Notes on John 10
© David H. Linden, Action
International Ministries
John
10:1-21 is a continuation of John 9: a) referring to the healing
of the blind man (10:21). b) When
it says in v.19 “At these words the Jews were again divided,” these must be
the same people mentioned in 9:16. c) In no place in this Gospel does
Jesus begin
any conversation with a “truly, truly“ as He did in 10:1 – further evidence
that 10 is a continuation of 9 and not a new beginning. d) However, what
ties these chapters together is the theme of the care or abuse shepherds have
for their flock. The shepherd rulers in 9:34 were brutal in their treatment of
one of their sheep. The Good Shepherd shows in John 10 what a true shepherd is
like. I think the Apostle John chose to make a sharp contrast by reporting the
persecution of the believer in chapter 9 as typical of the stealing, killing,
and destroying done by false shepherds in 10:10. We will understand John 10 better if we
ignore the chapter division and read 10:1 as a continuation.
The
Lord speaks of His substitutionary death for His sheep. Three times He mentions
laying down His life for the sheep.
Just
as He clarified true children of Abraham in chapter 8, in this chapter He will
define His sheep as those who hear His voice. This cuts out many proud Jewish
rulers because they rejected Him. Israelites who reject the One sent by the God
of Israel are simply not part of
The Lord Jesus is presented as both shepherd and gate. He is the true Shepherd Who leads and gives life to His flock; He is the Gate through Whom His own become members. John 10 expands on who those are who receive Him (1:12). The Lord’s new and enlarged flock will have other sheep (Gentiles) added; Christ must include them as well. They will hear His voice even if Jesus’ own people reject Him. These Gentiles – drawn to Christ (6:44) and sought by Him (Luke 19:10) – will come. As children born of God, they will listen; they will believe; they will follow. In John 1:9-13 the Apostle previews the opposite responses to Christ we should expect to find in this Gospel. In the events of John 9 & 10, the blind man received Jesus, while the false shepherds’ rejection is vigorous. Throughout this Gospel, one written to encourage faith, the hostile nature of unbelief receives a remarkable amount of attention.
10:1-6 The misunderstood figure of speech The Lord mentions shepherds
of two kinds and implies there are sheep of two kinds. The analogy also
included a sheep pen with a gate and an employee who worked there. The
Pharisees (mentioned in 9:40,41) did not understand His extended metaphor in
this paragraph, just as they did not understand His words in 9:39. Later Jesus
will say that He is the good shepherd and that those who follow Him are His
flock.
10:1-3 (Note the placement of “truly, truly” above.) Two
kinds of shepherds are contrasted. It is not necessary to look for some meaning
for the hired watchman. The simple point is that he recognizes and opens to
legitimate shepherds; false ones sneak in some other way. Probably sheep of
different flocks share the same protection and location at night. Every morning
shepherds appeared to take their flocks out to pasture. If the shepherd is
genuine, he has no need to enter in a secret way. The man at the gate opens for
legitimate shepherds with sheep inside. The sad truth is that there are false
shepherds, a theme stressed by the prophets of
10:3-5 It is not only the watchman who discerns whether a man coming for sheep had a right to do so; the sheep also recognize or reject the man approaching them. In a land familiar with shepherding, all these things Jesus said were familiar to them. What they did not grasp was how He applied these figures of speech. The sheep recognize their shepherd and follow Him, just as the blind man believed (9:38). He heard the Shepherd’s voice (5:25) and showed himself to be one of the Lord’s sheep. Jesus’ sheep listen to His voice (v.3) and follow because they know His voice. This paragraph is not about how to recognize false teachers; their character is described later. His sheep (by the working of God’s Spirit, 1 John 3:21 – 4:3) are discerning, so they follow the right shepherd. This defines who His sheep are.
Individual and Corporate Since the Lord Jesus calls His sheep by name v.3. He is not dealing with them only as a group but as individuals. In my opinion, whenever a church is so large that members of the congregation are unknown to the leadership, it is too large to function normally. Christ loves His church as a corporate body (Ephesians 5:25), while He still calls His individual sheep by name. There is an elect people (Deuteronomy 7:6,7), yet conversion results from an individual “call”. Each one called is justified when each one believes. John 10:3,4 teaches that each sheep is called by name, thus each is distinct. Each one called responds with the result that Christ leads out “all His own” leaving none behind. His assignment from His Father was that He should lose not one (6:39).
10:7-10 The metaphors change. Since the identity of genuine
sheep is being emphasized, in these verses Jesus presents Himself as the gate.
Only those who are of His flock go in with Him through that gate or leave for
pasture with Him through that gate. Those who enter His flock by means of
Christ the Gate are His; they are saved. “Whoever enters” (v.9) shows that
“outsiders” are allowed in. Again Jesus stresses that the true sheep reject
every rival to Him. A number of false messiahs had made great claims and
succeeded in gathering a following. (Today too, many false shepherds call for
us to follow them.) The Lord’s sheep did not listen to deceptive messiahs, but
when God’s Anointed One appeared, they heeded His call and entered His flock.
