.jpg)
This was the contrast of the formerly blind man standing before Jesus, and the Pharisees who refused to see the Light of Christ. They respond in verse 40 … “And some of the Pharisees which were with him heard these words, and said unto him, Are we blind also?” This was a rhetorical question in their minds, for from their perspective, no one had a better grasp on scripture or the law than themselves. They did not anticipate His answer in verse 41 … “Jesus said unto them, If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth.” It was NOT the lack of knowledge that caused the Pharisees to remain in their sin. It was their arrogance in assuming they needed no help with their sin from Christ. In effect, the Pharisees were comfortable with the idea, that the forms and traditions of their worship were enough to save them. They could basically save themselves. They needed no help from a Messiah. The help they were looking for was not of a spiritual variety, it was of a political one. They yearned for a strong leader who would blaze the trail of freedom from their heathen Roman oppressors. They did not think of themselves as blind to truth or salvation, instead they thought they knew everything they needed to know about those topics. Christ could keep his spiritual ideas about reliance solely on Him to Himself. Now if He had had something to say on ousting the Romans, they would have been all ears. But our ideas of God, and what we want from Him, are often not what His ideas are, or what He wants for us. So to clarify the mission of the Messiah, and dispense with the false leaders who had come before and would come again, Christ decides to tell them in story, why He is there.
Jesus begins his sermon in verse 1 of chapter ten of John’s account … Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. [verse 2] But he that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.” Soon Jesus would identify Himself as the door. In these passages Jesus declares, that there is only one way in and out of the sheepfold. It is THROUGH Christ. Attempting to gain passage by another route, say, by the strength of our own ideas, or by assuming our own “spirituality” or “goodness” warrants a position in the flock absent Christ for example: these methods reveal only our own motives. They do not entitle us to be in the flock, they actually make us dangerous to others who are there. Those who enter by the strength of Christ are those who “should” be in the number.
Jesus continues in verse 3 … “To him the porter openeth; and the sheep hear his voice: and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out. [verse 4] And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him: for they know his voice. [verse 5] And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him: for they know not the voice of strangers.” Jesus tries to show the difference between Himself and those others who might “claim” to be the Messiah. Those who seek truth, find it in Jesus. They realize the only way their tattered lives can ever be remade is through the power of Christ. As such, they only want Jesus to be their shepherd, because they have found relief in no other way, including in trusting their own abilities. Thus they crave the voice of Jesus to lead them. When others come and try to get these sheep to follow, the sheep realize there is no truth in those voices, there is no redemption in them, and they wish only to follow Christ. Here Christ is trying hard to reveal to those there that He is THE method of their salvation.
And why choose sheep to represent us? A sheep is not a fierce some creature. They are not particularly bright. They make mistakes, get lost, and would starve if not taken care of. They are easy prey for wolves. From the perspective of the wolf, it is easy to count sheep. To those Christians who believe it is their right, and their duty, to defend themselves against the enemy, even if those means include weapons and deadly force; I ask, are you the sheep, or the wolf? We were not meant to combat Satan. We are outmatched. It is no contest. It is ONLY our Shepherd who can defeat our enemy. It is our trust in Him that sees us delivered. It is not our making or gathering of new sheep weapons that will save the day for us. Wolves will always defeat sheep if there is no shepherd around to save them. This is how evil works, in nature, and in us spiritually. Our enemy is superior to us, yet tells us, if we just work hard enough, we can defeat him. He tries to get the sheep to think they are strong enough, tough enough, and determined enough to defeat the wolf by their sheer power of will. In this is the perversion of the gospel – that we only need Christ to forgive us when we err, not save us from the erring. Satan’s entire system of deception is to get us to take our eyes and focus away from Jesus and put it on ourselves. This is how the Pharisees were blinded to Christ. They chose to trust in their own understanding and not be humbled before God.
