Pictures of Jesus: The Shepherd of God (John 10:1–21)

Listen or read the following transcript as D. A. Carson speaks on the topic of the Person of Christ from John 10:1–21

“ ‘I tell you the truth, the man who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber. The man who enters by the gate is the shepherd of his sheep. The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice.’

Jesus used this figure of speech, but they did not understand what he was telling them. Therefore Jesus said again, ‘I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep. All who ever came before me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand is not the shepherd who owns the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me—just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep.

I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there will be one flock and one shepherd. The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.’

At these words, the Jews were again divided. Many of them said, ‘He is demon-possessed and raving mad. Why listen to him?’ But others said, ‘These are not the sayings of a man possessed by a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?’ ”

So reads the Word of God. Let us pray.

How wonderful it is, Lord God, to gather aside with your people to think through your holiness, to sing your praise because of your love. We are a needy people, and apart from such gracious love poured out supremely at Calvary and poured out afresh again and again as you call men and women to yourself and prepare them for eternity, we would all be lost.

Grant, Lord God, as we draw near to you we may learn to hate sin, to fear and reject all that is tawdry and cheap and selfish, to stop making excuses for ourselves and turn and find blessed relief and forgiveness at the cross where Jesus died for us that we might be acceptable to you. We bless you that he is the Good Shepherd who gave his life for his sheep. Grant that we may understand the significance of this sublime truth tonight and bear it with us all this week and, thus, prepare our path, not only for this life but for the life to come. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Some metaphors, of course, are quickly dated. They just can’t be passed on very easily from one generation to another. A couple of years ago, Kenneth Kantzer, the former dean of our seminary, and Carl Henry, the dean of American evangelicalism in many respects, now 81 or 82, gave some lectures at Trinity giving a kind of potted history of the last 50 years of evangelicalism in the Western world. They have participated in so much of it and had led so much by way of reform and theological education and publishing.

They were giving a kind of bird’s-eye view for a new generation of students. This was all on video. You can get the tape. At the end, I was supposed to interview them on tape for about an hour. This was taking place at the time of the Gulf War and at one point in the conversation when I asked Carl Henry what he thought we needed on the evangelism front, he traipsed out one metaphor after another all dependent on the Gulf War.

He said, “We don’t need vaguely-fired scud attacks. We need a veritable desert storm of proclamation and witness and truth. Then, as we target certain groups, we need a patriot missile approach that goes right after certain kinds of people.” Just one after the other. Finally, I asked him if he was speaking as the mother of all theologians.

After this was all over, as we were editing this down to a manageable size, it dawned on me virtually everything that was said on that two-hour tape would be understandable should the Lord tarry in another 50 or 60 years except for that exchange. I’m not sure how many of those particular metaphors will still be around in 50 years. A scud attack? Maybe the mother of all this or the mother of all that. That has just about worked its way into the American language now, but the others haven’t.

In God’s gracious purposes, the Bible is in many ways historically conditioned. God has not given his revelation to us in a kind of abstract, universal language that all people hear exactly the same way in every generation. God spoke to certain men and women in certain languages at certain times in history, so part of our task in understanding the Bible is understanding how it was understood then, what that language meant, what those forms of expression meant.

That’s why, in part, we train people at the seminary to learn Hebrew and Greek and Aramaic, because words didn’t mean exactly what they mean today, and the idioms are a little different. Here, Jesus says, “I am the good shepherd.” When he said that, everybody knew a shepherd and a lot of people were shepherds.

Today, I’m quite sure there’s no one in this room who has been a shepherd. Probably none of us even knows a shepherd. If any of us have been shepherds, then we’ve been shepherds in quite a different sort of framework. Are there any Australians here? No. In Australia, of course, if you’re a shepherd, you’re a shepherd on a sheep station with, perhaps, hundreds of square miles. You round up the sheep the way cowboys in the Western parts of the United States a century ago rounded up cattle with horses and so on.