Salvation is by entering the Christ Gate; those who do, join the people of God.
False
Shepherds and Murder
The majority of the Pharisees and other religious
leaders counseled their people in strong language not to follow Jesus. Chapters
7-10, beginning with the Feast of Tabernacles, record events in the fall of the
same year. In this segment, John repeatedly records the leaders’ efforts to
turn their sheep away from Christ (7:47-52; 8:48-59; 9:16,24;
10:20). By doing this, they were closing the gate to the only way their
sheep could be saved. With false doctrine they were destroying the flock of
Christ made this
connection of deceit and murder in chapters 8 & 10. His saving work is an
absolute contrast from the false shepherds, since He is both truth and the life
(14:6). The one seeking to take away the sheep for his own evil purposes comes to
kill; Jesus came that we might have life (v.10). We are familiar with Satan’s
work of deceit, which is reproduced in Satan’s servants. The Lord described the
work of false shepherds as killing and destroying (v.10).
The
Perversion of John 10:10 – “the abundant life” Some suppose that Jesus was teaching in
John 10:10 that believers have eternal life, and that in addition to that, He
came so His people might live in material prosperity. Some seek to prosper
financially from this teaching and make the poor who listen to them even more
poor! There are many reasons to reject this strange notion. Among them is the
observation that if that were so, Jesus is a great failure, since so many of
His people are poor. This misinterpretation has no basis in the context. It is
probably an example of people looking for what they wish to find in the Bible.
John uses variety in the way he repeats basic themes, thus “faith” in this
Gospel has a number of synonyms. Likewise life is often described as eternal
life. We might suppose that it refers only to duration, so the Lord used
another word to show its quality of abundance. This word (as a verb) is used
twice in 2 Corinthians 9:8 for abounding grace and abounding good
works. The life Jesus came to give is that we may know God (17:3). Those who
inject the sense of material abundance into the Lord’s words suffer from an
impatience that is opposed to the contentment taught in Hebrews 13:5.
10:11-13 Shepherd & Savior When
Jesus presented
Himself as the Good Shepherd, He drew attention to His ministry. He not only
prevents the wolf killing His own, He sacrificed His life for them.
First, as Shepherd Jesus is
again revealing His deity. He acts as a shepherd because He is the Shepherd. It
is essential that we read the NT in the light of previous Scripture. The words
“I Am” are consistent with His claim of deity in 8:58. His title “Shepherd” is
the language of God describing Himself as the Shepherd of Israel (Psalm 23:1;
80:1). The NT also speaks of Christ as the Chief and Great Shepherd (1 Peter
5:4, Hebrews 13:20). In light of OT affirmations of the Lord as the Shepherd of
God’s people, it would be blasphemous for Jesus to speak this way of Himself if
He were not the Lord God of
Second, as Sacrifice The
sheep are sinful and a sacrifice must be made for them. In John 10 our
sinfulness is not reviewed, but the sacrifice is. When the Lord spoke, He never
gave all aspects of truth on one occasion. He does say the sheep will be saved
which is also a salvation from our sin, as well as the power of the enemy. Five
times in John 10, Jesus referred to His death on the cross as giving or laying
down His life (vv.11,15,17, & twice in v.18). The only time He gave up His
life was in the crucifixion. Because He
laid it down, it was a willing act; His
life was not taken from Him. Then the Lord stressed that His death had specific
beneficiaries. He laid down His life for
His sheep. In this chapter His sheep are limited to those who enter through
Him, so He is not making a reference to every person on earth. In chapter 17,
Jesus was explicit that He was not praying for the world. That prayer was
priestly intercession, so it would not make sense to reason that the next day
our Priest offered a sacrifice for those He refused to pray for the preceding
evening! The solution is simple: “The Good Shepherd lays down His life for
the sheep,” (v.11).
Substitutionary
Atonement
In Mark 10:45 the Lord said, “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served,
but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” In that statement the
Lord used two prepositions. One means for as “for the sake of”; the other means “in
the place of”. The Apostle Paul likewise
uses both in 1 Timothy 2:6. (In both verses – Mark 10:45 and 1 Timothy 2:6 –
one of the prepositions is part of the verb ransom.) Since the death of Christ is a) for the
sheep, and b) the sheep deserve death for their sins, and c) by the blood of
Christ we are redeemed from our own destruction, we must conclude that the
death of Christ was substitutionary. He took our place under the wrath of God,
receiving for us and in our place the punishment due to us.
