The Good Shepherd contrasted with Israel’s shepherds
In chapter 10 He contrasts Himself with all those who pretended, or had pretended, to be shepherds of Israel. He develops these three points: He comes in by the door, He is the door, and He is the Shepherd of the sheep-the Good Shepherd.
The Lord’s entrance into the fold; the true Shepherd
He comes in by the door. That is to say, He submits to all the conditions established by Him who built the house. Christ answers to all that is written of the Messiah and takes the path of God’s will in presenting Himself to the people. It is not human energy and power awakening and attracting the passions of men; but the obedient man who bowed to Jehovah’s will, kept the lowly place of a servant, and lived by every word that proceeded out of the mouth of God, bowed in lowliness to the place in which Jehovah’s judgment had placed and viewed Israel. All the Lord’s quotations in His conflict with Satan are from Deuteronomy. Consequently, He who watches over the sheep, Jehovah, acting in Israel by His Spirit and providence, and arranging all things, gives Him access to the sheep in spite of the Pharisees and priests and so many others. The elect of Israel hear His voice. Now Israel was under condemnation: He therefore brings the sheep out, but He goes before them. He leaves that ancient fold, under reproach doubtless, but going before His sheep, in obedience according to the power of God-a security to everyone who believed in Him that it was the right road, a warrant for their following Him, come what might, meeting every danger and showing them the way.
The sheep follow Him, for they know His voice. There are many other voices, but the sheep do not know them. Their safety consists, not in knowing them all, but in knowing that they are not the one voice which is life to them-the voice of Jesus. All the rest are the voices of strangers.
The Door for the sheep
He is the door for the sheep. He is their authority for going out, their means of entering in. By entering in, they are saved. They go in and out. It is no longer the yoke of ordinances, which, in guarding them from those without, put them in prison. The sheep of Christ are free: their safety is in the personal care of the Shepherd; and in this liberty they feed in the good and fat pastures which His love supplies. In a word, it is no longer Judaism; it is salvation and liberty and food. The thief comes to make his profit on the sheep by killing them. Christ is come that they might have life, and that abundantly; that is, according to the power of this life in Jesus, the Son of God, who would soon have this life (whose power was in His Person) in resurrection beyond death.
The Good Shepherd who gave His life for the sheep
The true Shepherd of Israel-at least of the remnant of the sheep-the door to authorize their coming out of the Jewish fold, and to admit them into the privileges of God by giving them life according to the abundance in which He was able to bestow it- He was also in special connection with the sheep thus set apart, the Good Shepherd who thus gave His life for the sheep. Others would think of themselves, He of His sheep. He knew them, and they knew Him, even as the Father knew Him, and He knew the Father. Precious principle! They could have understood an earthly knowledge and interest on the part of the Messiah on earth with regard to His sheep. But the Son, although He had given His life and was in heaven, knows His own, even as the Father knew Him when He was on the earth.
His “other sheep”; one flock and one Shepherd
Thus He laid down His life for the sheep; and He had other sheep who were not of this fold, and His death intervened for the salvation of these poor Gentiles. He would call them. Doubtless He had given His life for the Jews also-for all the sheep in general, as such (vs. 11). But He does not speak distinctly of the Gentiles until after He has spoken of His death. He would bring them also, and there should be but one flock1 and one Shepherd.
(1. Not “one fold.” There is no fold now.)
The intrinsic value of Christ’s death in the Father’s eyes; His unique power to lay down His life and take it again
Now this doctrine teaches the rejection of Israel, and the calling out of the elect among that people, presents the death of Jesus as being the effect of His love for His own, tells of His divine knowledge of His sheep when He shall be away from them, and of the call of the Gentiles. The importance of such instruction at that moment is obvious. Its importance, thank God! is not lost by the lapse of time, and is not limited to the fact of a change of dispensation. It introduces us into the substantial realities of the grace connected with the Person of Christ. But the death of Christ was more than love for His sheep. It had an intrinsic value in the Father’s eyes. “Therefore doth the Father love me, because I lay down my life that I might take it again.” He does not say here for His sheep-it is the thing itself that is well-pleasing to the Father. We love because God has first loved us, but Jesus, the divine Son, can furnish motives for the Father’s love. In laying down His life, He glorified the Father. Death was owned to be the just penalty for sin (being at the same time annulled and he who had the power of it1), and eternal life brought in as the fruit of redemption-life from God. Here also the rights of the Person of Christ are set forth. No man takes His life from Him: He lays it down Himself. He had this power (possessed by no other, true only of Him who had divine right) to lay it down, and power to take it again. Nevertheless, even in this, He did not depart from the path of obedience. He had received this commandment from His Father. But who would have been able to perform it save He who could say, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it again”?2
(1. 2 Timothy 1:10; Hebrews 2:14.)
(2. Love and obedience are the governing principles of divine life. This is unfolded in the First Epistle of John as to ourselves. Another mark of it in the creature is dependence, and this was fully manifested in Jesus as man.)
“Never perish”: the glory and love of the Son and the Father identified with the safety of the sheep
They discuss what He had been saying. There were some who only saw in Him a man beside himself, and who insulted Him. Others, moved by the power of the miracle He had performed, felt that His words had a different character from that of madness. To a certain point their consciences were reached. The Jews surround Him and ask how long He would keep them in suspense. Jesus answers that He had already told them; and that His works bore Him testimony. He appeals to the two testimonies which we have seen brought forward in the previous chapters (ch. 8-9); namely, His word and His works. But He adds, they were not of His sheep. He then takes occasion, without noticing their prejudices, to add some precious truths respecting His sheep. They hear His voice; He knows them; they follow Him; He gives them eternal life; they shall never perish. On the one hand, there shall be no perishing of life as within; on the other, no one shall pluck them out of the Saviour’s hand-force from without shall not overcome the power of Him who keeps them. But there is another and an infinitely precious truth which the Lord in His love reveals to us. The Father had given us to Jesus, and He is greater than all who would seek to pluck us out of His hand. And Jesus and the Father are one. Precious teaching! in which the glory of the Person of the Son of God is identified with the safety of His sheep, with the height and depth of the love of which they are the objects. Here it is not a testimony which, as altogether divine, sets forth what man is. It is the work and the efficacious love of the Son, and at the same time that of the Father. It is not “I am”; but “I and the Father are one.” If the Son has accomplished the work and takes care of the sheep, it was the Father who gave them to Him. The Christ may perform a divine work and furnish a motive for the Father’s love, but it was the Father who gave it Him to do. Their love to the sheep is one, as those who bear that love are one.
The subjects of chapters 8-10
Chapter 8, therefore, is the manifestation of God in testimony, and as light; chapters 9-10, the efficacious grace which gathers the sheep under the care of the Son, and of the Father’s love. John speaks of God when he speaks of a holy nature and man’s responsibility-of the Father and the Son, when he speaks of grace in connection with the people of God.
Observe that the wolf may come and catch1 the sheep, if the shepherds are hirelings; but he cannot catch2 them out of the Saviour’s hands.
(1. The words in verses 12, 28 and 29 are the same in the original.)
(2. See preceding note.)
Active rejection of the Lord; Israel definitely left by Him
At the end of the chapter, the Jews having taken up stones to stone Him, because He made Himself equal with God, the Lord does not seek to prove to them the truth of what He is, but shows that, according to their own principles and the testimony of the Scriptures, they were wrong in this case. He appeals again to His own words and works, as proving that He was in the Father and the Father in Him. Again they take up stones, and Jesus definitely leaves them. It was all over with Israel.