John 10:10
The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.
The thief is Satan the destroyer, whose only work is to steal and kill and destroy, while Christ came to give life in abundance and fullness. He spoke this as the true Shepherd and the door of the sheep, in contrast to unfaithful leaders and the hireling who enter not by the door and care nothing for the flock, for by Him entrants are saved and find pasture and He lays down His life for the sheep. That abundant life cost His own life, for the spotless Son of God died as the only offering able to atone for sin, then took His life up again having life in Himself with right to make alive whom He will. The life He gives is His own life living in believers by the Spirit, restoring what was lost through sin as water springing up into everlasting life, so that even though a believer dies he will be raised at the last day. It is received by dying to self and being emptied of pride and self-sufficiency, coming to Him in humiliation and repentance and living to Him in obedient faith, for apart from Him there is no light or life.
Shepherd Discourse Setting
The verse belongs to Jesus' picture of Himself as the Shepherd who gives life to His sheep, showing His caring relation to believers who depend on Him and know Him, drawing people to Himself and giving His life for them rather than driving them away as leaders did who cast out one for witnessing to Christ. It sets Christ as the true keeper of God's flock against Israel's leaders, who showed themselves unfit to shepherd it when they drove away one He was drawing, while His mission gathers and cares for those who are lost, driven away, broken, or sick. It contrasts the thief, who does not enter by the door and comes only to steal and to kill and to destroy, with Christ as the door of the sheep and the good shepherd who came to give life more abundantly, by whom if any enters he is saved and goes in and out and finds pasture, giving His life for the sheep unlike the hireling whose own the sheep are not, who flees when the wolf comes and leaves them to be caught and scattered because he cares not for them. Christ is stronger than false leaders who act like thieves and fail to care for the flock, and as the good shepherd He gives His life for the sheep. He alone is the way into God's fold and the only source of salvation, grace, justification, and peace with God, which ceremonies and systems cannot replace, a contrast that exposed the Pharisees who rejected one Christ was drawing and harmed and destroyed the flock instead of caring for it.
The declaration that He is come matters because the work He came to do was to heal, coming as a missionary in every sense and showing in the Good Shepherd parable His relation to the human family. He is the only one to look to to lay down His life and give His sheep eternal life, which He came to give more abundantly. Jesus taught immortal truth through the familiar daily life of shepherd and sheep, using parables drawn from nature and surroundings with a spirit open to its influences, so that spiritual realities became clear, memorable, and interesting to every mind and heart. He loved to gather spiritual teaching from daily life and experience familiar to the hearers, teaching sublime eternal truths simply and clearly, so that the daily task instead of being mere toil was brightened and uplifted by constant reminders of the spiritual and the unseen.
The scribes and Pharisees were thieves and robbers because though sitting in Moses' seat they ruled authoritatively and left the sheep unfed, leaving the people as sheep without a shepherd and stirring Jesus' compassion when He walked on earth as a man among men, while by contrast He sees them with compassion and His coming brings life. The same test of what guidance the flock receives applies today and should startle God's people to consider it, calling for much more well-organized effort and far less mere preaching, with instruction given modestly by teachers who do the Word and in meekness and humbleness open mind and heart to its light. As literal sheep know their shepherd's voice and understand where he desires them to go, following without whip or force at his call and pressing close together, so Christ's true sheep as the True Shepherd's followers understand His voice and press close together following Him.
Christ Gives Abundant Life
Christ came from heaven to give life in its fullness and in abundance, offering eternal life to all who receive it. His message of life was true, yet bringing salvation from ruin cost Him His own life, spoken with the cross in view, requiring the death of the spotless Son of God as the only offering able to atone for sin. Moved by love for humanity He laid aside heavenly honor, took human nature, and became humanity's substitute and surety so that believers may receive everlasting life. His life and work were carried out in dependence on God and in cooperation with the Father's will, making Him the pattern to follow.
Having laid down His life in humanity He took it up again and gives it to humanity, including the gift of immortality. He has life in Himself and is invested with the right to make alive whom He will, so that to the believer He is the resurrection and the life. The life lost through sin is restored in Him more abundantly as water in the receiver springing up into everlasting life so that he never thirsts, and as eternal life received by eating His flesh and drinking His blood, with resurrection at the last day. Adam lost the gift of life and immortality by disobedience, and all born of Adam forfeit it, partake of a dying nature, and have no power to redeem the past.