If you’re a shepherd in Scotland, then you use dogs. You give a little whistle, and the dog runs to the left; another little whistle, and it runs to the right. None of that is relevant in our passage because shepherds, in the first-century Middle East, operated in quite a different way. If you go to the Middle East today in Bedouin communities and some poor Arab communities, you can find very similar patterns. The shepherds actually lead their sheep, and they have certain calls so the whole flock follows them.

In other words, it’s important for us to understand what some of these metaphors look like on the plane of history before we can untangle them to see exactly what they’re trying to tell us about who Jesus is and his relationship to his people. This is not a narrative parable. Unlike some of the parables in the Synoptic Gospels where you have a plotline, a story that is told, there is no narrative here. There is no plot.

What you have instead is a kind of extended metaphorical usage of sheep farming metaphors. That’s what you have. In general terms, what Jesus is after is clear enough. He is colorfully portraying some of the features in the relationship he sustains with his own people, his own flock. What kind of leader is he? What kind of shepherd is he? How should we see our relationship to him? We may discern four points in our text.

1. Jesus knows his own people.

Verses 1 to 5. The details would be familiar to any of John’s first readers. The sheep are in a sheepfold, a sheep pen. In a poor family, this could just be in a small family courtyard or the like, but in many villages, there was an independent enclosure where several families kept their sheep who were watched over, then, especially at night by a watchman.

These various families would bring their sheep into the enclosure at night, hire a watchman who would keep out intruders or wild animals, and the next morning, the individual shepherds would come back to the sheep pen and the watchman would allow in only the appropriate shepherds. Then the shepherds would call out their flocks.

“I tell you the truth, the man who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber. The man who enters by the gate is the shepherd of his sheep. The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name …” In other words, there are some sheep there that are not his own, so he comes in and he has a little call.

All the sheep that know that call all follow him out. He knows them. In fact, that is the way it was done in the Middle East, the way it is still done today. A certain call, and the sheep follow him. But this shepherd goes even further. He knows them all by name. The metaphor is pushed all the way to the wall. This shepherd knows his sheep so intimately he can name them. John, Charlie, Alice, and Susan. They can all come right after him.

The sheep, then, in the sustained argument turns out to be Judaism (we’ll see that in a moment), but his own sheep, the remnant, the elect if you will, the messianic community, within the sheep pen he calls them by name, and they follow him. He brings them all out. Verse 4: “He goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. But they will never follow a stranger.” No, no, no. They follow the shepherd.

By contrast, thieves and robbers intend only to brutalize the sheep. The watchman would never let them in (verses 1 to 3), so they climb in some unauthorized way. We have seen again and again as we have tracked our way through certain parts of John’s gospel how often there are allusions to wonderful passages in the Old Testament.

Here again, there is an allusion to an Old Testament theme that is very rich. Very often, in the Old Testament, there are prophetic denunciations of the religious leaders of the day using precisely the categories of sheep farming that we find here. We don’t have time to look at all of them, but let me draw your attention to a few.

First of all, Isaiah 56, verses 9 to 12. “Come, all you beasts of the field, come and devour, all you beasts of the forest! Israel’s watchmen are blind, they all lack knowledge; they are all mute dogs, they cannot bark; they lie around and dream, they love to sleep. They are dogs with mighty appetites; they never have enough. They are shepherds who lack understanding; they all turn to their own way, each seeks his own gain. ‘Come,’ each one cries, ‘let me get wine! Let us drink our fill of beer! And tomorrow will be like today, only far better.’ ”

In other words, you have religious leaders who are in for number one. That’s it. Again, perhaps even more startlingly, Jeremiah, chapter 23, verses 1 and 2. “ ‘Woe to the shepherds who are destroying and scattering the sheep of my pasture!’ declares the Lord. Therefore this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says to the shepherds who tend my people: ‘Because you have scattered my flock and driven them away and have not bestowed care on them, I will bestow punishment on you for the evil you have done,’ declares the Lord.”

