John
Chapter 10 – Lesson 1
Jesus, the Good Shepherd
John 10:1 (ESV) “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who
does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man
is a thief and a robber.
The Pharisees were robbers. They chained
the people to the Law rather than helping them to see that Jesus was the
Messiah that would bring freedom. They
fattened themselves while starving the people. If you want the backstory for
these ideas read the entire thirty-fourth chapter of Ezekiel. We have included
the first four verses here:
Ezekiel 34:1-4 (ESV) The word of the Lord came to me:
2 “Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel; prophesy, and say to
them, even to the shepherds, Thus says the Lord God: Ah, shepherds of Israel
who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep? 3 You
eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fat ones,
but you do not feed the sheep. 4 The weak you have not strengthened, the sick
you have not healed, the injured you have not bound up, the strayed you have
not brought back, the lost you have not sought, and with force and harshness
you have ruled them.
False teachers are not true shepherds.
They try to steal the sheep to follow them and stroke
their own egos rather than to follow and
bring glory to the Lord.
John 10:2 But he who enters by the door is the
shepherd of the sheep. 3 To him the gatekeeper opens. The sheep hear his voice,
and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.
The gatekeeper only opens the gate for
shepherds who have sheep in the pen he is guarding. The shepherd has a relationship with his particular sheep. They
recognize his voice. The shepherd has names for
his sheep. Our Shepherd knows my name and your name
if you are one of His sheep. Even though
we are the body of Christ collectively, we are each individually His as well. The sheep recognize the voice of their shepherd and the special
name he has for each one of them. This goes
back to our being predestined, chosen by God, to be His sheep, those who are
His children and heirs, who follow Him. Those of us
who are His sheep will recognize His voice when He calls us out of all the
sheep in the world. When He calls us out of the
darkness into His marvelous light (1 Peter 2:9), we
will recognize our Shepherd’s voice and follow Him.
Ezekiel 34:11 & 13a (ESV) “For thus says the Lord
God: Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out…And I
will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and
will bring them into their own land.
The prophet Ezekiel spoke partially
about God regathering the Jews into Israel again. However, it also applies to
the fact that our Shepherd WILL find us and bring us into His flock whether we
are Jews or Gentiles. We will know His voice when He calls us out of the world
and into His fold.
John 10:4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes
before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice.
When the Shepherd has called His flock
out from among the masses, He does not leave them
to find pasture for themselves. He leads them. They
follow the sound of His voice in order to stay on
the correct path and not wander off into danger. The
Good Shepherd will enable us to stay on the path of divine purpose by the power of His Holy Spirit within us and the word He has
preserved for us over the centuries, the Bible.
John 10:5 A stranger they will not follow, but they
will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.”
The sheep will not follow just any old
shepherd (or thief). A sheep, or in this analogy
believers, will not follow anyone but the one who has rescued them, the
Shepherd, the Protector, Jesus. The
shepherd has trained his sheep to know him, and our Shepherd places the ability
in us to discern His voice from the many noisy voices trying to lure us away. This
harks back to the fact that we have an intimate relationship with our Shepherd.
The shepherd does not just corral the sheep, put them in a pen, and walk away.
The sheep mean everything to the shepherd. The shepherd would give his life for
the sheep.
John 10:6 This figure of speech Jesus used with them,
but they did not understand what he was saying to them.
The people heard this analogy, but did
not understand that Jesus is the Shepherd. They were thinking, “Why is he
telling us this story about sheep?” They did
not understand Jesus’ role as nurturer and protector.
John 10:7 So Jesus again said to them, “Truly, truly,
I say to you, I am the door
of the sheep. 8 All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep
did not listen to them. 9 I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be
saved and will go in and out and find pasture.
All who came before Jesus claiming to be
the Messiah were imposters. The sheep the Lord had
chosen did not follow these pretenders. Jesus made another “I AM” statement
when He described Himself as the door. The only
way to be saved is to enter in by the Door, Jesus Christ. He is the only way to
the Father which we will cover even more in John
chapter 14. Also, some sheepfolds, especially out in the pasture area, had no
gate. The shepherd would lie across the entrance when he slept as the barrier
between predators, animal or human, and his sheep. Jesus is the barrier between His sheep and the sinful world that would try to lure them out to destroy them. He is the door
through which we enter, and is the door that keeps us safely inside His fold.
