Jesus Kneeling Beside a Lamb on a HillsideBible World
10:14John 10:14
I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine.
Jesus is the good, true and divine Shepherd and the door by whom His sheep enter, are saved, and find pasture and abundant life. He and His sheep know each other personally and closely in love and trust, as sheep recognize their shepherd's voice when called by name and follow him rather than strangers. His knowing is individual and tender toward each one, as close as the Father's knowledge of Him and His knowledge of the Father. Unlike thieves who steal and destroy and unlike a hireling who flees when danger comes, He left His Father's glory to seek the lost, defend, feed and carry His flock, and to lay down His life for them voluntarily as their substitute and surety. To know Him is living faith and union that follows where He leads and obeys His voice, and His love and sacrifice call His followers to seek the wandering and care for the weak with His tenderness.
Illustration and Setting
Christ takes the familiar daily sight of shepherd and sheep to set forth imperishable truth, making divine realities clear, memorable, and open to every class through facts of common life. The picture is drawn from surrounding daily experience, showing delight in gathering spiritual instruction from nature and its influences, given to interest every mind and appeal to every heart. So the daily task is brightened and lifted by constant reminders of the spiritual and unseen, and whenever hearers see shepherds and sheep they remember the teaching.
The shepherd stays with the flock by day and by night, goes before it, calls each sheep by name, and leads from fold to pasture to good grazing and living water. He leads without whip or dog, guiding only by a call the sheep understand, and when one strays he calls it back with his voice. He guards from wild beasts and robbers and from wolves, and the sheep press close together and follow closely because they recognize and answer his voice. This close, affectionate and intelligent bond comforts the disciples as He prepares to leave them, for whenever they see a shepherd they remember His love and care. He is the true Shepherd because He gives His life for the sheep, doing so willingly and having power to take it again as His Father commanded.
He is the true keeper of God's flock, fulfilling the prophecies of the Messiah who feeds and gathers His people. He seeks the lost, restores the straying, and cares for the weak and the sick. His care stands in contrast to the failure of Israel's leaders, who drove away one whom He was drawing to Himself.
The teaching turns hearers toward truths essential for forming character, for knowing God, for doing good, and for living with eternity in view. Lost sheep are guided back to the fold, and they are brought back to God through divine truth reflected in Scripture and in the rightly studied works of creation.
Christ the Good Shepherd
The verse declares Jesus to be the good, true and divine Shepherd who knows those who believe in Him and is known by them in return, and the picture of shepherd and flock shows His close care and their helpless dependence on Him. He is the door of the sheepfold, by whom any enter and are saved and go in and out and find pasture, and He came that they might have life and have it more abundantly. Unlike thieves and robbers who climb up another way to steal and kill and destroy, and unlike the hireling whose own the sheep are not, who cares not for them and flees when the wolf comes leaving them scattered and caught, the true Shepherd gives His life for the sheep. His knowing and being known is as close as the Father knowing Him and His knowing the Father, and it is proved by His laying down His life for the sheep. His laying down His life is voluntary and in obedience to the Father, no man taking it from Him, for He has power to lay it down and power to take it again as His Father commanded. He has other sheep not of this fold whom He must bring to hear His voice, so there shall be one fold and one shepherd.
He is more than a shepherd, for He is an everlasting Father to His own. A shepherd loves his sheep, but he loves his sons and daughters more, and Jesus loves His people as His children. Believers are the Father's gift to Him and the reward of His work, so He loves them with a love than which heaven can bestow nothing greater or better, and they should trust Him. His love for them is true and does not fail. This knowing is close communion, for as the Father knows Christ and Christ knows the Father, so Christ knows His own and His own know Him, which is great because Christ is the only begotten Son in the bosom of the Father, the Man who is God's fellow, yet His communion with the eternal God pictures His communion with His children on earth. He values and loves every sheep and lamb in His flock, calls each one by name, cares for them with utmost kindness, keeps them under His tender watch, and no tribulation can separate them from Him.
He speaks with the authority of greatness in a clear, distinct voice in declaring Himself the good Shepherd. He lays down His life for the sheep and is the only one to whom His sheep can look to give them eternal life. His sheep hear His voice and know Him, and He gives them eternal life so they shall never perish and no one can pluck them out of His hand. In Him are hidden all treasures of wisdom and knowledge, so wisdom must be sought from Him in His school rather than from those who have never sought wisdom from Him and never learned from Him.
