He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold
Shepherdhood
The simple lesson which our Lord intended to teach in this familiar passage has often been strangely mistaken.
The minds of men have been so fixed upon certain ecclesiastical conclusions which have been commonly derived from it, that the simpler but far profounder teaching which the Master had in mind to give has been overlooked. He was not defending the formal authority of His own or of any office. He was not discussing the regularity or lawfulness of His own or of any ministry. He was not pointing out the mode of entrance into shepherdhood, but He was telling how the function for all true shepherdhood must be discharged. He was laying down the rule of good conduct and right service in all true leadership--a rule which He Himself exemplified and fulfilled, and which all must obey who hope in any degree to be worthy leaders of men. He was propounding a lesson which it behoves all men to ponder well who hope to influence their fellow men for good rank, office, order, culture, property--be the authority, the privilege, the right of these what they may, the eternal law of God, as exemplified in the life of His Son, and taught in His Holy Word, and illustrated in human history, is this: that none of these, no matter how commissioned or sent, can exercise any real shepherdhood over men except as they are in sympathy with them. This is true in Church and State; of the employers of labour; of the heads of households; of civil rulers and political leaders; of bishops, priests, and deacons--the power to lead men lies in sympathizing with them, and walking in the same way with them. The man of influence is the man of sympathy; the man of power is the man of service. He that loves is he that leads. He that serves is he that rules. Think for a moment, and you will see why it must be so. Man is free, The soul is free in the truest, deepest sense of the word. God royally made it so, and even He cannot control it by any merely external force or power. It is free to think, to will, and choose, to love, and no mere force or authority from without can control it in these operations in which its sovereign selfhood is realized. You may chain the limbs of a man--you may coerce his actions or even his words; but how can you get into communion with the soul, and rule its will and affections? There is only one way. If you would influence men intimately, profoundly, really, no matter what your authority or station, you must enter into sympathy with them. You must walk in the same path and enter in by the same door, or you can never be the shepherd of the sheep. This is what St. Paul meant when he sang the praise of love (1 Corinthians 13:1-13). Among men love is power. And a greater than St. Paul taught the same lesson and confirmed it by His own Divine experience. The Good Shepherd proved and illustrated His own good shepherdhood by sympathy and love. It was by no flash of splendour or miracle of external power that He proved His Divine leadership over the hearts of men; but by coming to walk with them, to toil and hunger, and suffer with them. He entered into mortal life by the same lowly door of human birth; He passed through it by the same path of toil and daily care; He made His exit from it through the same portal of suffering and death. In life and death He walked with the sheep. Therefore He could say, “I am the Good Shepherd, not merely because I am commissioned and sent of My Father, not merely because I wield the power of omnipotence,” but “I am the Good Shepherd,” He said, because “I know My sheep and am known of Mine.” (Bp. S. S. Harris.)
Jesus the Good Shepherd
Note
I. THE INDIVIDUAL CARE AND GUIDANCE OF OUR LORD for every soul that trusts Him. In modem stock raising in Western lands there is nothing of that personal knowledge and attachment which bound together an Oriental shepherd and his flock.
1. It is an infirmity of Christian people to suppose that they are lost in the crowd, that God deals with them in the gross as a general might deal with his army, with rare notice of individuals least of all of privates. Yet in nothing do we wrong Him more. “The hairs of our head are all numbered.”
2. Christ showed nothing clearer than His attention to every personal want within His reach. We have reason as Paul had to appropriate His atoning work as though it were our monopoly (Galatians 2:20; Hebrews 2:9). Indeed He promises a friendship so intimate that it becomes a system of cipher messages between them and their Lord (Revelation 2:17).
3. We talk about how to convert “the masses,” when we had better think of single souls.
II. THE SINGULAR COMMUNITY OF SYMPATHY BETWEEN CHRIST AND CHRISTIANS (John 10:4, John 10:14, R.V.). It is compared for closeness and depth to that which subsists between the Father and the Son.
1. In Christ’s case we might charge His knowledge on His omniscience, but we cannot so account for ours. Take Christ upon His more human side and you have the explanation. Who has not felt the mystic thrill of sympathy and repulsion when we discover the congenial or uncongenial to ourselves in another character. So Christ felt the unlikeness to Himself of hatred, falseness; but He was drawn with unerring affinity towards the faintest uprisings of human penitence and trust.