John 10:10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and
destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.
Satan’s agenda is to destroy people, but
Jesus’ purpose is to make them passionately fulfilled. The shepherd makes sure his sheep find excellent pasture and
clean drinking water and protects them from all who would harm them. Jesus is
the Shepherd, the Door, the Bread of Life, and the Living Water. He provides
all that His people need. Jesus is the force that
sustains life!
Hebrews 1:3a (NIV) The Son is the radiance of God’s
glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his
powerful word.
Q – Is the gospel of Jesus Christ making
sense to you for the first time? Perhaps the Shepherd is calling you out from
the world to be a part of His flock. If you believe you are hearing His voice,
surrender your life to Him, trust Him to be the Door to eternal life with the
Father, and enter into the familyship of God.
John
Chapter 10 – Lesson 2
I
AM the Good Shepherd
John 10:11 I
am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the
sheep.
This is the fourth of Jesus’ “I AM”
statements in John. So far, He has said He is the Light, the Bread, the Door,
and now the Good Shepherd. By recording these
statements, John was showing us that Jesus is everything we need because He IS God. A shepherd risked his life to protect his sheep. Jesus was foreshadowing that He would lay down His life as the
sacrifice and payment for our sins. He would
not just risk His life but would willingly give it up for His sheep, those
chosen by God to have relationship with Him.
John 10:12 He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd,
who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and
flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. 13 He flees because he is
a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.
The hired hand has no investment in the
sheep. He might lose pay if a sheep were lost, but he would not risk his life
for someone else’s lamb. The Good Shepherd is fully
invested in the lives of His sheep and would give His life to save them. The
hired hand would not purposely hurt the sheep like the thief or predator, but
he would abandon the sheep to those who would harm them.
John:1014 I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my
own know me, 15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay
down my life for the sheep.
Reformation Study Bible
10:14 I know my own and my own know me. This is placed in parallel with
the intimacy between the Father and the Son (v. 15; cf. 17:21–23). It is clear
that “know” here, as so often in Scripture, means more than a mental grasp; it
includes personal understanding and a commitment of will. To say that God
“knows” a person in this way refers to His gracious redemptive commitment to
that individual.
The Good Shepherd has more than a mere
intellectual knowledge about the sheep. He has a relationship in which emotions
are invested. He knows each sheep intimately and
enables the sheep to have intimate knowledge of Him. Jesus knows all the layers of the onion because He created the
onion. As Jesus and the Father
are one, He desires to be one with the sheep. We will cover this more
completely in John chapter 17. This is more than a casual relationship; Jesus
was committed to the sheep to the point of dying for them.
John 10:16 And I have other sheep that are not of this
fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will
be one flock, one shepherd.
The gospel is not exclusive to Israel. Jewish believers were not Jesus’ only sheep. Gentiles, those who are not Jews, would receive the good news as
well, and many of them would be granted a relationship with the Lord.
Otherwise, Susan and I would not be writing this blog since neither of us are
Jewish!
John 10:17 For this reason the Father loves me,
because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. 18 No one takes it from
me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I
have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my
Father.”
The Father loved Jesus because He was
willing to fulfill His will, being obedient even until death. He made the point that no one could take His life from Him.
Instead He would be willingly giving it up, knowing He would be resurrected. As
God, He has authority over life and death.
John 10:19 There was again a division among the Jews
because of these words. 20 Many of them said, “He has a demon, and is insane;
why listen to him?”
The religious leaders were always saying
Jesus had a demon. They didn’t know what else to say. It may have sounded pretty crazy to hear Him saying He could
give His life and then take it up again. No MAN could come back to life after
dying! They did not believe in the reality that Jesus was the Son of
God, they did not see Him as the genuine article, the promised Messiah. And if He had claimed to be those things and in reality was not,
that WOULD make Him crazy.
John 10:21 Others said, “These are not the words of
one who is oppressed by a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?”
Others questioned the veracity of the
Pharisees’ argument. How could someone who was
demon possessed or crazy heal the blind man? God
and the devil cannot live in the same vessel; so
if Jesus were performing miraculous acts in the name of God, He could not
possibly be demon possessed.