Then, God says, “I myself will gather the remnant.” In other words, the Lord projects himself as being the ultimate Good Shepherd. Again, in Jeremiah 25, verses 32 and following, “This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘Look! Disaster is spreading from nation to nation; a mighty storm is rising from the ends of the earth.’ At that time those slain by the Lord …” In his judgment. “… will be everywhere—from one end of the earth to the other.” Verse 34:

“Weep and wail, you shepherds; roll in the dust, you leaders of the flock. For your time to be slaughtered has come; you will fall and be shattered like fine pottery. The shepherds will have nowhere to flee, the leaders of the flock no place to escape. Hear the cry of the shepherds, the wailing of the leaders of the flock, for the Lord is destroying their pasture.”

Perhaps the most dramatic passage of all in the Old Testament or perhaps the two most dramatic are, first, Ezekiel 34 and then Zechariah 11 and 12. We’ll look at the first, Ezekiel 34. Ezekiel 34 in two parts. First, verses 1 to 10, which is terrible denunciation, and then, verses 11 and following, which brings great promise.

Chapter 34:1 to 10. God says, “Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel; prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Woe to the shepherds of Israel who only take care of themselves! Should not shepherds take care of the flock? You eat the curds, clothe yourselves with the wool and slaughter the choice animals, but you do not take care of the flock.

You have not strengthened the weak or healed the sick or bound up the injured. You have not brought back the strays or searched for the lost. You have ruled them harshly and brutally. So they were scattered because there was no shepherd, and when they were scattered they became food for all the wild animals. My sheep wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill. They were scattered over the whole earth, and no one searched or looked for them.

Therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the Lord: As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, because my flock lacks a shepherd and so has been plundered and has become food for all the wild animals, and because my shepherds did not search for my flock but cared for themselves rather than for my flock, therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the Lord:

This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I am against the shepherds and will hold them accountable for my flock. I will remove them from tending the flock so that the shepherds can no longer feed themselves. I will rescue my flock from their mouths, and it will no longer be food for them.” Terrible denunciation.

I do not know any godly pastor who has ever read such passages without trembling. Then, the whole tone changes, and in a long sustained use of the same metaphor, the Shepherd, the Shepherd par excellence, is God himself. I won’t read the whole passage, but listen to this first-person language all through it.

“For this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I myself will search for my sheep.” Verse 12: “I will look after my sheep. I will rescue them.” Verse 13: “I will bring them out from the nations and gather them. I will pasture them.” Verse 14: “I will tend them in a good pasture, and the mountain heights of Israel will be their grazing land.”

Verse 15: “I myself will tend my sheep and have them lie down.” Verse 17: “As for you, my flock, this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I will judge between one sheep and another, and between rams and goats. Is it not enough for you to feed on the good pasture? Must you also trample the rest of your pasture with your feet?”

Verse 19: “Must my flock feed on what you have trampled and drink what you have muddied with your feet? I myself will judge between the fat sheep and the lean sheep.” Verse 22: “I will save my flock. I will judge between one sheep and another.” All the way through, God himself takes over. He’s the Good Shepherd.

Then another jump. Verse 23: “I will place over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he will tend them; he will tend them and be their shepherd. I the Lord will be their God, and my servant David will be prince among them. I the Lord have spoken. I will make a covenant of peace.”

We’ve seen this tying of themes together from the Old Testament before. We’ve seen how often Old Testament promises of the final restoration of things turn on either God himself going to lay bear his arm, going to visit his people, going to rescue them, going to save them, or God sending his servant David to do so. In a few passages we’ve seen, they’ve come together. We saw that in Isaiah, chapter 9, when we looked at the prologue (John 1:1–18).

There you have God himself coming to his people. Yet, on the one hand, you have, “For unto us a child is born. Unto us a Son is given. The government will be on his shoulder. He will reign on the throne of his father David, but he will be called the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.” So also here, the Good Shepherd seems to be God himself. The Good Shepherd is great David’s greater son.

There is even more startling language in Zechariah 11 that I’ll pass by. What this means, however, when Jesus comes along in John, chapter 10, and says, “I am the good shepherd,” for those with ears to hear there is explicit messianic claim. He is not just saying, “I am one first-rate pastor, unlike some of the shoddy types you’ve had before.” He’s not just saying that.