In the Lord’s analogies, others bring harm to
the sheep. The thief/robber with evil intent comes to destroy, while the hired
man runs to save himself from the wolf. He cares only for his paycheck. In
contrast, the Good Shepherd loves His sheep (John 13:1; 15:13) and gives His
life for them. Pastoral work must recognize and counter the approach of the
devil’s wolves to God’s flock (Acts 20:28-32; 1 Peter 5:1-11). The sheep do not
belong to the hired man; they belong to Christ and the Lord knows His own
(v.14). Belonging to Christ is the high privilege of every believer. This truth
demands great commitment to the well-being of all our fellow Christians. To be
a pastor is to share in the ministry of the Good Shepherd.
10:14,15 The intimacy of our relationship with Christ is in possessive language
– “my own”. This time in the first person it is, “I lay down My
life.” Further, He says we know Him. Seeing Him is not necessary to knowing and
loving Him but believing in Him is (1 Peter 1:8). Knowing someone we have never
seen shows that this is a spiritual work done in us. Just as the Lord spoke of
The knowledge of sheep and Shepherd is like that of Father and the Son. It is surprising that the Lord would say this, since God’s knowledge is infinite and transcendent, and Their fellowship is sinless. That intimate knowledge – i.e., of one divine Person with Another – is the foundation of our coming to know the Lord, as vv.17,18 make clear. It is also a foretaste of the eternal setting when God and man will walk together again. Peter was present to hear all that John reports in chapter 10; he too speaks much of the believer knowing God in 2 Peter 1:1-8 & 3:18.
10:16 And I have other sheep [Gentiles] that are not of
this fold [
The other sheep that Christ
has are the Gentiles; they are strangers to the covenants of promise; they are
excluded from citizenship in
He says of these future
believers that He has them, thus they are already His sheep. So it is
certain that they will come by listening to His voice when the gospel is
proclaimed to them. For this reason missionary work is never futile. These
“other sheep” are also among those the Father has given Him (6:37-40). God can speak of having those He will yet
save, as we read in Acts 18:10, when He told Paul, “I have many people in this
city.” In Acts 18:5, Paul, after Jewish rejection of the gospel, turned to
evangelize “other sheep,” the Gentiles! After facing difficulty, the Lord spoke
to him in a vision to encourage him. Part of that encouragement was the word
that the Lord had many people in that city (Acts 18:9,10). In Acts 13:44-52,
Paul had spoken of their ministry to Gentiles as commanded by God in Isaiah
49:6. They were to be “a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring
salvation to the ends of the earth.” Thus the Lord Jesus, Who promised to
be with His servants till the end of the age (Matthew 28:18-20), was bringing
in other sheep who were not of the original sheep pen. He was fulfilling His
words in John 10:16.
The
result of this salvation going to the ends of the earth, is that all the
gathered sheep will be one flock under one Shepherd. This raises in our day one
of the perplexing differences of viewpoint among serious Christians over the
relationship of the
The Contrast
of Shepherds in Ezekiel 34
§
34:1-6 The Lord complains that
§
34:7-10 The Lord swears – an unusual thing, not often
found in Scripture (Hebrews 3:11 & 6:13) – to remove those false shepherds
and to rescue His flock.
§
34:11-22 The Lord will personally intervene to do for
His flock what the other shepherds should have done and did not. He will seek
the lost (v.16). (See Luke 19:10.)
§
34:23 The key prediction is:
“I will place over them one shepherd, my servant David…” The way the
Lord will shepherd His flock is through the Shepherd He would send, the Son of
David, the Lord Jesus. After this replacement Shepherd arrived, He said, “I
have come that they might have life...” John 10:10.
§
34:23,24 The Father switches from speaking of Himself
to Christ . The way the Lord fulfills His promise is to intervene for His sheep
through Christ as their Good Shepherd.
§
34:25-31 The results of salvation are peace and
security.
Commentary This
prophecy emphasizes the role of Christ as the “one shepherd” God will place
over His people (v.23). The result of His ministry (which in John 10 includes
laying down His life for the sheep) is a covenant of peace (v.25). The climax
of Ezekiel 34 is that the House of Israel will know that the Lord is with them
and that they are His sheep. John 10:16 is simply a NT statement of the same
truth with notable parallels: one shepherd and one flock. The flock into which
Gentile believers enter is the House of Israel.
10:17,18 The Father loves the Son for
His obedience unto death (Philippians 2:8). He was authorized by the Father to
make such a sacrifice, and He obeyed His Father’s command. This obedience was
seen in
10:19-21 Many thought that Jesus speaking
of laying down His life (which anyone can do) and taking it up again (which no
man can do) was the speech of a madman. John reports many insults of those
rejecting Him. (See Hebrews 12:3.) Yet
there was no uniform assessment of Christ. Some could not escape the
significance of His works (10:37,38). All the research the Pharisees pursued
had only proven that the blind man had been blind from birth, and they knew it
was Jesus Who had healed him. Such a wonder was not the kindness of a demon.
The Lord taught in Matthew 13:3-9; 13:18-23 that we too will face a variety of
responses when sowing the seed of God’s Word. John 9 & 10 supports the
principle: as it was with the Master, so will it be with His servants (John
15:20).
