Most assuredly, I say to you, he
who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs up some other way, the
same is a thief and a robber. But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of
the sheep. To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice; and he
calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. John 10:1-3
Jesus began (Chapter 10) with
contrasts, and the first contrast was between the one who enters the door of
the sheepfold and those who climb over the fences and try to sneak into the
sheepfold by some other way. Those who try to sneak in are thieves and robbers,
Jesus said, but the shepherd uses the door.
Some biblical commentators look
at this text and say that when Jesus spoke of thieves and robbers, He referred
to false messiahs or to the Devil. I don’t think so; this comment is far more
pointed than that. Remember, this comment came right on the heels of a very
heated discussion between Jesus and the Pharisees about the man born blind.
This is the context here. Jesus addressed those whom God had called to be the
shepherds over His flock, the clergy of His day, who had so recently cast the
healed man out of the synagogue, rejecting a sheep in the flock of God. Jesus
called these clergy, the Pharisees, thieves and robbers.
Jesus drew this illustration from
the sheep industry of the day. The way sheep were cared for in ancient Israel
was very different from the way they are handled today. In those days, there
was one large, central pen, or sheepfold, in a given community, and at the end
of the day people brought their small individual flocks and led them into the
big sheepfold. With their combined resources, they paid a gatekeeper, and it
was his job to stay with the sheep during the night.
In the morning, the gatekeeper
opened the gate to those who were truly shepherds, whose sheep were enclosed in
the sheepfold. The shepherds entered by the door, for they had every right to
do so—the sheep were theirs and the gatekeeper was their paid servant. When a
shepherd entered the sheepfold, the sheep of all the local flocks were mixed,
but he began to call, and his sheep recognized his voice and came to him. In
fact, a good shepherd was so intimately involved with the care and the nurture
of his sheep that he had names for them, and he would call them by name. His
sheep followed him out because they knew him.
Jesus used this particular
illustration over and over again to speak about His relationship to those whom
the Father had given Him, to those who are believers. The illustration teaches
us that Christ knows the believer and the believer knows Him, recognizes His
voice, and follows Him. This two-way knowledge is absolutely essential. Jesus
gave a dreadful warning about this at the end of the Sermon on the Mount when
He said: “Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied
in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your
name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you
who practice lawlessness!’ ” (Matt. 7:22–23). He said, “You are not My
sheep if you don’t know Me and I don’t know you.”
Sproul, R. C. John. St. Andrew's Expositional
Commentary. Lake Mary, FL: Reformation Trust Publishing, 2009.
For more on John 10, click HERE and listen to, “KNOWING
JESUS AS THE GOOD SHEPHERD.”
