or protect His flock. Then His stock of provisions never diminishes, and every sheep is fed according to its need.
4. He goes after every sheep or lamb that goes astray. How strange that any should desert such a fold; stranger still that those who stray should refuse to return. (J. Goodacre.)
Christ the Good Shepherd
The shepherd who can always go to bed regularly at night, and who is able to say, I do not have much trouble with my flock, is not the man to be envied. He coolly says, a few lambs died last winter; we must expect that kind of thing. It is true that some sheep died of starvation; but if the meadows failed, I could not help that. That is the kind of shepherd who deserves to be eaten by the next wolf; but the man who is able to say with Jacob, By night the frost devoured me, and by day the heat, is the true shepherd. He is most irregular as to his rest; the only thing regular about him is his labour and his disappointment, and yet faith makes him a happy man. When you grow very weak as a pastor, and your charge utterly overcomes you, do not repine at such weakness, for then you will be at your full strength; but when you are strong as a pastor, and say, I think that to be a minister is an easy matter, you may depend upon it that you are weak. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The Good Shepherd and His sheep
I. WHAT THE GOOD SHEPHERD DOES FOR HIS SHEEP?
1. He protects them. Sheep are exposed to many dangers, from which they are not able to protect themselves. When David was a shepherd, he tells us of a lion and a bear, that each came and stole away a lamb from his flock; and how he went after the wild beasts, and slew them, and saved his lambs. And this is just what Jesus, the Good Shepherd, does for His sheep. He protects them from Satan, their great enemy. And in the same way He protects them from all their enemies, and from every danger. A Christian mother who lived in the city of New York, in very humble circumstances, had only one child, a little boy about seven years old, whom she had taught to know and love the Saviour. One day, when this good mother was going quietly on with her work at home, she was startled by a loud knock at the door of her humble dwelling. On opening the door she received this alarming message: Hurry away to the police station; your little boy has been run over. She was terribly frightened, and, hastening as fast as she could to the station house, on arriving there she found her little boy surrounded by strangers. The doctor had been sent for, but had not yet arrived. She was told that the wheels of a large carriage had gone over his foot, but, on examining it carefully, she was surprised to find no real injury about the foot. Why, Willie darling, how was it possible for the wheel of the carriage to have gone over your foot, and not have crushed it? The child looked tenderly up into his mothers face, and said--Mamma, dear, I guess God must have put it in a hollow place. This shows what faith that little boy had in the protection which Jesus, the Good Shepherd, has promised to exercise over His sheep. He always has a hollow place to put them in when danger is near.
2. He provides for them. This is something which the sheep cannot do for themselves, and unless the shepherd does it for them they must perish.
II. WHAT THE GOOD SHEPHERD EXPECTS HIS SHEEP TO DO FOR HIM?
1. To hear His voice. My sheep hear my voice, He says.
2. To follow Him. The sheep set us an example here, not only in hearing the shepherd, but in obeying him. (R. Newton, D. D.)
The Shepherd and His sheep
(Childrens sermon).
I. THE FIGURE OF SHEEP SUITS US. We call them silly sheep.
1. They cannot guide their own way. As wild beasts can.
2. They cannot keep or defend themselves. Frightened at danger.
3. They quickly follow bad examples. Running after wilful one.
4. They are surrounded by unknown dangers. How much mother knows, and teacher knows, that we do not.
II. THE FIGURE OF SHEPHERD SUITS CHRIST. A most blessed thing that we have someone to care for us.
1. Shepherd must be strong. To defend, carry, etc.
2. Shepherd must be wise. To guide to food and water.
3. Shepherd must be watchful. To see foes.
4. Shepherd must be loving and gentle. To tend in weakness.
III. WHEN WE SPEAK OF JESUS, WE WANT TO CALL HIM THE GOOD SHEPHERD. Especially because He was willing to die in defending us, Jesus. The old and familiar tale of Eric, who threw Himself to the wolves to save his master. Or, case of shepherd who died fighting three robbers.
IV. WHEN CHRIST SPEAKS OF US, HE WOULD LIKE TO CALL US GOOD SHEEP. What is it to be good, so that Christ can think us good? A great difference in sheep. The good sheep know the Shepherds voice. They follow, they keep close, they obey. (Weekly Pulpit.)
He that is an hireling
The hireling is
I. MERCENARY. He tends the flock simply for wages as Jacob did Gen_29:15; Gen_29:13), though not with the love that Jacob showed Gen_31:33). An emblem of the Pharisees and Jewish rulers generally who served God in a purely legal spirit, and shepherded the flock with an eye to the merit they might acquire, or the recompense they should receive; of those who in Christs day thrust themselves into the priests office for a morsel of bread (1Sa_2:36); of all who enter the ministry for filthy lucres sake (Tit_1:11).
II. SELFISH. He pursues his calling with an eye to his own interest and comfort--a type of Ezekiels shepherds (Eze_34:2-3), and of socalled Christian pastors who use their official position solely to secure worldly emolument, social preferment, or temporal renown (1Ti_3:3; 1Ti_3:3).
III. NEGLIGENT. Chiefly occupied with thoughts of his own happiness, he not only leaves the sheep to cater for themselves (Eze_34:4; Zec_11:16-17), but fleeing at the first approach of danger, permits the helpless creatures to be ravaged and scattered. Once more a representative of the corrupt hierarchy that presided over Israel, and of such nominally Christian teachers who, neglecting the highest interests of their people, leave them to fall a prey to the principalities and powers of evil. (T. Whitelaw D. D.)
Self-sacrificing teachers
Paton records that at a time of great danger on Tanna he tried to prevail on one of the native teachers from Aneityum to remain at the mission house. The man insisted on returning to his post, and with this unanswerable defence of his conduct: Missi, when I see them thirsting for my blood, I just see myself when the missionary first came to my island. I desired to murder him as they now desire to kill me. Had he stayed away for such danger, I would have remained a heathen; but he came, and continued coming to teach us, till by the grace of God I was changed to what I am. Now the same God that changed me can change these poor Tannese to love and serve Him. I can not stay away from them. On mission ground the term pastor is restored to its original meaning, shepherd, with good reason. Hanningtons message to the ruler who compassed his death was: Tell the king that I die for Buganda. I have bought this road with my life. (Monday Club Sermons.)
The hireling
It is not the bare receiving hire which denominates a man a hireling, but the loving hire; his loving the hire more than the work; the working for the sake of the hire. He is an hireling who would not work were it not for the hire; to whom this is the great (if not only) motive of working. O God! if a man who works only for hire is such a wretch, a mere thief and a robber, what is he who continually takes the hire, and yet does not work at all? (J. Wesley.)
The Wolf
Satan a wolf
1. His attacks are deadly.
2. His surprises are crafty.
3. His hatred of Christ is implacable.
4. His hunger to devour is insatiable.
5. He attacks under darkness.
6. He scatters the flock by tempting them to luxury, avarice, and sensuality. Filling their minds with pride, envy, anger, deceit. (W. H. Van Doren, D. D.)
I.…know My sheep and am known of Mine
The mutual knowledge of Christ and His people
I. CHRISTS KNOWLEDGE OF HIS PEOPLE.
1. The faithful and experienced Eastern shepherd knows every one of his sheep. So does Christ. He knows
1. Their persons; not only the numbers of His flock. We are as well known to Him as the stars (Isa_40:1-31), and as our children are to us.
2. Their condition and circumstances--but general and peculiar--our sins that He may pardon them; our diseases that He may heal them; our wants that He may supply them; our fears that He may quiet them; our burdens that He may give us strength to bear them; our prayers that He may grant them, our graces that we may delight in them; our services that He may reward them.
2. We trace this knowledge to
(1) His great love. It is clear that the shepherd who loves his sheep best will know them best.
(2) His intimacy. He dwells with them.
(3) His omniscience.
II. CHRISTS PEOPLES KNOWLEDGE OF HIM is
1. Peculiar. Their fellow men do not possess it or understand it.
2. Acquired. It is not natural to us. Nature does not teach it. The young sheep knows its mother by instinct, but not its shepherd. All real knowledge of Christ is the effect of a special manifestation of Him to the soul.
3. Experimental chiefly. Some knowledge we get of Him from faith in Gods testimony concerning Him, but our chief spring is this: when we have hungered, He has fed us; when we have not known our way, He has guided us; where we have fallen into danger, He has extricated us.
4. Practical. The soul that possesses it becomes willing and obedient. (C. Bradley, M. A.)
The true sheep
What is the knowledge by which Christs true sheep are known? There are many kinds of knowledge, of which only one can be the true. There is a knowledge which even fallen angels have of Him (Luk_4:33-34; Luk_4:41; Mat_8:29). This is a knowledge of the spiritual intelligence, which may be possessed in energetic wickedness, and with direct resistance of the will against the will of Christ. Again, there is also a knowledge which all the regenerate possess. The preaching of the Church, the reading of Holy Scriptures, the commemoration of fasts and festivals, the tradition of popular Christianity, and all the knowledge which from childhood we unconsciously imbibe, give us a general knowledge of the evangelical facts and of the history of our Lord. This cannot be the knowledge of which He here speaks. It must be something of a deeper kind, something more living and personal. It is plainly, therefore, such a knowledge as He has of us. It is that mutual consciousness of which we speak when we say that we know any person as our friend. We do not mean that we know him by name; for many strangers we know by name; many whom we have never seen, or further care to know: neither do we mean only that we know all about him, that is to say, who he is, and whence, of what lineage, or from what land, or what has been his history, his acts and words, and the like; for in this way we may be said to know many who do not know us, and with whom we have nothing to do. When we say we know anyone as our friend, we mean that we know not only who he is, but what, or as we say, his character,--that he is true, affectionate, gentle, forgiving, liberal, patient, self-denying; and still more, that he has been, and is, all this to ourselves; that we have made trial of him, and have cause to know this character as a reality, of which we have, as it were, tasted, by often meeting with him, seeing him at all times, under all circumstances and in all changes, familiarly conversing with him, doing service to him, ourselves receiving from him in turn tokens of love and goodness. This is the knowledge of friendship and of love. It is something living and personal, arising out of the whole of our inward nature, and filling all our powers and affections. And such is the knowledge the true sheep have of the Good Shepherd. Let us, then, consider in what way we may attain this knowledge.
1. It must be by following Him. My sheep hear My voice and they follow Me. By living such a life as He lived. Likeness to Him is the power of knowing Him. Nay, rather it is knowledge itself: there is no other. It is by likeness that we know, and by sympathy that we learn.
2. There are peculiar faculties of the heart which must be awakened, if we would know Him as He knows us. There can be no true obedience without the discipline of habitual devotion--in prayer, meditation, sacramental communion.
3. This true knowledge of Him is not a transitory state of feeling. Out of obedience and devotion arises an habitual faith, which makes Him, though unseen, yet perceptibly a part of all our life. (Archdeacon Manning.)
The understanding between shepherd and sheep
You will notice the difference between the Old and the New translation here. The new translation makes the meaning of our Saviours words much clearer. He says, I am the Good Shepherd; and there is an understanding between Me and My sheep, as there is an understanding between My Father and Me. For people to understand one another, there must be something in common. The Pharisees could not understand our Lord. They had nothing in common with Him. As He said to them, Ye are from beneath; I am from above; ye are of this world; I am not of this world. No, they could not understand Him; any more than a man without an ear for music can understand music, or a dull prosy mind can understand poetry, or a person who always acts from self-interested motives can understand another who has more thought for others than for himself. But Christs disciples could understand Him: not perfectly, often very imperfectly; still they had that which made them capable of understanding Him to some extent, and of being trained to understand Him more fully in time; as one who loves music can enjoy and to some extent understand a great musician, one who is not altogether selfish can appreciate the nobility of self-sacrifice for the good of others. Some of Christs disciples had made sacrifices for Him, though small compared with what He had made for them. There were those among His little flock who had left all they had on earth to follow Him, and this, and the faith which led them to it, had made them able to know and understand Him who had left all He had in heaven for their sake. (J. E. Vernon, M. A.)
The shepherds mark
Edmund Andrews was a thoughtless, cruel boy. One day he was passing by Burltons farm, and saw Wilkinson, the old shepherd, busy with his pitch kettle and iron, marking the sheep with the letters J.B., for John Burlton. So you are putting your masters mark upon the sheep, are you? said he. Yes, Master Edmund; but God, the Almighty Maker, has put His mark upon them before. What do you mean? asked Edmund. I mean that our Heavenly Father, in His wisdom and goodness, has put marks upon the creatures He has made, and such marks as none but He could put upon them. He gave wings to the cockchafer, spots to the butterfly, feathers to the bird, a sparkling eye to the frog and toad, a swift foot to the dog, and a soft furry skin to the cat. These marks are His marks, and show that the creatures belong to Him; and woe be to those that abuse them! Thats an odd thought, said Edmund, as he turned away. It may be an odd thought, said the shepherd, but odd things lead us to glorify God, and to act kindly to His creatures. The more we have, Master Edmund, the better.
How Christ knows His sheep
Suppose one of the sheep in a fold were to go to the shepherd, and say, I think Im your sheep, because you get six pounds of wool off me; and another should say, And I think Im your sheep, because you get four pounds of wool from me; and a third, I hope I am your sheep, but I dont know, for you only get three pounds of wool from me; and sometimes it is but two. Finally, suppose one poor scraggy fellow comes who dont know whether he is a sheep or a goat, and makes his complaint; the shepherd would say, I know who are the best sheep, and who are the worst. I wish you could all give me ten pounds of wool; but whether you give me ten pounds or one, you are all mine. I bought you, and paid for you, and you are all in my fold, and you every one belong to me. It is not how much a sheep brings his owner which proves him his. The proof that the sheep belongs to the shepherd is, that the shepherd bought him and takes care of him. (H. W. Beecher.)
