Page 75 - The Gospel of John - Student textbook

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have seen Him; in fact, He is the One speaking with you.” “I believe, Lord!” he said, and he worshiped Him.
39 Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment, in order that those who do not see will see and those who
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do see will become blind.” Some of the Pharisees who were with Him heard these things and asked Him,
“We aren’t blind too, are we?” “If you were blind,” Jesus told them, “you wouldn’t have sin. But now that
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you say, ‘We see’—your sin remains.

John 10:1-44 (HCSB)

1 “I assure you: Anyone who doesn’t enter the sheep pen by the door but climbs in some other way, is a thief
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and a robber. The one who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. The doorkeeper opens it for
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him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought
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all his own outside, he goes ahead of them. The sheep follow him because they recognize his voice. They will
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never follow a stranger; instead they will run away from him, because they don’t recognize the voice of
strangers.” Jesus gave them this illustration, but they did not understand what He was telling them.
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R. C. Sproul teaches that some biblical commentators look at this text and say that when Jesus spoke of the
thieves and robbers, He referred to false messiahs or to the devil. I don’t think so; this comment is far more
pointed than that. Remember, this comment came right up on the heels of a very heated discussion between
Jesus and the Pharisees about the man born blind. This is the context here. Jesus addressed those whom God
had called to be the shepherds over His flock, the clergy of His day, who had so recently cast the healed man out
of the synagogue, rejecting a sheep in the flock of God. Jesus called these clergy, the Pharisees, thieves and
robbers.

Jesus drew this illustration from the sheep industry of the day. The way sheep were cared for in ancient Israel
was very different from the way they are handled today. In those days, there was one large, central pen, or
sheepfold, in a given community, and at the end of the day people brought their small individual flocks and led
them into the big sheepfold. With their combined resources, they paid a gatekeeper, and it was his job to stay
with the sheep during the night.

In the morning, the gatekeeper opened the gate to those who were truly shepherds, whose sheep were
enclosed in the sheepfold. The shepherds entered by the door, for they had every right to do so – the sheep
were theirs and the gatekeeper was their paid servant. When a shepherd entered the sheepfold, the sheep of all
the local flocks were mixed, but he began to call, and his sheep recognized his voice and came to him. In fact, a
good shepherd was so intimately involved with the care and the nurture of his sheep that he had names for
them, and he would call them by name. The sheep follow him out because they knew him. Jesus used this
particular illustration over and over again to speak about His relationship to those whom the Father had given
Him, to those who are believers. The illustration teaches us that Christ knows the believer and the believer
knows Him, recognizes His voice, and follows Him.

Christ knows the believer and the believer knows Him,

recognizes His voice, and follows Him.

So Jesus said again, “I assure you: I am the door of the sheep. All who came before Me are thieves and
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robbers, but the sheep didn’t listen to them. I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved and will
come in and go out and find pasture. A thief comes only to steal and to kill and to destroy. I have come that
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they may have life and have it in abundance.

Charles Swindoll brings out this interpretation of the phrase, “have it in abundance”. People in the West
(especially the false prophets of the “Word of Faith” movement) interpret “abundance” to mean prosperity, and
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