He is saying, rather, that he is the promised eschatological Shepherd, and for those with ears to hear, he’s saying something even more. God himself has promised to come. Yahweh has promised to come. Has he not already said in John, chapter 8, “Before Abraham was I am”? It is the I Am, it is Yahweh himself who is the Good Shepherd. As the Good Shepherd from another vantage point is great David’s greater Son, so Jesus fleshes out the contrast between the Good Shepherd and those who brutalize the sheep.

When we hear these overtones from Ezekiel, we remember Ezekiel 34, Jesus the Good Shepherd. Ezekiel 36 … There, if you recall, is the background for John 3. Jesus is the gift of God, the promise of the new birth. Ezekiel 37, we’ll see next week, lies behind, “I am the resurrection and the life.” That’s the Valley of Dry Bones passage. Jesus’ mind is steeped in Scripture, and he is pulling out whole themes and passages from Isaiah, we’ve seen, and from Ezekiel and from other parts of the Word of God, and he’s claiming to bring these things together and to be their fulfillment.

But the distinction Jesus especially drives home in this paragraph turns, then, on his own personal knowledge, the knowledge the shepherd has of the sheep. All Near-Eastern shepherds stood and called their flock apart. He goes further and calls his own sheep by name, and they hear his voice, and they recognize him, and they follow him. This is a wonderful thought.

Biblical Christianity is creedal (it has creeds to be believed), but it is not merely creedal. Biblical Christianity is religious (it enters into the whole realm of sacrifice and God and truth claim), but it is not merely religious. Biblical Christianity even has one or two rituals (baptism and the Lord’s Supper), but it can’t be reduced to ritual. Biblical Christianity is nothing less, although it embraces all of the elements I’ve mentioned and more, than knowing God and being known by him.

Nor is Jesus the kind of leader who simply demands homage but does not know his followers, like manipulators and religious gurus who control and direct but do not know their people. This is one of the great themes of the Bible: God knows us. Not just in the sense that he knows everybody and everything, a function of his omniscience, but in the sense that he owns his people as his and knows them personally as they know him, personally and experientially.

He concerns himself with their welfare. He is not simply demanding things of them. He knows them, he loves them, and he cares for them. In the words of Angelus Silesius, “How marvelous that I, a filthy clod, may yet hold converse with my God.” Jesus is the Good Shepherd, and that brings me to the second point.

2. Jesus nurtures his own people.

Verse 6. “Jesus used this figure of speech, but they did not understand what he was telling them.” They could see it was a metaphor, but they didn’t pick up the messianic connections with the Old Testament. They didn’t see what kind of claim was being made. They certainly didn’t understand the depth of his love or the shattering dimensions of his claim. They still didn’t understand.

Therefore, Jesus said again (verses 7 to 10) … Here, the metaphor changes. Now in these verses, Jesus is not the shepherd who goes through the gate (verse 7); he is the gate. “I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep.” Sometimes out in the wild a shepherd would make a small enclosure of brambles at night. If it was too far out to track the sheep back, they’d make a small enclosure, let them in, and lie down in the gap themselves. Thus, they became both shepherd and gate.

That’s probably the kind of image that is at stake, but now in this image, there’s no watchman. There’s no watchman allowing in a shepherd into a communal enclosure. There’s only this one shepherd with his own sheep in this enclosure. What he now does, we are told, is lead them out and lead them in. He leads them out to find pasture. He nurtures them. He leads them in to the enclosure at night for safety. He still nurtures them. That’s now the image.

“All who have come before me are thieves and robbers. I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” Jesus nurtures his own people.

This in-and-out language is almost certainly picking up something Moses wrote about in Numbers, chapter 27. Moses, looking to the future says to the Lord (Numbers 27, verses 15 and following), “May the Lord, the God of the spirits of all mankind, appoint a man over this community to go out and come in before them, one who will lead them out and bring them in, so the Lord’s people will not be like sheep without a shepherd.”

The language is coming together. He is the one who leads the people out into the rich pasturelands and brings them in. The Lord’s people do have a shepherd who is the gate himself. Other would-be saviors are not. This does not mean there was no good prophet or no good king, that Moses didn’t play his part and David didn’t play his. No.