Christs knowledge of His sheep
The most fearful attributes of the Godhead turn to the sweetest comfort of a believer. His justice, to the natural man so awful, requires Him to forgive those whom He has punished in our Substitute. His power so tremendous when turned against us is assuring in the same proportion, when it is for us. So with omniscience, a terror to the wrongdoer, but a comfort to the penitent believer.
I. CHRIST KNOWS WHO ARE HIS SHEEP. Leave it then to Him to pronounce who are so. We seldom make a greater mistake then when we attempt to trespass on this province of Deity. I know, almost as much as to say, You do not. And there are times when it will be best not to form the judgment respecting ourselves. Leave it thus. He knows whether I am His; and if not, that I wish to be, and therefore will make me. If I am, He will keep me.
II. HE KNOWS THEM AS A WHOLE. As all one, gathered out of the same desert, washed in the same fountain, etc. In this collectiveness He expects concert of action, sympathy, unity among His people. We are accustomed to regard ourselves as separate individuals, families, churches. Hence our narrowness, selfishness.
III. HE KNOWS THEM AS INDIVIDUALS. Each stands out known and loved as if He cared for none else. He knows
1. You, and not merely about you.
2. How long you have been in the fold, and expects accordingly.
3. Your natural temperament, what you can and cannot bear, how much exposure, liberty, etc. What kind of pasture you require.
4. Your future, and is always working up to it.
IV. HE KNOWS HIMSELF IN THEM AND THEREFORE HIS FATHERS MIND ABOUT THEM. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)
I lay down My life for the sheep
Christ died to save men
At the time of the gold fever in California, a man went from England to the diggings. By and by he sent money for his wife and child to follow him. They arrived safely in New York, and there took a passage in one of the beautiful Pacific steamers. A few days after sailing, the terrible cry of Fire! fire! rang through the ship. Everything that the captain and sailors could do was done, but it was of no use; the fire rapidly gained ground. As there was a powder magazine on board, the captain knew that the moment the flames reached it the vessel would be blown up; so he gave the word to lower the life boats. These were got out, but there was not room for all; so the strong pushed in and left the weak to their fate. As the last boat was moving off, a mother and her boy were on the deck and she pleaded to be taken. The sailors agreed to take one but not both. What did the mother do? Did she jump in herself? No! Kissing her boy and handing him over the side of the ship, she said If you live to see your father, tell him I died to save you. That was great love, yet it is but a faint type of what Christ has done for us. (J. L. Nye.)
Damon and Pythias
Damon, being condemned to death by Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse, obtained liberty to visit his wife and children, leaving his friend, Pythias, as a pledge for his return. At the appointed time Damon failed in appearing, and the tyrant had the curiosity to visit Pythias in prison. What a fool you were, said he, to rely on Damons promise! How could you imagine that he would sacrifice his life for you or for any man? My lord, said Pythias, with a firm voice and noble aspect, I would suffer a thousand deaths rather than my friend should fail in any article of honour. He cannot fail. I am as confident of his virtue as I am of my own existence. But I beseech the gods to preserve his life. Oppose him ye winds! Disappoint his eagerness, and suffer him not to arrive till my death has saved a life of much greater consequence than mine, necessary to his lovely wife, to his little innocents, to his friends, to his country! Oh! let me not die the cruelest of deaths in that of Damon! Dionysius was confounded and awed with the magnanimity of these sentiments. He wished to speak: he hesitated, he looked down, and retired in silence. Pythias was brought forth, and with an air of satisfaction walked to the place of execution. He ascended the scaffold and addressed the people. My prayers are hoard; the gods are propitious; the winds have been contrary. Damon could not conquer impossibilities: he will be here tomorrow, and my blood shall ransom that of my friend. As he pronounced these words, a buzz arose; a distant voice was heard; the crowd caught the words, and Stop, stop, executioner! was repeated by every person. A man came at full speed. In the same instant he was off his horse, on the scaffold, and in the arms of Pythias. You are safe! he cried, you are safe, my friend! The gods be praised, you are safe! Pale and half speechless in the arms of Damon, Pythias replied in broken accents, Fatal haste! cruel impatience! What envious powers have wrought impossibilities against your friend? But I will not be wholly disappointed. Since I cannot die to save you, I will die to accompany you! Dionysius heard and beheld with astonishment. His eyes were opened, his heart was touched, and he could no longer resist the power of pity. He descended from his throne and ascended the scaffold. Live, live, ye incomparable pair! Ye have demonstrated the existence of virtue, and consequently of a God who rewards it. Live happy, live revered; and as you have invited me by your example, form me by your precepts to participate worthily in a friendship so divine.
Other sheep I have which are not of this fold
Outsiders
The grace of God is no mans little property, fenced off all for ourselves. It is not a kings park, at which we look through a barred gateway. It is a Fathers orchard with bars to let down and gates to swing open. There are Christians who keep a severe guard over the Church, when God would have all come and take the richest and ripest of the fruit. Then, again, we have those who get up statistics and say so many Methodists, Presbyterians, etc., there, that is the number of Christians. Christ comes and says No! you have not counted rightly, other sheep have I which are not of these folds.
I. The heavenly Shepherd will find many of His sheep, among those who are NON-CHURCH GOERS. I do not think that the Church gains when you take sheep from one fold and puts them into another. It is the lost sheep on the mountains we want to bring back.
II. The heavenly Shepherd will find many of His sheep among those who are now REJECTORS OF CHRISTIANITY. I do not know bow you came to reject Christianity: but I want you, before you finally discard it, to give it a fair trial. You want what it alone can give--if it does not give that to you then you may reject it. But it will. Take not the word of a clergyman, who may be speaking professionally, but that of laymen who have never preached--Milton, Wilbcrforce, Newton, Boyle, Locke, Morse.
III. The heavenly Shepherd will get many of His sheep among THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN FLUNG OF EVIL HABIT. The way Christian people give up the prodigal is outrageous. They talk as though the grace of God were a chain of forty or fifty links, and, when they had been run out, there was nothing to touch a mans iniquity. But there is only one class about whom we may be despondent: those who have been hearing the gospel for twenty, thirty, forty years, and who are gospel hardened. (T. De Witt Talmage.)
Other sheep and one flock
I. OUR LORD HAD A PEOPLE UNDER THE WORST CIRCUMSTANCES. This fold was not the Jews, but His handful of disciples.
1. Doubtless these times are exceedingly dangerous, and some brethren never allow me to forget it, for they play well on the minor key. But I heard it thirty years ago, and the times have been bad ever since, and always will be. This is better, perhaps, than living in a fools paradise; but certainly the days of Christ were terrible days in the point of
(1) Utter ungodliness. A few godly ones watched for the coming of Christ, but the great mass were altogether gone out of the way.
(2) Will worship; the commandments of men were taught for the doctrines of God.
(3) Fierce opposition, as seen in the treatment Christ received. Yet He had a chosen company, and however guilty our age may be in these points, there is an election of grace still.
2. This company was a fold. Afterwards they were to be called a flock; but as yet one glance was sufficient to embrace them all.
(1) They were distinct from the world Ye are not of the world, etc.
(2) In that fold they Were protected from ill-weathers, and from the wolf and the thief.
(3) Even there were goats--One of you is a devil.
(4) They were being strengthened for future following of the Great Shepherd.
3. When Jesus had thus shut them in He would not allow them to be exclusive, but opens wide the door of the sheepfold and cries, Other sheep I have. Thus He checks a common tendency to be forgetful of outsiders. Seeing that He has those who would be found by Him through His faithful people, let us rouse ourselves to the holy enterprise,
4. Never despair. The Lord is with us. We may be poor, but we are Christs, and that makes us precious. There were three men who had to carry on a college when funds were running short. One complained that they had no helpers and could not hope to succeed. Why, said another, we are a thousand. How is that? I am a cipher, and you and our brother; so we have three noughts to begin with. But Christ is ONE. Put Him down before the ciphers, and we have a thousand directly.
II. OUR LORD HAS OTHER SHEEP NOT YET KNOWN TO US. I have, not shall have. The apostles never dreamed of His having sheep in Britain or Rome. Their most liberal notion was that the scattered seed of Abraham might be gathered.
1. Who are these sheep?
(1) Christs chosen--Ye have not chosen Me, etc.
(2) Those whom the Father had given Him.
(3) Those for whom He laid down His life that they might be the redeemed of the Lord, Ye are not your own, etc.
(4) Those on whose behalf He had entered into suretyship engagements even as Jacob under took the flock of Laban that he should lose none.
2. What was their state? People without a shepherd--lost, wandering, ready to be devoured by the wolf. Bad as the world is today it must have been far worse in the vile Roman world.
3. This thought gave Christ great encouragement when confronting their adversaries, and should be a great comfort to Gods people now. I have much people in this city. This is our authority for seeking the lost sheep in whoevers preserves they may be.
III. OUR LORD MUST LEAD THOSE OTHER SHEEP, not bring; Christ must be at their head, and they must follow.
1. It is Christ who has to do this, even as He has done it hitherto, also. As Jesus has done it for us He must do it for others.
2. He must do it. Subjects are usually bound by a must; this must binds the sovereign. Who can resist it? Clear out all enemies!
3. How He must do it? They shall hear my voice. Christ is going to save people still by the gospel, and we must not look for other means. Go ye into all the world.
IV. OUR LORD GUARANTEES THE UNITY OF HIS CHURCH. One flock.
1. We hear a great deal about the unity of the Church. We are to have the Roman, Greek, and Anglican all one. God has chosen people in each, but their union would be a dire mischief.
2. This has been carried out as a matter of fact. There never was but one Shepherd and never will be but one flock. All the visible Churches contain parts of it.
3. As a matter of experience this is carried out in believers. A spiritually minded man is at one with all spiritually minded men. Set a Calvinist and an Arminian at prayer: let the Spirit work on Baptist and Paedo-Baptist. What Protestant but loves Bernard?
4. The external Church is needful, but it is not the one and indivisible Church of Christ.
5. This Church is known by its obedience to Christ. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
This fold and the other sheep
I. THIS FOLD: the seed of Israel. By His personal ministry our Lord founded the kingdom in Israel and some of the seed of Abraham were gathered in.
II. OTHER SHEEP NOT OF THIS FOLD. Here the expansive love of Jesus breaks forth. He began at Jerusalem, but the longings of His heart go forth to the end of the earth.
III. I HAVE. Mark the all encompassing sovereignty of His love. They were His in the covenant from the beginning. At a time when they were neither born nor born again He counts them His.
IV. THEM ALSO. There is no respect of persons. No poor slave will be left out because he is black; no servant pushed aside to make way for his master; no rich or powerful man is kept out at the cry of the envious mob. If any were kept back the Lord would say, them also; gather up the fragments, etc. What a cheering word l It embraces the prodigal, the dying thief, Saul of Tarsus.
V. I BRING. He sends none forward to make or find their own way. In all their afflictions He is afflicted. They shall not traverse the valley of the shadow alone. None shall stand at the Judgment to make the best of his own case. I am the Way. He brings them through the regeneration into the fold on earth. It often takes much bringing; but all power is given to the Captain of our salvation. The drunkard, miser, etc., are made willing in the day of His power. And that same bringing power shall rend the gates of death.
VI. I MUST. He commands the winds and the sea and they obey; who then can command Him? His own yearning love. (W. Arnot, D. D.)
The missionary's warrant
We have a right to go anywhere to seek after our Masters sheep. If they are my Masters sheep who shall stop me over hill and dale inquiring, Have you seen my Masters sheep. If any say, You do intrude in this land, let the answer be, We are after our Masters sheep which have strayed here. You have a search warrant from the King of kings, and, therefore, you have a right to enter and search after your Lords stolen property. If men belonged to the devil we would not rob the enemy himself; but they do not belong to him. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Them also I must bring.--They must be brought
1. To realize the visions of ancient prophecy.
2. To accomplish the promise of the Father (Psa_2:3).
3. To secure the object, and to recompense the suffering and the toil of the Redeemers mediatorial undertaking.
4. To answer the prayers, fulfil the expectations, and crown the prayers which He has animated and inspired. (T. Raffles, LL. D.)
One fold and one shepherd
I. CHRISTS PROPERTY IN HIS SHEEP.
1. How acquired.
(1) By donation. Thine they were and Thou gavest them Me. Ask of Me, etc.
(2) By purchase, Ye are bought with a price.
(3) By the sanctification of the Spirit; after which He gives them back to the Father to be glorified.
2. There are but three possessions to which the word property really belongs.
(1) The sinners possession of his own sins.
(2) The believers possession of his own Saviour.
(3) Christs possession of His own people.
3. Possession is an endearing thing. If you possess a thing you love it; and that feeling is a faint copy of the mind of Christ.
4. Concerning this possession, Christ declares that He holds it not only over those He was then addressing, but over others separated from them--perhaps other worlds, certainly Gentiles, of whose admission Jews werejealous.
5. Note, then, that Christ said this of those who were then unconverted. Paul (Act_13:1-52) was almost driven from Corinth by opposition, but was stopped by I have much people in this city; and yet, with the exception of two or three persons, all were locked in unbelief. But it was not so eighteen months after. What a joy to the Christian worker to be able to think that any man may be among Christs other sheep!
II. CHRISTS ENGAGEMENT FOR HIS SHEEP. Them also I must bring.
1. The imperative obligation. God permits Himself to be ruled by His own covenant.
2. This certified engagement is this: They shall hear My voice.
(1) When a soul just awakened hears Thou art the man.
(2) When the stricken conscience hears Go in peace, etc.
(3) When the soul, better knowing now Christs accents, hears It is I; be not afraid.
(4) When the heart, better ordered, always hears and says, Speak Lord, etc.
(5) When the ear shall drink in Come ye blessed, etc.
3. Your corresponding duty to this pledge is to hear--obey. This is happiness here and glory by and by.
III. CHRISTS INTENTION WITH HIS SHEEP. One fold, etc.
1. This will be literally fulfilled in heaven.
2. It is spiritually fulfilled herein
(1) Unity of condition.