They were divided (9:16; 10:19),
and the world today is still divided. Some day Christ will be seen even by
those who crucified Him (Zechariah 12:10) and condemned Him to death (Mark
14:61,62). Then all shall know Who He really is, and all shall bow and every
mouth will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord (Philippians 2:9-11). By exalting
Christ, the Father will show the universe His love for His Son (10:17). Till
that Day there will not be and cannot be on this earth a united humanity. Only
when all Christ-rejecters are removed, and the full number of His sheep are
gathered under one Shepherd, will there be peace on earth. Meanwhile, expect
division and strife.
John 10:22-42
It is obvious from v.22 that the remainder of John
10 is at a later time than the previous verses. At times in this Gospel, John
uses feasts to show a progression in time; now in chapter 10 the narrative
comes ever closer to the crucifixion. Some events are a year apart in John 4,
5, & 6, but in John 7 – 10 the reported events come closer together. The
Feast of Tabernacles (chapter 7) is in the fall and this Feast of Dedication
was only a few weeks later in early winter. Though the time is later by a few
weeks, the analogy of sheep and shepherd reappears. It is clear that these are
different occasions, though Jesus may have been talking to the same people in
both parts of John 10.
Jesus’ enemies challenge
Him concerning two key titles in John 10:22-39. The Jews asked for a straight
reply whether He is the Christ, and were angry that the Son of God said
He was the Son of God. These are the two descriptions of Christ that
John uses in his summary statement of this Gospel in 20:30,31, and that Martha
used in her confession (11:27). Note Matthew 26:63 where it also uses both.
Both confessions by
Christ in John 10 stirred a strong reaction, including attempted murder.
Certainly His own people did not receive Him (1:11). Controversy was frequent
in the days building up to the cross. The Lord was greatly hated, yet within
this atmosphere of hostility, He continued to teach in words that have fed our
souls for all the centuries since. Words said during this controversy have been
preserved for us to treasure. He taught in this short section of our security
in His hands and the Father’s. He proclaimed again His unique unity with His
Father. He showed unbelievers how they could discern His truth of His claims, a
basic prerequisite for faith. Jesus’ evangelistic work continued in the face of
hatred, misunderstanding, contention, and rejection. This chapter shows that evangelism
can be done in the face of hostility.
In this brief section is
a statement about Scripture that ought to be known far better than it is. Our
view of the Bible should be the view that Jesus had, and here is one of the
places where He reveals that.
10:22,23 the time and place The Feast of Dedication is not mandated in the OT.
It celebrates one of the highest moments in all of Jewish history, an event in
the years between the Old and New Testaments. The Jews rebelled against the
extreme cruelty of a pagan king who had desecrated their temple by offering a
pig on the altar of the Lord. The Jews succeeded in driving the Gentile power
out and restored the worship of the Lord in His holy temple. Thus the term Feast
of Dedication marks this joyful time. Known today as Hanukkah, the feast
began on the 25th day of that early winter month. Possibly related
to colder weather Jesus was approached in a more sheltered place. He was not
teaching a crowd at the time.
10:24 the question: “Are you the Christ?” A group approached and demanded of Jesus a straight
answer whether He was the Christ. There is no record that Jesus ever used this
title for Himself in a public context, prior to the time of the
crucifixion. He did tell the Samaritan
woman that he was the Christ in 4:25,26. Then in private with His disciples in
Matthew 16:13-20, He affirmed that He was the Christ, but He would not permit
them to tell that to others.
What Kind of
Messiah? Some
Bible teachers think the reason Jesus did not publicly refer to Himself as the
Messiah, was that the Jewish people had views of what the Messiah should be
that were so different from the Scriptures. They wanted a political savior to
deliver them from
10:25-30 the answer Jesus answered their question without using the
precise words they were looking for. He
did not say for them, “I am the Messiah.” When He said, “I did tell you,” it
means He had given them sufficient to know whether He was the Messiah.[1] Included in the answer they had already was more
than His words; those who questioned Him were observers of His works, plus they
had the Scriptures. The Apostle John in this Gospel reviews multiple
indications that Christ was from God, sufficient to show He is the
Messiah. From the Lord’s lips in that
part of the temple area where they stopped Him, He gave the strong reply of
10:37,38. John 5:30-47 is a detailed statement of evidence for Who He was. His action
in His Father’s House was a kind of claim that He was the Son of God, a term
Jesus did use of Himself publicly (5:25). Often He said He was the One sent by
God, an accurate description of the Messiah’s role. They already had ample
answer from Him, because the works of God are a kind of “speech” without words
(Psalm 19:1-4 and Romans 10:18).