John notes in verse 6, that the audience there did not understand what Christ was saying. I would venture because our first response to being referred to as sheep is not a pleasant one. If we are going to be associated with animals we prefer a much more majestic or fierce creature. But sheep? Ouch. So Jesus must try to explain again, He continues in verse 7 … “Then said Jesus unto them again, Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep. [verse 8] All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers: but the sheep did not hear them. [verse 9] I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.” It is only by Christ that we are provided for, both physically and spiritually. We are fed, both our daily bread, and our daily spiritual growth, by following only Christ. It is only THROUGH Christ that we can enter safely, and remain safely in the flock without being a danger to the others there.
Imagine for a minute what heaven would be like to a rapist who had never been reformed. All around him are the most beautiful women, perfect in every way. All of them are loving, caring, attentive, and eager to serve. None of them pose a threat, none are violent, none have weapons of self-defense or need of them. How hard it would be for the wolf to roam the streets of heaven being tempted to defile every single woman he comes across. Wondering if he could do these acts of violence in secret, or in darkness, and remain undiscovered; fearing that God might see him and cast him out. Heaven would not be heaven for such a man; it would literally be a place of torture. Forbidden fruit all around him, intense desire to dominate, but no ability to execute and remain undiscovered for it; this is the situation non-Christ centered religions and ideologies would have you accept. Those who do not accept that it is Christ who remakes the rapist into a new creature who no longer wishes to ever hurt another again, and wishes now only to serve and love all; offer no way to achieve this transformation other than the power of their corrupted minds and will. Muslins believe that God forgives. But they offer no method of transformation outside of the will of man. Eastern religions teach that enlightenment is achieved through introspection, not through submission to Christ. Atheism would have us believe that our instinctive desire to preserve our social order could one day result in a lessening of violence despite all the facts that point to the contrary. And even some Christians, cling to the ideas that they need not submit to Christ to be remade, they can do it for themselves. But for the rapist who knows he cannot change himself, there is only one who can. The point of the story of Christ, is the recognition of this need.
Then Jesus says something truly stunning as in verse 10 He continues … “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.” The unreformed lead a tortured existence of pain and death. They cannot help but to wish to please self. If this means they must steal to do it, then so be it. How often have you taken something, perhaps even something very small, that did not belong to you? How many rationalizations do you make to “justify” your appropriation? We remove a pen from the bank and say to ourselves, they are rich and can easily replace a pen. Or if it is from an employer, we just say to ourselves that this is simply part of our compensation for working so hard. After all, the bank and our employers wish us to write things down that they will use for their benefit.
Or perhaps it is simply how we fill out our timesheets, adding a few minutes here and there, or rounding things up just a bit to make a little extra – rationalizing that we work harder than those around us in the same amount of time and therefore “deserve” a bit more than they do. We get to a point, where we stop thinking about what we take, as being a theft at all. It is simply normal behavior for us, the right and wrong of it, have long been decided in our favor. If evil only stopped at thievery perhaps it would not be so bad. But evil does not stop at this kind of rationalization. It is degenerative. What I steal today, I must protect tomorrow. If that requires killing, so be it. If I cannot have it, then nobody can, if I must destroy a good thing to keep others from enjoying it, then so be it. And thus evil reveals itself as nothing but pain and death, a tortured existence that is not truly worth living, and would not be wanted if sentenced to be lived out in immortality in this condition.
But contrast the nature of evil, with the desires and mission of Christ where He says … “I am come that they might have life, and have it more abundantly.” He is here to make HOW we live, something more than it is today. A life in Christ is a life worth living. It is a life that does not cause pain to others or to me. It is a life that lived out in immortality would be worth living. And this is NOT just a future promise. It is an IMMEDIATE one. Our lives can be made different today as we submit them to Jesus to be remade. The whole goal of God was eliminate the pain and death that comes from evil from within us. The pain we cause when we learn to steal and not even regard it as stealing, is something we do not need to suffer from for yet another day. It is something we can bring to Jesus and leave in His hands to be reformed. We do not need to struggle every day pitting our knowledge of good and evil against our inherent nature and desire to choose evil. We need only submit to Christ, our desires, our will, and our decisions, and allow Him to change HOW we think, WHAT we want, and then what we do will follow. This is the Life that Christ longs to introduce to us. He longs to offer us a different life. Here and now, not just in a place we call heaven; this offer was meant to be taken up on today. We can be something more. We can be someone different than who we were. We can be new creatures, if we but let Christ re-create us as He wishes. What a precious promise and reason for His visit to our world. He comes to offer us Life, a real life, not this thing we have grown accustomed to, but something entirely different, new and wonderful. This is the entire mission of the Messiah.
