Untitled Sermon (5)

(LEB)

(LEB)

John 10:11–21 LEB

“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand, who is not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, sees the wolf approaching and abandons the sheep and runs away—and the wolf seizes them and scatters them—because he is a hired hand and he is not concerned about the sheep. “I am the good shepherd, and I know my own, and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father, and I lay down my life for the sheep. And I have other sheep which are not from this fold. I must bring these also, and they will hear my voice, and they will become one flock—one shepherd. Because of this the Father loves me, because I lay down my life so that I may take possession of it again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down voluntarily. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take possession of it again. This commandment I received from my Father.” Again there was a division among the Jews because of these words. And many of them were saying, “He has a demon and is out of his mind! Why do you listen to him?” Others were saying, “These are not the words of one who is possessed by a demon! A demon is not able to open the eyes of the blind, is it?”

Jesus at the Feast of the Dedication

22 Then the feast of the Dedication took place in Jerusalem. It was winter, 23 and Jesus was walking in the temple in the Portico of Solomon. 24 So the Jews surrounded him and began to say* to him, “⌊How long will you keep us in suspense⌋? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly!” 25 Jesus answered them, “I told you and you do not believe! The deeds that I do in the name of my Father, these testify about me. 26 But you do not believe, because you are not of my sheep! 27 My sheep listen to my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. 28 And I give them eternal life, and they will never perish ⌊forever⌋, and no one will seize them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them* to me, is greater than all, and no one can seize them* from the Father’s hand. 30 The Father and I are one.”

37 If I do not do the deeds of my Father, do not believe me. 38 But if I am doing them,* even if you do not believe me, believe the deeds, so that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.”

31 Then the Jews picked up stones again so that they could stone him. 32 Jesus answered them, “I have shown you many good deeds from the Father. For which one of them are you going to stone me?” 33 The Jews answered him, “We are not going to stone you concerning a good deed, but concerning blasphemy, and because you, although you* are a man, make yourself to be God!” 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 the scripture cannot be broken—36 do you say about he whom the Father set apart and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’? 37 If I do not do the deeds of my Father, do not believe me. 38 But if I am doing them,* even if you do not believe me, believe the deeds, so that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.” 39 So they were seeking again to seize him, and he departed out of their hand.

40 And he went away again on the other side of the Jordan, to the place where John was baptizing at an earlier time, and he stayed there. 41 And many came to him and began to say,* “John performed no sign, but everything John said about this man was true!” 42 And many believed in him there.

The rue root of the probelm is that they did not “believe” him or in him. There were several altercattions or interagaotions by these same type of people - non-beleivers throughout the NT.

Paul did not believe until his Demascus road experience.

John the Baptist wasn’t sure until the baptism and descntion

Thomas doubted hm and simply walked in unbelief.

The Roman soldier did’t believe - until “This MUST BE THE SON of God!”

The Gospel of John, Volume 2 Madman or Son of God (John 10:19–21)

There was again a division among the Jews because of these words. Many of them said: ‘He has an evil spirit, and he is mad. Why do you listen to him?’ Others said: ‘These are not the words of a man possessed by an evil spirit. Can a man with an evil spirit open the eyes of the blind?’

THE people who listened to Jesus on this occasion were confronted with a dilemma which continually confronts us. Either Jesus was a megalomaniac madman, or he was the Son of God. There is no escape from that choice. If a man speaks about God and about himself in the way in which Jesus spoke, either he is completely deluded, or else he is profoundly right. The claims which Jesus made signify either insanity or divinity. How can we assure ourselves that they were indeed justified and not the world’s greatest delusion?

(1) The words of Jesus are not the words of a madman. We could cite witness after witness to prove that the teaching of Jesus is the supreme sanity. Thinking men and women in every generation have judged the teaching of Jesus the one hope of sanity for a mad world. His is the one voice which speaks God’s sense in the midst of human delusions.

(2) The deeds of Jesus are not the deeds of a madman. He healed the sick and fed the hungry and comforted the sorrowing. The madness of megalomania is essentially selfish. It seeks for nothing but its own glory and prestige. But Jesus’ life was spent in doing things for others. As the Jews themselves said, a man who was mad would not be able to open the eyes of the blind.

(3) The effect of Jesus is not the effect of a madman. The undeniable fact is that millions upon millions of lives have been changed by the power of Jesus Christ. The weak have become strong, the selfish have become selfless, the defeated have become victorious, the worried have become serene, the bad have become good. It is not madness which produces such a change, but wisdom and sanity.

The choice remains—Jesus was either mad or divine. Having reviewed the evidence, the only conclusion that an honest person can reach is that Jesus brought into the world not a deluded madness but the perfect sanity of God.

II. The calling and the leading are always united. He calls that He may lead. He utters the name that he, that she, who answers to it may, at the thrilling word, arise and follow Him whithersoever He goeth. There are some who wait for the calling, who listen eagerly for the sound of the name, and who would be more than satisfied to hear it spoken in kindness by the Shepherd every day, but who are far from having any corresponding readiness to accept the leading of the Shepherd. "He calleth His own sheep by name, and leadeth them out"—out, of course, from the whole natural sinful life, from all its darkness and misery, into the light and joy of acceptance; out of infantine feebleness into manly strength; out of narrow views into wider; out of mistakes and disappointments into wiser ways and better fortunes; out of besetting sin into waiting duty; sometimes out of safety into perils which lie on the way to a higher safety; and so on and on in a movement which cannot cease until at length, in His own time and way, it will be out of earth into heaven.