By incarnation Christ became fully competent to bear sin's penalty, sever believers from slavery to the apostate, and place them no longer as outcasts excluded from the tree of life. If man cooperates by returning to loyalty, obeying the commandments, repenting, and receiving Christ as Life-giver and personal Saviour, he becomes one with Christ with his will in harmony with the divine will. He is then no longer counted a sinner and son of rebellion but a son of God through Christ's righteousness, partaking of Christ's eternal life and deriving immortality from God in whom all the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily, in mystical union and cooperation of the divine with the human. Through that imparted life man wins back opportunity to stand in his original position as a partaker of the divine nature, in a life more perfect, full, and complete than what Adam forfeited.
The abundant life is the Saviour's own life living in believers, hid with Christ in God and received through the Spirit. It unites them with Him now and in eternal life, making them one with Him in this present life to be one with Him throughout all eternity, so that even though a believer may die as Christ died he has eternal life and will be raised at the last day. His work is to shine as revelation and light amid moral darkness, in whom is no darkness at all, revealing truth and delivering from the power of evil. That shining floods the soul with the bright beams of His righteousness and makes Him comfort, safety, and healthfulness to all who receive Him, while apart from Him there is no light at all and those who love not the light because their deeds are evil will not come to Him for deliverance.
That life-giving power is not given grudgingly but in abundant supply to living genuine faith that thirsts for God as the hart thirsts for water and drinks deeply of His fullness. It gives great peace and a great possession that makes believers complete in Him through Christ's righteousness imparted from His heart to theirs, received in self-denial and self-sacrifice by denying self, taking up the cross and following Him, and those who receive freely are to give freely. The same life-giving power that restores the body also renews the heart, forgives sin, and gives spiritual life, and Christ still has this power to heal and forgive. His coming is a gift of life and an invitation in human form so people can approach without being overwhelmed by His glory, learn His meekness and perfection, and reach toward divinity by becoming partakers of His divine nature.
That offered life measures with the life of God and is set against bondage to Satan, to be fled to before becoming hardened against light and truth. He gave Himself for the life of the world to save precious souls from eternal death so that in Him they may have life in fuller measure. Those who follow Him are to appreciate that sacrifice, seek not only their own salvation but become co-laborers and channels of light showing faith by works, with the promise serving as an assurance to comfort others. He came to give life to the Jewish nation, but in blindness they rejected Him while pleading the law and the Father, wanting nothing to do with Him, demanding Him away, and putting to death the very One who came to give them life. He gives the despairing soul a new life of hopefulness, saving faith, rest, and peace, and one who rests in Him as personal Saviour with correct knowledge of His atonement and the plan of salvation can uplift Him and lead convicted souls fleeing for refuge to lay hold on the gospel hope and find that rest and new life.
Satan the Destroying Thief
The thief is Satan, the destroyer, whose only purpose is to steal and to kill and to destroy, and he stands in direct contrast to Christ the Lifegiver, Restorer and Redeemer who restrains his power and brings deliverance and victory. Christ stands against the destruction Satan brings, and stands beside the suffering person as the great Physician, with the light of the Sun of Righteousness shielding him from the enemy's power. His attacks destroy and harm, while Christ restores.
Satan tempts and deceives people to turn them from Christ, to bring them under his power and hold the fallen race under his control, and to lead them toward ruin. He tempts people to sin and then uses their failures to accuse and destroy them, while Christ brings life by transforming character and building up the church rather than weakening it. He seeks to overcome God's people and take the sheep from God's pasture, so the Lord's watchmen must remain alert and guard them. He works by secrecy, underhand methods and snares to lead into crime and ruin, until those long caught in his plans may feel unable to break free.
He seeks to destroy the souls and bodies of human beings, and this destroying work is an evil power holding sinners that must be actively opposed. Fathers, mothers and children are to unite together in opposing it by standing on the Lord's side and entering together into His service, where victory over the destroyer is gained. He brings pain and affliction to try faith, while Jesus as Restorer gives life. In sickness and discouragement believers should not be discouraged but trust Jesus as Restorer, who stands beside the sufferer, shields him with light, and gives peace, happiness, joy and firm standing as on solid rock.