He is a kind, caring, merciful and tender Shepherd who gave His precious blood for His sheep, and His care gives reason to trust Him at every moment, including while suffering for the truth. He is God's only begotten Son, the True Shepherd and Captain whom believers follow. He is the great Shepherd over His flock, who gave His life for the sheep in a way no under-shepherd can do. Because He alone has done this, the work must go forward under God's guidance rather than human restrictions, medical missionary work must not be exalted as a body to make the gospel ministry of no account, and ministers of the Word are to be respected and treated as His ambassadors. Following Him means wrenching away from Satan's power to be free, and Satan fights such souls hardest then, seeking to hold them with additional chains, deceive and hurt them, and make them weak and incapable of service, but when the captive tugs at the chain longing to be free and cooperates with heavenly intelligences by faith taking hold of Christ, Christ as the Stronger than the strong man armed helps the soul, and the Holy Spirit strengthens the person to obtain freedom.
Mutual Personal Knowledge
The verse teaches a close and reciprocal knowledge in love and trust, in which Christ knows those who believe in Him and they know Him in return. As sheep recognize and answer their shepherd's voice when he calls them by name, so His people hear His voice, love Him, and follow Him as He leads them from the fold to pasture, and they will not follow strangers. This care is personal and mutual, showing both His close watch over His followers and their helpless dependence on Him.
This knowing is as close as the Father's knowledge of Christ and Christ's knowledge of the Father. It is close communion with the eternal God, which is great because Christ is the only begotten Son in the bosom of the Father and the Man who is God's fellow, yet His communion with the eternal God pictures His communion with His children on earth. His knowing and being known is proved by His laying down His life for the sheep.
His knowledge is individual and tender, for He knows each member of His flock personally and cares for them, including the feeble and sickly. Like a shepherd who knows every sheep, He calls each one by name and keeps each under His tender watch with utmost kindness. He knows the home where each lives and the people in it, and He cares for every person as if that person were the only one in the world, so that no amount of tribulation can separate them from Him.
He knows those who will belong to Him before they receive Him, for He first chooses them. He knows every person who will respond to His drawing, and He knows every person who will feel inclined to receive Him yet turn away through popular influences. A soul becomes His by choosing to receive Him, but that choosing is a response to His prior choosing and drawing, His love expressed before any human love for Him and His grace touching hearts contemplating the love of God, so that believers become His property because God gave His Son to bear their sins in their stead.
To know Him and be known by Him is personal faith in a personal Saviour bringing the soul into spiritual union with Christ, not mere outward connection with a church. It means being under His guidance and following where He leads, becoming like Him in thought and word and deed along the pleasant path He points out and leads the way in. Receiving the truth He gives brings the knowledge of God and the Saviour, and when the heart treasures this truth Christ is formed within as the hope of glory.
Knowing the truth is connected with willingness to obey. Those who follow His plans rather than cling to worldly plans can know the truth. Those whose affections are fixed on the world resist His plans and remain in darkness, not knowing where they are going.
Care and Self-Sacrifice
After the fall He saw His sheep helpless and facing destruction, miserable and wandering and ready to perish under sure destruction, and He left the honor and glory of His Father's house to become a Shepherd to save them. He calls them with a winning voice to His fold as a safe and sure retreat from robbers, a shelter from scorching heat and a protection from chilling blasts. His sheep recognize His voice in love and trust, love Him, and follow Him where He goes before them rather than strangers.
Unlike thieves and robbers who climb up another way to steal and kill and destroy, and unlike a hireling whose own the sheep are not, who cares not for them and flees when the wolf comes leaving them scattered and caught, He continually cares for their good. He defends them from danger and from wolves, protects them with unwearied tenderness, strengthens the weak, nourishes the suffering, and gathers the lambs in His arms and carries them in His bosom. As the good Shepherd He gives His life for the sheep.
His laying down His life proves His knowing and being known, which is as close as the Father's knowing Him and His knowing the Father. It shows God's children precious to Him, whose love led Him to lay down His heavenly honor, take human nature, and become humanity's substitute and surety. His death bears human guilt and its penalty and provides a complete sacrifice, through which He offers perfect righteousness and full salvation. It was voluntary in obedience to the Father, no man taking it from Him, with power to lay it down and power to take it again.
