John 10 - Introduction

The Good Shepherd.

The teaching given here continues the theme in chapter 9. Here Jesus speaks of the whole of Israel as being like a sheepfold, with the Israelites like sheep, some properly shepherded and some led astray, while the false teachers who oppose Him, the blind who lead the blind, are seen as like false shepherds who climb into the sheepfold and lead the sheep astray, finally destroying them. Jesus in contrast has come as a good Shepherd to enable those of them who will respond to Him, to walk with God and enjoy eternal life.

The picture is undoubtedly Messianic. In the Old Testament God was the shepherd of the sheep and He would raise up a new David to be shepherd over them. ‘I will set up one shepherd over them, and He will feed them, even My servant David. He will feed them, and He will be their shepherd. And I the LORD will be their God, and My servant David will be prince among them' (Ezekiel 34:23). ‘And My servant David will be king over them, and they will all have one shepherd' (Ezekiel 37:24).

So the sheepfold is the whole house of Israel, and is under God's general oversight (as the Porter), being full of sheep awaiting the Messianic shepherd to lead them out into pasture. But within it there are different flocks, and these are affected by and respond to different shepherds. God has sought to protect the sheep and has provided a way in and out by which they may be kept safe and know the truth, but sadly many of them disobey Him. They respond to false shepherds who refuse to use God's way in. These are false shepherds who, instead of taking the sheep in and out to pasture through the correct entrance, which is under God's approval, are like shepherds who climb over the wall and decimate and harm the sheep.

Note the implication that those other shepherds in no way have God's approval. He has not sent them among the flocks of Israel. The Porter has not opened to them.

The direct contrast then is between the Judaisers and Himself. The Judaisers are those Sadducees and Pharisees who were continually expressing opposition, and indeed were planning to kill Him, and who rejected the God-approved doorway, and pointed to other than Himself. He Himself is in fact that doorway. Thus those sheep who follow Him and see in Him the Way to God, the essence of Truth and the source of all Life (John 14:6), the Bread of life (John 6:35), the Water of life (John 7:37; John 4:10) and the Light of life (John 8:12), will use Him as the way in and out day by day, and walk under the smile of God's approval, as they walk in God's ways under the good Shepherd. They will be saved, for they have entered through the true doorway, through Jesus Christ Himself (John 10:9).

But the other sheep, who are shepherdless, and are snatched by the false shepherds who claim to offer the sheep life, in fact face death, deprivation and destruction at their hands (John 10:10). For while claiming to offer the true way to God these false shepherds reject God's approved way to Himself, and try to climb in some other way, avoiding the Porter, and avoiding facing up to what Jesus is. Thus they are rejected by the Porter. That is why they seek to construct a way in of their own and come in over the wall. It is clearly only something done by thieves and robbers.

The One who uses the doorway is the true shepherd of the sheep. And Jesus points to Himself also as that doorway. He leads them in and out through Himself. Now that He has come He is the only way in to God's approval. He is the true Shepherd of the sheep and also the true Doorway of the sheepfold. Those who are true in Israel will use this doorway, for it is the only doorway sanctioned by God. This will reveal them to be His true sheep.

The gatekeeper (the Father) opens to the true Shepherd, and the Shepherd's sheep within recognise His voice, and He calls His own sheep by name and leads them out. Day by day, when He has brought out all His sheep, He goes before them, and the sheep follow Him, for they know His voice, and by night they are under the protection of the Porter, and protected too by the door. We must to some extent distinguish between the door that is closed and locked for the night, and the door or doorway which is the way in. But we can recognise that Jesus is both, although the emphasis is on the latter. Thus by day they are under His care as the Shepherd, and their entry to God is through Him, and at night they are under His care as the locked door. They will not follow a stranger but will run from him, for they do not recognise the voice of strangers. Their lives are safe and blessed because daily they go in and out with the Shepherd. And night by night they return through the true doorway into the fold, which is Himself, and He Who is the door protects the doorway behind them. (Jesus is so much more than just a Shepherd or Doorway that no illustration of what He is can possibly be totally consistent, for He appears everywhere in the story of salvation. He is Door, Doorway and Shepherd).

