As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep.
As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father. This ought not to have begun a new sentence; because it is properly part of the previous verse. The whole statement will then stand thus: "And I know mine, and am known of mine, even as the Father knoweth Me, and I know the Father." So the Vulgate, and Luther's version, Bengel, DeWette, Lucke, and nearly every modern critic; and so Lachmann, Tischendorf, and Tregelles print the text. When Christ says He "knows His sheep," He means it in the special and endearing sense of 2 Timothy 2:19; and when He says, "I am known of mine," He alludes to the soul's response to the voice that has inwardly and efficaciously called it; for in this mutual loving acquaintance, ours is the effect of His. The Redeemer's knowledge of us, as Olshausen finely says, is the active element, penetrating us with His power and life; that of believers is the passive principle, the reception of His life and light. In this reception, however, an assimilation of the soul to the sublime Object of its knowledge and love takes place; and thus an activity, though a derived one, is unfolded, which shows itself in obedience to His commands. But when our glorious Speaker rises from this mutual knowledge of Himself and His people to another and loftier reciprocity of knowledge-even that of Himself and His Father-and says that the former is even as х kathoos (G2531)] the latter, He expresses what none but Himself could have dared to utter; though it is only what He had in effect said before (Matthew 11:27, taken in connection with the preceding and following verses; and Luke 10:21-22), and what in another and almost higher form He expressed afterward in His Intercessory Prayer (John 17:21-23).
And I lay down my life for the sheep. How sublime is this, following immediately on the lofty claim of the preceding clause! 'Tis just the riches and the poverty of "The Word made flesh;" one glorious Person reaching at once up to the Throne-in absolute knowledge of the Father-and down even to the dust of death, in the voluntary surrender of His life "for the sheep." A candid interpretation of this last clause - "for the sheep" - ought to go far to establish the special relation of the vicarious death of Christ to the Church.