Divine Shepherd
407
The Pharisees had just driven one from the fold, because he dared to
bear witness to the power of Christ. They had cut off a soul whom
the True Shepherd was drawing to Himself. In this they had shown
themselves ignorant of the work committed to them, and unworthy
of their trust as shepherds of the flock. Jesus now set before them
the contrast between them and the Good Shepherd, and He pointed
to Himself as the real keeper of the Lord’s flock. Before doing this,
however, He speaks of Himself under another figure.
He said, “He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but
climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. But he
that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.” The Pharisees
did not discern that these words were spoken against them. When they
reasoned in their hearts as to the meaning, Jesus told them plainly, “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 cometh not, but for to steal,
and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and
that they might have it more abundantly.”
Christ is the door to the fold of God. Through this door all His chil-
dren, from the earliest times, have found entrance. In Jesus, as shown
in types, as shadowed in symbols, as manifested in the revelation of the
prophets, as unveiled in the lessons given to His disciples, and in the
miracles wrought for the sons of men, they have beheld “the Lamb of
God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (
John 1:29
), and through
Him they are brought within the fold of His grace. Many have come
presenting other objects for the faith of the world; ceremonies and
systems have been devised by which men hope to receive justification
and peace with God, and thus find entrance to His fold. But the only
door is Christ, and all who have interposed something to take the place
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of Christ, all who have tried to enter the fold in some other way, are
thieves and robbers.
The Pharisees had not entered by the door. They had climbed into
the fold by another way than Christ, and they were not fulfilling the
work of the true shepherd. The priests and rulers, the scribes and
Pharisees, destroyed the living pastures, and defiled the wellsprings of
the water of life. Faithfully do the words of inspiration describe those
false shepherds: “The diseased have ye not strengthened, neither have
ye healed that which was sick, neither have ye bound up that which