He stays with His flock to defend them from danger and from wolves, to seek out the lost and bring them back to the fold, and to lead them to pasture and living water. He knows where refuge is found and bids His flock draw near to Him. When they draw near He leads them to green pastures and to living streams of water that quench their thirst and refresh their spirits, giving rest to the burdened in every circumstance, trial, and conflict with adversaries.
His whole soul goes out for His little flock. He does not fail or become discouraged and is not intimidated by dissension and strife. He spent whole nights in prayer while others were sleeping to gain strength to meet the temptations of the enemy, and He prayed for His sheep who would not pray for themselves, leaving an example of trust, faith and courage for every soul.
The shepherd image assures His love and care, giving comfort when He is no longer with them, so that whenever they see a shepherd they remember Him. When He was no longer with them the disciples felt like sheep without a shepherd, whose presence, counsel, and love had been their care, and their later understanding showed that knowing and loving Him should have led them to express devotion through visible acts of love and honor. As a kind, caring, merciful, and tender Shepherd who gave His precious blood for His sheep, His care gives reason to trust Him at every moment, including while suffering for the truth, for He cares for both soul and body.
He does not repulse or condemn sinners who come to Him but offers refuge and peace to publicans, sinners, and Pharisees alike on the same terms, since no one can restore his own purity. He welcomes a pleading, confessing person back into the fold and does not close the door of hope, even when there is no clear evidence of changed character.
The Sheep and Fold
His sheep belong to Him both by creation and by redemption, for they are not their own but bought with a price, not with gold or silver but with His suffering and precious blood. Those who receive Him as Saviour and believe in Him become His property through His sacrifice, and He gives to them the fragrance of His righteousness. To be His sheep means that all are brethren, made one with Him and the Father as He is one with the Father, and made joint heirs with Him to the heavenly inheritance. They are therefore bound together in holy fellowship in kindness, courtesy, patience, forbearance and love, and they dishonor Him when they crowd and push one another, make dissensions over inferior things, or imagine evil against one another.
His shepherding reaches other sheep not of this fold, who hear His voice and must be brought in, so that there shall be one fold and one shepherd. His fold is where the lost must be brought back, led by living faith laying hold on divine power to return the wandering ones into the path of life with no time to lose while the day lasts. The church is His body, His family, and the bride, the Lamb's wife, and the flock is a place of safety under the faithful Chief Shepherd. He tends the whole human family as a flock of sheep and lambs with pastoral care and guards them with the help of faithful under-shepherds, so that those who obey His voice will not be left to be devoured by wolves.
Children and youth are lambs of His fold and God's own property entrusted to His watch-care for their salvation, receiving His constant care as those entrusted to Him. He is the true Shepherd of the lambs, even the youngest children, loving them, keeping His eyes upon them, not repulsing their full-hearted love, and calling them to come to Him for His blessing. He guides the lambs so that they form beautiful characters, accepts the service they can give, and blesses those who form approved characters. He hears their simple prayers, mingling them with the incense of His own spotless merits so that they come up as a sweet-smelling savor before God, made fragrant by the purity and loveliness of His character, and they need loving care and protection from temptation so they can enter that fold of safety.
The same image of sheep entrusted to a shepherd applies to human care, as when Luther regarded the Wittenberg believers as entrusted to him by God. That shepherd responsibility meant being willing to expose himself to death for their sake.
Following and Shared Ministry
His sheep hear His voice, know Him and love Him, going where He goes before them and following Him where He wants them to go, while they will not follow strangers but flee them because they do not know their voice. He leads without whip or dog, guiding by a call His sheep understand, and when one strays He calls it back with His voice, while the sheep press close together and follow Him in an affectionate, intelligent bond. His followers must learn His voice to recognize Him and to distinguish Him from a false shepherd, so as to avoid confusion and danger. The wilderness experience taught Israel this lesson, refining them to know God and Jesus Christ and to follow their invisible Leader, with obedience to His voice making them God's distinctive people prepared to show His will to the nations.