(2) Unity of Spirit.
(3) Unity of action.
(4) Unity of headship--One Shepherd. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)
Christs collected flocks
I. WHAT THINGS ARE TO BE DONE FOR THE COMPLETION OF THIS END? I observe
1. The views of mankind concerning religious subjects are to be extensively changed.
2. A mighty change, also, must be wrought in the disposition of man.
3. The change will not be less in the conduct of men.
II. IN WHAT MANNER ARE THESE THINGS TO BE DONE? I answer, they are to be accomplished not by miracles, but by means.
III. BY WHOM ARE THESE THINGS TO BE DONE? Solitary efforts will here be fruitless; divided efforts will be equally fruitless; clashing efforts will destroy each other. Learn
1. The work to which you are summoned is the work of God.
2. The present is the proper time for this glorious undertaking.
3. The necessity of this work irresistibly demands every practicable effort. The whole world, says St. John, speaking of his own time, lieth in wickedness (1Jn_5:19). Lieth--for such is the indication of the original--as a man slain lies weltering in his blood.
4. The day in which these blessings are to be ushered in has arrived. The day in which the mighty work will be seen in its full completion is at hand. We must labour, that those who come after us may enter into our labours. (T. Dwight, D. D.)
Unity the final purpose of God
An old Scottish Methodist, who had clung vehemently to one of two small sects on opposite sides of the street, said, when dying: The street I am now travelling in has nae sides, and if power were now given me I would preach purity of life mair and purity of doctrine less. Since I was laid by here I have had whisperings of the still small voice telling me that the wranglings of faith will neer be heard in the kingdom I am nearing; and, as love cements all differences, Ill perhaps find the place roomier than I thought in times past. (Dean Stanley.)
United in anticipation of death
When seven men imprisoned in a Pennsylvania coal mine were rescued after five days imprisonment they were asked if they hoped to escape. We prayed for it, was the reply; we prayed together. Some were Protestants and some Catholics, but when death is as close as that you only think of God.
Unity defined
I distinguish the unity of comprehensiveness from the unity of mere singularity. The word one, as oneness, is an ambiguous word. There is a oneness belonging to the army as well as to every soldier in the army. The army is one, and that is the oneness of unity; the soldier is one, and that is the oneness of the unit. There is difference between the oneness of a body and the oneness of a member of that body. The body is many, and a unity of manifold comprehensiveness. An arm or a member of a body is one, but that is the unity of singularity. (F. W. Robertson, M. A.)
Therefore doth My Father love Me
The Fathers love of Jesus
Observe what Christ says
I. OF LAYING DOWN HIS LIFE.
1. No mere man could have said this. Power over life is Gods prerogative. To none but the Son has He given to have life in Himself; and power to take it again is manifestly not ours. But we must not separate this claim from His obedience. Christ knows no power but to do the Fathers will.
2. Much of our metaphysics is here silenced. Is obedience free if we are not also free to disobey? The truest liberty is voluntary restraint. The freedom of obedience is learned as we love to obey. The fullest consciousness of power is that of power to do Gods will.
3. Christs assertion of power is intended to illustrate His obedience. I lay down My life of Myself. He could have withdrawn Himself from the people, or by yielding to their prejudices have won them. He could have awed them, as He did the soldiers, by His majestic presence. He had power over mens consciences, as was seen in the case of the Pharisees who brought the woman taken in adultery, and in the case of Pilate. The concealed aid of heaven was at His bidding. But more than all this was the strength of His submission. He speaks of His power to show how full was His obedience.
4. We have here an awful revelation of the powerlessness of sin. The Jews were simply tolerated, ignorant of the power that restrained itself. So with all sinners. But Christ was thus patient that when they had done their worst He might be their Saviour.
5. The chief truth here is the fulness of Christs obedience. The consciousness that we might escape would be to us a motive for disobedience. We are kept submissive by weakness. He speaks not of power to avoid the sacrifice but to make it.
II. OF THY FATHERS LOVE.
1. We see the reason of this partly in Christs obedience. Here is the oneness of the Father and the Son; the Son rejoices to obey; the Father commits His whole counsel to the Son that He may accomplish it.
2. The commandment was that Christ should lay down His life for the sheep. The Fathers love for the Son is not one in which all others are shut out. We read that God did not rest in Creation till He had made man in His own image. His love is so bountiful that it forms objects on which to lavish itself. Here we have something more surprising--the pity for lost man which is in the Father, and that pity finding response in the Son. Well was it said that God is love.
3. Christ tells us why the Father loves Him.
(1) That we may know the men who are dearest to God--not as with us the learned, wealthy, powerful, but the obedient and loving.
(2) That we may understand Christs life and death. Neither Jews nor disciples could understand the Man of Sorrows. Hence the double proclamation, This is My beloved Son. How many a reason has been given why Christ must die! But how poor all reasons beside the simple one that He loved us.
(3) In order that we may know God. The object of our affection reveals ourselves. If the man of force be our hero, we show ourselves worshippers of power; if a good man, we prize goodness. Christ is dear to the Father because He loves us. What a witness to the love of God.
III. OF THE ISSUE OF LAYING DOWN HIS LIFE. Christ is to reap the reward of His sacrifice, and we of the travail of His soul.
1. This alone renders His sacrifice lawful or possible, and distinguishes between sublimity of sacrifice, and scornful waste of self. The Fathers commandment is not that the Son should perish. The life which is yielded up for the ends of love is restored in the triumph of love.
2. This illustrates the true character of trust in God--the assurance that He is righteous to vindicate fidelity and loving to reward it.
3. It is not love for men which is indifferent about sharing with them the joy of their restoration--this makes any sacrifice an affront. Christ anticipates the joy of leading many sons to glory.
4. Heaven would lose its value if Christ perished to secure it for us. We should feel that our salvation had been too dearly purchased, and the bitter sorrow that He was absent whose joy it would have been to meet His redeemed.
5. To labour in hope of reward is not always selfish. We need the triumph to vindicate the suffering.
6. We learn how to sustain ourselves in Christian struggle and endurance. If we suffer with Him, etc. The sacrifice and resurrection of Christ is a rebuke to all despondency. (A. Mackennal, D. D.)
God loving His Son
The assertions of Christ as to His relation to God are very different from those of Old Testament saints. Not once did they call God Father--this Jesus always does; and the Father acquiesces. This is My beloved Son. Here Christ seems to found His Fathers love on something He is about to accomplish on earth. But a stranger having rescued a child from drowning and restored it to its parent might say, Therefore doth the Father love me. And so some infer that Christ was related to God only in virtue of His obedience to death. Not so. God is love; but love cannot exist without an object, and this object must be coexistent with the eternal affection. So Christ is the eternal object of an eternal love, and the text only states an additional reason for that love. A king has a beloved son and a revolted province. The latter he could crush, but prefers to accept a voluntary mission of the former to win the rebels by privation, forbearance, and kindness. This succeeds. The king expresses his satisfaction, and the son says, Therefore doth my father love me. The idea of the text is similar. What were the elements in Christs death which drew forth the love of Christ?
I. PERFECT SPONTANEITY IN THE OBEDIENCE HE RENDERED. Not that His sufferings or death were in themselves well pleasing to the merciful Father. All men die, and by Divine appointment; but God does not love them for this, else the wicked would be loved as well as the righteous. It was the Divine principle that prompted it--obedience. It was not snatched from Him, nor did He yield it in idle passivity; He laid it down of His active free will, and so revealed the Fathers will, developed the plan of redemption, and is therefore the object of Gods intensest love.
II. FAITH. There would have been no merit in His death had He sacrificed Himself without assurance of resurrection. It might have been from despair. Nor could it have taken place without this assurance. The extinction of such a one could not be permitted in the government of a righteous God. Knowing that He was sinless, He must have known that death, the wages of sin, had no power over Him. Hence He never spoke of His death apart from His resurrection. The taking up was as much in the Divine plan as the laying down. He was confident of the successful issue, and God loved Him because of this. Conclusion:
1. If God finds a new reason for loving His Son in the moral qualities He displayed, He will love us if we strive to live as Christ lived. Wherever He sees men obedient and self-sacrificing He will love them.
2. We should do our duty in spite of consequences, or rather with regard to the remoter consequences. Lay down our lives that we may take them again. Whosoever loseth his life for My sake shall find it. (T. James, M. A.)
The stimulating power of the consciousness of being loved
What heat is in nature that love is in the human realm. It tends to quicken and expand and beautify those on whom it lights; it assists men to be better and stronger and more gracious than they would otherwise be. Under its influence, souls are enabled to bud and blossom more freely; and let none of us be ashamed of needing it, and leaning on it for succour. (S. A. Tipple.)
The Sons work approved of the Father
I. THE GREAT WORK IN WHICH THE SON IS ENGAGED--the salvation of His sheep
1. From danger, the curse of the law, eternal death.
2. To obedience, holiness, blessedness, heaven.
II. THE APPOINTMENT OF THE SON TO THIS GREAT WORK BY THE FATHER. This commandment. This principle holds a high place in the Bible. Christ was predicted as the servant and sent of God; gladly accepts this subordination; and His apostles teach the same doctrine.
III. THE QUALIFICATIONS OF THE SON FOR HIS GREAT WORK.
1. To atone for guilt He must be and was free from guilt.
2. To save man He must be and was man, and yet more than man. As man He had a life to lay down; but He had no power as man to lay it down of Himself; this was Divine.
3. This Divine-human life had sufficient merit to expiate the sin of the world.
4. But redemption could not have been consummated without its resumption; and so He had power to take it again.
IV. THE SONS ACCOMPLISHMENT OF HIS GREAT WORK. His offering has been effectual for the purpose for which it was presented. There remaineth no more sacrifice for sin. Millions are now through His expiation the spirits of just men made perfect, and millions are preparing for that blessed state.
V. THE COMPLACENCY MANIFESTED BY THE FATHER TO THE SON IN AND FOR THE ACCOMPLISHMENT OF HIS GREAT WORK. (Php_2:9-11). (J. Brown, D. D.)
Christ comforting Himself
The people were listening with sneers and anger to Christs asservations of the union between Himself and God, and contemplating a step which would expose their emptiness. When put out of the way, His presumptuous claims would be shattered. He read this thought, and answered it calmly, with the inward consciousness that that event would only culminate His voluntary self-sacrifice, and render Him the special object of the Fathers love. Such is frequently the blindness and defeat of bad men. It is poor business trying to hurt a saint. You can never be certain that your hardest blows will not ensure him more abundant consolation.
I. CHRIST COMFORTING HIMSELF
1. With the reflection that someone loves Him. We find Him constantly doing this. I am not alone, etc.; pausing in the midst of hostility, etc., to get soothing and inspiration. He could not get on without it any more than we can. Let none of us weakly and selfishly long for this, nor stoically determine to be above it; but value it as an impulse for work.
2. With His felt possession of power. His adversaries regarded Him as their victim. He muses, they are mistaken; instead of being dragged helplessly, I shall march in might to die. We need not shrink from the thought that Jesus found solace in the consciousness of His superiority to what He looked: that while He seemed weak, He was sublimely strong. It is both natural and legitimate, when we are being estimated falsely, to feel the excellence or the gift that is not perceived. We may need this in encountering disparagement, to preserve our self-possession and keep ourselves from fainting. There are others, however, who can never have this consolation. Their reputation is the best thing they have; they are meaner than the social estimate of them.
II. THE GROUNDS OF THIS COMFORT.
1. The Father loved Christ because He lay down His life in order to take it again. The beauty of self-sacrifice lies not in the act, but in its animating purpose. There is no necessary virtue in denying yourself. Sacrifices are often made out of mere weakness, regard for the usages of society, self-indulgence, even to spite others, and in disregard of the right and the claims of other people. Christ laid down His life in order to take it again. This explanation is at first sight disappointing. What was there to charm the heart of God in surrender for the purpose of recovery? But this recovery was meant to be a great source and fountain of good, that He might be the first-born among many brethren. It is noble to sacrifice self with a view to acquiring more capacity for service.
2. The secret of Christs power was not that He had a right to elect to die, which we have not, but that He felt Himself able to make the sacrifice required of Him. He did not need to be dragged or urged into it, but was able to make it freely. What happens there then is in the sense of the power to respond at once to the call of a difficult, trying duty. But He was certain not only that He could bear the Cross, but that He should reap to the full the anticipated fruit of it. What more blessed than this--the assurance of power to do what is wholly true, and an assurance of gaining the object?
3. What was the secret of it all? This commandment, etc. What God calls one to, one will have strength to accomplish, and it will assuredly yield its due fruit. In other things you may break down or be disappointed--never in this. (S. A. Tipple.)
I lay down My life
Victim and priest
Types, like shadows, are one-sided things. Hence in the shadowy worship of Judaism Christ was brokenly seen in a variety of disconnected images. The sacrificial lamb was a picture of Him who is the first of sufferers and the only sin bearer; but the dumb brute, led in unresisting ignorance to the altar, not otherwise than it might have been to the shambles, was no picture of the perfect willingness with which He devoted His life to God. For the type of that we must go to the white-robed priest. There was need for a double shadow. But in the one real sacrifice the two are one. Jesus is priest and victim. There are certain steps we must take in comprehending Christs self-sacrificing will as expressed in the text.
I. It was CONSTANT. The strength of ones will to suffer is tested by its deliberate formation and persistent endurance.
1. Our Saviours resolution was no impulse born of excited feeling, liable to fail before calmer thought; nor a necessity for which He was gradually prepared, and at last shut up to through circumstances; but a habitual purpose, steadily kept in view from the first, till it grew almost to a passion. How am I straitened, etc.