10:26,27 an explanation of
unbelief They could look at Jesus’ works and not
believe. This shows the blindness (2 Corinthians 4:4) and deceitfulness
(Jeremiah 17:9) of the human heart. It believes and rejects what it wishes. Sin
is more than self-deceit, it brings a bondage of the human will, rather than
the will being free to do what it should. Adam chose a new master when He
obeyed Satan, and Satan holds his victims in a powerful grip. Man’s salvation depends entirely on the
intervention of God to bind “the strong man” (Mark 3:23-27). Christ acts to free,
ransom, deliver, and save. Those He has chosen to rescue are again called His
sheep. (For a fuller discussion see below Appendix 10 B Jesus’ Teaching in
John 10 on Election and Related Doctrines.)
10:27 the sheep will follow In
our day, the church has been damaged greatly by a doctrine that asserts that
one may be a genuine Christian, and still live in sin without repentance. All
that is needed is to believe, whether one accepts Jesus as Lord or not. This is
a doctrine that one may have justification (which includes a status of
forgiven) while not having sanctification (which deals with spiritual
transformation and conduct). Jesus taught that His sheep will follow; the
carnal Christian doctrine says, they may or may not, but if they have believed
they are still His sheep, eternally safe. See below Appendix 10 C: The Carnal
Christian. When the sheep listen, it
means they hear the Lord obediently; they follow – all of them. Anyone who will
not follow is not one of His sheep, and will find that out on the Judgment Day.
We never become Christians by following; we follow because we are.
10:28 the sheep are safe If they have eternal life, they shall
never perish. These are simply two sides of the same coin, and the Lord stated
them together. In John 6:39, the Lord said He would lose none. That looks at this from the angle of the
assignment His Father gave Him, an assignment He cannot fail to fulfill. Now in
John 10, from a different angle, He loses none because no enemy is capable of
taking His sheep from Him. The power of Christ is greater than any foe. He guards against the Evil One (2 Thessalonians
3:3).
10:29,30 the reference to the Father We
would expect that being assured that no one can snatch His sheep from His hand
would be adequate assurance. But since Jesus came to make the Father known,
He encouraged by speaking also of the
Father’s commitment (see Colossians 3:3). A number of themes converge: the
eternal purpose, the unity of God, the role of the Father and Son, and the
commitment of the Persons in the Trinity to our eternal salvation.
This is the second of the
three occasions in John where Jesus said that His people are the gift the
Father had already given Him even before their conversion! (See the notes in
17:2,9 and especially 6:37,39.) Since the Father and Son have this eternal
agreement (or covenant) between them, both share the commitment to see it
fulfilled. Our salvation is not Jesus acting on His own, or even with only the
permission of the Father. The Father has a greater role as the Head in the
Trinity. Thus our salvation is at His initiative with the Son’s full and
obedient cooperation to be the Redeemer of God’s elect. When we see the Son at
work, we are always seeing the Father at work (John 14:10,11). The Father sent
the Son. He does all that the Father does (5:19,20). Even though the Father and
the Son have different identities (the Father is not the Son, and the Son is
not the Father), it is fully proper to say of the entire ministry of Jesus that
this was the Father at work through Him. That is the unity of the Father and
the Son. All that belongs to the Father belongs to Christ (John 16:15).
The ones seeking to hear if
Jesus would say He was the Messiah received an answer that went beyond their question.
Christ affirmed unity with God, not as another God beside God, nor simply as
one who shared God’s purpose, but one united to Him as Eternal Son to Eternal
Father, sharing the same essence. The Word was with God and the Word was God.
Our unity with the Lord is not a unity of equals; Jesus’ unity with the Father
is. Our unity is imperfect in practice, not thoroughly understood by us, and
has a beginning. The unity of Father and Son has no such limitation or
qualification. Christ and the Father are one.
10:31-32 the reaction
When the
Jews picked up stones (see 8:59), it was not because Jesus claimed a unity with
God in purpose. That is the kind of unity they too would profess for
themselves. They sought to stone Him
because they grasped what He was really saying. In 5:17,18 the leaders could
see that calling God “My Father” implied an equality with Him, and for that
reason there was eagerness to kill Him. Therefore when Jesus said, “I and the
Father are one,” those who spoke His language and heard His words understood
this as a claim to deity. In Mark
14:61,62, Jesus affirmed that He was the Christ, the Son of the Blessed, and
the Son of Man Who would someday come on the clouds of heaven. That confession
was also viewed as blasphemy because it was so clearly a statement that He is
God. The penalty for blasphemy was death by stoning (Leviticus 24:13-16).
The Lord replied by drawing
attention to another way He made the Father known. He used not only words but
works. (This could be translated as great or good works.) What is wrong with healing a man on the
Sabbath who had lain there for thirty-eight years? What is so evil about
healing the man born blind, or (later than John 10) raising Lazarus from the dead?
These are the specific miracles reported in this Gospel that happened in
As happened so often, Jesus’
enemies avoided His question (see Matthew 22:41-45; Mark 10:17-22;
11:27-33; 12:13-17). They made no reply about His works. How
could they admit that they might stone Him for good works? Later in 11:47-53,
they decided to kill Him to stop His miracles.