2. “My sheep know Me”; not merely something about me. Not by the mere investigation of the shepherd’s clothing or crook, to see if both are genuine, as men puzzle themselves over churches, creeds, ordinances. But as one friend recognizes another by a glance if he can be seen; by his voice if out of sight. The test of truth is the character within us. We know God by resembling Him. These Jews could not be satisfied with our Lord’s credentials, but certain Samaritans felt the Divine life (chap. 4:42).
III. GOD’S EXCLUSIVE WAY OF MERCY. Thebes had a hundred gates, but salvation only one (John 10:9). An engine off the track is not more a failure than a man off the track of God’s conditions. All entrance to spiritual hope and safety is through Christ. He will endure no rival. Mingle anything with Him as our hope and the mixture fails.
IV. THE ADVANTAGES TO WHICH CHRIST OPENS THE DOOR (John 10:9).
1. Safety. It reminds us of some fugitive running for his life to the city of refuge.
2. Liberty. A Christian is no jailbird, so closely guarded that he finds himself a prisoner. No slave on a plantation, but a child in the family. He knows the truth, and that makes him free to go where and do what he pleases if he only pleases right.
3. Plenty.
V. THE GRAND PURPOSE OF CHRIST’S ADVENT (John 10:10). Nothing is so precious as life. It was forfeited by sin; but Christ restored it at the expense of His own (John 10:11). And it is to be had now. The young are eager to “see” and “enjoy life.” And they are right if they will not look for it in the wrong way. In Christ is the way to gain it, not in the low average of worldly attainment, but “more abundantly” in all that makes life worth living.
VI. THE METHOD OF CHRIST’S RULE. “Leadeth”--“goeth before.” An Eastern shepherd does not drive his flock; and Christ goes before, never behind, saying not “Go,” but “Come.” (C. S. Pomeroy, D. D.)
The Shepherd and the flock
I. THE APPROPRIATENESS OF THE SIMILE.
1. To Israelites. From the beginning they had been shepherds; hence all along God had been calling Himself their Shepherd.
2. To Christians. The gathered force of all that psalmists sang and prophets spoke has come down to the “little flock.”
II. THE ANALOGIES SUGGESTED BY THE SIMILE.
1. The shepherd is the rightful owner of the fold, and treats his fleck in an honest way. He enters by the door, is recognized as the master, and has no semblance of the thief, etc.
2. The shepherd is the true pastor of the sheep. He admits responsibility for the care he has assumed. A hireling would flee, a robber steal and kill, but the good shepherd has thoughtful and affectionate care for the whole flock.
3. Between the pastor and the flock there is the relation of individual acquaintance.
III. THE APPLICATION OF THE SIMILE.
1. Christ as a Saviour sustains an individual relationship to every soul He saves, Each needs the atonement and the work of the Spirit precisely as each needs the entire sunshine and atmosphere in order to see and breathe.
2. Christ as a leader is acquainted with every Christian personally. He knows if he is absent from the communion table, and looks at him when he imagines himself out of sight as to love or duty.
3. Christ as a model expects each believer to be wholly conformed to His likeness. It is not to be supposed that one Christian is to exhibit gentleness and another force, etc.
4. Christ as a master is specially direct in laying His commands on every individual He chooses. He knows the one He wants and calls him by name--Samuel, Zacchaeus, Mary, Simon, Saul.
5. Christ as a comforter deals with each believer as His personal friend Isaiah 43:1-2).
6. Christ as a judge will close His last account with each individually and alone (Matthew 25:1-46). (C. S. Robinson, D. D.)