The shepherd and flock picture shows His close care and their helpless dependence on Him, with all dependent on His atonement. To be His sheep means all are brethren, made one with Him and the Father as He is one with the Father and made joint heirs with Him to the heavenly inheritance, bound in holy fellowship in kindness, courtesy, patience, forbearance and love without crowding, pushing, dissension or imagining evil. Following Him as True Shepherd and Captain means wrenching away from Satan's power to be free, and Satan fights such souls hardest then, seeking to hold them with additional chains, to deceive and hurt them, and to make them weak and incapable of service. When the captive tugs at the chain longing to be free and cooperates with heavenly intelligences by faith taking hold of Christ, Christ as stronger than the strong man armed helps the soul, and the Holy Spirit strengthens the person to obtain freedom.
His sacrifice to redeem sinners and His coming from heaven to seek and save the lost call His followers to labor earnestly for the unsaved. Those who belong to Him and know Him are called to devote their abilities and resources to helping Him seek the lost. Those who know Him cooperate with God in that work, laying hold by living faith on the power of divinity to lead the wandering ones back to the Shepherd into the path of life, working on with no time to lose while the day lasts, since His fold is where the lost must be brought back. A special duty rests on His people to go and search for the erring, the weak and trembling, and even those who have apostatized from the truth, to call them to come fully into the fold.
His undying care and love extend to poor, straying sheep, and His followers must imitate this tenderness, compassion and long-suffering toward those who have erred, rather than abandon them when they reject counsel or wander from the church. Faithful workers share His distinct Spirit through living connection with God and the cooperation of supernatural power, doing supernatural work in strengthening the things that remain and are ready to die, seeking to save that which is ready to perish, watching for souls as one who must give an account, and speaking a word in season under the Holy Spirit to draw souls in great peril into safe paths. Those who work from human judgment without power from on high show they do not have this Spirit and are unreliable, and those who bite and devour and ruin and destroy show the opposite spirit of the wolf and will meet a fearful account in the judgment.
The good shepherd who knows His sheep and is known by them puts the sheep's interests before His own comfort, seeking the lost and wandering even when the work brings weariness, cold, hunger or personal cost. His duty comes from heaven, and wages do not turn Him from it; He looks for His reward when His work is finished. A minister who follows His example bears the burden of the work for souls and endures privations and hardships, remaining faithful through hardship and staying to labor when interest in truth is strongest and minds are agitated, rather than abandoning people at the most important time for trifles like bad roads, rainy weather or little matters at home, or for a more pleasant and easy field, or wishing to be carried by the people. Careless or unfaithful labor can result in souls being lost, while self-sacrificing faithfulness can help save many.
Faithful shepherding is more than preaching; it guards those entrusted, protects sheep and lambs from degradation and corruption of mind and moral sense, and feeds rather than rules, whips, drives or judges hearts and motives, for judgment belongs to Christ. It refuses to let temporal matters absorb the time and attention that belongs to souls, ministers to the needs of sinners and to spiritual needs, visits believers when sick, notices absence from meetings and inquires into the matter, heeds word of spiritual condition and makes personal effort to help through conversation and prayer, and labors to restore those who have given up the truth or are in danger of leaving to the fold of Christ. Failure to visit, inquire and help is unfaithful shepherding that leaves members exposed to temptation, while such abuse as degrading or corrupting is incompatible with being a shepherd of His flock.
His example calls all entrusted with His work to care for His sheep and lambs, reaching people in their deepest need. Those who serve Him are to seek those who stray rather than abandoning them, and to win and save them with His help. His earnest, tireless seeking of the lost sheep is a model for followers, who should look for opportunities to speak with loving sympathy. Young workers also need a shepherd's care and the shelter of home influences, since He cares for and protects His sheep.
His faithful shepherding that knows and tenderly loves His people is a model for guiding children, since they belong to Him because He purchased them through His suffering and gives the fragrance of His righteousness to those who believe in Him. Teachers should lead them with wisdom, tact, love and sanctified affection to value the privilege of yielding to His guidance. Parents are to reflect His love and care in tender care of their children as lambs, so that they may become lambs in His fold. Children are lambs of His flock and God's own property entrusted to parents and teachers to train for ministry; they must not be left in self-indulgence and uncorrected disobedience nor ruled by an overbearing, inconsiderate, masterful spirit that makes their lives miserable and destroys respect for family, because such mishandling injures souls belonging to God and prepares those lambs for Satan to work his will upon them instead of keeping them known and guarded by the Shepherd.
His sheep hear His voice and know Him through the True Shepherd's work of caring for the flock and seeking out the lost and straying to bring them back.