2. Many men are heroic only by impulse; give time, and the bravery yields to prudence. Men have ignorantly taken the first step towards martyrdom; but, having taken it, have felt bound to go forward. But when the mind can form so terrible a purpose, and calmly hold it on for years, in the face of unromantic neglect and mockery, the purpose must have its roots deep. Such will was never in any except Christ. Precious life, which carried its own death in its bosom, like a bunch of sweet flowers, filling all its days with fragrance.
II. It was ACTIVELY FREE.
1. While resignation was the habitual attitude of His soul, there was more than resignation. We underestimate His priestly act, by thinking more of His willingness than of His will to suffer. I lay down My life means that, with ardent desire and fixed resolution, He is, at His own choice, giving away His own Spiritual Person, including that which is the most personal thing of all--His will. And this active exposure to penalty accompanied Him through every stage. His was both the right and strength at every stage to free His soul; but He chose to go on deeper into the darkness till all was over. This came out very plainly when Peter put before Him the alternative; when, His time being come, He set Himself to go to Jerusalem, when He said to Judas, What thou doest, etc.; when, on His arrest, He spoke about the legion of angels; yes, and when the torment reached Him, Let Him now come down from the cross.
2. Now, it is harder to will a disagreeable lot than to consent to bear it when it is laid upon us. Many a man has piety to submit to unavoidable evil, or even to rest in it as wise, who would yet be unequal to make it a choice. Most men, therefore, aim at nothing higher than passive acquiescence in suffering; but it is nobler to seal Gods afflictive will with our own, and will not to have it otherwise. It is a further advance still to enter voluntarily into affliction for righteousness sake. Yet even the martyrs choice of death before sin is less absolute and free than that of Christ.
III. It was CROSSED BY HINDRANCES FROM THE WEAKNESS OF THE FLESH AND IT OVERCAME THEM. As you walk by the side of a deep, swift-running river, you know not how strong the current is till you reach the rapids, where its flow is broken. So on reading the smooth, constant story of Jesus life, there is little to tell us with what power He was advancing to His agony. Near the end came one or two places where this was seen (chap. 12:27-29). That was a short struggle. His will to die soon overcame the momentary perplexity, and the voice from heaven was needed not by Him, but for the bystanders. This, however, was only a foretaste of the greater strife in the garden--the weak flesh against the willing spirit; yet in the end it is divinely upborne to bear the unimaginable suffering for the worlds guilt. In that hour He sacrificed Himself--laid down His life. With what relief do we read, It is enough, the hour has come, etc. (J. O.Dykes, D. D.)
I have power to take it again
Our Lords resumption of life
I. WAS HIS OWN ACT. Nowhere is the majesty of our Lords Divine Person more manifest than here.
1. He had power to lay His life down. Could we use His words? There is much in life we can control, but not our way of leaving it.
(1) So far from laying it down, we yield it up. It is wrung from us by disease, violence, or accident. No men of this century have wielded more power than the two Napoleons; they little meant to die--the first at St. Helena, the third at Chislehurst. Bishop Wilberforce never entered a railway carriage without reflecting that he might never leave it alive. He was a fearless horseman, but he met his death when riding at a walking pace.
(2) But cannot a man lay down his life at pleasure? And did not the Stoics commend it? As a matter of physical possibility, we can; but what about its morality? It is at once cowardice and murder.
(3) A good man may find it his duty to accept death at the hands of others. Patriots and martyrs have had moral power to lay down their lives; but they could not control the circumstances which made death a duty.
(4) Our Lords act differs from that of the suicide in its moral elevation (Joh_10:11), and from that of the martyr in His command of the situation. As the Lord of Life, He speaks of His human life as His creature.
2. He had power to take it again.
(1) Here His majesty is more apparent, for He speaks of a control over His life which no mere man can possibly have. When soul and body are sundered, there is no force in the soul such as can reconstitute the body. In the Biblical cases of resurrection, the power came from without.
(2) Here barbarism and civilization are on a level. Science has done wonders in bringing the various forces of nature under control; but no scientist cherishes the hope of undoing the work of death, or of keeping it indefinitely at bay.
(3) When Christ claims to take His life again, He stands in relation to His life, which is only intelligible if we believe Him to be the Son of God.
II. WAS HIS ACT AND THE FATHERS CONJOINTLY?
1. He is repeatedly said to have been raised by the Father. This was Peters language (Act_2:24; Act_3:15; Act_4:10; Act_5:30; Act_10:40), and Pauls (Act_13:30-37; 1Th_1:10; 2Ti_2:3; Rom_4:24-25; Rom_6:4; Rom_3:11, etc., etc.).
2. On the ether hand, our Lord speaks of it as an act distinctly His own Mar_10:34; Luk_13:33; Joh_2:19, and text).
3. There is no contradiction here. The resurrection does not cease to be Christs act because it is the Fathers. When God acts through mere men, He makes them His instruments; but the power which effected the resurrection is as old as the eternal generation of the Son (chap. 5:26).
4. There is a moment when imagination, under the conduct of faith, endeavours, but in vain, to realize when the human soul of our Lord, surrounded by myriads of angels, on His return from the ancient dead, came to the grave of Joseph and claimed the body that had hung upon the cross.
III. SUGGESTS THE FOLLOWING CONSIDERATIONS.
1. What Christianity truly means. Not mere loyalty to the precepts of a dead teacher, or admiration of a striking character who lived eighteen hundred years ago. It is something more than literary taste or a department of moral archaeology. It is devotion to a living Christ. If it were a false religion, literary men might endeavour to reconstruct the history of its earliest age. This is what has been done with the great teachers of antiquity, and with Christ. But there is this difference. What Socrates, etc., were is all that we can know of them now. They cannot help us or speak to us. But in the fulness of that power which He asserted at His resurrection, Christ still rules and holds communion with every believer. A living Christianity means a living Christ.
2. What is the foundation of our confidence in the future of Christianity? Based as it is on a Christ who raised Himself from the dead, it cannot pass away.
(1) Mankind has lavished admiration on great teachers; but they have died and been forgotten. Their age proclaimed the dust of their writings gold; a succeeding age scarcely opens their folios. Why are we certain that this fate does not await Christ? Because mens loyalty rests not on His words mainly, but in His Person. Christ is Christianity. And why is it that, in thus clinging to His Person, Christian faith is so sure of the future? Because she has before her not a Christ who was conquered by death.
(2) Had it been otherwise Christianity might have perished more than once; by the wickedness of the Roman Court in the tenth century; by the hordes of Islam in the first flush of their conquests, or by the great Turkish sultans of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; by the accumulated weight of corruption which invited the Reformation; by the Babel which the Reformation produced; by the relation of the Church to corrupt governments: by the dishonest enterprises of unbelieving theologians. Men said the Church was killed under Decius and Diocletian, after the French Revolution. But each collapse is followed by a revival, because Christ willed to rise.
3. What is our hope for the departed? Because Christ lives, they live also; because He rose, they shall rise. (Canon Liddon.)
The mastery of life
These are the strongest words that human lips have uttered, I think; the strongest, because they give us a glimpse of what elsewhere we cannot find in man or his history--the complete mastery and control of life. Where is the man who comes to life as the workman comes to his clay or marble, and shapes out his idea precisely as he first has thought and designed it, and leaves it fulfilled without that obedient material having demanded any change in the work? How little of such mastery you and I have. Your very purpose in life, of which you speak so proudly, have you not got it by living? And when you had conceived it, when you had said I will, That is my purpose, did life flow liquidly and obediently into your mould, and stay there, and harden in it lastingly? Who has just the life he planned? And when you begin to see your purpose, or something like it, coming on:, of life, what control have you over it and its continuance? You have time to say, Yes, that is the shape of my wish, of my plan, and you or it are hurried away. But even suppose that a man cares not whether his purpose be lasting, if for a moment he reaches the place at which he had aimed; if he stands there where he had struggled through life to be; if he has made life carry him there--is he not master and victor? May he not say, as the soldier who dies in victory, I die happy? The hands that stiffen at that moment, are they not, after all, a conquerors? Oh! but think if the mastery of life does not include something else. It is not only to carry ones own purpose for a moment; it is to do it in such a way as to show that you are not indebted to lifes favour for it; that it is not a gift to you; that you will take it at your own time, as one who is completely, unanxiously master; that you will not be hurried by the thought, Now life is offering me my prize; if not now, never; but can quietly choose the time of acquisition when it is best, and then reach out the hand to take it. But stop again. Mastery of human life--is it not something vastly more than all of this? Is it not to be above counting it indispensable, to use it only as one help in the working out of the great purpose; to lay it down, and yet win the aim by other help; to lay it down as a workman puts down a tool and takes it again? But who of us is so boldly independent as that? Who can work out his human purpose without the help of human life? But I must go yet one great step farther in this description of what it is to be a master of human life. It is this: Suppose you were independent of this human life, yet you are not master of it if it can withdraw itself and you have no power to keep or resume it. If, after showing your ability to do without it, it were able to keep away from you, if you had no power to take it again, you would not be its master. That is the complete mastery of human life, not only to work out your purpose independently of it, but to really resume it, to take it again when it has been laid down … I find, in the midst of all this history of man and his life--believing himself master, and yet never so in reality--one life which has no such feature, which could never have been troubled by the thought of fate. There is One among all human existences which bears all the marks of the mastership of life, which claims from all the title of Lord and Master. First of all, Christ comes to human life with His own purpose fully formed and self-originated. He brought a Divine purpose to earth. Then see how absolutely, without change, that purpose of Christs is carried out. Not a feature is altered; not a circumstance is varied, nor any addition made. It is accomplished just according to the heavenly purpose. Life has no power to change it in the smallest particular. But this royal purpose, will not human life override it, and outgrow it, and destroy it, or gather it into itself and its own purpose, like the little rift that your hand makes in the water of the strong river? Will it remain as it was planned? How those words, the everlasting gospel, answer our question! What is there but the word of God, which endures forever? Oh! what is there today in the world which remains unchanged but the salvation of Christ? But did life give to Him the fulfilment of His purpose, as it does to its favourites, granting the prize to Him in its own time as its favour? I do not know anything more quietly grand about Jesus life than the way in which He chooses the very time when it all shall be done. My time is not yet come; I lay down My life of Myself; I must work today and tomorrow, and the third day I shall be perfected, He says, conscious of controlling the time completely. But how His Mastership grows upon us! Still let me go on to show you how His great purpose is independent of human life. Life is not indispensable to it as to our purpose. He can fulfil His purpose in loss of life, and by loss of life. I lay down My life of Myself. This commandment have I received of My Father. The Divine purpose is not lost, but won, by passing into death. I, if I be lifted up, shall draw all men unto Me. How little is human life necessary to His purpose, who died that we might live! How little dependent on this human existence is that love of God which came from heaven, which has heavens life, which is greater than death, which survives the loss of earthly life! There is but one more addition. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. Here is the highest and last sign of the Master. Can you not see how the river of life flows from the throne of God and the Lamb, where Christ, the ascended God-man, sits, who has taken human life again? Christ would take us all into His great purpose. Follow your own human purposes alone, and then, indeed, life is your master. But become our Lords follower, have a share in His purpose, have a real part and place in the salvation of Christ, and then you, too, have a superiority to life, a mastery of life. Then you, too, are living for an aim which life did not give you; an aim which life cannot modify or destroy; an aim which will be fulfilled in its own chosen time of heavenly happiness; an aim that can survive death and the loss of human life; an aim which, in a resurrection, will be able by its power to resume life as its obedient servant. (Fred. Brooks.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v22 Chapter 22
Chapter 22
JESUS, SON OF GOD.
Read full note →
And it was the feast of the dedication at Jerusalem: it was winter; and Jesus was walking in the temple in Solomons porch. The Jews therefore came round about Him, and said unto Him, How long dost Thou hold us in suspense? If Thou art the Christ, tell us plainly. Jesus answered them, I told you, and ye believe not: the works that I do in My Fathers name, these bear witness of Me. But ye believe not, because ye are not of My sheep. My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me: and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of My hand. My Father, which hath given them unto Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Fathers hand. I and the Father are one. The Jews took up stones again to stone Him. Jesus answered them, Many good works have I showed you from the Father; for which of those works do ye stone Me? The Jews answered Him, For a good work we stone Thee not, but for blasphemy; and because that Thou, being a man, makest Thyself God. Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods? If He called them gods, unto whom the word of God came (and the Scripture cannot be broken), say ye of Him, whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God? If I do not the works of My Father, believe Me not. But if I do them, though ye believe not Me, believe the works: that ye may know and understand that the Father is in Me, and I in the Father. They sought again to take Him: and He went forth out of their hand. And He went away again beyond Jordan into the place where John was at the first baptizing; and there He abode. And many came unto Him; and they said, John indeed did no sign: but all things whatsoever John spake of this man were true. And many believed on Him there.- Joh_10:22-42.
After our Lords visit to Jerusalem at the Feast of Tabernacles, and owing to His collision with the authorities in regard to the blind man whom He healed, He seems to have retired from the metropolis for some weeks, until the Feast of the Dedication. This Feast had been instituted by the Maccabees to celebrate the Purification of the Temple after its profanation by Antiochus Epiphanes. It began about the 20th December, and lasted eight days. As it was winter, possibly raining, and certainly cold, Jesus walked about in Solomons Porch, where at all events He was under cover and had some shelter. Here the Jews gradually gathered, until at length He found Himself ringed round by hostile questioners, who bluntly, almost threateningly asked Him, How long dost Thou make us to doubt? If Thou be the Christ, tell us plainly, a question which shows that, although they inferred from the assertions He had made regarding Himself that He claimed to be the Messiah, He had not directly and explicitly proclaimed Himself in terms no one could misunderstand.