The point is, anyone who claims to be shepherd in this saving sense of nurturing the people with this kind of salvific power, they’re all charlatans. All. All. “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life.” Some leaders do come with high promises but then do nothing more than fleece the sheep.

This is true in the political arena, is it not? Nations, especially when they come to an end of themselves, turn to deliverers like Stalin and Mao and Hitler and Idi Amin and Pol Pot, and in the long haul, they learn they confiscate personal property, they steal, and they butcher people. That’s what their security police are for. They kill. They savage all that is valuable. They have come only to destroy.

Some religious leaders are no better. Was the savage Iran-Iraq War any better? Who inspired it or the Sikh bloodshed about three years ago? Sad to say, not a few have claimed Christ’s name and set out in similar bloodthirstiness, but this is focusing even more narrowly on the flock of God, not just what happens in the political arena, although for the Old Testament community it was hard to divorce the political arena from the religious.

Even religious leaders in the confessing Christian church can savage the flock in all kinds of ways. When the PCUSA approves ordination for practicing and self-confessed homosexuals, is this on the long haul nurturing the flock or protecting the flock? I’m not picking on homosexuality because it’s a worse sin than others but just because it is a sin. That’s all.

Or some televangelists who quite clearly have little gospel and much fleecing of the sheep. Have they protected the flock? Have they done good? Have they elevated Christian truth and godliness in the land, or have they made Christianity a laughingstock? Have they helped the church? There’s the odd one, but by and large, this has not been a strong point in American evangelicalism. God help us.

Even at local levels, we may get into power politics and endless one-upmanship, more interested in our reputation for holiness than a reputation for power than in either holiness or nurture. Jesus says, “I have come that they may have life and have it to the full.” This, of course, is the expression from which we get, in the King James Version, the phrase abundant life. “I have come that they might have abundant life.”

Any number of evangelistic appeals has been based on this promise of abundant life, but it is very important to understand abundant life does not simply mean more life. It is first to be understood within the metaphorical framework and then to understand what that means when you take it outside.

Within the metaphorical framework, what it means is fat, contented sheep, safe from oppression, well-nourished, trimmed, looked after, cared for, and secured. They have abundant life. Outside the metaphor, what it means, of course, is not that they become greedy and selfish and materialistic, fat in that sense. What it means in the context here is they know the Shepherd. They know this God. Their spiritual life is flourishing. They know this eternal God.

That, as we’ll see, turns on dealing with sin, living for all eternity. This abundant life, then, is not a question of self-fulfillment as an end but personal fulfillment because of the great privilege of belonging to Jesus’ flock. If we do not make that clear in our evangelism, we are promising something that not only we cannot deliver but we ought not deliver.

The school of self-expression, the school of self-fulfillment, which took a radical shoot in the 60s and has not really stopped (it has merely kept transmuting its face from decade to decade), in some ways burns itself out in every generation. One of the spokespersons for the school of self-expression at the end of the 60s said, “We took what we wanted, and now we find we no longer want what we took.” Many people have a similar background of religious experience, do they not?

I tried the broken cisterns, Lord,

But, ah, the waters failed;

Even as I stooped to drink they fled,

And mocked me as I wailed.

Now none but Christ can satisfy.

He has come to give us abundant life. Nothing else will do. We look for fulfillment in life and vitality in all the wrong places. Jesus came to nurture his people, to give them abundant life.

3. Jesus dies for his own people.

Verse 11: “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” What an astonishing statement! Within the metaphorical world, the words, “The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep,” can mean no more than the Good Shepherd is prepared to do so.

Like David, a bear comes to attack the sheep. He’s prepared to risk his life to fight off the bear to save the sheep. A lion comes to attack the sheep. He’s prepared to fight off the lion and risk his life to save the sheep. Within the metaphorical world, that’s all that can be meant. No shepherd goes out and actually offers his life as a sacrifice for the sake of the sheep. “Come and get me, lion!” The very notion is idiotic because, then, what would the sheep do next? There’s another lion around the corner. There’s always another danger.