I. Let us briefly reflect what this truth involves as to our relations with our Redeemer. (1) As the Good Shepherd, He knows His sheep. He knows us individually; He knows all about us. It is because He knows us thus perfectly that He is able to help us, to guide us, to feed us—if we will, to save us; ay, to the very uttermost. (2) And besides this knowledge, He, the Good Shepherd, has a perfect sympathy with each of us. He is not a hard guardian, who sets Himself to keep us in order without any bit of feeling for our individual difficulties. He is touched, as His Apostle says of Him, with a feeling of our infirmities. Nothing that affects any one of us, is a matter of indifference to His tender heart. (3) Above all, as the Good Shepherd, the Christ, He is disinterested. He gains nothing by watching, by guarding, by feeding such as we. We can contribute nothing to His majestic glory. He seeks us for our own sakes, not for His.

He was born at Bethlehem, since He was crucified on Calvary, since He rose triumphant over death and hell, and was received up into glory. The Christian claims for His own Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, the lordship and rule over all the chances and changes of human affairs, and the ordering of the unruly wills and affections of sinful men, to the furtherance of His own high and glorious purposes.

The power of Christ. He was capable of taking up and bearing this terrible cross. He was certain, not only that He could bear the cross set before Him, but that He should reap the full, the anticipated fruit of it. And what the secret of it was, He tells us in the words, "This commandment have I received of my Father."

Jesus added a self-dtrmination with the willingness determination to die. Intentionally.

Observe (1) what it was in Christ which called forth the Father's love. God loved Him, He states, because He laid down His life in order that He might take it again: not, mark, simply because He surrendered it, but because of the motive that actuated Him, the object He had in view in making the surrender. That was Christ's grand idea: to die out that He might revive; to be lost, that He might be restored, as the first-born of many brethren, no longer separate and solitary in His filial standing, but influential to gather others into it. (2) The power of Christ. He was capable of taking up and bearing this terrible cross. He was certain, not only that He could bear the cross set before Him, but that He should reap the full, the anticipated fruit of it. And what the secret of it was, He tells us in the words, "This commandment have I received of my Father."

neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.

My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck/snatch them out of my Father's hand.

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:

Verses 27-30. -

(2) Christ's claim to equality of power and essence, and similarity of gracious operation with the Father. Verses 27, 28. - My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any one pluck them out of my hand. Commentators have differed as to the arrangement of these two verses - whether the six assertions should be regarded as two triplets, in the first of which the sheep of Christ are made prominent, and in the latter of which the Shepherd; thus -

(l) The sheep -

"My sheep hear my voice" (their receptivity).

"And I know them" (the Lord's response to their faith).

"And they follow me" (their active obedience).

(2) The Shepherd -

"I give them eternal life" (involving freedom from peril and death).

"They shall not perish forever."

"No one (not man or devil, wolf or hireling)

shall pluck them out of my hand."

This is not so satisfactory as the arrangement which puts this weighty saying into three couplets instead of two triplets; in which the sheep are the prominent theme of each proposition. The three couplets display the climacteric character of the wondrous rhythm and interchange of emotion between the Divine Shepherd and the sheep-

"My sheep hear my voice, and I know them" = mutual recognition.

"They follow me, and I give them eternal life" = reciprocal activity.

"They shall not perish forever, and no one shall pluck them out of my hand" = an authoritative assurance, and its pledge or justification.

Christ's knowledge of the sheep corresponds with their recognition of his supreme claims; theft active trust is rewarded by his greatest gift; their indefeasible birthright is guaranteed by his limitless authority and power to protect them. It would be gross perversion of the passage to urge this indefeasible birthright on the ground of a few occasional flashes of conscious assurance and without any recognition of all the terms of the relation.

And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.

My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand.

Verse 29. - The last statement is sustained by a still loftier assumption. Before translating, it is necessary to notice the three readings of the text.

(1) That of the T.R. and the Revisers' Text: My Father who gave (them) to me is greater than all the powers that can possibly be arrayed against them.

(2) The reading of א, D, With reference to that which my Father, One greater than all, gave me, and no one is able to pluck from the hand of the Father. Meyer, however, translates this differently; he supposes the μεῖζον to refer to the Father "a something greater, a greater potence." Westcott and Hort prefer the reading with ὅ and μείζον; and Westcott translates, That which my Father has given me is greater than all, and regards it as a reference to the sheep as a collective unity. The internal reasons compel Luthardt, Godet, and Lange to fall back on T.R., and surely the extraordinary strain of the meaning justifies them. Our Lord would sustain with even stronger assurance the safety of his sheep. The Father's gift to himself, the Father's own eternal love and power, the Divine omnipotence of the Lord God himself, is pledged to their security. "My hand" becomes "my Father's hand." He seems to say, "If you question my capacity, you need not question his power. Sacrilegious violence may apparently nail my hands to the cross; the sword may awake against Jehovah's Shepherd. But none can outwit, surprise, crucify, conquer, my Father, none can invalidate his care."