10:33 the second charge Next they turned to challenge Him for saying that He
was the Son of God (5:19-26). They probably wanted to hear Him say He was the
Messiah so they could intensify their charges against Him. In spite of all the
good works of great power, they assumed He was only a man claiming falsely to
be God. With such a hardened view, they felt no need to weigh the evidence
before them.
10:34-36 the defense Jesus’ reply is full of surprise
especially to us so many years later. First, it is a simple correction; the OT
uses the word god for others than God! The NT uses the word for the
devil in 2Corinthians 4:4! “God” is not a name for the Lord, but a title that
means a leader or authority; it is often used for idols. In Psalm 82:1 & 6 the
word “gods” refers to angels and human leaders. Jesus simply points out that
the word does not always mean the Lord God of
Scripture
cannot be broken
With these words, Jesus showed His high regard for Scripture. He did not
indicate that He simply agreed with the verse He quoted; He shows He accepted
whatever was in Scripture because Scripture is God’s Word. (At this time the
word “Scripture” would refer only to the books of the Old Testament, because
none of the NT had been written.) It is
not that the OT simply is without error, but that it could not be wrong. We
say, “Anyone can make a mistake!” But that is the very kind of thing Christ
says cannot apply to the Scriptures; they cannot be wrong because they are not
only the writings of the men who wrote them; they are at the same time the
words of God. There is as much chance of the words that come from God being
wrong, as there is that God might be wrong! None!
The Lord made this strong statement in the context
of what seems to be a minor point. Jesus’ enemies said He was wrong to apply
the word God to Himself. Jesus showed that in one verse the word god
is used for humans. It was not a mistake for the Scripture to do that. It could
not be a mistake. The Holy Spirit had the Psalmist use that word that way. The
Scripture cannot be proven wrong. Jesus’ words have many applications. The Bible’s predictions cannot possibly fail
to be fulfilled in precisely the way they are stated. There is no error of
science, history, theology, ethics or emphasis. In every line of the Bible, it
was God’s deliberate choice of what to include and what to omit, and to give as
much to any topic as He chose. Thus the genealogies deliberately save the names
of a multitude of persons we do not know, and pass over revealing many things about
which we are very curious.
Jesus said that Psalm 110 was “David, speaking by
the Spirit,” Matthew 22:43. He said not the smallest letter, not the least
stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is
accomplished,” Matthew 5:18. With statements like these the Lord Jesus showed
that He believed the Scriptures to be reliable, accurate, and the work of the
Holy Spirit directing the choice of words – faithful right to the letters that
composed those words!
10:37,38 the challenge This conversation began with
a question about the word Messiah, and continued with an accusation of
blasphemy. He gave them a vigorous reply. Jesus spoke of the significance of
His works. He admitted that if He did not
do what His Father did – God acting as God! – He would give them some room for
not believing. But the miracles were reality. The leaders looked for a way to
escape the testimony of the miracles, but when they could not deny that the
miracles had happened, they simply refused to believe anyway. The good works of
Christ are God in Christ showing Himself in a convincing way. The rejection of
Christ, His works and the Father Who sent him show the nature of the sinful
heart. Jesus did not ask for a “leap of faith”. He did not ask people to believe
without a reason, because faith is in the certainty of God’s Word and action.
True faith is not irrational. They would not believe what they had been given,
so they were denied more.
10:39 the rejection continued Nothing changed; they picked up stones to stone Him in v.31 (see also 7:30), but He answered their charges and made a further appeal to believe. They still tried to seize Him. Note that there was no rational response to His replies, just more heated rejection.
10:40-42 the transition Going far across the Jordan
River to stay for a while, Jesus was away from the hostility centered in
John the Baptist had been
dead for some time, yet his testimony of Christ was still in the memory of
people beyond the
God did not allow His
servant the Baptist to have a greater ministry than Jesus (3:25-30). Even
though he was a very great prophet, John never performed a miracle. God can use
a Spirit-filled (Luke 1:15) ministry of words apart from supernatural signs.
God reserved for the later that Christ and His disciples would perform many
wonders.
Appendix 10 A: One People or
Two?
How should we understand John 10:16?
One People or Two? I suppose that it ought to be obvious that
salvation to the Gentiles results in one people of God. That is the simple
reading of John 10:16. However, many sincere Christians [among them the majority
of my relatives and very many of my closest friends] insist that we ought to
maintain a distinction so as never to consider the church and
*
One rather serious problem with saying that the OT saints are not in Christ
relates to the two different representations in Romans 5:12-19: being in Adam
or in Christ. In Christ means we are represented by Him and united to
Him. To be in Adam is to be without salvation, and to be in Christ is the only
way to have salvation. Moses, who chose reproach for Christ (Hebrews 11:26),
was surely “in Christ.” OT saints had to be in Christ, or they could not be
saved.