Jesus is the good, true and divine Shepherd and the door by whom His sheep enter, are saved, and find pasture and abundant life. He and His sheep know each other personally and closely in love and trust, as sheep recognize their shepherd's voice when called by name and follow him rather than strangers. His knowing is individual and tender toward each one, as close as the Father's knowledge of Him and His knowledge of the Father. Unlike thieves who steal and destroy and unlike a hireling who flees when danger comes, He left His Father's glory to seek the lost, defend, feed and carry His flock, and to lay down His life for them voluntarily as their substitute and surety. To know Him is living faith and union that follows where He leads and obeys His voice, and His love and sacrifice call His followers to seek the wandering and care for the weak with His tenderness.
Illustration and Setting
Christ takes the familiar daily sight of shepherd and sheep to set forth imperishable truth, making divine realities clear, memorable, and open to every class through facts of common life. The picture is drawn from surrounding daily experience, showing delight in gathering spiritual instruction from nature and its influences, given to interest every mind and appeal to every heart. So the daily task is brightened and lifted by constant reminders of the spiritual and unseen, and whenever hearers see shepherds and sheep they remember the teaching.
The shepherd stays with the flock by day and by night, goes before it, calls each sheep by name, and leads from fold to pasture to good grazing and living water. He leads without whip or dog, guiding only by a call the sheep understand, and when one strays he calls it back with his voice. He guards from wild beasts and robbers and from wolves, and the sheep press close together and follow closely because they recognize and answer his voice. This close, affectionate and intelligent bond comforts the disciples as He prepares to leave them, for whenever they see a shepherd they remember His love and care. He is the true Shepherd because He gives His life for the sheep, doing so willingly and having power to take it again as His Father commanded.
He is the true keeper of God's flock, fulfilling the prophecies of the Messiah who feeds and gathers His people. He seeks the lost, restores the straying, and cares for the weak and the sick. His care stands in contrast to the failure of Israel's leaders, who drove away one whom He was drawing to Himself.
The teaching turns hearers toward truths essential for forming character, for knowing God, for doing good, and for living with eternity in view. Lost sheep are guided back to the fold, and they are brought back to God through divine truth reflected in Scripture and in the rightly studied works of creation.
Christ the Good Shepherd
The verse declares Jesus to be the good, true and divine Shepherd who knows those who believe in Him and is known by them in return, and the picture of shepherd and flock shows His close care and their helpless dependence on Him. He is the door of the sheepfold, by whom any enter and are saved and go in and out and find pasture, and He came that they might have life and have it more abundantly. Unlike thieves and robbers who climb up another way to steal and kill and destroy, and unlike the hireling whose own the sheep are not, who cares not for them and flees when the wolf comes leaving them scattered and caught, the true Shepherd gives His life for the sheep. His knowing and being known is as close as the Father knowing Him and His knowing the Father, and it is proved by His laying down His life for the sheep. His laying down His life is voluntary and in obedience to the Father, no man taking it from Him, for He has power to lay it down and power to take it again as His Father commanded. He has other sheep not of this fold whom He must bring to hear His voice, so there shall be one fold and one shepherd.
He is more than a shepherd, for He is an everlasting Father to His own. A shepherd loves his sheep, but he loves his sons and daughters more, and Jesus loves His people as His children. Believers are the Father's gift to Him and the reward of His work, so He loves them with a love than which heaven can bestow nothing greater or better, and they should trust Him. His love for them is true and does not fail. This knowing is close communion, for as the Father knows Christ and Christ knows the Father, so Christ knows His own and His own know Him, which is great because Christ is the only begotten Son in the bosom of the Father, the Man who is God's fellow, yet His communion with the eternal God pictures His communion with His children on earth. He values and loves every sheep and lamb in His flock, calls each one by name, cares for them with utmost kindness, keeps them under His tender watch, and no tribulation can separate them from Him.
He speaks with the authority of greatness in a clear, distinct voice in declaring Himself the good Shepherd. He lays down His life for the sheep and is the only one to whom His sheep can look to give them eternal life. His sheep hear His voice and know Him, and He gives them eternal life so they shall never perish and no one can pluck them out of His hand. In Him are hidden all treasures of wisdom and knowledge, so wisdom must be sought from Him in His school rather than from those who have never sought wisdom from Him and never learned from Him.