Q – Do you realize your need for a
shepherd? Have you come to the conclusion that without Jesus to lead you, you
are hopelessly lost in a downward spiral of sin? If so, stop fighting Him and
surrender to His call. Then the Good Shepherd will lead you to good grazing
ground in His word, and quench your thirst with Living Water.
John
10 – Lesson 3
Eternal
Security of the Believer
John 10:22 (ESV) At that time the Feast of Dedication
took place at Jerusalem. It was winter, 23 and Jesus was walking in the temple,
in the colonnade of Solomon.
The Feast of Dedication (today’s
Hanukkah) was also called the Festival of Lights because of lamps and candles
being lit in homes and the temple as a part of the celebration. It was observed
to commemorate the rededication of the temple after it had been desecrated by
the hideous, maniacal Syrian dictator Antiochus Epiphanes. It was
celebrated around the time of our December 19th. The fact that it
was winter would explain why Jesus was walking in the more sheltered area of
the temple called Solomon’s Colonnade. After His ascension to Heaven, this
became a favorite gathering place of the early Jerusalem church.
John 10:24 So the Jews gathered around him and said to
him, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us
plainly.”
Jesus had told them in a kaleidoscope of
ways that He was the Son of God. What
suspense? How many more analogies could He share? He had called Himself the Light of the World, the Bread of Life,
the Door, and the Good Shepherd as well as the Son of Man, a term used in the
Old Testament to mean the Messiah. He had said more than once that He was sent
by the Father. The religious leaders were
not interested in knowing Jesus’ true identity, essence, and nature. All they
wanted Him to do was to back Himself into a corner by committing supposed
blasphemy so they could justify attacking Him.
John 10:25 Jesus answered them, “I told you, and you
do not believe. The works that I do in my Father's name bear witness about me,
26 but you do not believe because you are not among my sheep.
Jesus explained once again that the
miracles were all they should need to know that He was sent by God. He told them they did not understand because they were not His. They had not been chosen by the Father to be a part of the
flock. We are blind until the Holy Spirit opens our eyes. The Jewish leaders were incapable of perception. They refused to open their eyes to His light. These were the Jewish leaders, teachers of the Law, but they
seemed to have no God compass or radar. Their
legalism had hardened their hearts. Jesus had told them enough for them to
understand that He was the Messiah, but they refused to believe.
John 10:27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them,
and they follow me.
Jesus knows His sheep even before they
recognize Him. His own sheep would hear His voice and flock to it like moths to
a flame. The Pharisees did not realize that His was the voice of God because
they did not have the intimate relationship with God that they thought they
did. Sheep can discern the voice of their shepherd among other people
calling them. They know the distinct call and voice of
their own shepherd and will not follow another.
When we belong to Jesus, His Holy Spirit indwells us and enables us to
distinguish His will from the many paths the world uses to entice us away from God’s way.
John 10:28 I give them eternal life, and they will
never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has
given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of
the Father's hand. 30 I and the Father are one.”
Jesus was given the authority to give
His sheep eternal life. As the Good Shepherd, He is our protector and defender.
We are secure. God the Father sovereignly
hand-picked those who would be in Jesus’ and His forever flock, His family. God
is almighty, all-powerful, and the final authority. No one can penetrate His iron grip to steal or harm those who
belong to Him. No one can snatch me out of His grasp – NOT EVEN MYSELF. I could
do nothing to earn my salvation, and therefore, I can do nothing to lose it. God and Jesus are hand in hand, both holding the believer
securely. Jesus and the Father share the same essence, nature, and qualities because even though they are distinct in their roles, they are
one God. That Trinity concept again. So hard to understand! They are One in their purpose and passion for their sheep,
those they have chosen.
Q – Have you trusted Jesus to cleanse
you from sin and take you to Heaven someday? If so, you can completely rest in
the fact that He will not let go of you for any reason. He is your Protector,
Provider, and Prince. Hallelujah!
John
Chapter 10 – Lesson 4
Jews
Want Jesus Stoned
John 10:31 The Jews picked up stones again to stone
him.
In the previous passage, Jesus had said
that He and the Father (God) were One, so the Jews picked up stones to execute
Him. The Jews believed Jesus to be committing blasphemy because He
was declaring Himself to be God. The sin of blasphemy was punishable by death.