Some shepherds, doubtless, tried to do what David did. Doubtless, some did lose their lives, but within the metaphorical world, the good shepherd does not intend to die. Within the metaphorical world, the good shepherd does not intend to lay down his life for his sheep, but that’s what Jesus does.

He takes that metaphor and pushes it all the way to the wall; so far that he makes it clear he is a very peculiar Good Shepherd indeed. He intends to die for his sheep. He is doing so, in fact, at his heavenly Father’s behest, and this alone is what makes him the Good Shepherd par excellence.

Thus, verses 14 and 15. “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me—just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep.” Verse 17: “The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life.” Only that’s not the end of the story. “I take it up again. I lay it down only to take it up again. No one takes it from me.” Jesus is not a martyr. He’s not a Stephen. No. He lays it down of his own accord. He has authority to lay it down. He has authority to take it up again. This command he received from his Father.

This is language, of course, very much like that we saw in chapter 5 on Jesus the Son of God where the Father gives him what he is to do. The Father gives him what he is to say. The Son does it. The Son speaks it. The Father has commissioned him to give his life. Jesus does it. “That is why the Father loves me, because I lay down my life as he has commanded me. I have authority to do this, and I have authority to take it again.”

Against leaders who sacrifice nothing, against leaders in war who call on others to sacrifice, we have a Savior who not only risked everything but who gave everything. Brothers and sisters in Christ, this is extremely important. There are at least three practical points we should learn from this.

A. Jesus is eminently approachable especially for those with wounds.

In the trenches of World War I, when millions of young men took their machine guns and simply mowed down the opposition, not a few of the millions who died in the trenches (20 million) were believers, and out of this came some of the most moving poetry of this century. One poem was by Edward Shillito who died in the last year of the war. This poem came from his pen.

If we have never sought, we seek Thee now;

Thine eyes burn through the dark, our only stars;

We must have sight of thorn-pricks on Thy brow,

We must have Thee, O Jesus of the Scars.

The heavens frighten us; they are too calm;

In all the universe we have no place.

Our wounds are hurting us; where is the balm?

Lord Jesus, by Thy Scars, we claim Thy grace.

Then he uses another metaphor from John 20, when the doors are shut and Jesus appears and shows his scars. Here was a man who meditated on John. He writes …

If, when the doors are shut, Thou drawest near,

Only reveal those hands, that side of Thine;

We know to-day what wounds are, have no fear,

Show us Thy Scars, we know the countersign.

The other gods were strong; but Thou wast weak;

They rode, but Thou didst stumble to a throne;

But to our wounds only God’s wounds can speak,

And not a god has wounds, but Thou alone.

To those who are crushed and burdened and wounded and hurting and dying, there is something very wonderful about a Good Shepherd who gives his life for the sheep.

B. He gives his life for the sheep precisely so we may be his sheep.

Of course, it’s not only an emotional affective appeal, thought it is that. It also establishes the basis upon which we are constituted his flock. He gives his life for the sheep precisely so we may be his sheep. The theme comes up again and again. Think of this confession, this benediction in Hebrews 13:20.

“Now may the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.”

He constitutes his flock by his own death. The Shepherd dies; the sheep live. “All we like sheep have gone astray.” In one respect, he is himself a sheep. He is the Lamb of God, the sacrifice. This Shepherd is himself a slaughtered lamb. There’s another pastoral entailment.

C. It ought to establish what kind of pastors the church has today.

Pastor simply means shepherd. It’s from a Latin root which simply means shepherd. You find, then, in 1 Peter, chapter 5, these words the apostle writing, “To the elders among you …” Elders in the New Testament and overseers and pastors … They are different names for the same office.

Peter writes, “To the elders among you I appeal as a fellow elder and a witness of Christ’s sufferings who also will share in the glory to be revealed: Be shepherds …” You could equally render that, “Be pastors of God’s flock that is under your care, serving as overseers—not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be; not greedy for money, but eager to serve; not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock. And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that will never fade away.”

The model, then, for pastoral care is that of the great pastor, the good pastor, the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd gives his life for the sheep.