He is a kind, caring, merciful and tender Shepherd who gave His precious blood for His sheep, and His care gives reason to trust Him at every moment, including while suffering for the truth. He is God's only begotten Son, the True Shepherd and Captain whom believers follow. He is the great Shepherd over His flock, who gave His life for the sheep in a way no under-shepherd can do. Because He alone has done this, the work must go forward under God's guidance rather than human restrictions, medical missionary work must not be exalted as a body to make the gospel ministry of no account, and ministers of the Word are to be respected and treated as His ambassadors. Following Him means wrenching away from Satan's power to be free, and Satan fights such souls hardest then, seeking to hold them with additional chains, deceive and hurt them, and make them weak and incapable of service, but when the captive tugs at the chain longing to be free and cooperates with heavenly intelligences by faith taking hold of Christ, Christ as the Stronger than the strong man armed helps the soul, and the Holy Spirit strengthens the person to obtain freedom.
Mutual Personal Knowledge
The verse teaches a close and reciprocal knowledge in love and trust, in which Christ knows those who believe in Him and they know Him in return. As sheep recognize and answer their shepherd's voice when he calls them by name, so His people hear His voice, love Him, and follow Him as He leads them from the fold to pasture, and they will not follow strangers. This care is personal and mutual, showing both His close watch over His followers and their helpless dependence on Him.
This knowing is as close as the Father's knowledge of Christ and Christ's knowledge of the Father. It is close communion with the eternal God, which is great because Christ is the only begotten Son in the bosom of the Father and the Man who is God's fellow, yet His communion with the eternal God pictures His communion with His children on earth. His knowing and being known is proved by His laying down His life for the sheep.
His knowledge is individual and tender, for He knows each member of His flock personally and cares for them, including the feeble and sickly. Like a shepherd who knows every sheep, He calls each one by name and keeps each under His tender watch with utmost kindness. He knows the home where each lives and the people in it, and He cares for every person as if that person were the only one in the world, so that no amount of tribulation can separate them from Him.
He knows those who will belong to Him before they receive Him, for He first chooses them. He knows every person who will respond to His drawing, and He knows every person who will feel inclined to receive Him yet turn away through popular influences. A soul becomes His by choosing to receive Him, but that choosing is a response to His prior choosing and drawing, His love expressed before any human love for Him and His grace touching hearts contemplating the love of God, so that believers become His property because God gave His Son to bear their sins in their stead.
To know Him and be known by Him is personal faith in a personal Saviour bringing the soul into spiritual union with Christ, not mere outward connection with a church. It means being under His guidance and following where He leads, becoming like Him in thought and word and deed along the pleasant path He points out and leads the way in. Receiving the truth He gives brings the knowledge of God and the Saviour, and when the heart treasures this truth Christ is formed within as the hope of glory.
Knowing the truth is connected with willingness to obey. Those who follow His plans rather than cling to worldly plans can know the truth. Those whose affections are fixed on the world resist His plans and remain in darkness, not knowing where they are going.
Care and Self-Sacrifice
After the fall He saw His sheep helpless and facing destruction, miserable and wandering and ready to perish under sure destruction, and He left the honor and glory of His Father's house to become a Shepherd to save them. He calls them with a winning voice to His fold as a safe and sure retreat from robbers, a shelter from scorching heat and a protection from chilling blasts. His sheep recognize His voice in love and trust, love Him, and follow Him where He goes before them rather than strangers.
Unlike thieves and robbers who climb up another way to steal and kill and destroy, and unlike a hireling whose own the sheep are not, who cares not for them and flees when the wolf comes leaving them scattered and caught, He continually cares for their good. He defends them from danger and from wolves, protects them with unwearied tenderness, strengthens the weak, nourishes the suffering, and gathers the lambs in His arms and carries them in His bosom. As the good Shepherd He gives His life for the sheep.
His laying down His life proves His knowing and being known, which is as close as the Father's knowing Him and His knowing the Father. It shows God's children precious to Him, whose love led Him to lay down His heavenly honor, take human nature, and become humanity's substitute and surety. His death bears human guilt and its penalty and provides a complete sacrifice, through which He offers perfect righteousness and full salvation. It was voluntary in obedience to the Father, no man taking it from Him, with power to lay it down and power to take it again.