The imagery would be well known to all His listeners. A sheepfold, was often constructed of thickets and hedges, but this one would appear to be a larger and more permanent one with walls built to keep out intruders, presided over by a gatekeeper, and able to take a number of flocks. The fold for securing the sheep at night; the one entry way; the gatekeeper who has overall charge of the communal sheepfold when the shepherds are resting; the response of sheep to a particular shepherd who knows his sheep personally and has names for each one; all would be familiar. So would rustler shepherds.

It should be recognised that the sheepfold does not only contain Jesus' sheep. It contains all the sheep of the house of Israel, awaiting a shepherd, who are in general under God's care. Yet many refuse to follow the good Shepherd because they are not of His sheep. However, it does also contain those sheep who are under the Shepherd who do follow Him. Later other folds will be mentioned containing the Gentiles (John 10:16). They too await a shepherd.

But alas, many in the folds will continue to follow false shepherds and remain lost. Thus the fold is not Heaven, nor the Kingly Rule of God (it contains the unresponsive), nor is it the true church (because there are many folds while there is only one true church composed of all true believers in Christ), nor is it the sphere of salvation (unless we mean the sphere of potential salvation), nor is it the number of the elect, although it contains many of them, nor is it the place in which only Christ's sheep are found. Such ideas are attractive and a slightly altered parable could be constructed to suit them well, with any one of them being the fold, but that is not what Jesus is talking about here.

He is talking firstly about all the people in Israel as in one fold, (the congregation of Israel, as the Old Testament describes them) and then of the world outside Israel in different folds, who are all yearningly waiting for a good shepherd, but in many cases are ravaged by false shepherds because they have rejected the true. But among them are those happy few who have been given to the good Shepherd, and have responded to Him, and go in and out under His care and protection, obeying His voice and following Him. For they see in Him the true doorway of the sheepfold.

The message is clear. It is not the fold which is important but response to the true Shepherd and the use of the right doorway to God. It is He on Whom the picture is concentrated. The true sheep, those given by the Father to Jesus, are those who recognise the voice of the Shepherd, and they will only follow Him and no one else, and He brings them in and out by the true doorway in order to give them abundant pasture, while the remainder of the sheep starve and suffer because they are seized by false shepherds.

These who follow the true Shepherd are those who have been given to Jesus by the Father (John 10:29, compare John 6:37; John 6:39; John 6:44) and they are the ones who will hear His voice and follow Him. Every one of them is safe, for they are His, and He will not let them be destroyed. They are safe in all their ways. It is Psalms 23 in action.

But the other sheep in the fold do not use the doorway. They listen to and follow false shepherds who break in through and over the walls and who ravage the sheep. For them there only awaits death, loss and destruction.

This may be clear to us (or may even be misinterpreted by us) through familiarity. But those who heard this ‘figure' (paroimia - ‘it suggests the notion of a mysterious saying full of compressed thought rather than that of a simple comparison') originally did not understand it (John 10:6). Its deeper truth had not come home to them.

The true shepherd is a familiar Old Testament picture. God will send David (i.e. the Messiah - Ezekiel 34:23; Ezekiel 37:24 compare Jeremiah 23:4) to be His shepherd, and God Himself is the Shepherd of His own (Psalms 23; Psalms 80:1; Isaiah 40:11). Especially poignant is the description in Zechariah 13:7 where His appointed shepherd, who stands next to Him, will be smitten, and Zechariah 11:7 where God's appointed shepherd, rejected by the people, receives his wages of thirty pieces of silver and casts them into the treasury. So Jesus as the Messiah fulfils the Old Testament promises of a true Shepherd.

Also familiar in the Old Testament is the idea of false shepherds, and of Israel without a shepherd, constantly in need (e.g. Numbers 27:17; Isaiah 56:9; Jeremiah 10:21; Jeremiah 23:1; Jeremiah 25:32; Ezekiel 34:1; Zechariah 11:1). There are those who believe that the set Scripture readings in the synagogue laid emphasis on the shepherd passages at this time.