Q.
1 Does the OT foretell that in the
present time Gentiles would be added to the people of God?
Answer: Yes. When God promised in Isaiah 49:8 to restore Israel in a time of
favor, a “day of salvation,” Paul said in 2 Corinthians 6:2 that that was the
time when he was writing. My brothers of the other view would call the time
Paul wrote as within the church age, yet Paul indicates that the
promised day of salvation in Isaiah 49 was now. Thus the present age was
predicted in the OT.
Q.
2 Do believing Gentiles become part of
Answer: Yes, Gentiles are not forever excluded from
the house of Jacob; Isaiah 14:1,2 looks forward to a day when they will join
it. Anyone who like Ruth joins the house
of Jacob, becomes part of
Ephesians 2 may be the most
explicit statement. Gentiles once excluded from citizenship in
The
Gentiles have been made partakers of the promise made to
In
Romans 11:11-24, Paul speaks of wild Gentile branches (the branches are
individual Gentiles) being grafted into the cultivated olive tree of
In
1 Peter 2:4-10 Peter speaks of Christ as the Stone laid in
In the notes at John 10:16 above there is a box on Ezekiel 34. That prophecy emphasizes the role of Christ as the “one shepherd” God sets over His people. The first coming of Christ fulfilled this prophecy. The result is that the House of Israel will know that the Lord is with them and that they are His sheep. They never cease being the House of Israel. When Jesus brings in the other sheep of John 10:16, those other sheep were simply added to the House of Israel under one Shepherd. John 10:16 in the NT and Ezekiel 34 in the OT both speaking of Christ as the Shepherd and the flock in Ezekiel is only the House of Israel. There is no other flock into which Jesus brings His sheep.
Gentiles
in this age brought into the new covenant.
Every time we partake of the cup
in the Lord’s Supper, we have indicated our inclusion in the benefits of the new
covenant, for Jesus said that the cup was the new covenant in His blood (Luke
22:20). This new covenant, of which Christ is Mediator, has made the first one
obsolete (Hebrews 8:6,13). This is a
fulfillment of Jeremiah 31:31-37, where the new covenant will be made with the house of
The
Lord Jesus is the Son of David. Thus He is the King of
Q.
3 Will the OT saints of
Answer: Yes.
(Note reference to Hebrews 11 above.)
The Lord spoke of the future in Matthew 8:5-13. He had healed the
servant of a Gentile Roman military officer. Jesus marveled at the faith of the
centurion since He had seen no faith like it in
Re.
The New Jerusalem In Galatian 4:25,26 there are two
Jerusalems. From Isaiah 54:1 Paul speaks of
Q.
4 What difference does it make?
Answer: Accepting that God has one
people gives a clearer sense of history. OT prophecies are not detached from
the present work of God. Prophecies related to the coming of Christ and life in
the eternal city, are all part of one divine program for all His people. As
heirs of the same promises, we are not left wondering if some OT truth or
promise applies maybe to us or maybe to them. That kind of distinction
confuses. The encouragement of John 10:16 is that Christ with certainty will
bring about the gathering of all His sheep into one fold under one Shepherd.
This is exactly what the OT taught, and every time some soul is saved today,
the same prophecy in both Ezekiel 34 and
John 10 is being fulfilled.
Appendix 10 B
My Father gave them to Me (v.29); I lay down my life for the sheep
(v.15); My sheep hear my voice (v.27);
they will never perish (28).
A. His Sheep in Advance
In
John 10 Jesus shows that He has a select group who are His and shall become
His:
1.
He calls them His sheep. In vv. 4, 14, 16 & 27, His sheep are called His
(v.4), all His own (v.4), and My sheep (v.27). He says, “I
have other sheep” (v.16). This possessive language is consistent: If He has
them then they are His. In v.16 Jesus referred to some He would later bring in
as being His sheep even before they believed.
2. He knows them The way know is used in the languages of the
Bible reveals activity and commitment. Of course Christ knew everything as
factual information about all men. He knew what His enemies were thinking in
Matthew 12:25, yet He said of the disobedient in Matthew 7:23, “I never knew
you.” In that sense, for Jesus to know His sheep indicates that He claims,
embraces them, or reaches for them prior to their faith in Him. Thus their
response is to His knowing them. When God said in Amos 3:2 "You only
have I chosen of all the families of the earth… ,” the word for chosen is the Hebrew word for “known”.
3. Only the sheep will believe. “You do not believe because you are not my sheep” (v.26). This is the negative way to state it. It implies that those who are His sheep will listen because in some sense they are His before they believe. That same point in v.4 is in positive terms: “His sheep follow him because they know his voice.” Certain persons will not believe because they are not His sheep, and certain ones will because they are. They did not appoint themselves to be His sheep, so there must be another factor that explains this. That factor is stated in v.29.
4.