At first sight their request seems fair and reasonable. In fact it is neither. The mere affirmation that He was the Christ would not have helped those whom His works and words had only prejudiced against Him. As He at once explained to them, He had made the affirmation in the only way possible, and their unbelief arose not from any want of explicitness on His part, but because they were not of His sheep (Joh_10:26). My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. Here, as elsewhere, He points in confirmation of His claim to the works His Father had given Him to do, and to the response His manifestation awakened in those who were hungering for truth and for God. Those who were given to Him by the Father, who were taught and led by God, acknowledged Him, and to such He imparted all those eternal and supreme blessings He was commissioned to bestow upon men.
But in describing the safety of those who believe in Him, Jesus uses an expression which gives umbrage to those who hear it-I and the Father are one. Those who trust themselves to Christ shall not be plucked out of His hand: they are eternally secure. The guarantee of this is, that those who thus trust in Him are given to Him by the Father for this very purpose of safe-keeping: the Father Himself therefore watches over and protects them. No man is able to pluck them out of My Fathers hand. I and My Father are one. In this matter Christ acts merely as the Fathers agent. The Pharisees might excommunicate the blind man and threaten him with penalties present and to come, but he is absolutely beyond their reach. Their threats are the pattering of hail on a bomb-proof shelter. The man is in Christs keeping, and thereby is in Gods keeping.
But this assertion the Jews at once construed into blasphemy, and took up stones to stone Him. With marvellous calmness Jesus arrests their murderous intention with the quiet question: Many good works have I showed you from My Father; for which of these do you stone Me? You question whether I am the Fathers Agent: does not the benignity of the works I have done prove Me such? Do not My works evince the indwelling power of the Father? The Jews reply, and from their point of view quite reasonably: For a good work we stone Thee not; but because Thou, being a man, makest Thyself God. How far they were justified in this charge we must inquire.
In this conversation two points are of the utmost significance.
1. The comparative equanimity with which they consider the claim of Jesus to be the Messiah is changed into fury when they imagine that He claims also equality with God. Their first appeal, If Thou be the Christ, tell us plainly, is calm; and His answer, though it distinctly involved an affirmation that He was the Christ, was received without any violent demonstration of rage or of excitement. But their attitude towards Him changes in a moment and their calmness gives place to uncontrollable indignation as soon as it appears that He believes Himself to be one with the Father. They themselves would not have dreamed of putting such a question to Him: the idea of any man being equal with God was too abhorrent to the rigid monotheism of the Jewish mind. And when it dawned upon them that this was what Jesus claimed, they could do nothing but stop their ears and lift stones to end such blasphemy. No incident could more distinctly prove that the claim to be the Messiah was in their judgment one thing, the claim to be Divine another thing.
2. The contrast our Lord draws between Himself and those who had in Scripture been called gods is significant. It is the eighty-second Psalm He cites; and in it the judges of Israel are rebuked for abusing their office. It is of these unjust judges the psalm represents God as saying, I have said, Ye are gods, and all of you are children of the Most High. But ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes. To these judges this word of God, Ye are gods, had come at their consecration to their office. Having been occupied with other work they were now set apart to represent to men the authority and justice of God. But, argues our Lord, if men were called gods, to whom Gods word came,-and they are so called in Scripture, which cannot be broken,-appointing them to their office, may He not rightly be called Son of God who is Himself sent to men; whose original and sole destiny it was to come into the world to represent the Father? The words are overweighted with manifold contrast. The judges were persons to whom the word of God came, as from without; Jesus was a person Himself sent into the world from God, therefore surely more akin to God than they were. The judges represented God by virtue of a commission received in the course of their career-the word of God came to them: Jesus, on the other hand, represented God because sanctified, that is, set apart or consecrated for this purpose before He came into the world, and therefore obviously occupying a higher and more important position than they. But, especially, the judges were appointed to discharge one limited and temporary function, for the discharge of which it was sufficient that they should know the law of God; whereas it was the Father, the God of universal relation and love, who consecrated Jesus and sent Him into the world, meaning now to reveal to men what lies deepest in His nature, His love, His fatherhood. The idea of the purpose for which Christ was sent into the world is indicated in the emphatic use of the Father. He was sent to do the works of the Father (Joh_10:37); to manifest to men the benignity, tenderness, compassion of the Father; to encourage them to believe that the Father, the Source of all life, was in their midst accessible to them. If Jesus failed to reveal the Father, He had no claim to make. If I do not the works of My Father, believe Me not. But if He did such works as declared the Father to be in their midst, then, as bearing the Father in Him and doing the Fathers will, He might well be called the Son of God. Though ye believe not Me, believe the works; that ye may know, and believe, that the Father is in Me, and I in Him.
There can be no question, then, of the conclusiveness with which our Lord rebutted the charge of blasphemy. By a single sentence He put them in the position of presumptuously contradicting their own Scriptures. But weightier questions remain behind. Did Jesus merely seek to parry their thrust, or did He mean positively to affirm that He was God? His words do not carry a direct and explicit affirmation of His Divinity. Indeed, to a hearer His comparison of Himself with the judges would necessarily rather tend to veil the full meaning of His previous claims to pre-existence and superhuman dignity. On reflection, no doubt the hearers might see that a claim to Divinity was implied in His words; but even in the saying which first gave them offence, I and the Father are one, it is rather what is implied than what is expressed that carries with it such a claim. For Calvin is unquestionably right in maintaining that these words were not intended to affirm identity of substance with the Father.[36] An ambassador whose actions or claims were contested might very naturally say, I and my Sovereign are One; not meaning thereby to claim royal dignity, but meaning to assert that what he did, his Sovereign did; that his signature carried his Sovereigns guarantee, and that his pledges would be fulfilled by the entire resources of his Sovereign. And as Gods delegate, as the great Messianic Viceroy among men, it was no doubt this that our Lord wished in the first place to affirm, that He was the representative of God, doing His will, and backed by all His authority. See the Father in Me, was His constant demand. All His self-assertion and self-revelation were meant to reveal the Father.
But although He does not directly and explicitly say, I am God; although He does not even use such language of Himself as John uses, when he says, The Word was God; yet is not His Divine nature a reasonable inference from such affirmations as that which we are here considering? Some interpreters very decidedly maintain that when Christ says, I and the Father are one, He means one in power. They affirm that this assertion is made to prove that none of His sheep will be plucked out of His hand, and that this is secured because His Father is greater than all, and He and His Father are one. Accordingly they hold that neither the old orthodox interpretation nor the Arian is correct: not the orthodox, because not unity of essence but unity of power is meant; not the Arian, because something more is meant than moral harmony. This, however, is difficult to maintain, and it is safer to abide by Calvins interpretation, and believe that what Jesus means is that what He does will be confirmed by the Father. It is the Fathers power He introduces as the final guarantee, not His own power.
Still, although the very terms He here uses may not even by implication affirm His Divinity, it remains to be asked whether there are not parts of Christs work as Gods commissioner on earth which could be accomplished by no one who was not Himself Divine. An ambassador may recommend his offers and guarantees by affirming that his power and that of his Sovereign are one, but in many cases he must have actual power on the spot. If a commissioner is sent to reduce a mutinous army or a large warlike tribe in rebellion, or to define a frontier in the face of an armed claimant, he must in such cases be no mere lay-figure, whose uniform tells what country he belongs to, but he must be a man of audacity and resource, able to act for himself without telegraphing for orders, and he must be backed by sufficient military force on the spot. It comes therefore to be a question whether the work on which Christ was sent was a work which could be accomplished by a man however fully equipped? Jesus though nothing more than human might have said, if commissioned by God to say so, The promises I make, God will perform. The guarantees I give, God will respect. But is it possible that a man, however holy, however wise, however fully possessed by the Holy Spirit, could reveal the Father to men and adequately represent God? Could He influence, guide, and uplift individuals? Could He give life to men, could He assume the function of judging, could He bear the responsibility of being sole mediator between God and men? Must we not believe that for the work Christ came to do it was needful that He should be truly Divine?
While therefore it is quite true that Christ here rebuts the charge of blasphemy in His usual manner, not by directly affirming His Divine nature, but only by declaring that His office as Gods representative gave Him as just a claim to the Divine name as the judges had, this circumstance cannot lead us to doubt the Divine nature of Christ, or prompt us to suppose He Himself was shy in affirming it, because the question is at once suggested whether the office He assumed is not one which only a Divine Person could undertake. It need not stumble our faith, if we find that not only in this passage but everywhere Jesus refrains from explicitly saying: I am God. Not even among His Apostles, who were so much in need of instruction, does He definitely announce His Divinity. This is consistent with His entire method of teaching. He was not aggressive nor impatient. He sowed the seed, and knew that in time the blade would appear. He trusted more to the faith which slowly grew with the growth of the believers mind than to the immediate acceptance of verbal assertions. He allowed men gradually to find their own way to the right conclusions, guiding them, furnishing them with sufficient evidence, but always allowing the evidence to do its work, and not breaking in upon the natural process by His authoritative utterances. But when, as in Thomass case, it did dawn on the mind of any that this Person was God manifest in the flesh, He accepted the tribute paid. The acceptance of such a tribute proves Him Divine. No good man, whatever his function or commission on earth, could allow another to address him, as Thomas addressed Jesus, My Lord and my God.
In the paragraph we are considering a very needful reminder is given us that the Jews of our Lords time used the terms God and Son of God in a loose and inexact manner. Where the sense was not likely to be misunderstood, they did not scruple to apply these terms to officials and dignitaries. The angels they called sons of God; their own judges they called by the same name. The whole people considered collectively was called Gods son. And in the 2nd Psalm, speaking of the Messianic King, God says, Thou art My Son: this day have I begotten Thee. It was therefore natural that the Jews should think of the Messiah not as properly Divine, but merely as being of such surpassing dignity as to be worthily though loosely called Son of God. No doubt there are passages in the Old Testament which intimate with sufficient clearness that the Messiah would be truly Divine: Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever; Unto us a Child is born ... and His name shall be called the Mighty God; Behold the days come that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and this is the name whereby He shall be called, Jehovah our Righteousness. But though these passages seem decisive to us, looking on the fulfilment of them in Christ, we must consider that the Jewish Bible did not lie on every table for consultation as our Bibles do, and also that it was easy for the Jews to put a figurative sense on all such passages.
In a word, it was a Messiah the Jews looked for, not the Son of God. They looked for one with Divine powers, the delegate of God, sent to accomplish His will and to establish His kingdom, the representative among them of the Divine presence; but they did not look for a real dwelling of a Divine Person among them. It is quite certain that the Jews of the second century thought it silly of the Christians to hold that the Christ pre-existed from eternity as God, and condescended to be born as man. No Jew would allow, says a writer of that time, that any prophet ever said that a Son of God would come; but what the Jews do say is that the Christ of God will come.
This circumstance, that the Jews did not expect the Messiah to be a Divine Person, throws light upon certain passages in the Gospels. When, for example, our Lord put the question, What think ye of Christ? Whose Son is He? The Pharisees promptly answer, He is the Son of David. And, that they had no thought of ascribing to the Messiah a properly Divine origin, is shown by their inability to answer the further question, How then does David call Him Lord?-a question presenting no difficulty at all to any one who believed that the Messiah was to be Divine as well as human.[37]
So, too, if the Jews had expected the Messiah to be a Divine person, the ascription of Messianic dignity to one who was not the Messiah was blasphemy, being equivalent to ascribing Divinity to one who was not Divine. But in no case in which Jesus was acknowledged as the Messiah were those who so acknowledged Him proceeded against as blasphemous. The blind men who appealed to Him as the Son of David were told to be quiet; the crowd who hailed His entrance to Jerusalem scandalized the Pharisees but were not proceeded against. And even the blind beggar who owned Him was excommunicated by a special act passed for the emergency, which proves that the standing statute against blasphemy could not in such a case be enforced.
Again, this fact, that the Jews did not expect the Messiah to be strictly Divine, sheds light on the real ground of accusation against Jesus. So long as it was supposed that He merely claimed to be the promised Christ, and used the title Son of God as equivalent to a Messianic title, many of the people admitted His claim and were prepared to own Him. But when the Pharisees began to apprehend that He claimed to be the Son of God in a higher sense, they accused Him of blasphemy, and on this charge He was condemned. The account of His trial as given by Luke is most significant. He was tried in two courts, and in each upon two charges. When brought before the Sanhedrim He was first asked, Art Thou the Christ? a question which, as He at once pointed out, was useless; because He had taught quite openly, and there were hundreds who could testify to the claims He had put forward. He merely says that they themselves will one day own His claim. Hereafter shall the Son of Man sit on the right hand of the power of God. This suggests to them that His claim was to something more than they ordinarily considered to be involved in the claim to Messiahship, and at once they pass to their second question, Art Thou then the Son of God? And on His refusing to disown this title, the High Priest rends His clothes, and Jesus is there and then convicted of blasphemy.
The different significance of the two claims is brought out more distinctly in the trial before Pilate. At first Pilate treats Him as an amiable enthusiast who fancies Himself a King and supposes He has been sent into the world to lead men to the truth. And accordingly after examining Him he presents Him to the people as an innocent person, and makes light of their charge that He claims to be King of the Jews. On this the Jews with one voice cry out, We have a law, and by our law He ought to die, because He made Himself the Son of God. The effect of this charge upon Pilate is immediate and remarkable: When Pilate heard that saying he was the more afraid, and went again into the judgment hall, and saith unto Jesus, Whence art Thou? But Jesus gave him no answer.
It is plain then that it was for blasphemy Christ was condemned; and not simply because He claimed to be the Messiah. But if this is so, then how can we evade the conclusion that He was in very truth a Divine person? The Jews charged Him with making Himself equal with God; and, if He was not equal with God, they were quite right in putting Him to death. Their law was express, that no matter what signs and wonders a man performed, if he used these to draw them from the worship of the true God he was to be put to death. They crucified Jesus on the ground that He was a blasphemer, and against this sentence He made no appeal. He showed no horror at the accusation, as any good man must have shown. He accepted the doom, and on the Cross prayed, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. That which they considered an act of piety was in truth the most frightful of crimes. But if He was not Divine, it was no crime at all, but a just punishment.
