The Good Shepherd
1 “Truly I tell you, anyone who doesn’t enter the sheep pen by the gate but climbs in some other way is a thief and a robber. x 2 The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd y of the sheep. z 3 The gatekeeper opens it for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When he has brought all his own outside, he goes ahead of them. The sheep follow him because they know his voice. 5 They will never follow a stranger; instead they will run away from him, because they don’t know the voice of strangers.”6 Jesus gave them this figure of speech, but they did not understand a what he was telling them.
7 Jesus said again, “Truly I tell you, I am b the gate for the sheep.c 8 All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep didn’t listen to them. 9 I am the gate. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will come in and go out and find pasture. 10 A thief comes only to steal d and kill and destroy. e I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance.
11 “I am the good shepherd. f The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. g 12 The hired hand, since he is not the shepherd and doesn’t own the sheep, leaves them and runs away when he sees a wolfh coming. The wolf then snatches and scatters them. 13 This happens because he is a hired hand and doesn’t care about the sheep.
14 “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. i I lay down my lifej for the sheep. 16 But I have other sheep k that are not from this sheep pen; I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. Then there will be one flock, one shepherd. l 17 This is why the Father loves me, m because I lay down my life n so that I may take it up again. 18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down on my own. I have the right to lay it down, and I have the right to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father.” o
19 Again the Jews were divided p because of these words. 20 Many of them were saying, “He has a demon q and he’s crazy. Why do you listen to him? ” 21 Others were saying, “These aren’t the words of someone who is demon-possessed. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind? ” r
Jesus at the Festival of Dedication
22 Then the Festival of Dedication took place in Jerusalem, and it was winter. 23 Jesus was walking in the temple in Solomon’s Colonnade. s 24 The Jews surrounded him and asked, “How long are you going to keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, t tell us plainly.” ,u
25 “I did tell you and you don’t believe,” Jesus answered them. “The works v that I do in my Father’s name testify about me. 26 But you don’t believe because you are not of my sheep ,w 27 My sheep hear my voice, I know them, and they follow me.28 I give them eternal life, x and they will never perish. y No one will snatch z them out of my hand.29 My Father, a who has given them to me, is greater than all. No one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.30 I and the Father are one.” b
Renewed Efforts to Stone Jesus
31 Again the Jews picked up rocks to stone him. c
32 Jesus replied, “I have shown you many good worksd from the Father. For which of these works are you stoning me? ”
33 “We aren’t stoning e you for a good work,” the Jews answered, “but for blasphemy, because you—being a man—make yourself God.”
34 Jesus answered them, “Isn’t it written in your law, I said, you are gods? ,f 35 If he called those whom the word g of God came to ‘gods’—and the Scripture h cannot be broken— 36 do you say, ‘You are blaspheming’ to the one the Father set apart and sent into the world, because I said: I am the Son of God?i 37 If I am not doing my Father’s works, j don’t believe me. 38 But if I am doing them and you don’t believe me, believe the works. This way you will know and understand that the Father is in me and I in the Father.” k 39 Then they were trying again to seize him, l but he eluded their grasp. m
Many beyond the Jordan Believe in Jesus
40 So he departed again across the Jordan n to the place where John o had been baptizing earlier, and he remained there. 41 Many came to him p and said, “John never did a sign, but everything John said about this man was true.” 42 And many believed in him there.
10:1–6. The Festival of Dedication (10:22) introduces us to the fourth festival of Judaism that Jesus attends and that becomes a place of discourse and revelation. The Jewish background provides striking depth to the discourse of Jesus in chapter 10 (see the article “The Festival of Dedication”). Jesus’s conflict with the Jerusalem leadership has reached a peak. Jesus will not publicly debate the Jews again after chapter 10. After the conflict with the Pharisees in chapter 9, which described them as blind (9:39–41), now they are depicted as false shepherds (10:1, 10, 12–13). [The Festival of Dedication]
10:7–10. As in other discourses, the failure of the listeners to understand Jesus’s meaning (10:6) leads him to explain himself more fully (cf. 3:9–14; 7:35–39). Initially Jesus affirms that he is the way (“the gate,” 10:7, 9) through which one finds salvation or pasture. This is an advance over the parable of 10:1–5, wherein the shepherd is distinguished from the gatekeeper and the gate. Now we learn that Jesus distributes not simply access to leadership but life itself. If the parable has allegorical elements, note that now in the interpretation Jesus assumes a new sovereignty over the fold. Has he assumed divine tasks again? The sheepfold is designed to keep out those who would harm the sheep (10:10), and Jesus is their guardian. He refuses access to many, including those like the Pharisees. These leaders destroy, but God sent Christ so that those who believe might not be destroyed (3:16; 6:39; 17:12).
10:11–18. But Jesus is also the good shepherd (10:11, 14). The superiority of Jesus’s work is given. Not only is his devotion to the sheep such that he is willing to die for them while others flee from danger (10:11–13, 17); he also knows them deeply—so deeply that in 10:15 an appropriate analogy for this knowledge is Jesus’s relationship to his Father. As Jesus is in the Father, so the disciple is in Christ (cf. 14:20, 24).
10:19–21. The responses to Jesus’s discourses have followed a pattern that is seen again here. At Passover, the Festival of Shelters, and now at the Festival of Dedication, a division erupts among the listeners (10:19; cf. 6:41, 60; 7:25, 45). There is no neutral position for one who is faced with Christ’s revelation. Either hostility (10:20) or the seeds of faith (10:21) will follow. Those who believe are ready to cast off the extreme charge of demon possession lodged against Jesus at the Festival of Shelters (7:20; 8:48). Jesus’s teachings and miracles (esp. 9:1–7) are confirming evidence for them.
10:22–25. This narrative epitomizes Jesus’s ultimate claims about himself and the fateful Jewish reaction (10:22–39). With this encounter we reach a sort of crescendo. The evidences accumulating in the Book of Signs will shift following this chapter. Here the height of Jesus’s self-revelation is completed: his identity with the Father is now explicit (10:30, 33) and centered on his claim to the title Son of God (10:34–36). Similarly, the hostilities are keen: twice attempts are made on his life, but he escapes (10:31, 39).
10:26–30. The way in which Jesus defends his claims and explains Jewish disbelief affirms that God is sovereign over who accepts revelation. The leaders are simply not of Jesus’s fold and hence cannot hear his voice (10:26–27). This divine control over revelation has appeared elsewhere (6:37, 44, 65; cf. 17:6). Understanding the signs alone is a divine gift.
10:31–39. The Jewish leaders judge Jesus’s statement as blasphemy (10:31–33). Jesus in turn debates like a rabbi. First, he notes that the general ascription of “gods” was known in the OT (Ps 82) and used for those who were vehicles for the word of the Lord (10:34–35). Is the Messiah not at least this? Second, the Messiah is more. If the first premise is correct, what do we say of him who is a unique vehicle of the word of God—who is the Word (Jn 1:1)? Of course Ps 82:6 does not mean that agents of God are divine, but the presence of the term “god” alone is sufficient for Jesus to make his point following rabbinic theological logic.
10:40–42. Jesus now withdraws before the crucial events of his final week (10:40). He knows the region of the Jordan and Perea well (Mt 19:1; Mk 10:1), and this is his refuge. Soon he will climb the ascent from Jericho to Bethany and inaugurate the week of the passion.