Webster’s 1828 Dictionary of the English Language:
BLAS'PHEMY, noun An indignity offered to God by words or writing;
reproachful, contemptuous or irreverent words uttered impiously against
Jehovah.
Blasphemy is an injury offered to God, by denying that which is due and
belonging to him, or attributing to him that which is not agreeable to his
nature.
John 10:32 Jesus answered them, “I have shown you many
good works from the Father; for which of them are you going to stone me?”
Jesus advocated for Himself by pointing
out that the miracles He performed were proof that He was who He claimed to be.
Also, every sign He had performed was for the benefit of people,
never to harm them. He always worked for the
good of the people, never to cause injury. Jesus’
claiming to be God would be blasphemy only if it were not true. Since He was
and is truly One with God, He had committed no sin!
John 10:33 The Jews answered him, “It is not for a
good work that we are going to stone you but for blasphemy, because you, being
a man, make yourself God.”
The Jews were blinded by their own
hardness of heart and haughtiness. They could
not bring themselves to admit that Jesus was the Messiah, so they just stayed
on their same track of denial. They were like a record
(vinyl) with a scratch the keeps playing the same line over and over and over. The
Jews had been trying to entrap Jesus so they would have valid reason to kill
(murder) Him and be rid of His challenges to them
forever. Every time Jesus spoke, His eloquence
concerning the Father embarrassed the Jewish leaders because it exposed how
little they really understood. The teachers of the Law
needed a remedial course in Messianic prophesies.
John 10:34 Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in
your Law, ‘I said, you are gods’? 35 If he called them gods to whom the word of
God came—and Scripture cannot be broken— 36 do you say of him whom the Father
consecrated and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I
am the Son of God’?
We cannot explain verses 34 and 35 any
more clearly than the statement quoted below:
Reformation Study Bible:
10:34–38 In the Old Testament, human judges could be called “gods” because
they were viewed as acting in God’s place in dispensing justice. The Hebrew
word ’elohim is used not only to refer to the one true God but also to denote
false gods, angels, and, very rarely, men exercising divine functions. Jesus’
argument may be understood as follows: “Rather than taking offense because this
word is used of Me, you should examine My credentials that prove My Father has
sent Me into this world.”
Following is the Old Testament verse
Jesus was quoting:
Psalm 82:6 (ESV) I
said, “You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you…
Jesus made the point that mortal men
could be called sons of God, so why should the spiritual leadership get all up
in arms with Jesus in particular. They
certainly should not have had a problem since His wondrous works (the miracles) showed that He was THE
Son of God.
John 10:37 If I am not doing the works of my Father,
then do not believe me; 38 but if I do them, even though you do not believe me,
believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me
and I am in the Father.”
Jesus was saying, “If you can’t take my
word for it, examine my deeds.” If His works were not of God, they would have a
valid reason for their unbelief. The words
of their arguments held nothing substantive. Everything Jesus was doing WAS
from God. It was authentic. He IS the Truth. The accusations of the Pharisees
were empty blustering, having no merit. Uneducated,
common people were able to see that God was working through Jesus and
recognized Him as the Messiah because of His miracles. It was obvious to them
that God was in Him and He was in God. His
intimate relationship with the Father was evident in both His words and deeds.
John 10:39 Again they sought to arrest him, but he
escaped from their hands.
His time had not yet come! Again! How did Jesus always manage to escape from mobs of people
pursuing Him? Because God is sovereign and had not
given Him into their hands…yet.
John 10:40 He went away again across the Jordan to the
place where John had been baptizing at first, and there he remained. 41 And
many came to him. And they said, “John did no sign, but everything that John
said about this man was true.” 42 And many believed in him there.
Jesus may have needed to clear His head after so many encounters with the nay-sayers. We forget that although Jesus was fully divine, He was also
fully human. It was certainly safer across the Jordan
and farther away from the Pharisees. John the Baptist had done the prep work on
the other side of the Jordan, telling the people about the One who was to come
after him. The people realized everything John the
Baptist had said about Jesus was valid. It became clear to the people that this
man, Jesus, that John pointed them to, was truly the Messiah. They noted that John himself performed no miracles, but Jesus
did many signs. Many of the people who heard
Jesus teach became believers.
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