But no doubt that which lodges in the heart of each of us the conviction that Christ is Divine is the general aspect of His life, and the attitude He assumes towards men and towards God. We may not be able to understand in what sense there are Three Persons in the Godhead, and may be disposed with Calvin to wish that theological terms and distinctions had never become necessary.[38] We may be unable to understand how if Christ were a complete Person before the Incarnation, the humanity He assumed could also be complete and similar to our own. But notwithstanding such difficulties, which are the necessary result of our inability to comprehend the Divine nature, we are convinced, when we follow Christ through His life and listen to His own assertions, that there is in Him something unique and unapproached among men, that while He is one of us He yet looks at us also from the outside, from above. We feel that He is Master of all, that nothing in nature or in life can defeat Him; that while dwelling in time, He is also in Eternity, seeing before and after. The most stupendous claims He makes seem somehow justified; assertions which in other lips would be blasphemous are felt to be just and natural in His. It is felt that somehow, even if we cannot say how, God is in Him.
[36] Calvin says: The ancients misinterpreted this passage to prove that Christ is of one substance with the Father. For Christ is not here disputing regarding unity of substance, but regarding the harmony of will (consensu) which he has with the Father, maintaining that whatever He does will be confirmed by the Fathers power.
[37] In this passage I borrow the convincing argument of Treffry in his too little read treatise On the Eternal Sonship. He says, p. 89: Had the Jews regarded the Messiah as a Divine person, the claims of Jesus to that character had been in all cases equivalent to the assertion of His Deity. But there is not upon record one example in which any considerable emotion was manifested against these claims; while, on the other hand, a palpable allusion to His higher nature never failed to be instantly and most indignantly resented. The conclusion is obvious.
[38] Utinam quidem sepulta essent (Instit., I., 13, 5).
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain On vv7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 16, 18, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26 7. I am the door of the sheep. Verses…
7. I am the door of the sheep. Verses 1–5 speak of shepherds in general. These shepherds enter into the fold and go out by the same door as the sheep. Christ is that door; the Door of the sheep, the one door for all, both sheep and shepherds. There is no other way in, for “there is no other name, under heaven, given among men, whereby we must be saved.”
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v22 Joh_10:22-38. Our Lord’s utterances at the feast of dedication…
EXPLANATORY AND CRITICAL NOTES
Joh_10:22-38. Our Lord’s utterances at the feast of dedication on His oneness with the Father, etc.—This feast (τὰ ἐγκαίνια—the Encænia) was post-exilic in its origin. It commemorated the re-dedication of the temple and the renewing of the altar by Judas Maccabæus after their profanation by Antiochus Epiphanes. It was also called τὰ φῶτα, “Lights,” from a later custom of illuminating the city and temple (vide Jos., Ant.; Smith, Dictionary of the Bible, etc.). It lasted eight days, and was accompanied by great festivities (2Ma_10:6-8)—from the 25th Chisleu (December 20th), i.e. about the middle of the Syrian winter or rainy season. It is somewhat uncertain whether we are to understand that our Lord was absent from Jerusalem between the feast of tabernacles, during which the discourse 1–22 was spoken, and this feast. Godet thinks that perhaps during that period we may include the events recorded in Luk_10:1-37.
Read full note →
Joh_10:22-23. It was winter, etc.—Vide above. These are clearly the words of an eye-witness. Solomon’s porch.—Or the portico of Solomon (vide also Act_3:11; Act_5:12). “That which was really Solomon’s work, and which was preserved until that time, and remains even to the present day, is to be found in the substructures under the Aska; the subterranean passage, especially, which led from the city of David into the sanctuary; the corridor with the double gate. This we regard as the portico of Solomon: there Jesus walked in winter; because the cold did not penetrate into this crypt, which must naturally have been a frequented place of resort during the winter season” (Caspari).
Joh_10:24. How long dost Thou keep our minds in a state of suspense (or doubt)?—(αἴρειν τὴν φυχήν, to excite the mind with expectation of hope or fear.) This question shows how wide-spread was the interest among the Jerusalem Jews as to our Lord’s person and mission. The leading Jews were evidently anxious that they and the people should arrive at some definite understanding concerning Christ. “Here the ruling powers of the Jews in Jerusalem seem to be making their last attempt to discover whether from this man, marked as in any case He seemed to be by characteristics of great power, there might not be gained another phase of character and turn of mind than He had hitherto presented. The meaning of the festival might have perhaps especially disposed their minds to do this. For hardly could they celebrate an Encænia without sighing in their secret hearts, and murmuring to one another, Would that a new Judas Maccabæus (Hammerer) would arise and hammer away the Romans.… And as often as they thought on the possibility, even yet, that the mighty Jesus might undertake this part, their bitter distaste to the trend of His character could not fail for the moment to recede into the background.… This was the frame of mind that prompted this question.… It was only under His further explanation in what sense He allowed Himself to be their Christ, that their old exasperation broke out afresh” (Lange, Life of Christ).
Joh_10:25. I told you, etc.—He had done so frequently (Joh_5:19; Joh_8:12; Joh_8:36, etc.), and had shown by His works and symbolical actions what He was (Joh_2:13 seq.). A direct claim merely might be made by any impostor; but Jesus pointed to the proofs which supported the declarations He had already openly made of His divine Sonship.
Joh_10:26. As I said, etc. (καθὼς εἷπον ὑμῖν).—This clause is omitted in the Revised Version. Alford considers “the difficulty of the clause a considerable warrant for its genuineness,” and that it refers “more to the whole allegory than to any explicit saying.” The phrase might also include a reference to Joh_8:37-44.
Joh_10:27-38. Here the subject of discourse of two months previously is again taken up. The Saviour’s utterances have had time to sink into the hearts of His hearers, and now He takes up the theme and carries it to its lofty conclusion in Joh_10:30. The Saviour was seeking to win men; therefore He brings the truth to their minds gradually (Isa_28:10).
Joh_10:29. My Father … is greater than all.—i.e. than all those powers of evil which seek to destroy My flock. ἐκ τῆς χειρὸς τοῦ πατρός μου.—Winer well remarks that these words are “not pleonastic.” They give, as they were intended to do, the most unmistakable definiteness to the statement.
Joh_10:31. ἐβάστασαν.—Perhaps the meaning is “lifted up and poised in their hands ready to cast at Him.” Again (Joh_8:59).—This, however, was a more bitter and determined attack.
Joh_10:32. These words would cause the Jews to reflect before carrying out their intentions. Notice the calmness of the Saviour in the face of this outburst, and the wisdom of His reply.
Joh_10:33, Blasphemy was punishable with stoning (Lev_24:11). But, unless they had been led away with rage, could they connect blasphemy with One who did so many good works? Their action, and the reason they gave, form a clear proof that they understood Jesus to claim the divine Sonship and oneness with God.
Joh_10:34. The law (νόμος), signifies here the Old Testament generally—the elder revelation as a whole. Our Lord did not wish to drive these men into open antagonism; He tried to lead them, by reasoning from the less to the greater, to recognise how far His claim was from blasphemy. In your law—the law by which you consider yourselves bound—those are called gods to whom the word of God came (Psa_82:6). And if even tyrannical judges, etc., were called gods, how much more may the eternal Son whom the Father hath sanctified, etc., assume the title Son of God? “The word which gives the name of gods to the lowest judges and prophets in Israel, in the well-understood sense of their being bearers and executors of individual utterances of God, whether judicial or prophetic—this, as a word of Scripture, they were constrained to hold inviolable; while in His case, who is essentially God’s consecrated One and God’s Messenger, the Mediator of His perfected revelation, to whom the Father has Himself given consecration and office in its most essential form—in His case they will count it as blasphemy that He calls Himself the Son of God” (Lange, Life of Christ). “To stand in close relation with the theocracy was to be covered with its glory.… Judaism and rabbinism had widened the chasm between God and man. Christ came to fill up the chasm; nay more, to show the divine and human in living, indissoluble union” (Reynolds).
Joh_10:39. Again, etc., points to Joh_7:30. See also Luk_4:30. There was, one may believe, a kingly dignity and power about the Saviour which restrained these infuriated men not only from stoning Him, but from laying hands on Him.
Joh_10:40. Beyond Jordan.—Peræa. To the place, etc.—i.e. to Bethania in the ancient Gaulonitis, now Jaulan (vide Joh_1:28). See Mar_10:1 : “He cometh into the borders of Judæa and beyond the Jordan.” St. Mark, in this succinct notice, comprises the two journeys—that to Jerusalem at the feast of dedication, and this to Peræa. Matthew mentions the latter of these only (Joh_19:1). But even in these minute references we see that the two Synoptists and St. John are practically in agreement.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Joh_10:22-41
Joh_10:22-39. The power of prejudice in blinding men to the truth.—The feast of dedication (vide Notes) was not of divine appointment. Attendance at Jerusalem was not demanded; it could be held elsewhere. Still, it was a festival that appealed to patriotic hearts. A feast of joy it was; marks of sorrow were to be banished; the city was illuminated, etc. Its celebration could not fail to awaken in the hearts of the people a desire for freedom from the Roman yoke. Jesus seized the opportunity to meet the leaders of His people and again assert His claims. They, it seemed, were equally anxious to have those claims decided. Notice,
1. The eager inquiry;
2. The clear answer;
3. The malignant charge begotten of prejudice and disappointment;
4. The calm refutation.
I. The eager inquiry.—
1. Among the crowds at the feast Jesus walked intent on His mission. It was never forgotten. It was winter not only in the outer world, but even at this festival time in the hearts of the Jews—a winter of despair of deliverance. Would a springtide of freedom ever bloom again for the nation?
2. Would this claimant to the Messiahship bring such a blessed period? They had been meditating on Christ’s words. All men indeed had been “musing in their hearts” concerning Him. Could He be the messenger predicted by the ancient prophetic words in passages read during the festival? (Zec_2:10; Zec_3:8, etc.). “Tell us plainly,” they cried, we may imagine, in despairing tone. “We would fully understand the meaning displayed, yet hidden, under Thy parables. Art Thou the Messiah?”
II. The clear answer.—
1. In His reply Jesus pointed them to the fact that He had often told them (see Notes). And again, in patient love, He pointed to His teaching, which they had heard, as it was delivered openly; and to His works, mighty and beneficent, in proof of His claim to be the good Shepherd of His people, the divine Son sent by the Father.
2. And then He showed them that it was because their inner spirit had no true affinity with Him and with the Father that they lingered still outside His fold. It was because of this that they could not, would not, enter into the blessedness of His flock—eternal life and eternal safety.
3. His flock, who follow Him, know and rejoice in this blessedness; for their ground of confidence is in the Eternal. They realise that the good Shepherd is one in love and power with the Father. And to leave those Jews in no doubt as to His claim and position He added the sublime words, “I and My Father are one.”
III. The malignant charge begotten of prejudice and disappointment.—
1. We can in a measure understand the effect such words would have on those Jews who had listened to them, biassed by the training of rabbinical traditionalism and blinded by prejudice. This the Messiah they dreamed of, longed for! Away the thought! Their law, the prophetic word, Christ’s own heavenly teaching and mighty works, all went for nothing, the memory of them was clean blotted out, as prejudice and hate rose within them. These blinded their eyes to the truth. And it was not that this prejudice and hate arose from ignorance. In such a case they are in part excusable. Here they arose from spiritual pride and obstinate self-will. “Ye will not come to Me,” etc. (Joh_5:40). This was their condemnation.
2. And their action is a warning for all time. How often do intellectual or religious prejudices keep men from truth, and lead to acts of sinful violence? Thus the Jews, led away by their prejudices and prepossessions into rage and madness, seized the stones scattered around—there were building operations proceeding on the yet unfinished temple—and were ready to stone our Lord, putting forward as their excuse His alleged blasphemy. They clearly understood, it is evident, the nature and extent of His claim. They would even have been inclined to so far admit that it had been proved; but its loftiness, unworldliness, and spirituality opposed and defeated their temporal expectations, and their answer to Christ’s claims were hatred, rage, and stones uplifted ready to be cast at Him. This has always been the reply of traditionalism baffled by the clear presentation of truth, e.g. the Inquisition and the Reformation, the Vatican and Galileo, Savonarola, etc.
IV. The calm refutation.—
1. Calmly and unmoved the Saviour repelled their charge, and convinced them for the moment of the folly of their action. He referred them to their sacred Scriptures, which they believed “could not be made void,” in which even unjust and tyrannical judges are called gods (vide Notes, Joh_10:34-36). “If you find no blasphemy in those words of the Scriptures you revere, how can you charge Me with such a crime, when by word and work I have testified to you the justice of My claim?”
2. They were silent, but not convinced. It was their heart that needed to be changed and converted. They would fain have seized Him; but conscience, and a moral power emanating from the Saviour’s person, making itself felt (vide Notes, Joh_10:39), paralysed them, and so “He passed out of their hand.”
Joh_10:28-30. The eternal safety of Christ’s people.—Believers stand firmly on the promises of God in Christ. When men believe in Him, they find all the promises, so far as they refer to this life, to be yea and amen. This is surely an earnest that the promises for the future will also be fulfilled. Believers know how the power of the risen life works within them; and as they know from experience that Jesus is the same yesterday and to-day, so they are assured He will be for ever. His promises do not and will never fail.
I. Christ is the giver of eternal life.—
1. That spiritual and undying life begins here. It is felt pulsating through all the avenues of being. The believer is “a new creation: old things are passed away; behold, they have become new.”
2. But it is an earnest of the eternal life to come. The most of men believe in an immortality of some sort. Even the longing for it in our hearts is in some sort an evidence; for this desire was not implanted in vain, surely. The incompleteness around seems to demand a state where the imperfect will be fully rounded.