The fold of the sheep
A place of
I. SEPARATION.
II. SUPERVISION.
III. SAFETY. (S. S. Times.)
The fold and the door
Not to enter by the door is a characteristic of Oriental thieves, from the Nile to the Ganges. When a tent is to be attacked, the common method is to approach it under cover of the darkness, cut a hole large enough to crawl through, and then silently to enter and as silently to retire with the booty. Bolder robbers will occasionally dig through the walls of a house in the same way. The experience of a British officer in India affords a curious illustration of the skill of Oriental thieves. During the officer’s absence in the evening, a man crept quietly up to the tent without attracting the attention of the sentry on guard, cut an opening in the rear of the tent, and began to collect his booty. While he was engaged in this process, the officer returned. The Hindoo instantly fixed himself, silent as a statue, close to the tent wall, with arm drawn up and hand slightly extended. The officer came in, and proceeded in the half-darkness to prepare for rest. Noticing the extended hand of the thief, and mistaking it for a pin of some sort, he hung his helmet and his coat upon it. The thief stood silently holding the helmet and the coat until the officer was asleep, when he retired as he came, taking the helmet and the coat with the rest of his booty. Next morning the hole in the tent and the missing “pin” told the whole story. (S. S. Times.)
Climbeth up some other way
1. Even thieves and robbers seek a place within the fold.
2. The basest motives may impel to a place in the fold.
3. Any way but God’s way suits base men.
4. Some climb up rather than walk in; they prefer works to faith. (S. S. Times.)
Wrong ways to heaven
Let the Pagans, the Jews, the heretics say, “We lead a good life.” If they enter not by the door, what availeth it? A good life only profiteth if it lead to life eternal. Indeed, those cannot be said to lead a good life, who are either blindly ignorant of, or wilfully despise the end of good living. No one can hope for eternal life who knows not Christ, who is the Life, and by that door enters the fold. (Augustine.)
Entrance without qualification
George Moore tells the following striking incident: “After I had been about two years in London, I had a great and anxious desire to see the House of Commons. I got a half-holiday for the purpose. I didn’t think of getting an order from an M.P. Indeed I hadn’t the slightest doubt of getting into the House. I first tried to get into the Strangers’ Gallery, but failed. I then hung about the entrance to see whether I could find some opportunity. I saw three or four members hurrying in, and I hurried in with them. The door keepers did not notice me. I walked into the middle of the House. When I got in I almost fainted with fear lest I should be discovered. I first got into a seat with the name of ‘Canning’ upon it. I then proceeded to a seat behind, and sat there all the evening. I heard Mr. Canning bring forward his motion to reduce the duty on corn. He made a brilliant speech and was followed by many others. I sat out the whole debate. Had I been discovered I might have been taken up for breach of privilege.” (H. O. Mackey.)
Climbing up some other way into heaven
I heard of a man some time ago who was going to get into heaven in his own way. He did not believe in the Bible or the love of God, but was going to get in on account of his good deeds. He was very liberal, gave a great deal of money, and he thought the more he gave the better it would be for him in the other world. I don’t, as a general thing, believe in dreams, but sometimes they teach good lessons. Well, this man dreamed one night that he was building a ladder to heaven, and he dreamed that every good deed he did put him one round higher on this ladder, and when he did an extra good deed it put him up a good many rounds; and in his dream he kept going, going up, until at last he got out of sight, and he went on and on doing his good deeds, and the ladder went up higher and higher, until at last he thought he saw it run up to the very throne of God. Then in his dream he thought he died, and that a mighty voice came rolling down from above: “He that climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber,” and down came his ladder, and he woke from his sleep, and thought: “If I go to heaven, I must go some other way.” My friends, it is by the way of the blood of Christ that we are to go to heaven. If a man has got to work his way there, who will ever get there? (D. L. Moody.)
Thieves and robbers.--These words do not constitute a tautology or mere rhetorical amplification (Obadiah 1:5). The one and the other appropriate what is not theirs, but the thief by fraud and in secret Matthew 24:43; John 12:6; cf. Exodus 22:2; Jeremiah 2:26), the robber by violence and openly (2 Corinthians 11:26; cf. Hosea 9:1; Jeremiah 7:11). The one steals, the other plunders, ashis name in the Greek (as our own from raub, “booty), sufficiently declares. The latter should be substituted for the former in Matthew 21:13, Matthew 26:55; Luke 10:30, Luke 23:39-43. (Archbp. Trench.)
Sheep to be fed, not sheared
Dr. Johnson declined a rectory in youth with “I cannot in conscience shear the sheep which I am unable to feed.”