John 10:1-21 (NASB)
“Truly, truly I say to you, the one who does not enter by the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbs up some other way, he is a thief and a robber. 2 But the one who enters by the door is a shepherd of the sheep. 3 To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep listen to his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.4 When he puts all his own sheep outside, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. 5 However, a stranger they simply will not follow, but will flee from him, because they do not know the voice of strangers.” 6 Jesus told them this figure of speech, but they did not understand what the things which He was saying to them meant.
7 So Jesus said to them again, “Truly, truly I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. 8 All those who came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. 9 I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came so that they would have life, and have it abundantly.
11 “I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. 12 He who is a hired hand, and not a shepherd, who is not the owner of the sheep, sees the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf snatches them and scatters the flock. 13 He flees because he is a hired hand and does not care about the sheep.14 I am the good shepherd, and I know My own, and My own know Me, 15 just as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. 16 And I have other sheep that are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will listen to My voice; and they will become one flock, with one shepherd. 17 For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it back. 18 No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it back. This commandment I received from My Father.”
19 Dissension occurred again among the Jews because of these words. 20 Many of them were saying, “He has a demon and is insane. Why do you listen to Him?” 21 Others were saying, “These are not the words of one who is demon-possessed. A demon cannot open the eyes of those who are blind, can it?”
This passage of John seems to be another misunderstood part of the Bible. Like a lot of statements that Jesus made, it can be misconstrued if we don’t take the time to read carefully what He is saying. I think Jesus means for this to be carefully heard, for He starts this passage by saying, “Truly, truly I say to you.” In the Greek, this word is amen. Strong’s Concordance defines this as “verily, truly, amen; at the end of sentences may be paraphrased by: So let it be.” Some translations keep this word in the text and so we can read it as, “Amen, amen I say to you.” I think Jesus starts off this way because He wants the listeners to pay close attention to what He is about to say. This is important. This is the truth. This is most certainly true, “the one who does not enter by the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbs up some other way, he is a thief and a robber.”
In this passage, He is still talking to the Pharisees. Jesus had healed a blind man on the sabbath and the Pharisees were upset about it. They questioned the man who was healed and then “put him out.” Which seems to imply that they excommunicated him. Jesus, the text tells us in John 9:35, heard that they had put him out, and went to him and talked with him again. The Pharisees were still following Jesus around, for John 9:40 says, “Those who were with Him from the Pharisees heard these things and said to Him, ‘We are not blind too, are we?’”
Even though this passage is a new chapter, this is a continuation of what Jesus was saying to the Pharisees. We know they were listening, for at the end of this, in John 10:19-21, the text tells us, “19 Dissension occurred again among the Jews because of these words. 20 Many of them were saying, ‘He has a demon and is insane. Why do you listen to Him?’ 21 Others were saying, ‘These are not the words of one who is demon-possessed. A demon cannot open the eyes of those who are blind, can it?’”
This is important to note, for it helps us understand what Jesus is saying. He has healed the blind man and the Pharisees and other Jewish leaders are debating how Jesus was able to heal him. Jesus uses this illustration of a shepherd and his sheep as an attempt to explain exactly who He is, yet they still don’t get it. Probably because they are blind to the fact that they are acting like imposters who sneak into the sheep pen. The Pharisees are trying to lead the sheep, but they are worse than the blind leading the blind; Jesus calls them thieves and robbers. Of course, they don’t get the illustration and so Jesus explains it more directly.
“7 So Jesus said to them again, ‘Truly, truly I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. 8 All those who came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. 9 I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came so that they would have life, and have it abundantly.’”
He clarifies that He is the door to the sheepfold. He will echo this truth again in John 14:6 when He says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through Me.” These other ways that prior leaders tried to lead people, they don’t lead to the Father. The Pharisees were upset that Jesus healed the blind man. They would rather the man stay blind. The path they wanted to lead the blind man down didn’t lead to abundant life. It led to him staying in darkness.
We still have this same situation today. There are many people who pose as shepherds, and they call out to the sheep. What they promise and offer people obviously sounds enticing to people, for they follow these false shepherds. They tell the sheep that sin doesn’t matter, hell doesn’t exist, and there are many paths to choose from and they all lead to God. All that sounds pretty nice. If that were true, we could be whoever we want, do whatever we want, believe whatever we want, and still end up in paradise. There are a lot of people posing as shepherds, and a lot of wolves in sheep’s clothing, trying to gain power and followers by making up all sorts of doctrines about God. This has always been a problem for even Paul warned the believers to watch out for false shepherds. He says in Colossians 2:4&8, “I say this so that no one will deceive you with persuasive arguments […] See to it that there is no one who takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception in accordance with human tradition, in accordance with the elementary principles of the world, rather than in accordance with Christ.”
