The Gospel of John | Identity from the Good Shepherd – John 10:22-42
Jesus will provide for the eternal life of those The Father gives and will transform and redeem their lives.
The Feast of Dedication provides a backdrop for Jesus’ teaching, a detail sure to be intentional. The feast of dedication came from the inter-testamental period in which Syrian King came into Israel, attempting to blend the cultures of the Jewish people and the gentiles. The King desecrated the temple designed to worship the one true God and turned it to worshipping foreign gods. Judas Maccabaeus would be the one to return the temple back to its proper state of worship by driving out the gentile worship. Thus, the Feast of Dedication marked the time of rededication of the temple to worship the Lord after removing those who worshipped anything other than the one true God. Now, as Jesus walks through the colonnade of Solomon, the sentiment remains largely the same. The work of Christ throughout these teaching chapters of John reiterate the same mission. Over time, the people of Israel have bowed to worshipping essentially a foreign god that trusted in their own ability to perform the righteous requirements of the law as the Pharisees and rulers heaped requirements on the people that they could not overcome.
Jesus continues to criticize the Pharisees for being unwilling to see the Savior in front of them. Now, as they approached him, they demanded Jesus tell them plainly whether He claimed to be the Messiah or not. Not that Jesus hadn’t been clear in His teachings, He had routinely identified Himself as the Messiah, accepting worship, continuing to promote those who proclaimed it, and performed duties and acts that only God could do. Yet, Jesus did not back down from His message as before, the sheep know the voice of the shepherd and the Pharisees could not hear the voice of Jesus Christ. Even by the standards of the Pharisees, judging the works of man, Jesus still met the standards of the Messiah and they could not justify their decision to kill Him. Now, as the judges and stewards of the church, Jesus sought to dethrone their reign as He rightfully took His place on the throne.
The Security of Being Sheep
Again, we see Jesus comparing His followers to sheep. Sheep have a profound lack of ability to care for themselves and have become known as some of the least intelligent animals having been known to walk off climbs, be unable to find food, and regularly fall into heat exhaustion laying on their backs. The sheep is not something that needs help in surviving but needs a shepherd to care for and provide for its every need. As the Pharisees came to Jesus and asked Him to speak plainly as to whether He was the Messiah (whether for clarity or to trap Him), now Jesus responded to the Pharisees with that same lack of vagueness; the Pharisees did not know the voice of the shepherd because they cannot be counted to behave in a way to survive. The sheep need the shepherd. The Pharisees became outraged at this comparison as Jesus forces them to come face to face with their own inability and inadequacy. This is not to tell them they have less worth or that they should take offense to this comparison, but rather that it would spur them to surrender to the Lord. They need a shepherd, but they have rejected the shepherd sent by God to reject them. Thus, the Pharisees do not recognize the Lord as Savior because they have not understood the sheep’s great need for a shepherd.
Jesus is the good shepherd who cares for His sheep. Nothing can snatch the sheep for the hands of the shepherd. The sheep have been given to the shepherd by the Father and that authority, which transcends every other authority, The security of being a sheep comes from the strength of the shepherd. Jesus is the good shepherd who gives eternal life. When we trust in our shepherd, we trust that no other being compares with the greatness and glory of Jesus Christ. While many things vie for our attention as the sheep, we hear and respond to the voice of the true shepherd who leads us to life. All other “shepherds” and all other aspects that seek to guide and direct our lives will not produce the eternal life but lead us further into our own destruction. We will hear the voices of the world, but we will know the voice of our true shepherd and must continually run to Him and heed His words. As followers who know the voice of the shepherd, we cannot continue to run to the voice of our carnal desires and sinful flesh as sheep are want to do. Instead, we must pursue the voice of the shepherd and drawn need to Jesus as he draws near to us.
- What signs does Jesus give that are indicators that a sheep belongs to the Good Shepherd?
Works as the Outpouring of Identity
The blatant identification of Jesus as the Christ and the subsequent rejection of the Jews as knowing the Father enraged their sensibilities that basked in their own self-righteousness and moved them to pick up stones to kill Jesus. The penalty of someone falsely claiming to be God according to the Levitical law would be to throw stones at the person until they died. Yet, while they have felt their actions justified, Jesus would have to not be the Christ in order for the punishment to be due to Him. Thus, Jesus challenges the Pharisees using their own standard of works against them. The Pharisees could not conclusively prove that Jesus was not the Messiah other than He was not doing what the Pharisees expected of Him. When you look at the works of Jesus Christ, though, they demonstrated the truth that Jesus is the Messiah. No other being could do the actions that Jesus did with the authority that Jesus did them. Jesus continues His rebuke. The Pharisees knew the scriptures and saw the signs, having been called as gods and judges of the people and stewards of the faith yet rejected the Messiah who stood in front of them.
It is not our own works or merits that produce salvation inside of us, nor are they able to. Only the works of the Messiah can bring the righteous justification by faith in who He is and what He does. Christians are saved by works, just not our own, but rather by the works of Jesus Christ to save and redeem His people. Actions come from the outpouring of our identity being rooted in the person of Jesus Christ. You would expect that the sheep who knows the Good Shepherd and understands the goodness of His ways would live a life demonstrating their submission to Him. Our actions are no different. Those who know the saving power of Jesus Christ and the forgiveness of sins He brings will lead a transformed life accord to the goodness of God. We can fully trust in Jesus Christ as our Messiah because of what we have seen and heard testimony of what He has done as we live according to the hope that He will give us eternal life when we come to Him. Our works could not produce life nor should we be so arrogant to think they could. We are the sheep unable to live on our own. But, by the glory of God, we have a good shepherd who cares for His sheep and dies for our sins so that we could be with Him, forever.
- How do the works of Jesus Christ demonstrate the will of the Father?
Discussion Questions
- What is the connection between the Father and the Son? How are the two connected to one another?
- What do the works of Jesus Christ reveal about the nature of God in the world?
- What are some of the competing cultural shepherds that vie for the attention of the sheep in today’s day and age?
- Why is it vital for the life of the Christian to routinely pursue the voice of God and be obedient to His voice? What is the reward for those who follow Him?
- How can we know the voice of the good shepherd? What are some of the things we can do to better discern the voice of the shepherd through the noise of the culture?