He stays with His flock to defend them from danger and from wolves, to seek out the lost and bring them back to the fold, and to lead them to pasture and living water. He knows where refuge is found and bids His flock draw near to Him. When they draw near He leads them to green pastures and to living streams of water that quench their thirst and refresh their spirits, giving rest to the burdened in every circumstance, trial, and conflict with adversaries.
His whole soul goes out for His little flock. He does not fail or become discouraged and is not intimidated by dissension and strife. He spent whole nights in prayer while others were sleeping to gain strength to meet the temptations of the enemy, and He prayed for His sheep who would not pray for themselves, leaving an example of trust, faith and courage for every soul.
The shepherd image assures His love and care, giving comfort when He is no longer with them, so that whenever they see a shepherd they remember Him. When He was no longer with them the disciples felt like sheep without a shepherd, whose presence, counsel, and love had been their care, and their later understanding showed that knowing and loving Him should have led them to express devotion through visible acts of love and honor. As a kind, caring, merciful, and tender Shepherd who gave His precious blood for His sheep, His care gives reason to trust Him at every moment, including while suffering for the truth, for He cares for both soul and body.
He does not repulse or condemn sinners who come to Him but offers refuge and peace to publicans, sinners, and Pharisees alike on the same terms, since no one can restore his own purity. He welcomes a pleading, confessing person back into the fold and does not close the door of hope, even when there is no clear evidence of changed character.
The Sheep and Fold
His sheep belong to Him both by creation and by redemption, for they are not their own but bought with a price, not with gold or silver but with His suffering and precious blood. Those who receive Him as Saviour and believe in Him become His property through His sacrifice, and He gives to them the fragrance of His righteousness. To be His sheep means that all are brethren, made one with Him and the Father as He is one with the Father, and made joint heirs with Him to the heavenly inheritance. They are therefore bound together in holy fellowship in kindness, courtesy, patience, forbearance and love, and they dishonor Him when they crowd and push one another, make dissensions over inferior things, or imagine evil against one another.
His shepherding reaches other sheep not of this fold, who hear His voice and must be brought in, so that there shall be one fold and one shepherd. His fold is where the lost must be brought back, led by living faith laying hold on divine power to return the wandering ones into the path of life with no time to lose while the day lasts. The church is His body, His family, and the bride, the Lamb's wife, and the flock is a place of safety under the faithful Chief Shepherd. He tends the whole human family as a flock of sheep and lambs with pastoral care and guards them with the help of faithful under-shepherds, so that those who obey His voice will not be left to be devoured by wolves.
Children and youth are lambs of His fold and God's own property entrusted to His watch-care for their salvation, receiving His constant care as those entrusted to Him. He is the true Shepherd of the lambs, even the youngest children, loving them, keeping His eyes upon them, not repulsing their full-hearted love, and calling them to come to Him for His blessing. He guides the lambs so that they form beautiful characters, accepts the service they can give, and blesses those who form approved characters. He hears their simple prayers, mingling them with the incense of His own spotless merits so that they come up as a sweet-smelling savor before God, made fragrant by the purity and loveliness of His character, and they need loving care and protection from temptation so they can enter that fold of safety.
The same image of sheep entrusted to a shepherd applies to human care, as when Luther regarded the Wittenberg believers as entrusted to him by God. That shepherd responsibility meant being willing to expose himself to death for their sake.
Following and Shared Ministry
His sheep hear His voice, know Him and love Him, going where He goes before them and following Him where He wants them to go, while they will not follow strangers but flee them because they do not know their voice. He leads without whip or dog, guiding by a call His sheep understand, and when one strays He calls it back with His voice, while the sheep press close together and follow Him in an affectionate, intelligent bond. His followers must learn His voice to recognize Him and to distinguish Him from a false shepherd, so as to avoid confusion and danger. The wilderness experience taught Israel this lesson, refining them to know God and Jesus Christ and to follow their invisible Leader, with obedience to His voice making them God's distinctive people prepared to show His will to the nations.
