I Am #3 and #4: The Gate and the Good Shepherd
John 10“Truly, I tell y’all, the one who doesn’t enter the sheep fold through the door, but climbs up some other way, is a thief and a robber. But the one who enters through the door is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. Whenever he brings out his own sheep, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. They will by no means follow a stranger, but will flee from him, for they don’t know the voice of strangers.” Jesus shared this parable to them, but they didn’t understand what he was saying to them.
So Jesus said told again, “Very truly, I tell y’all, I am the door for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep didn’t listen to them. I am the door. Anyone who enters through me will be saved, and will go in and go out and will find pasture. The thief only comes to steal, kill, and destroy. I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly.
“I am the beautiful shepherd. The beautiful shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand, who is not a shepherd and doesn’t own the sheep, sees the wolf coming, but leaves the sheep and flees. The wolf snatches the sheep and scatters them. The hired hand flees because he doesn’t care for the sheep. I am the beautiful shepherd. I know my own, and I’m known by my own; even as the Father knows me, and I know the Father. I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep which are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will hear my voice. They will become one flock with one shepherd. Therefore the Father loves me, because I lay down my life, that I may take it again. No one takes it away from me, but I lay it down by myself. I have the power to lay it down, and I have the power to take it again. I received this commandment from my Father.”
A division arose again among the Jews because of these words. Many of them said, “He has a demon and is insane! Why do y’all listen to him?” Others said, “These are not the words of someone possessed by a demon. Does a demon have the power to open the eyes of the blind?”
Jesus Claims Oneness with the Father
It was the Feast of the Dedication at Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple, in Solomon’s Colonnade. The Jews gathered around him and said to him, “How long will you hold us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.”
Jesus answered them, “I told y’all, and y’all don’t believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name, these testify about me. But y’all don’t believe, because y’all are not my sheep. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life. They will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father who has given them to me is greater than all. No one is able to snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.”
At this, the Jews took up stones again to stone him. Jesus answered them, “I have shown y’all many excellent works from my Father. For which of those works do y’all stone me?”
The Jews answered him, “We don’t stone you for any excellent work, but for blasphemy, because you, being human, make yourself out to be God.”
Jesus answered them, “Isn’t it written in y’all’s law, ‘I said, y’all are gods?’+Psa 82:6 If he called them gods, to whom the word of God came (and the Scripture can’t be broken), do y’all say to the one the Father has set apart and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God?’ If I don’t do the works of my Father, y’all shouldn’t believe me. But if I do them, even though y’all don’t believe me, believe the works. Then y’all will know and believe that the Father is in me, and I in the Father.”
They tried again to seize him, and he escaped their grasp. He went away again beyond the Jordan and into the place where John was baptizing at first, and he stayed there. Many came to him. They said, “Though John performed no sign, everything that John said about this man is true.” Many believed in him there.