4. Jesus transforms his own people.

By his death, Jesus does bring in other sheep (verse 16) that are not of this sheep pen. In the larger flow of the argument, what that means is, in addition to the sheep Jesus draws from the sheep pen of Judaism, there are other sheep he is going to draw from other pens, from the larger world of the Gentiles. He will draw them in, and they will come together to constitute one flock with one Shepherd.

Thus, Jesus is the Shepherd of his whole flock. To use our language, of the church. He draws the sheep from the sheep pen of Judaism; he draws sheep from others as well, and they know his name. To use the language of John 6, they are taught by God. They will inevitably come. They hear his voice. Whether on the short haul or the long haul, those who are his sheep come to him, and they constitute one flock and one Shepherd, and all this by his death.

Then, at the end of this section in verses 19 to 21, there is a twist in the argument, and you ask, “Why does John put this in?” What does it contribute? “At these words, the Jews were again divided. Many of them said, ‘He is demon-possessed and raving mad. Why listen to him?’ But others said, ‘These are not the sayings of a man possessed by a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?’ ”

Remember, as the New Testament first came down to us, there were no chapter divisions, there were no verse divisions, so there was no break between the end of chapter 9 and the beginning of chapter 10. What do you get in chapter 9? You get the account of Jesus who heals the man who was born blind. That’s just unheard of. Jesus heals the man who was born blind. What are the Pharisees and the religious leaders doing on this occasion? They’re picking fault. They’re criticizing. They’re wondering whether Jesus is really orthodox or not.

They’re not helping the people. They’re not nurturing the flock. They’re bad shepherds. After the contrast in chapter 9 between one who actually gives sight to the blind and other religious leaders, on the other hand, who were doing nothing but nitpicking and criticizing and serving up palliatives and threatening to excommunicate people, Jesus says, “I am the good shepherd. The others? They just come to steal and ravage the flock. They don’t do anything.”

At the end of the whole passage, again, John makes sure you remember what kicked off this connection: the account of the healing of the man born blind. We’re taken back again. This is what is sometimes called an inclusio, an inclusion. You start off with a theme and come back to the theme at the end so you are invited to think of everything that has come in between still in the light of that theme.

Jesus actually gives sight to the blind. “Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?” In other words, over against these false religious leaders who can criticize and make rules and ravage the flock, Jesus actually transforms people. He dies and gives them life. He opens their eyes so they can see. You’re required, then, to think through the whole list of signs throughout the book. He makes the lame walk. We’ll see next week in chapter 11 he raises the dead. He transforms people.

The fact of the matter is biblical Christianity is not simply a matter of recruitment. It is not simply a matter of socializing people into the congregation. It is not simply a matter of getting people to feel comfortable. It is a matter of transformation. It is a matter of transformation. We’ve seen that already in John 3, haven’t we? You must have new birth, and this new birth is likened to wind where we may not know the origins and we may not be able to explain it all, but you can’t deny the effects.

So this Good Shepherd, then, ensures (John 3) people are born again. He ensures (John 4) they never thirst again. He ensures (John 5) they never hunger again. He ensures (John 9), though they were blind, yet now they see. He ensures (John 10) they have abundant life. In other words, he transforms people. It’s not just a religious club people are recruited into by signing up in a certain statement of faith.

As alien as the shepherd metaphor is to most of us today, what does it tell us of Jesus’ relations with his people? Jesus knows his own people. Jesus nurtures his own people. Jesus dies for his own people. Jesus transforms his own people. On the long haul, of course, all of these people in the new heaven and the new earth will still be his people. The transformation is not yet complete, but one day it will be. Can we turn aside from a Shepherd like that? All of us follow some crowd, some value systems. The text asks us, “To which flock do you belong?” We join together to sing …

I cannot tell why He, whom angels worship,

Should set His love upon the sons of men,

Or why, as Shepherd, He should seek the wanderers,

To bring them back, they know not how or when.

But this I know, that He was born of Mary,

When Bethlehem’s manger was His only home,

And that He lived at Nazareth and labored,

And so the Savior, Savior of the world, is come.