The shepherd and flock picture shows His close care and their helpless dependence on Him, with all dependent on His atonement. To be His sheep means all are brethren, made one with Him and the Father as He is one with the Father and made joint heirs with Him to the heavenly inheritance, bound in holy fellowship in kindness, courtesy, patience, forbearance and love without crowding, pushing, dissension or imagining evil. Following Him as True Shepherd and Captain means wrenching away from Satan's power to be free, and Satan fights such souls hardest then, seeking to hold them with additional chains, to deceive and hurt them, and to make them weak and incapable of service. When the captive tugs at the chain longing to be free and cooperates with heavenly intelligences by faith taking hold of Christ, Christ as stronger than the strong man armed helps the soul, and the Holy Spirit strengthens the person to obtain freedom.
His sacrifice to redeem sinners and His coming from heaven to seek and save the lost call His followers to labor earnestly for the unsaved. Those who belong to Him and know Him are called to devote their abilities and resources to helping Him seek the lost. Those who know Him cooperate with God in that work, laying hold by living faith on the power of divinity to lead the wandering ones back to the Shepherd into the path of life, working on with no time to lose while the day lasts, since His fold is where the lost must be brought back. A special duty rests on His people to go and search for the erring, the weak and trembling, and even those who have apostatized from the truth, to call them to come fully into the fold.
His undying care and love extend to poor, straying sheep, and His followers must imitate this tenderness, compassion and long-suffering toward those who have erred, rather than abandon them when they reject counsel or wander from the church. Faithful workers share His distinct Spirit through living connection with God and the cooperation of supernatural power, doing supernatural work in strengthening the things that remain and are ready to die, seeking to save that which is ready to perish, watching for souls as one who must give an account, and speaking a word in season under the Holy Spirit to draw souls in great peril into safe paths. Those who work from human judgment without power from on high show they do not have this Spirit and are unreliable, and those who bite and devour and ruin and destroy show the opposite spirit of the wolf and will meet a fearful account in the judgment.
The good shepherd who knows His sheep and is known by them puts the sheep's interests before His own comfort, seeking the lost and wandering even when the work brings weariness, cold, hunger or personal cost. His duty comes from heaven, and wages do not turn Him from it; He looks for His reward when His work is finished. A minister who follows His example bears the burden of the work for souls and endures privations and hardships, remaining faithful through hardship and staying to labor when interest in truth is strongest and minds are agitated, rather than abandoning people at the most important time for trifles like bad roads, rainy weather or little matters at home, or for a more pleasant and easy field, or wishing to be carried by the people. Careless or unfaithful labor can result in souls being lost, while self-sacrificing faithfulness can help save many.
Faithful shepherding is more than preaching; it guards those entrusted, protects sheep and lambs from degradation and corruption of mind and moral sense, and feeds rather than rules, whips, drives or judges hearts and motives, for judgment belongs to Christ. It refuses to let temporal matters absorb the time and attention that belongs to souls, ministers to the needs of sinners and to spiritual needs, visits believers when sick, notices absence from meetings and inquires into the matter, heeds word of spiritual condition and makes personal effort to help through conversation and prayer, and labors to restore those who have given up the truth or are in danger of leaving to the fold of Christ. Failure to visit, inquire and help is unfaithful shepherding that leaves members exposed to temptation, while such abuse as degrading or corrupting is incompatible with being a shepherd of His flock.
His example calls all entrusted with His work to care for His sheep and lambs, reaching people in their deepest need. Those who serve Him are to seek those who stray rather than abandoning them, and to win and save them with His help. His earnest, tireless seeking of the lost sheep is a model for followers, who should look for opportunities to speak with loving sympathy. Young workers also need a shepherd's care and the shelter of home influences, since He cares for and protects His sheep.
His faithful shepherding that knows and tenderly loves His people is a model for guiding children, since they belong to Him because He purchased them through His suffering and gives the fragrance of His righteousness to those who believe in Him. Teachers should lead them with wisdom, tact, love and sanctified affection to value the privilege of yielding to His guidance. Parents are to reflect His love and care in tender care of their children as lambs, so that they may become lambs in His fold. Children are lambs of His flock and God's own property entrusted to parents and teachers to train for ministry; they must not be left in self-indulgence and uncorrected disobedience nor ruled by an overbearing, inconsiderate, masterful spirit that makes their lives miserable and destroys respect for family, because such mishandling injures souls belonging to God and prepares those lambs for Satan to work his will upon them instead of keeping them known and guarded by the Shepherd.
His sheep hear His voice and know Him through the True Shepherd's work of caring for the flock and seeking out the lost and straying to bring them back.