There have always been these “thieves and robbers” who sneak into the sheepfold. They hop over the fence and pretend to speak for God. They pretend to be shepherds. Some people are deceived and they go along with them and follow them out of the pen.
This is a problem because there are wolves. Jesus explains this when He goes on to say, 11 “I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. 12 He who is a hired hand, and not a shepherd, who is not the owner of the sheep, sees the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf snatches them and scatters the flock. 13 He flees because he is a hired hand and does not care about the sheep.”
The false shepherd does not protect the sheep because he doesn’t love those sheep. Those sheep are just a means to an end. That false shepherd isn’t going to risk his life for the sake of those sheep. When the going gets tough or his own life is threatened, he’s going to take off. These counterfeits are gathering a large following of sheep, but what defense do they have against the wolves? A shepherd who preaches a gospel of cheap grace and self-centered living does not have any truth to offer their flock when trouble appears.
This is why is it paramount that we know Scripture. The only way we will avoid being taken in by “persuasive arguments” is if we know what the word of God says. Then we can weigh what someone is saying and see if it measures up to God’s standard. The only Shepherd we should follow is Jesus. We have to be careful that it is His voice we are following and not the world’s.
Jesus continues in verses 14 and 15, “I am the good shepherd, and I know My own, and My own know Me, just as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep.” Jesus loves us so much that He laid down His life for us. He willingly died on the cross to defeat the wolves of sin and death. This is the heart of the gospel. This is why we love Him so much. He is the good shepherd. The Greek word here is kalos, and according to Strong’s Concordance, it is better translated as beautiful. Jesus is the beautiful shepherd. The longer definition is: “beautiful, as an outward sign of the inward good, noble, honorable character; good, worthy, honorable, noble, and seen to be so.”
In other words, Jesus has proven Himself to be beautiful. He is without blemish. There is nothing which is not perfect within Him. There is no flaw or stain on Him: he’s the perfectly beautiful shepherd. Knowing this, why would we want to follow anyone but Him? He is the One who loves us so much that He died on the cross for us. He was able to do that because He was sinless and perfect. Why would anyone want to follow a different voice than His? He says that if we are His, then we will listen to Him, know His voice, and follow Him.
Then in verse 16, He says, “And I have other sheep that are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will listen to My voice; and they will become one flock, with one shepherd.”
This does not mean that other religions contain people who will be included in the sheepfold and they will end up in Heaven. They will only be included in the flock if they leave that religion and come to Jesus. Rather, He is talking about people who are not saved at this moment. And quite specifically, He was probably referencing the fact that soon He would be calling the gentiles to Him. Instead of focusing only on the Jewish people, He was to call all people, gentiles included, into His fold. I think that is why He emphasizes this flock is one flock, with one shepherd. There are no other flocks. He is the only way.
Then Jesus explains in verses 17 and 18, “For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it back. No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it back. This commandment I received from My Father.”
Knowing that the Pharisees are here listening as Jesus is talking this whole time, I wonder if He spoke these two verses for their benefit. He knows that they have already started plotting against Him. There are some who want to get rid of Him. Jesus, of course, knows what is going to happen and how everything is going to play out. He knows that eventually they will have Him arrested and crucified. It’s like He is preemptively telling them, “You can’t do anything to me that I don’t allow to happen.” He’s letting them know, even if they don’t understand what He’s saying, that He has the authority to do all this and they have zero authority over Him.
The Pharisees, if you remember, are obsessed with authority. They are so focused on how or by whose authority Jesus is able to heal people. We find a great example of this in Matthew 21:23-27, which says:
23 When He entered the temple area, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to Him while He was teaching, and said, “By what authority are You doing these things, and who gave You this authority?” 24 But Jesus responded and said to them, “I will also ask you one question, which, if you tell Me, I will also tell you by what authority I do these things. 25 The baptism of John was from what source: from heaven or from men?” And they began considering the implications among themselves, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ He will say to us, ‘Then why did you not believe him?’ 26 But if we say, ‘From men,’ we fear the people; for they all regard John as a prophet.” 27 And answering Jesus, they said, “We do not know.” He also said to them, “Neither am I telling you by what authority I do these things.
