I am the Good Shepherd. (John 10:11)

The Good Shepherd discourse in the Sunday propers begins at the 11th verses of John 10 and is the 4th of the seven "I am" statements in the Gospel of St. John. The discourse actually begins in the first verse of this chapter.

Jesus describes Himself as the "Good Shepherd". The relationship of shepherd to his sheep is very one sided. The shepherd is all that stands between a flock and the various dangers which are always near. We remember David, who in Old Testament "typology" is a forerunner of Christ. Davis, the shepherd, fought off a lion and a bear that threatened his flock. But, as we will see, the Lord Jesus Christ was not only prepared to die for his sheep, he came precisely to do so.

In verse 14, Jesus describes that the shepherd must die for his sheep, who are in peril and that He gives up his life to save them.

In verse 9, just before our passage, Jesus said "I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture." Clearly He is speaking here about salvation. Interestingly, the Mishnah, the collection of rabbinical law from about this period, specified that if only one wolf attacked the flock, the shepherd was required to defend the sheep, but if two or more attacked it constituted an "unavoidable accident." [Baba Metzia 7:9] Unlike an earthly shepherd, Jesus, The Good Shepherd, however, gives his life for His sheep without condition.

Furthermore, according to verse 15, the shepherd's knowledge of his sheep and theirs of him is akin to the mutual knowledge of the Father and the Son. He is making the point that it is an intimate knowledge. The particularity of the shepherd's relation with the sheep, which had been introduced already in vv. 3-5, is now emphasized again. The Lord is the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world (1:29) and the Savior of the world (4:42), but he is as emphatically the one who came to save those the Father gave to him (6:37) and those who are his sheep. As Paul will put it, Christ loved the church and gave himself for her.

v.16 However many sheep there are, they will all listen to Christ's voice - whether his own human voice during the days of the ministry or his voice as mediated by the Holy Spirit after Pentecost. It has generally been understood that the sheep pen refers to Judaism and the "other sheep" refers to the Gentiles. The book of Acts tells the story of the beginnings of this mission to the nations and some of the first sheep, not of the original sheep pen, to hear the Lord's voice and follow him. Importantly, the phrase "I have other sheep…" indicates that they are already his sheep, even though they have not yet been called or brought into His fold.

This would appear to be a reference to what we call the doctrine of election, which is taught from the beginning to the end of the Bible. Think of the Lord's telling Paul that he "had much people in the city of Corinth" prior to the conversion of those people. Paul had to stay to preach so that those sheep might be brought in. The result is that those brought from the first fold of Judaism and those not from that fold will eventually form one flock with one shepherd. That is a pre-Pentecostal way of saying what Paul says in Ephesians 2:11-22, our text for the session visitation this year. Verse 16, "And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd." by the way, is engraved on the tombstone of David Livingstone, the great missionary to Africa.

In verse 17, we are told that the Father loves the Son for his perfect obedience to the Father's will. Christ was, of course, arrested and then crucified by evil men. But it is supremely important to know that this was always God's plan. As we read in Acts 4:27-28, the early Christians understood full well that though their deeds were their own evil, the executioners of Jesus were only doing his will for him and the Father's will. He came into the world to lay down his life and he did it. And, of course, at any point, had he wished, he could have escaped that cruel death. He told his disciples at his arrest not to attempt to help him. "After all," he told them, "do you not know that if I asked, the Father would send twelve legions of angels to my aid!" Instead, we see him in the Gospels orchestrating events to ensure that his death happens at precisely the right place, in precisely the right time, and in precisely the right way. Thus, Christ offered Himself as Sacrifice for the sins of his people. And again, as so often in the Lord's speech, he gives the credit for this plan to his Father and says that in all that he is doing and will do, he is only obeying his Father in heaven.

In this great text, we are given an account of salvation from its beginning to its end. We see the our salvation first and foremost in terms of our election before the foundation of the world.

