“I am the door: by Me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in, and out and find pasture. The thief comes not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd gives His life for the sheep… I am the good shepherd, and know My sheep, and am known of Mine. As the Father knows Me, even so I know the Father: and I lay down My life for the sheep. And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they shall hear My voice: and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd. … My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me: and I give to them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand” (John 10:9-11, 14-16, 27-28).
There are seven distinct blessings spoken of in these few verses, which contrast very wonderfully with Judaism. The Lord calls His sheep out, and then He says, “I am the door.” You say a door must be a door out of somewhere into somewhere. He is the door out of Judaism in one sense, but there is something more than getting out of a place in connection with this expression. It is what He is in Himself. He is the way into every blessing that God has got for man. God’s great desire for man was life. We have that brought out in the tree of life. When you have divine life, the life that brings you into association with God, you have the highest blessedness the creature can have. To know the Creator you must have the life that is able to take cognisance of Him, and that is divine life.
(1) Salvation
“I am the door: by Me, if any man enter in, he shall be saved.” That is the first thing—salvation. Was there any salvation in Judaism? That was a system of probation. Every single person that was tested failed, and every failure under the law must be fatal. “The soul that sins it shall DIE.” The meaning of probation is that you are under trial, whereas the meaning of salvation is that you have got a Saviour. This salvation carries with it the settlement of God’s wrath against sin, and our deliverance from it. When Christ came as the door God appeared not as Judge but as Saviour. And it also carries with it the thought of deliverance from all those untoward influences that surround us all through our life down here. There are temptations of the flesh, the world and the devil, and all the fearful power of the enemy arrayed against us. We want salvation from these things, and the Lord Jesus Christ is the One who can give it. Finally we need salvation in connection with our bodies, and the Lord Jesus Christ will not be content until He gives us that salvation. Our salvation is not complete until the word “redemption” is spelled out in full, and redemption is not spelt out in full until Christ comes to take us to be for ever with Himself. “Now is our salvation nearer than when we believed” (Rom. 13:11). Our salvation draws nigh, because the Redeemer is drawing nigh. The Lord is coming.
(2) Liberty
“He shall go in and out, and find pasture.” In Judaism there was no going in and out. It was in, and never out. It was bondage, and the more sincere a person was the more they would find that bondage. Take the Apostle Paul. Was there ever a person more zealous of keeping the law? As “touching the righteousness of the law, blameless” (Phil. 3:6). But the law said, “Thou shalt not covet,” and he adds, “Sin revived, and I died” (Rom. 7:9). The one who sought most zealously to find out the way of life, found it to be the way of death. There was no going in and out in Judaism, but there is a going in and out in Christianity. It is simply an expression which means there is true liberty in Christianity. There is glorious liberty in the Spirit. When the flesh begins to assert itself we do not find much liberty, but when that which is of God is operative in us, then it is all liberty. There will be nothing but liberty in heaven, and there is nothing but liberty down here for those who are satisfied with Christ.
(3) Sustenance
Now the next thing is, “And shall find pasture.” There was no food under the law for sinners, only the curse and death. I do not mean to say that God did not feed His people in Old Testament times, but in the law proper there was no nourishment except for those who kept it, and none did that save the One, holy Son of God. The Lord says of His sheep, “He shall go in, and out, and find pasture.” How sweet it is when the saints are desirous of feeding upon Christ. How sweet it is when they take the opportunity to privately study the word, not as an intellectual exercise, but as food for their souls. I am sure we have all been conscious of this many times, when God has really spoken to us in power by His Spirit. What rich feasts we have had for our souls! The food we have is Christ.
(4) Life
The next thing is in verse 10: “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” He is not merely content to give us life, but He wants to give us fullness of life. John never considers any life but divine life. For instance, “He that believes on the Son has everlasting life; and he that believes not the Son shall not see life” (John 3:36). It is only Christ that can give life. Does it not touch your heart when you read, “I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd gives His life for the sheep”? “In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him” (1 John 4:9). Life is the sovereign gift of God; but it must come through the death of the Lord Jesus Christ.
(5) Intimacy
“I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine, as the Father knows Me, and I know the Father” (N.Tr.). The Lord Jesus Christ, in order to give us an idea of the intimacy which will exist between Himself, the Good Shepherd, and the sheep, has to tell us of the intimacy which exists between the Father and the Son. This is far better than visiting terms: these are at home terms. What is the intimacy between the Father and the Son? Can I explain it? I do not need to explain it. Each one of you by the Spirit know that it is the closest, deepest, and most wonderful communion, without a cloud, without any thing to mar or hinder. That is the pattern of the intimacy between the Good Shepherd and His sheep. What a contrast to Judaism, where there was distance. How much do we know of this intimacy? Think of what a wonderful place we are brought into.
(6) Unity
Now the next blessing is unity. “Other sheep I have, which are not of this fold, them also I must bring.” That is where we come in. We Gentiles never belonged to the fold. What does the Lord say? “There shall be one flock, and one Shepherd” (N.Tr.). The Lord Jesus Christ prays in the seventeenth of John that they all might be one. Surely this is the triumph of Christianity—although man has obscured it greatly—that the Jew is lifted up so high into the privileges of Christianity, and the poor Gentile, afar off, lifted into the same privileges, both finding themselves one in Christ.
Nothing but grace could have made the bigoted Jew sit down with the despised Gentile, and nothing would have encouraged the Gentile to sit down with the Jew but the grace which made them one in Christ. “There shall be one flock and one Shepherd.” The Lord ring that word into our hearts. We may well sorrow that all Christians are not expressing that oneness.
(7) Eternal Life
“My sheep hear My voice, and they follow Me. I give to them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand.” Earlier in the same chapter He says that they may have life more abundantly; now He speaks of eternal life. Eternal life means more than is seen on the surface. The Lord in other parts explains what it is. “This is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou has sent” (John 17:3). Eternal life involves the relationship of children, for it means that we know the Father, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, the sent One. Supposing there is a man with six children. Thousands of other children might know that man, but they do not know him as father, only six children, his own, know him as father. So eternal life carries the knowledge of God as Father, and for that we must be children. The word “know” means conscious knowledge. Of course “life” and “eternal life” are not two different things in their essence, but we have sought to present things simply in the way the chapter does.
Thus we have salvation, liberty, food, life, intimacy, unity and eternal life all coming out in this chapter in a wonderful way, and this was all said at Jerusalem. It is not for nothing that the information is given to us where it is. It was at Jerusalem, the central place of Judaism. If there was anything grand and glorious in Judaism, it would be found in the temple at Jerusalem. It was at the feast of dedication, which carries us back to the palmy days when Solomon inaugurated that temple in all its splendour, and when the glory filled the house so that the priests could not stand by reason of that glory. But it adds here, “And it was winter.” This was true of Judaism, although the Lord Jesus Christ was there at that moment, there was nothing but deadness and barrenness. The whole temple system was entirely out of sympathy with the Lord Jesus Christ. Think of the glorious person that He was! No wonder that He takes this step of calling His sheep by name, and leading them out, out of deadness and barrenness, to Himself, the centre of life and light, of glory and blessing.
Now, dear friends, I would ask you, Are you gathered to a system, or are you gathered to a Person? Is Christ and His name sufficient for you? Is His person sufficient for you? Believe me, you understand nothing in Scripture except as you understand Him. It is a wonderful thing to be brought into touch with that Person, the glorious Person of Him who is God and Man. The Lord Jesus Christ is everything for God, and He will be everything for me. World without end, praise His name.