3. The world’s greatest uninspired thinkers have not, however, been able to rise to the conception of eternal life given us in the gospel. They could not pronounce definitely on the question of personality. But our Lord revealed this truth. It is no mere vague, unconscious existence He gives. It is eternal life,—life pulsating, vigorous as that of the little child raised at His word, Talitha cumi; or that of Lazarus sitting with his Lord at the supper table at Bethany (Joh_12:2); or higher still, that of His own glorified person, as He appeared to His disciples after His resurrection.
4. And this personal, individual, eternal existence comes through living union with the Shepherd and Bishop of our souls. Our Shepherd’s hands will hold us with invulnerable might when we are thus united with Him.
II. The ground of the believer’s safety.—
1. The Father gives the Son His believing people Joh_6:37; Joh_6:39), gives Him unlimited power “over all flesh,” so that He may give eternal life, etc. (Joh_17:2). And the Father dots not give the Son an inheritance which may be taken from Him. The wicked imagine it is possible (Psa_2:2-3; Luk_20:14; Act_4:29). But He that sits in heaven, who is over all, will paralyse every foe. So that even supposing it were possible, a mere supposition, that any could pluck Christ’s sheep out of His hand, still they would have to reckon with Him who is above all.
2. More than that; there is in reality no distinction between the power of Christ and the power of the Father here. The sublime utterance, “I and My Father are one,” dispels every fear. Believers are equally the care of Christ and the Father. There is unity of will, of power, of property, of nature between them. Therefore, as Jesus said, “All Mine are Thine,” etc. (Joh_17:10). The Father did not give them from His hand, as He gave them to the Son as chief Shepherd. In the Son’s hand they are also in the Father’s.
3. “Our salvation, therefore, rests on almighty power” (1Pe_1:5). “He who holds in His right hand seven stars,” etc. (Rev_1:16), is the Lord, the eternal Son. “If He is for us, who can be against us?”
III. The blessedness of this promise should be a motive to joyful enduring—
1. Believers should seek to rise to full trust in this promise. This will give them strength for duty and courage in temptation or trial.
2. The assured prospect that all things will “work together for good,” whether life or death, will give them joy and comfort in their course.
3. This trust also will give them more power for good in the world. The doubting, fearing, backsliding—these are the weakness of the Church. Those who go manfully forward, trusting on those divine promises, are the “lights in the world,” “the salt of the earth.”
HOMILETIC NOTES
Joh_10:41. Upon what kind of life did Jesus Christ set the seal of His blessing?—
1. He specially blessed the spirit and ministry of John the Baptist; and yet John did no miracle, (a) It is possible to be true, (b) courageous, (c) self-controlled, (d) illustrious, and yet to do no miracle.
2. That this approval was in no sense exceptional is made plain by other parts of Jesus Christ’s recognition of man’s life and work, (a) Seventy returned, (b) cup of cold water, (c) employment of talents. All this is made the clearer by a case on the other side, “In Thy name done many wonderful works,” etc. When did Jesus Christ ever set a man in high honour in His kingdom simply because the man was a worker of miracles? What, then, are the qualities which God most esteems in us? “A meek and quiet spirit, which in the sight,” etc. “The Lord loveth a cheerful giver,” etc. Nowhere is the brilliant man singled out, etc. “Many that are first,” etc.
1. A word to the poor;
2. women;
3. nobodies. What doth the Lord thy God require of thee? Miracles? “To do justly,” etc. Covet earnestly the best gifts, and yet charity above all!—Dr. Joseph Parker.
ILLUSTRATIONS
Joh_10:28. Certainty of salvation.—We are certain of our salvation, since we know it rests in the hand of Christ. Those, however, who seek it through the saints or by their own works, let them take heed as to what sort of assurance they have. The most part doubt, some despair.—Lyser U.S.
That Church which erects doubt as to the believer’s state of grace into a dogma leads one to assume that she wishes her faithful adherents to entertain a certain reserve or fear in reference to the reception of the witness of the Holy Ghost within them, lest that by the complete cessation of doubt a too great inner freedom and self-dependence should spring up in them. The Christian—it would almost seem as if they meant this—should never attain to full spiritual freedom, in case he should no longer feel the need of—should, indeed, feel independent of—the manifold and often repeated means of help provided by the Church.—Thiersch, in Besser’s “Bibelst.”
Joh_10:29. The Creator keeps His word with us.… Will you, with vast cost and pains, educate your children to be adepts in their several arts, and as soon as they are ready to produce a masterpiece call out a file of soldiers to shoot them down? We must infer our destiny from the preparation.—Emerson.
To me the eternal existence of my soul is proved from my idea of activity. If I work incessantly till my death, nature is bound to give me another state of existence when the present can no longer sustain my spirit.—Goethe.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On vv9, 14, 16
John
THE GIFTS TO THE FLOCK
Read full note →
Joh 10:9.
One does not know whether the width or the depth of this marvellous promise is the more noteworthy. Jesus Christ presents Himself before the whole race of man, and declares Himself able to deal with the needs of every individual in the tremendous whole. ‘If any man’-no matter who, where, when.
For all noble and happy life there are at least three things needed: security, sustenance, and a field for the exercise of activity. To provide these is the end of all human society and government. Jesus Christ here says that He can give all these to every one.
The imagery of the sheep and the fold is still, of course, in His mind, and colours the form of the representation. But the substance is the declaration that, to any and every soul, no matter how ringed about with danger, no matter how hampered and hindered in work, no matter how barren of all supply earth may be, He will give these, the primal requisites of life. ‘He shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.’
Now I only wish to deal with these three aspects of the blessedness of a true Christian life which our Lord holds forth here as accessible to us all: security, the unhindered exercise of activity, and sustenance or provision.
I. First, then, in and through Christ any man may be saved.
I take it that the word ‘saved’ here is rather used with reference to the imagery of the parable than in its full Christian sense of ultimate and everlasting salvation, and that its meaning in its present connection might perhaps better be set forth by the rendering ‘safe’ than ‘saved.’ At the same time, the two ideas pass into one another; and the declaration of my text is that because, step by step, conflict by conflict, in passing danger after danger, external and internal, Jesus Christ, through our union with Him, will keep us safe, at the last we shall reach eternal and everlasting salvation. ‘He will save us’ by the continual exercise of His protecting power, ‘into His everlasting kingdom.’ There is none other shelter for men’s defenceless heads and naked, soft, unarmed bodies except only the shelter that is found in Him. There are creatures of low grade in the animal world which have the instinct, because their own bodies are so undefended and impotent to resist contact with sharp and penetrating substances, that they take refuge in the abandoned shells of other creatures. You and I have to betake ourselves behind the defences of that strong love and mighty Hand if ever we are to pass through life without fatal harm.
For consider that, even in regard to outward dangers, union with Jesus Christ defends and delivers us. Suppose two men, two Manchester merchants, made bankrupt by the same commercial crisis; or two shipwrecked sailors lashed upon a raft; or two men sitting side by side in a railway carriage and smashed by the same collision. One is a Christian and the other is not. The same blow is altogether different in aspect and actual effect upon the two men. They endure the same thing externally, in body or in fortune. The outward man is similarly affected, but the man is differently affected. The one is crushed, or embittered, or driven to despair, or to drink, or to something or other to soothe the bitterness; the other bows himself with ‘It is the Lord! Let Him do what seemeth Him good.’
So the two disasters are utterly different, though in form they may be the same, and he that has entered into the fold by Jesus Christ is safe, not from outward disaster-that would be but a poor thing-but in it. For to the true heart that lives in fellowship with Jesus Christ, Sorrow, though it be dark-robed, is bright-faced, soft-handed, gentle-hearted, an angel of God. ‘By Me if any man enter in, he shall be safe.’
And further, in our union with Jesus Christ, by simple faith in Him and loyal submission and obedience, we do receive an impenetrable defence against the true evils, and the only things worth calling dangers. For the only real evil is the peril that we shall lose our confidence and be untrue to our best selves, and depart from the living God. Nothing is evil except that which tempts, and succeeds in tempting, us away from Him. And in regard to all such danger, to cleave to Christ, to realise His presence, to think of Him, to wear His name as an amulet on our hearts, to put the thought of Him between us and temptation as a filter through which the poisonous air shall pass, and be deprived of its virus, is the one secret of safety and victory.
Real gift of power from Jesus Christ, the influx of His strength into our weakness, of some portion of the Spirit of life that was in Him into our deadness, is promised, and the promise is abundantly fulfilled to all men who trust Him when their hour of temptation comes. As the dying martyr, when he looked up into heaven, saw Jesus Christ ‘standing at the right hand of God’ ready to help, and, as it were, having started from His eternal seat on the Throne in the eagerness of His desire to succour His servant, so we may all see, if we will, that dear Lord ready to succour us, and close by our sides to deliver us from the evil in the evil, its power to tempt. If we could carry that vision into our daily life, and walk in its light, when temptation rings us round, how poor all the inducements to go away from Him would look!
There is a power in the remembrance of Jesus to slay every wicked thought; and the things that tempt us most, that most directly appeal to our worst sides, to our sense, our ambition, our pride, our distrust, our self-will, all these lose their power upon us, and are discovered in their emptiness and insignificance, when once this thought flashes across the mind-Jesus Christ is my Defence, and Jesus Christ is my Pattern and my Companion.
Oh, brother! do not trust yourself out amongst the pitfalls and snares of life without Him. If you do, the real evil of all evils will seize you for its own; but keep close to that dear Lord, and then ‘there shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.’ The hidden temptation thou wilt pass by without being harmed; the manifest temptation thou wilt trample under foot. ‘Thou shalt not be afraid for the pestilence that walketh in darkness, nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday.’ Hidden known temptations will be equally powerless; and in the fold into which all pass by faith in Christ thou shalt be safe. And so, kept safe from each danger and in each moment of temptation, the aggregate and sum of the several deliverances will amount to the everlasting salvation which shall be perfected in the heavens.
Only remember the condition, ‘By Me if any man enter in.’ That is not a thing to be done once for all, but needs perpetual repetition. When we clasp anything in our hands, however tight the initial grasp, unless there is a continual effort of renewed tightening, the muscles become lax, and we have to renew the tension, if we are to keep the grasp. So in our Christian life it is only the continual repetition of the act which our Lord here calls ‘entering in by Him’ that will bring to us this continual exemption from, and immunity in, the dangers that beset us.
Keep Christ between you and the storm. Keep on the lee side of the Rock of Ages. Keep behind the breakwater, for there is a wild sea running outside; and your little boat, undecked and with a feeble hand at the helm, will soon be swamped. Keep within the fold, for wolves and lions lie in every bush. Or, in plain English, live moment by moment in the realising of Christ’s presence, power, and grace. So, and only so, shall you be safe.
II. Now, secondly, note, in Jesus Christ any man may find a field for the unrestricted exercise of his activity.
That metaphor of ‘going in and out’ is partly explained to us by the image of the flock, which passes into the fold for peaceful repose, and out again, without danger, for exercise and food; and is partly explained by the frequent use, in the Old Testament and in common conversation, of the expression ‘going out and in’ as the designation of the two-sided activity of human life. The one side is the contemplative life of interior union with God by faith and love; the other, the active life of practical obedience in the field of work which God provides for us. These two are both capable of being raised to their highest power, and of being discharged with the most unrestricted and joyous activity, on condition of our keeping close to Christ, and living by the faith of Him.
Note, then, ‘He shall go in.’ That comes first, though it interferes with the propriety of the metaphor, since the previous words already contemplate an initial ‘entering in by Me, the Door.’ That is to say, that, given the union with Jesus Christ by faith, there must then, as the basis of all activity, follow very frequent and deep inward acts of contemplation, of faith, and aspiration, and desire. You must go into the depths of God through Christ. You must go into the depths of your own souls through Him. You must become accustomed to withdraw yourselves from spreading yourselves out over the distractions of any external activity, howsoever imperative, charitable, or necessary, and live alone with Jesus, ‘in the secret place of the Most High.’ It is through Him that we have access to the mysteries and innermost shrine of the Temple. It is through Him that we draw near to the depths of Deity. It is through Him that we learn the length and breadth and height and depth of the largest and loftiest and noblest truths that concern the spirit. It is through Him that we become familiar with the inmost secrets of our own selves. And only they who habitually live this hidden and sunken life of solitary and secret communion will ever do much in the field of outward work. Christians of this generation are far too much accustomed to live only in the front rooms of the house, that look out upon the street; and they know very little-far too little for their soul’s health, and far too little for the freshness of their work and its prosperity-of that inward life of silent contemplation and expectant adoration, by which all strength is fed. Do not keep all your goods in the shop windows, and have nothing on your shelves but dummies, as is the case with far too many of us to-day. Remember that the Lord said first, ‘He shall go in,’ and unless you do you will not be ‘saved.’
But then, further, if there have been, and continue to be, this unrestricted exercise through Christ of that sweet and silent life of solitary communion with Him, then there will follow upon that an enlargement of opportunity, and power for outward service such as nothing but emancipation by faith in Him can ever bring. Howsoever, by external circumstances, you and I may be hampered and hindered, however often we may feel that if something outside of us were different, the development of our active powers would be far more satisfactory, and we could do a great deal more in Christ’s cause, the true hindrance lies never without, but within; and it is only to be overcome by that plunging into the depths of fellowship with Him. And then, if we carry with us into the field of work, whether it be the commonplace, dusty, tedious, and often repulsive duties of our monotonous business; or whether it be the field of more distinctly unselfish and Christian service-if we carry with us into all places where we go to labour, the sweet thought of His presence, of His example, of His love, and of the smile that may come on His face as the reward of faithful service, then we shall find that external labour, drawing its pattern, its motive, its law, and the power for its discharge, from communion with Him, is no more task-work nor slavery; and even ‘the rough places will be made smooth, and the crooked things will be made straight,’ and distasteful work will be made at least tolerable, and hard burdens will be lightened, and the things that are ‘seen and temporal’ will shimmer into transparency, through which will shine out the things that are ‘unseen and eternal.’