The answer to that question is the answer to their question. By what authority is Jesus doing these things? The source of the baptism of John was from heaven, the same source as Jesus’ authority. They couldn’t answer Jesus and find out the source because to do so would have been admitting they were wrong one way or the other. I also think they didn’t want to know the truth. They didn’t want to hear what Jesus had been saying all along. For right here, in John 10:17 &18, we saw that He already told them exactly who He was and what He was about to do. Reading it again, He says, “17 For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it back. 18 No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it back. This commandment I received from My Father.”
Jesus has already told them His authority is from heaven. He has all authority because He comes from the Father and everything is His. He has all authority because He is God, and as such, He is perfect and sinless. This is the hang-up that trips the Pharisees. They did not know who Jesus really was. The question always comes down to this: Who is Jesus?
Which is exactly what we see happening at the end of this passage. Verses 19 to 21 say, “Dissension occurred again among the Jews because of these words. Many of them were saying, ‘He has a demon and is insane. Why do you listen to Him?’ Others were saying, ‘These are not the words of one who is demon-possessed. A demon cannot open the eyes of those who are blind, can it?’”
They were arguing amongst themselves, trying to decide who Jesus was. He had explained exactly who He was and where He came from, and yet they did not understand Him. Maybe if they had listened instead of arguing. I can’t help but wonder if that is a problem still today. We have all these religious leaders arguing amongst themselves, debating over all sorts of topics, and yet I rarely see someone quote what Jesus has to say. People will quote theologians or authors, or make-up their own quippy phrases, and all of it sounds so clever. Then other people will nit-pick it and debate whether or not it was good. All of this in the name of Christianity. Yet, I don’t see any of that pointing people to Jesus. I rarely see anyone quoting something that Jesus actually said. It makes me question whether those people want others to follow Jesus or follow them. If they wanted to point people to Jesus, shouldn’t they be talking about what He said?
The Pharisees didn’t want the people to follow Jesus. He was going to cause problems for them, for what if the people stopped listening to them and started listening to Jesus instead? In their mind, He couldn’t be the prophesied Messiah, for He wasn’t behaving the way they expected Him to behave. He wasn’t overthrowing the Roman government and giving them more power. He was talking about self-sacrifice and forgiveness of sins and loving people. That didn’t sound like things they wanted. He was breaking their rules and healing people on the sabbath, that couldn’t be right. Jesus didn’t match their religion.
I see the same thing happening today. Jesus’ words seem outdated, so people have modernized the Bible and changed some of these words because they just don’t fit our current culture. That is how we keep getting new translations of scripture. That is how a large percentage of Christians end up reading from and quoting paraphrases of the Bible, like The Message, instead of the actual word of God. If we only read paraphrases, we risk dulling our ears and we might find that we can’t actually hear Jesus’ voice anymore. We risk becoming so dulled to the truth that we can’t remember what Jesus actually said. And then we start altering our theology to match the paraphrase. Let me get really blunt: if you find that your beliefs about Jesus cannot be supported from actual scripture, then you need to change your beliefs to match scripture. Scripture is the word of God. It is the voice of Jesus which we must follow and His word does not change just because cultures change. Remember what Jesus said in verse 9: “I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.” Jesus is the only way to be saved. He is the only door. That is why we must know His voice and follow Him.
We all must answer the same question that plagued the Pharisees. Who is Jesus? What authority does He have? The answer to this question answers all other questions. I know I keep coming back to this point, but it is really that important. If Jesus is the good shepherd and the only gate by which we must come into the pen, then we need to make sure that it is His voice we are listening to. Again, this is another reason why the Holy Spirit is so important. Later on, as recorded in John 16:7 & 13 Jesus said this to the disciples: “Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you [and] when the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.”
The Holy Spirit will help us discern the truth. He will speak to our hearts and minds and help us follow Jesus. But we have to respond to the Holy Spirit’s promptings. We have to obey Him when He brings God’s word to our minds. We have to study and know Scripture so we remember what He has said. That is how we can follow Him and not lose sight of the Good Shepherd. If we get deceived and taken in by false shepherds, we risk being devoured by the wolves of sin and lies. Let us cling to Jesus and to what His unchanging word says. Let us pray for the Holy Spirit to lead us into all truth. The more we know the Shepherd’s voice, the better we can follow Him.
Pray: Jesus, our Good Shepherd, thank You for loving us so much that You laid down Your life for us. Please help us, by Your Holy Spirit, to hear Your voice and follow You. Please lead us and guide us every day of our lives. Please give us wisdom so we are not taken captive by false ideas about You. Please guide us to the truth of Your unchanging word. We love You and praise Your name, amen.
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