Basic HTML Version
Chapter 52—The Divine Shepherd
This chapter is based on
John 10:1-30
.
“I am the Good Shepherd ... and I lay down My life for the
sheep.”
John 10:11, 15
.
Jesus found access to His hearers by the pathway of their fa-
miliar associations. In a beautiful pastoral picture He represents
His relation to those that believe on Him. No picture was more
familiar to His hearers than this. Recalling the Saviour’s lesson, the
disciples would see Christ in each faithful shepherd, themselves in
each helpless, dependent flock.
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 unworthy of their trust as shepherds of the flock. Now
Jesus pointed to Himself as the real keeper of the Lord’s flock.
“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.” When the
Pharisees 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 children from earliest times have found entrance. Shadowed in
[324]
symbols, manifest in the revelation of the prophets, unveiled in the
lessons given to His disciples and in miracles, they have beheld “the
Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.”
John 1:29
.
Ceremonies and systems have been devised by which men hope
to receive justification and peace with God. But all who interpose
something to take the place of Christ, to enter the fold in some other
way, are thieves and robbers.
288