Jesus continues in verse 11 … “I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.” He is trying to warn those who hear Him there, that there will be a personal cost to Him, to achieve our redemption. He must die, taking our place, in order that the punishment of death we have embraced is met on our behalf. He does this willingly. This is how far Love will go, to save the object of its affection. This is the contrast between God and what it means to love others more than self; and Satan who demonstrates where loving self first will lead. God, who is love, and has done nothing but love us, will now go so far as to take on the punishment we deserve, so that we will not suffer it. Forgiveness itself is an act of love in the face of evil. We do not deserve forgiveness we deserve punishment and retribution for the pain we cause to others and ourselves, but forgiveness offers us no punishment, it is love in the face of our evil. This is the contrast between the nature of Love and the nature of evil. Evil would demand evil for actions it does not enjoy. Love offers love even to those who have never earned it and will never deserve it.
As for these other pretender Messiah’s who may come answering the desire of the people to be redeemed of Rome, but offering no way of real redemption Jesus continues in verse 12 … “But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth: and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep. [verse 13] The hireling fleeth, because he is an hireling, and careth not for the sheep.” The Messiah the Pharisees were looking for could never be the true one sent from God. For at the end of the day, those who seek self first, seek to preserve self at all costs. Political leaders have no problem having others die for their cause. They have no problem keeping themselves alive, even if others must die for them to do so. The contrast of those who seek only power, and He who seeks only to offer us life are so outlined. He would lay down His life for us. Those other pretenders would be only all too happy to avoid even the risk of losing their own lives, and if we lose ours, so be it.
Jesus repeats his mission in verse 14 … “I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine. [verse 15] As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep.” He again states that despite what reputation the devil would have us believe about God the Father, it is God the Father who works in concert with Christ for our redemption and restoration. This is a mission of ALL of the Godhead. Our Father God is every bit as interested in our redemption as is our Creator God His Son Jesus Christ. It is not the revelation of Jesus that all of the sudden changes the mind of God His Father about our redemption. It is the revelation of Jesus that shows us that our redemption was ALWAYS the first concern of His Father God and Himself. Every story in scripture, even every story in the Old Testament that we may not fully understand, was designed to show us the redemptive desire of our God, not the image of a righteous punisher in chief. Here is Christ on earth, stating personally what He knows to be true, because He has heard it first hand from the mouth of His Father, in conversation between them we would never know. This is Jesus definitively stating that His Father is consumed with our redemption and restoration. They work as one in this.
Then in verse 16 come perhaps the most beautiful words in the New Testament for me personally, as I am not of Jewish decent, or was present at the time of this sermon. Jesus continues … “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.” Praise God, the mission of the Messiah was not just confined to the people He stood before on that day. The mission was greater than for just those of Jewish decent, and was greater than for just those who share my particular doctrinal interpretations and values. His mission was to redeem and restore the world. Jesus Christ would be the uniting method of ALL of our salvation. There is nothing to separate us from our home with Christ, except our stubborn determination to reject the re-creation and new life He offers us. “One fold” not many. “One home” with Christ, not several. We are One family united in Christ, for only through Christ might we become the new creations He intends. It is not our interpretation of scripture that unites us, but instead the method of our salvation. “One Shepherd” not many. “One Shepherd” not his surrogates. We are not to follow other followers of Christ, but to follow only the One Shepherd Himself. We do not find truth in each other; we find it alone in Jesus. We can reflect the love of Christ to each other as we allow Him to teach us how to love. But this does not mean that the source of truth moves from Christ to His followers who have learned how to love. The source remains the source, it will always be Jesus.