His sheep are those the Father has given “My Father, who has given them to me …” v.29 The only ones who will believe are those who
have been given in advance to Christ by the Father. The ones the Father has
given Me is a description of those who will be saved in John 6:35-45, said
of them before they believed.
A related point: “I have come that they may have life”(v.10). Election is not an abstract idea isolated from events; it has definite results. The purpose of God for these sheep, results in an action of God to save them. In other words, Jesus came “so that”. The Father gave them to Christ (v.29). For this reason Christ has a mission to bring them in (v.16) and give them life (v.10). This mission included laying down His life for them (v.11). Thus the Father’s gift of persons to Christ, the work on the cross, and the conversion of specific persons are connected. They should not be separated.
B. Christ’s
Life Laid Down for His Sheep
“The
good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep,” v.11. The laying down of His life
is Jesus’ voluntary death on the cross. The intended beneficiaries of His
sacrifice are His sheep. They are identified within John 10 as a gift from the
Father and as those who will believe and follow.
When
the Lord speaks of bringing out all his own in v.4, He was acting for a
specified group. What He was doing was for all of them, like the all
in 6:37, with not one of them being lost (6:39). He does not bring out sheep
who are not His. So when He laid down His life for His sheep (v.11), a definite group is indicated. This Scripture
leads us to conclude that the death of Christ was for His elect.
C. The Negative Response
The
natural thing for people to do, now that we have become sinners against God, is
to reject the gospel. We will respond positively only if a divine intervention
causes us to do so. Jesus said to some persons, "I did tell you, but
you do not believe,” (v.25).
They were exposed to a powerful witness about Christ, because “the miracles
I do in my Father's name speak for me.” But
the nature of their hearts was such that He said, “you do not believe
because you are not my sheep,” vv.25,26. If they had been His sheep, they
would have believed, but unless God had made them Jesus’ sheep, they had no
ability to believe.
This aspect of human resistance to Christ is not developed in John 10. It is indicated though, in the fact that if one is not a sheep belonging to Christ in advance of hearing the gospel, then he simply will not believe. That such a soul cannot believe is taught in John 6 & 8, and other parts of the Bible. Since men are dead in their sins (Ephesians 2:1) and hostile to God (Romans 8:5-8), they have no ability or inclination to believe, but, if they are the Lord’s sheep, He will bring them in.
D. The Positive Response
Other
Scriptures in John tell how our sinful rejection is overcome. The Spirit does
this by a birth from God (1:13), which is new life from above (3:3-8) in the
case of all to whom the Spirit is pleased to give life (3:8)! Those who are not Jesus’
sheep will not believe, but those who are His sheep listen when He calls them
(v.3). They follow Him because they know his voice (v.4). This is a positive
response to Christ. In John 10, the only negative response found in Jesus’ true
flock is directed to false shepherds. “They will never follow a stranger” (v.5)
or “listen to them” (v.8). In contrast, the Lord emphasized that they
will listen to His voice (v.16) and follow Him (v.27). This is stated not as a
description of what has happened, but as a response certain in advance. It is
said of persons before they were even exposed to the gospel. So, not only have
the sheep been given to the Son by the Father, they will surely come, all of
them, with no exception. Anyone who will not listen to Christ, is not one of
His sheep. The sheep will not follow a false teacher, but they will believe in
the Good Shepherd sent to save them. No person the Father has given to the Son
opts out of this salvation. For that gift to Christ means that salvation will
occur in each case.
E. His Sheep Never Perish
Not
only will His sheep believe, they cannot be lost when they do. “I give them
eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my
hand,” (v.28). In 6:39, the Lord
Jesus cannot lose them, and in 10:28,29 no one can take them away from the Son
or the Father. The Shepherd finds them, holds them, and keeps them.
“His
sheep follow him because they know his voice,” (v.4). The positive
response is not for one moment only. All who listen follow and continue to follow. There
is no such thing as one truly believing who does not then follow, a term that
means “obey.” Not just believing but obeying is a mark of each and every sheep
belonging to Christ. Following cannot refer to taking one isolated step but to
a pattern of life. The Shepherd leads them out (v.3) and brings them in (v.16).
The sheep listen and follow; they cleave to the Lord. Keeping describes the Shepherd’s
eternal commitment, and following/cleaving shows the heart response induced by
the Lord (Ezekiel 36:25,26) in the sheep He has called to Himself.
Summary: Jesus asserted that He
had persons the Father had given Him, spoken of as His sheep before they even
believed. He said He came for them to have life, and for them He died. He said
they would hear and follow, and would never be lost. John 10 links a lot of related doctrine in
one package.
The
five sections above from A to E could be given doctrinal labels as: A. Election
by God, B. Definite Atonement, C. Human Inability, D. Irresistible Grace and E. Perseverance of the Saints.
The emphasis such teaching has in the rest of this
Gospel: This specific kind of teaching is not confined to
John 10. In other parts of John we find:
Appendix 10 C: The Carnal Christian