Some of us are constitutionally made to prefer the one of these forms of Christian activity; some of us to prefer the other. The tendencies of this generation are far too much to the latter, to the exclusion of the former. It is hard to reconcile the conflicting claims, and I know of no better way to hit the just medium than by trying to keep ourselves always in touch with Jesus Christ, and then outward labour of any sort, whether for the bread that perishes or for His kingdom and righteousness, will never become so absorbing but that in it we may have our hearts in heaven, and the silent hour of communion with Him will never be so prolonged as to neglect outward duties. There was a demoniac boy in the plain, and therefore it was impossible to build tabernacles on the Mount of Transfiguration. But the disciples that had not climbed the Mount were all impotent to cast out the demoniac boy. We, if we keep near to Jesus Christ, will find that through Him we can ‘go in and out,’ and in both be pursuing the one uniform purpose of serving and pleasing Him. So shall be fulfilled in our cases the Psalmist’s prayer, that ‘I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of ray life, to behold His beauty, and to inquire in His Temple.’
III. Lastly, in Jesus Christ any man may receive sustenance. ‘They shall find pasture.’
The imagery of the sheep and the fold is still, of course, present to the Master’s mind, and shapes the form in which this great promise is set forth.
I need only remind you, in illustration of it, of two facts, one, that in Jesus Christ Himself all the true needs of humanity are met and satisfied. He is ‘the Bread of God that came down from heaven to give life to the world.’ Do I want an outward object for my intellect? I have it in Him. Does my heart feel with its tendrils, which have no eyes at the ends of them, after something round which it may twine, and not fear that the prop shall ever rot or be cut down or pulled up? Jesus Christ is the home of love in which the dove may fold its wings and be at rest. Do I want {and I do if I am not a fool} an absolute and authoritative command to be laid upon my will; some one ‘whose looks enjoin, whose lightest words are spells’? I find absolute authority, with no taint of tyranny, and no degradation to the subject, in that Infinite Will of His. Does my conscience need some strong detergent to be laid upon it which shall take out the stains that are most indurated, inveterate, and ingrained? I find it only in the ‘blood that cleanseth from all sin.’ Do my aspirations and desires seek for some solid and substantial and unquestionable and imperishable good to which, reaching out, they may be sure that they are not anchoring on cloudland? Christ is our hope. For all this complicated and craving commonwealth that I carry within my soul, there is but one satisfaction, even Jesus Christ Himself. Nothing else nourishes the whole man at once, but in Him are all the constituents that the human system requires for its nutriment and its growth in every part. So in and through Christ we find ‘pasture.’
But beyond that, if we are knit to Him by simple and continual faith, love, and obedience, then what is else barrenness becomes full of nourishment, and the unsatisfying gifts of the world become rich and precious. They are nought when they are put first, they are much when they are put second.
I remember when I was in Australia seeing some wretched cattle trying to find grass on a yellow pasture where there was nothing but here and there a brown stalk that crumbled to dust in their mouths as they tried to eat it. That is the world without Jesus Christ. And I saw the same pasture six weeks after, when the rains had come, and the grass was high, rich, juicy, satisfying. That is what the world may be to you, if you will put it second, and seek first that your souls shall be fed on Jesus Christ. Then, and only then, will what is else water be turned by His touch and blessing into wine that shall fill the great jars to the brim, and be pronounced by skilled palates to be the good wine. ‘I will feed them in a good pasture, and upon the high mountains of Israel shall their fold be. There shall they lie in a good fold, and in a fat pasture shall they feed upon the mountains of Israel.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. W. McGarvey 1914 · Public Domain On v22 J. W. McGarvey's The Fourfold Gospel [LXXXVIII. The Feast…
J. W. McGarvey's The Fourfold Gospel [LXXXVIII. The Feast of Dedication].
LXXXVIII. FEAST OF THE DEDICATION. THE JEWS ATTEMPT TO STONE JESUS AND HE RETIRES TO PERÆA. (Jerusalem and beyond Jordan.) dJOHN X. 22-42.
Read full note →
d22 And it was the feast of the dedication at Jerusalem: 23; it was winter; and Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon's porch. [The feast of dedication was one of eight days' duration and began upon the 25th Chisleu, which, according to the calculation of M. Chevannes, fell upon the nineteenth or twentieth of December, A. D. 29. The feast was kept in honor of the renovation and purification of the temple in the year B. C. 164, after it had been desecrated by the Syrians under Antiochus Epiphanes (I. Macc. i. 20-60; iv. 36-59; II. Macc. x. 1-8; Jos. Ant. xii. 7. 6, 7). As this feast was commemorative of national deliverance, the rulers considered it an opportune time to tempt Jesus to declare himself to be the Messiah, or coming Deliverer from the present Roman oppression. We are told that it was winter, that we may understand why Jesus walked under cover in Solomon's porch. This was a colonnade on the east side of the temple court, the name probably being derived from the wall against which it was built, which Josephus tells us was the work of Solomon--Jos. Ant. xx. 9. 7.] 24 The Jews therefore came round [484] about him [as if to detain him until he answered], and said unto him, How long dost thou hold us in suspense? If thou art the Christ, tell us plainly. [The previous conduct and temper of the questioners, together with the context (which includes an attempt to stone, followed by an effort to arrest), shows that this question was asked for the purpose of committing Jesus to an open declaration which might be used as an accusation against him.] 25 Jesus answered them, I told you, and ye believe not: the works that I do in my Father's name, these bear witness of me. [Jesus was the Christ of the Old Testament, but not the Christ of Pharisaic hopes. Had he assumed to himself in their presence the title of Christ, it would have led them to false expectations. By his declarations and works Jesus had repeatedly published and proved to all his claims to be the true Messiah. He had, at the feast of tabernacles, set himself forth as the Good Shepherd, and on other occasions as the Son of God, etc. ( Joh_5:19, Joh_8:36, Joh_8:56). Had they understood or received the Old Testament ideal of the Messiah, they could not have failed to understand his claims.] 26 But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep. [Failure to be Christ's sheep was not the cause, but the evidence of their unbelief.] 27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: 28 and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of my hand. [The thought here is similar to to that set forth on Rom_8:38, Rom_8:39; but both passages must be interpreted in the light of Heb_6:4-8. We can not be taken from God against our will; but our will being free, we may choose to leave him. We can not be [485] protected against ourselves in spite of ourselves. If that were so, no one could be lost.] 30 I and the Father are one. [This assertion as to the unity of power residing in the hand brings forward the idea of the general unity which subsists between the Father and the Son. This unity Jesus asserts fully, without limitation or restriction; the unity of interest, design, and essence are all included. It is the advance from an assertion of special unity to an assertion of general unity.] 31 Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him. [They prepared to act on Lev_24:14-16, and a precedent as to it found at 1Ki_21:10; though the right to stone for blasphemy was now abrogated by the Roman dominion. The repairs and enlargements then going on in the temple no doubt supplied an abundance of missiles. The word "again" refers back to Joh_8:59.] 32 Jesus answered them, Many good works have I showed you from the Father; for which of those works do ye stone me? 33 The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not, but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God. [Jesus, conscious that he was living the divine life, endeavored to arouse the Jews to a consciousness of that life by asking them to point out what part of it offended them. It was a demand that his claim to be divine be tested and judged by his life. But the Jews insisted upon judging him by his words without in any way taking his life into account. Jesus urged that a divine claim was made good by a divine life, but they replied that a divine claim issuing from a human body was blasphemy.] 34 Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law [ Psa_82:6. The whole Old Testament not infrequently is thus designated as the "law"], I said, Ye are gods? 35 If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came (and the scripture cannot be broken), 36 say ye of him, whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am i the Son of God? [Since the civil rulers of a land are ordained of God ( Rom_13:1-7, 1Sa_24:6, 1Sa_24:7), they were regarded as God's delegates or ministers, and as such the inspired Psalmist addresses them, calling them gods. Compare also Exo_22:28. If it was not blasphemy to call those gods who so remotely represented the Deity, how much less did Christ blaspheme in taking unto himself a title to which he had a better right than they, even in the subordinate sense of being a mere messenger. The expression "word of God" is equivalent to "commission from God." Compare Luk_3:2, where John was commissioned. The Jews regarded the Scripture as final authority. Jesus asserted this view by stating that the Scripture could not be broken; that is, could not be undone or set aside. We may regard Jesus as here ratifying their view, since he elsewhere concurred in it--see Mat_5:19.] 37 If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. 38 But if I do them, though ye believe not me, believe the works: that ye may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father. [Having set aside their false judgment which was based upon his mere words, Jesus again bids them to consider his works or manner of life.] 39 They sought again to take him: and he went forth out of their hand. [The calm reasoning of Jesus cooled their violence, and so far changed their evil designs that they now sought to arrest him that they might bring him before the Sanhedrin. The word "again" refers back to Joh_7:30, Joh_7:32, Joh_7:44.] 40 And he went away again beyond the Jordan into the place where John was at first baptizing; and there he abode. [The word "again" either refers to Joh_1:28, or else it refers to some former escape beyond the Jordan not recorded by John, but by one of the other evangelists. The supplementary nature of John's Gospel makes this latter view somewhat plausible.] 41 And many came unto him; and they said, John indeed did no sign: but all things whatsoever John spake of this man were true. [John at first baptized "in the wilderness of Judæa" and afterwards at Bethany and Ænon. The presence of Jesus in this place recalled to the [487] minds of the people the work of the Baptist and his testimony concerning Jesus. They had held John to be a prophet, yet when they searched for his credentials as a prophet, they found them inextricably intertwined with the claims of Jesus. John had failed to prove himself a prophet by miracles and signs--the accustomed credentials. But he had done so by his predictions which had come true, and all of these predictions related to Jesus.] 42 And many believed on him there. [The word "there" stands in contrast to Jerusalem, which rejected Jesus.]
[FFG 484-488]
J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv7, 9, 16, 20, 21 I am the door of the sheep
I am the door of the sheep
The shepherd work of our Lord has three aspects:
Read full note →
(1) As the "Good" Shepherd He gives His life for the sheep Joh 10:11 and is, therefore, "the door" by which "if any man enter in he shall be saved." Joh 10:9. This answers to Psalms 22.
(2) He is the "Great" Shepherd, "brought again from the dead" Heb 13:20 to care for and make perfect the sheep. This answers to Psalms 23.
(3) He is the "Chief" Shepherd, who is coming in glory to give crowns of reward to the faithful shepherds 1Pe 5:4. This answers to Psalms 24.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv7, 11, 17, 22 Jesus the Door to the sheepfold:
Jesus the Door to the sheepfold:
v. 7. Then said Jesus unto them again, Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the Door of the sheep.
Read full note →
v. 8. All that ever came before Me are thieves and robbers; but the sheep did not hear them.
v. 9. I am the Door; by Me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.
v. 10. The thief cometh not but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy; I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.
Jesus makes an application of His parable for the sake of His hearers. In the sheepfold of His Church He is the Door. Only through Him, by reference to Him and His work of salvation, shall any man have access to the sheep, only through Him can the sheep find access to the fold. By faith in Him admittance to the fold is gained; it is the only way in which this wonderful result may be obtained. All real pastors will preach only of this one Door, of this one Way to heaven, through faith in Jesus and the redemption through His blood. There were such among the ruling party of the Jews at that time, and had been even before this, as had arrogated to themselves the function of bringing people into communion with God and into heaven in a different manner, unlike the prophets of old that had always pointed forward to Jesus only. But all those that claimed to be what Christ was in truth, that promised to give to men the certainty of salvation, were thieves and robbers; they came without His authority. Luckily, the real sheep, the true people of God among the children of Israel, had given no heed to their words. For Christ is the Door; through Him if a person enter, and through none else, he will be rendered safe. The only way of salvation leads through Christ; He Himself is that Way, and every man that knows Jesus as such may enter into the fold of the Church and go out on the pasture of the Gospel, and always have fullness and plenty, the mercy and goodness of the Lord, Psa 72:16. Three great blessings fall to the lot of those that accept Jesus as their Savior. They have deliverance from dangers, from all enemies; they are safe in the Master’s fold. They have liberty, the glorious liberty of the children of God, the right to go out and in; they are slaves neither of sin nor of the Law. And they have sustenance; the riches of God’s bounty are poured out upon them anew every day in: the Gospel. That is the great contrast between Christ and all those that come as thieves. The thief, and especially the thief in spiritual matters, comes for the purpose of taking away, of destroying life. That is the only object he can have according to his nature. But Jesus has come for the purpose of giving life, true, lasting, eternal life, and not in small measure, but in a fullness far exceeding all needs. Every Christian receives the full measure of everlasting life with all the glories and satisfying beauties that are included therein. Here is an offering of sustaining comfort which is without equal in all religions without Christ, of which no unbeliever can have the faintest conception.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv7, 9, 11, 14, 17, 19, 22, 25 Connecting Statement:
Connecting Statement:
Jesus begins to explain the meaning of the parables he had spoken.
Read full note →
Truly, truly
See how you translated this in John 1:51.
I am the gate of the sheep
Here "gate" is a metaphor that means Jesus provides access into the sheepfold where God's people dwell in his presence. AT: "I am like the gate that the sheep use to enter into the sheepfold" (See: Metaphor)
Everyone who came before me
This refers to other teachers who have taught the people, including the Pharisees and other Jewish leaders. AT: "All of the teachers who came without my authority" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
a thief and a robber
These words are metaphors. Jesus calls those teachers "a thief and a robber" because their teachings were false, and they were trying to lead God's people while not understanding the truth. As a result, they deceived the people. (See: Metaphor)
translationWords
Jesus
amen
ewe
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv7, 9, 10, 11, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 22, 23, 24, 25 10:7 I am: See study note on 6:35. A…
10:7 I am: See study note on 6:35. A good shepherd is known for guarding the sheep at the gate as a sentry.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.