It is fine to notice and admire the sacrifice that some of the great followers of Jesus have made to attempt to promote His love and His faith. But these patriarchs from Adam, to Noah, to Moses, to David, to Peter, to Martin Luther, to Billy Graham, to your local pastor or spiritual teacher – all may have made contributions to the kingdom, but none are to be your shepherd. For there can be only one true Shepherd as there is only One fold or home of His children. We are ALL to find our salvation, our redemption, our re-creation, only in the person of Jesus Christ. It is our distinct privilege that John recorded these words, that the Lord preserved them, that we have a Bible in which we can find them, and take them into our hearts. For it is “we” who are those sheep of another fold; it is “we” who are to be included in His great number. No matter where we were born, or when, or how we have been taught, salvation and life itself are ours for the taking through the gift of Jesus Christ. It is not even our pain and past that keeps Jesus away from us, He longs only to take away our pain, and give us a real life in its place. This text is a singular promise upon which we can have hope. For out of the mouth of God, came the words directed at you, that you too, are to be saved under Christ.
Then Jesus states to the crowd the difference between Himself, the true Messiah, and those who would claim that title as well in verse 17 … “Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. [verse 18] No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.” Only Christ could both lay down His own life, and take it up again. Think of it, He was going to die, but here He states none of us could actually kill Him. He must lay down His own life. He must give it up Himself, a free will offering, a free will gesture, in order for us to be redeemed. Only God the Father could give Jesus the power to both lay down His life, and having done so, to take it up again. Others could come claiming to be the Messiah, some might even be willing to die for their cause. But none of the pretenders could ever call themselves out of their own graves back to life again. Only the Son of God could do this, because only He had received this commandment or ability from His Father; again showing the unity of Father and Son in our work of redemption.
The response of the Pharisees in attendance was only a continued blindness. They knew the reality of our mortality. They knew that no-one had ever come back from the dead to life again. So for Jesus to claim that this was something He alone could do, was just crazy talk to them. In verse 19 they responded … “There was a division therefore again among the Jews for these sayings. [verse 20] And many of them said, He hath a devil, and is mad; why hear ye him? [verse 21] Others said, These are not the words of him that hath a devil. Can a devil open the eyes of the blind?” The problem the Pharisees faced were not as much the words of Christ, as the deeds of Christ. Jesus had made the blind man to see again, an act of love the devil had never performed. This miracle stood in the face of their ideas. It substantiated a connection between Christ and God. At the very least, it made Christ a prophet in the traditional sense. But any connection to God, removed the power of the Pharisees over their religious flock, and they meant to hold the role of shepherd for themselves. Do we offer the same response?
When Christ speaks to us that we cannot save ourselves; that we must submit our will to Him, not just to fight harder not to sin on our own – do we call it crazy talk? After all, my nature is to express my sin, in whatever form it takes. The only reason why I do not sin more often than I do today, is because of the small measure of self-control I exert over it right? You are asking me to give up fighting. If I do that, I will go hog-wild on the sin thing without any restraint. Because, really, what is going to stop me, if I give up trying to stop myself? But Jesus asks us to trust Him, in spite of what we know about ourselves. He is not offering us an excuse to sin more; He is offering us a way to sin NO more. Submitting our desires to Him, allows Him to remake the things we want. When we want something else, we pursue that thing, not the old thing we used to want, and perhaps find we no longer want. When we submit our decisions to Him, we give Him the freedom to make other choices on our behalf. Doors open and close and we simply walk through them, instead of trying to pry ones open that should be closed, or slam the ones that we were supposed to be entering in. When we submit our will to Christ, we acknowledge that He alone can remake the “who” of who we are into what He intends instead of what we have done with it. We begin to think differently. We begin to see truth. We begin to understand. And most importantly, we find we are no longer sinning that old sin, and cannot explain why, because we did nothing to see it removed – Christ did. Is this just crazy talk, or does it work? Christ says it does, how will you respond?
No comments:
Post a Comment