We clearly have that here as the Lord speaks about his sheep, many of whom, as he says in v. 16, have no inkling of him yet as their Savior; indeed, many of whom do not yet even exist in the world. We, you and I, all of us Gentiles who are truly Christians, are after all, the "other sheep" to whom the Lord made reference in verse 16. Before the Christ was incarnate, and before He laid down his life, God already knew his people, had already chosen them for salvation. This is a difficult doctrine, to be sure, but that it is the teaching of the Bible there can be no doubt. And not here only but everywhere in the Bible.

Think of such statements as these.

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will…" [Eph. 1:3-5]

"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined he also called, and those he called, he also justified…" [Rom. 8:28-30]

And in this same Gospel of John we hear many times, in one way or another, that the Lord Jesus came into the world to save "the people the Father had given to him." Indeed, we are going to get that point made with emphasis in the very next paragraph, in vv. 26-29. We have the same thing in the Lord's great prayer in chapter 17. "I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world." [6] "I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours." [9] "My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one…" [20] - a statement very like our verse 16 here. "Righteous father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they [that is, his disciples] know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them…" [25] And we have the same in John 6:39 and other places in that great sermon on the bread of life: "And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day."

So we can see that our salvation was the plan and purpose of God before the world was even made; And was, in fact, a covenant or agreement between the Father and the Son that the Son should come into the world to save God's chosen people, his sheep. And, given the fact that no one can frustrate the will of the Almighty, no one can prevent him from accomplishing his will, we rightly say that once it was God's plan to save us by Christ, our salvation was a certainty. We were saved, in one sense, before the foundation of the world.

This is just how Peter sums it up in his first letter.

"For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to your from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. He was chosen before the creation of the world but was revealed in these last times for your sake. [1:18-20]

When that work was done on the cross, there is a true sense in which it can be said that we were saved, at that very point. That is the way the Bible very often speaks. The angel told Joseph before Jesus was born, "he will save his people from their sins." Paul speaks in a similar way. "…if, when we were God's enemies we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son…" We were reconciled to God, we obtained peace with God through the death of his Son. "When we were still powerless Christ died for the ungodly." "Since we have been justified by his blood…" In these and many other statements like them the Bible represents our salvation as being accomplished, as happening, as taking place on the cross and all of the blessings of that salvation coming to us at that time.

So just as we can say that we were saved when we were chosen and brought into God's plan of salvation, long before we even existed; so we can say that we were saved when Jesus Christ laid down his life for us, in our place, and paid, on our behalf, the debt of our sins. While it is true that we can speak of our salvation as that work by which we are drawn to Christ in faith, that faith is itself a gift of God. Like the sheep, we have heard his voice and answered his call to follow him. This is the way the Lord speaks here in verse 16 when he refers to his other sheep who must still hear his voice.

In his sermon on the day of Pentecost, you remember, the Apostle Peter said to those of his hearers who were responding to his message that the promise was for them, for their children, and for all who are afar off, for all whom the Lord our God shall call.

The rest of Acts is the story of the Lord calling those who are afar off. Jews and Gentiles in the towns of Galatia, Lydia and the jailer and their families in Philippi, large numbers of people in Corinth and Ephesus, and so on. They were the sheep that were not of the Jewish fold and they too heard the Lord's voice and followed him. When, in fear he cried out, 'What must I do to be saved?' Paul said to the Philippian jailer: "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved and your house." But Paul's voice and his words were but the form the Lord Jesus' voice took and the jailer and many others recognized the Good Shepherd's voice in the voice of his preachers and became a part of that one fold with one shepherd.

It is all the same salvation, of course. Whether we are thinking about it from the vantage point of the plan and the choice that God made long before the world was made - when he chose to save his sheep by his Son --, or from the vantage point of its accomplishment in the life, death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus, or from the vantage point of its actual application to a human soul at the time the Lord calls one of his sheep to faith in himself and that sheep begins to follow him. Indeed, we can also think of our salvation in terms of its consummation when Christ returns. In Hebrews 9:28 we read of the Lord Jesus appearing a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him." Salvation can be seen too from the vantage point of its completion and of our being raised in perfection to eternal life.

The history of this world is the story of God's salvation, the shepherd dying for the sheep, and they being called to follow him and doing so. The person who understands this understands everything. The person who does not understand this, whatever else he or she knows, knows nothing of real and lasting importance.

I am the Good Shepherd.