He seeks to free captives from Christ's restoring power only to keep them captive, holding people in sin and in opposition to Jesus' teachings while they continue in his service. This is especially true of responsible leaders, whom he works to keep in sin and opposed to Jesus' teachings. Whereas he seeks to turn people from Christ, Christ comes as the Restorer to free captives from Satan's power and give eternal life to all who believe in Him, with receiving that life involving coming to Him in humiliation and repentance.
Hurting and destroying is satanic in its origin, and to become a criticizer and an accuser of the brethren and to give that spirit free rein instead of controlling it is to do the thief's work of hurting and destroying. Christ's work is to heal rather than tear people apart, transforming character and building up the church rather than weakening it. Those working on His side should therefore bring healing instead of causing wounds and distress.
In the sickroom he may prompt perilous experiments that destroy rather than save human life, against Christ who gives life. The thief's stealing also pictures worldly conformity gradually stealing away the distinct identity of God's work. The warning was applied to an apparently friendly approach to the Rural Health Retreat and the effort to take its trained workers for a new institution, harming the work that had trained and relied on them. Such taking of trained workers contrasts the thief who steals and destroys with Christ who gives abundant life.
The apostate foe holds the fallen human race under his control to kill and destroy, while Christ alone could bring deliverance. He came with a full and complete ransom to make life and immortality available to fallen people. By assuming human nature He revealed God's character and can stamp His image on those who receive Him, and through His sacrifice God receives the homage of the restored race.
Receiving Abundant Life
Christ came to give life in abundance, in its fullest abundance, and this life is breathed by God into every soul that dies to self and lives to Christ. Receiving it requires complete and entire self-renunciation, for otherwise what is carried along is the evil that destroys happiness and usefulness. It requires being emptied of pride and self-sufficiency, laying self on the altar, and letting the Holy Spirit mold and fashion the life according to the divine likeness. When self is crucified, Christ lives within, and the Spirit's power accompanies effort. That abundant life is what is needed to work for Christ.
He offers light and life to all who will receive Him, and calls those burdened by evil to come to Him for help and rest. Receiving that life involves coming to Him in humiliation and repentance. Those who refuse the light reject the gift. As Restorer in contrast to Satan the destroyer, Christ restores those who trust in Him, enabling them through faith to overcome habits that damage physical, mental, and spiritual powers, including the use of stimulants and narcotics.
Healing Body and Character
John 10:10 shows that Christ came to give abundant life by restoring the moral image of God in man and by supplying remedies in the natural world for human ills. That abundant life is entered by safely discarding harmful human concoctions and using by faith the simple plants, water, and sunshine God provided to heal maladies brought on by indiscretion or accident. To use these God-given blessings while asking God to bless them cooperates with Him and does not deny faith, and true faith thanks God for the knowledge of how to use them to restore mental and physical vigor.
Restoration includes cleansing the bodily system by Christ's remedies. Satan works to destroy that life by tempting man to introduce into the system what weakens the human machinery and clogs and destroys God's fine, beautiful arrangements. Drug medicines that leave a deadly evil in the system destroy the life Christ came to restore; they do not restore and never cure, but destroy and place seeds in the system that bear a very bitter harvest.
Christ came to give life and to give it more abundantly, and He is the Saviour of the body and the Great Physician. Physicians must fully comprehend this and place themselves under His control. By right use of their knowledge they may cooperate with God to save souls and bodies from death and to preserve health and life, working harmoniously with Him in regularity of eating, exercise, and obedience to the laws of health, and not recklessly abuse His building, or they may counterwork His plans.
Genuine medical missionary work is connected with the life He gives because it heals and saves and leads to eternal life, unlike a false interpretation of such work that does not do these things. Relieving suffering through this work puts the gospel into practice for souls and bodies under Satan's power. This contrasts Satan, who seeks control over people and works toward their destruction, with Christ's life-giving work.
Faithful Shepherd Care
The giver of life in the verse exercises a shepherd's care that lays a charge upon teachers to guard and care for his sheep and lambs. That charge means seeking out those who stray and refusing to abandon them to perish.
In contrast to false shepherds who harm those entrusted to their care and fail to nourish the flock, Christ comes to give life and feeds the flock with the Bread of Life. As part of his teaching about the shepherd and the sheepfold, his welcoming of the sheep with hope and life requires his followers not to close the door against one seeking another chance, but to act with his mercy.