As we can see, many of the Pharisees were still ready to acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah. They correctly understood His hints about His messiahship, and now they wanted only one thing from Him: that He finally declare Himself openly to be the Messiah. But He does not do this, because He knows perfectly well that...
As we can see, many of the Pharisees were still ready to acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah. They correctly understood His hints about His messiahship, and now they wanted only one thing from Him: that He finally declare Himself openly to be the Messiah. But He does not do this, because He knows perfectly well what "being the Messiah" means for these people, and He was not going to become that kind of Messiah - His plans did not include raising a rebellion, beginning a holy war against the Romans, or becoming the ruler of an earthly state.
Instead, He again and again explains to those around Him what the Kingdom He brought into the world is. And He speaks of the main thing that forms the basis of the Kingdom's life by His own example: to live in the Kingdom means to give one's life to God in order then to receive it back from His hands. And the Savior's own path, His death and Resurrection, is a remarkable example of this.
According to the laws of our untransformed world, even the Messiah, bearing in Himself the fullness of God and the fullness of the Kingdom, can die - although, unlike us, death is not a natural inevitability for Him. And when He is killed, He dies like any human being. But His life belongs to the Father; He lives not by His own life, but by the Father's life, which was given to Him by the Father in all its fullness. And in the Kingdom, where there is no place for death, He receives it again from the Father in all its fullness - completely unexpectedly for His enemies, who thought that now, once He had died, everything was over.
And the path of every Christian, every inhabitant of the Kingdom, resembles the path of the One who brought the Kingdom into the world. Of course, God has not given any of us, as He gave Him, the capacity to contain the life of the Kingdom in all its fullness. But the Kingdom is open to us, and one can enter it only by giving up the life that God gave us at birth, so that there in the Kingdom He may return it to us transformed. This new life will no longer be part of our world - a world being transformed but not yet transformed - but part of the Kingdom; it will become the first step on the path of our transformation, the first step on the path to salvation.
10
10:1 He that entereth not by the door - By Christ. He is the only lawful entrance. Into the sheepfold - The Church. He is a thief and a robber - In God's account. Such were all those teachers, to whom our Lord had just been speaking.
10:3 To him the door keeper openeth - Christ is considered as the shepherd, Joh 10:11.As the door in the first and following verses. And as it is not unworthy of Christ to be styled the door, by which both the sheep and the true pastor enter, so neither is it unworthy of God the Father to be styled the door keeper.See Act 14:27; Col 4:3; Rev 3:8; Act 16:14. And the sheep hear his voice - The circumstances that follow, exactly agree with the customs of the ancient eastern shepherds.They called their sheep by name, went before them and the sheep followed them. So real Christians hear, listen to, understand, and obey the voice of the shepherd whom Christ hath sent. And he counteth them his own, dearer than any friend or brother: calleth, advises, directs each by name, and leadeth them out, in the paths of righteousness, beside the waters of comfort.
10:4 He goeth before them - In all the ways of God, teaching them in every point, by example as well as by precept; and the sheep follow him - They tread in his steps: for they know his voice - Having the witness in themselves that his words are the wisdom and the power of God. Reader, art thou a shepherd of souls? Then answer to God. Is it thus with thee and thy flock?
10:5 They will not follow a stranger - One whom Christ hath not sent, who doth not answer the preceding description. Him they will not follow - And who can constrain them to it? But will flee from him - As from the plague. For they know not the voice of strangers - They cannot relish it; it is harsh and grating to them.They find nothing of God therein.
10:6 They - The Pharisees, to whom our Lord more immediately spake, as appears from the close of the foregoing chapter.
10:7 I am the door - Christ is both the Door and the Shepherd, and all things.
10:8 Whosoever are come - Independently of me, assuming any part of my character, pretending, like your elders and rabbis, to a power over the consciences of men, attempting to make laws in the Church, and to teach their own traditions as the way of salvation: all those prophets and expounders of God's word, that enter not by the door of the sheepfold, but run before I have sent them by my Spirit. Our Lord seems in particular to speak of those that had undertaken this office since he began his ministry, are thieves - Stealing temporal profit to themselves, and robbers - Plunderingand murdering the sheep.
10:9 If any one - As a sheep, enter in by me - Through faith, he shall be safe - From the wolf, and from those murdering shepherds. And shall go in and out - Shall continually attend on the shepherds whom I have sent; and shall find pasture - Food for his soul in all circumstances.
10:10 The thief cometh not but to steal, and to kill, and to destroy - That is, nothing else can be the consequence of a shepherd's coming, who does not enter in by me.
10:12 But the hireling - It is not the bare receiving hire, which denominates a man a hireling: (for the labourer is worthy of his hire; Jesus Christ himself being the Judge: yea, and the Lord hath ordained, that they who preach the Gospel, should live of the Gospel:) but the loving hire: the loving the hire more than the work: the working for the sake of the hire. He is a 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? The wolf - signifies any enemy who, by force or fraud, attacks the Christian's faith, liberty, or life. So the wolf seizeth and scattereth the flock - He seizeth some, and scattereth the rest; the two ways of hurting the flock of Christ.
10:13 The hireling fleeth because he is a hireling - Because he loves the hire, not the sheep.
10:14 I know my sheep - With a tender regard and special care: and am known of mine - With a holy confidence and affection.
10:15 As the Father knoweth me, and I know the Father - With such a knowledge as implies an inexpressible union: and I lay down my life - Speaking of the present time. For his whole life was only a going unto death.
10:16 I have also other sheep - Which he foreknew; which are not of this fold - Not of the Jewish Church or nation, but Gentiles. I must bring them likewise - Into my Church, the general assembly of those whose names are written in heaven. And there shall be one flock - (Not one fold, a plain false print) no corrupt or divided flocks remaining. And one shepherd - Who laid down his life for the sheep, and will leave no hireling among them. The unity both of the flock and the shepherd shall he completed in its season.The shepherd shall bring all into one flock: and the whole flock shall hear the one shepherd.
10:17 I lay down my life that I may take it again - I cheerfully die to expiate the sins of men, to the end I may rise again for their justification.
10:18 I lay it down of myself - By my own free act and deed. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again - I have an original power and right of myself, both to lay it down as a ransom, and to take it again, after full satisfaction is made, for the sins of the whole world. This commission have I received of my Father - Which I readily execute. He chiefly spoke of the Father, before his suffering: of his ownglory, after it. Our Lord's receiving this commission as mediator is not to be considered as the ground of his power to lay down and resume his life. For this he had in him self, as having an original right to dispose thereof, antecedent to the Father's commission.But this commission was the reason why he thus used his power in laying down his life. He did it in obedience to his Father.
10:21 These are not the words - The word in the original takes in actions too.