From: Busy Person’s Guide to John 1 to 10 Return to Home
By
Roland H. Worth, Jr. © 2019
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text in paper, electronic, or computer
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credit is given and the text is not altered.
Busy Person’s Guide to the
New Testament:
Quickly Understanding John
(Volume 1: Chapters 9 to 10)
Chapter Nine
On the Sabbath Jesus Heals a Man Born Blind (John 9:1-12): 1 Now as Jesus was passing by, he saw a man who had been blind from birth. 2 His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who committed the sin that caused him
to be born blind, this man or his parents?”
3 Jesus answered,
“Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but he was born blind so that the
acts of God may be revealed through what happens to him. 4 We must perform the deeds of the one who sent me as long as it is
daytime. Night is coming when no one can work. 5 As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”
6 Having said this, he
spat on the ground and made some mud with the saliva. He smeared the mud on the blind man’s eyes 7 and said to him, “Go wash in the pool of Siloam” (which is translated
“sent”). So the blind man went away and
washed, and came back seeing.
8 Then the neighbors and
the people who had seen him previously as a beggar began saying, “Is this not
the man who used to sit and beg?” 9 Some people said, “This is the man!” while others said, “No, but he
looks like him.” The man himself kept
insisting, “I am the one!”
10 So they asked him,
“How then were you made to see?”11 He replied, “The man called Jesus made mud, smeared it on my eyes and
told me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ So I
went and washed, and was able to see.” 12 They said to him, “Where is that man?”
He replied, “I don’t know.” --New English
Translation (for comparison)
9:1 Now as Jesus passed by, He saw a man who was blind from birth. Disease and injury can strike a person blind in one eye or both at any point in life. But this person had borne the affliction from the time of his birth and had never been able to see at all--the ultimate disaster in blindness.
The time
correlation between
9:2 And His disciples asked Him, saying, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Assuming that when something bad happens to someone sin has to be involved, certain disciples wondered whether the blindness was caused by the man’s own transgression. Or was it the sin of his parents instead? (Note their dangerous leap from calamity being capable of being the divine backlash against sin to the assumption that in any and every case it must be so.) The fact that they knew this piece of his history argues that the man was repeatedly “chanting” out loud the duration of his affliction to encourage donations; otherwise they would not have known it.
Sidebar: The idea that calamities of the current generation were due to those of the past can be found in such Old Testament texts as Exodus 20:5, Exodus 34:7, and Numbers 14:18. All three texts refer to the punishment stretching to the third and fourth generation and none refer to physical disease as being the mode of punishment. It makes far more inherent sense that the temporal consequences of current sin will have a ripple effect on the fortunes of the next generation: You mess up your life morally, financially, or in any other major way, the odds are excellent that it will take multiple generations for your descendents to “get back on their feet.” When it is a society that does so, the results are far more catastrophic for far more people are involved.
A goodly number of Protestant theologians are convinced that we all bear the curse of sin before we are born--not because of parental sin but because of our inheriting the sin of Adam and Eve. One of their primary proof texts is relevant to our current theme: “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me” (Psalms 51:5). If one but reads the text as it is clearly written, however, the point is not that David was a sinner before he was born, but that his mother was the sinner--as are all parents due to their moral and ethical failures. Hence he was born into a sinful world--“brought forth in iniquity” . . . her iniquity and that of the preceding generation.
Some Jews
were even convinced that the person himself would be recycled onto the
earth and be punished by his bodily condition for earlier evil. In the apocryphal book of Wisdom we read (
9:3 Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should
be revealed in him. Jesus
responded that sin was not involved on any one’s part. Regardless of the cause of the
problem, the fact of its existence would work to demonstrate God’s power
(“works”). “The answer asserts that no such connection exists [with sin], and our
Lord’s words remain a warning against the spirit of judging other men’s lives,
and tracing in the misfortunes and sorrows which they have to bear the results
of individual sin or the proof of divine displeasure. There is a chain connecting the sin of
humanity and its woe, but the links are not traceable by the human eye.” (Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers)
9:4 I must work the works of Him who sent Me while
it is day; the night is coming when no one can work. Jesus had to do such
things as they were about to behold either now or in the near future because
time (= “day”) was running out for Him in this life and the darkness of “night”
(= death) was all too near. Later would simply
be too late for His miracles and words to be directly seen by one and all. “If all that is
recorded from John 7:37 takes place on one day, these words would
probably be spoken in the evening, when the failing light would add force to
the warning, night cometh (no
article), when no one can work. . . .
Compare . . . Psalms 104:23 [“Man goes out
to his work and to his labor until the evening”]. (
9:5 As long as I am in the
world, I am the light of the world.” The previous reference to “light” was an allusion to
what Jesus Himself was--“the light of the world” and here He makes it
explicit. The time was coming when that “daylight”
would be unavailable--because he was going to be judicially murdered. He was “the light” both literally in
restoring sight to the blind and also in bringing spiritual light to
those who were blind in sin. The first
was cured by miracles and the second by teaching them the truth they needed to
hear. He had referred to Himself as the
light of the world in the previous chapter, so this was no new teaching to
those who knew Him well (
9:6 When He had said these things,
He spat on the ground and made clay with the saliva; and He anointed the eyes
of the blind man with the clay. Whatever may have been expected by His disciples, this
was probably the last thing on their minds:
He bent down and used spit and dirt to produce a kind of clay
that He applied to the eyes of the blind man.
He did this, perhaps, to delay what was happening and to make the
miracle even more emphatic and burnt into their memory. (He was dealing, after all, with only one
man, and there was not the press of many others to heal.) In Mark 8:22-26 we have Him spitting on the
eyes and touching the blind as part of the healing. In Mark 7:33-34 Jesus “took [a deaf man] aside from the multitude, and put
His fingers in his ears, and He spat and touched his tongue” and commanded
the affliction to depart. The varying
procedures conveyed the message that the power to heal was inherent in the
Lord Himself and not in the means used to prepare the person for the
healing.
“We know from the
pages of Pliny, and Tacitus, and Suetonius,
that the saliva jejuna was held to be a
remedy in cases of blindness, and that the same remedy was used by the Jews is
established by the writings of the Rabbis.
That clay was so used is not equally certain, but this may be regarded
as the vehicle by means of which the saliva was applied. . . . Physicians had applied such means commonly to
cases of post-natal blindness, but congenital blindness had always been
regarded as incurable, and no instance to the contrary had ever been heard of
(John 9:32). The Great Physician, then, by using the ordinary means, will teach
men that the healing powers of nature are His gracious gift, and that they are increased
at the Giver’s will.” (Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers)
9:7 And He said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which
is translated, Sent). So he went and
washed, and came back seeing. The
blind man had not asked for healing. In
fact, he had not verbally indicated He believed Jesus had the power to heal. But he may well have heard passing stories of
this visitor to
Having done the seemingly irrelevant act of putting the clay on the eyes, He places the future in the man’s own hands. “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam.” The “washing” could refer to either the entire body or, more likely, washing off what was on his eyes. If he went, it showed he had faith that he could be cured. If he chose not to go, well the precondition for the cure had not been meant. The man wisely chose obedience and was blessed by his eyesight.
“The command recalls that to Naaman
the Syrian (2 Kings
9:8 Therefore the neighbors and
those who previously had seen that he was blind said, “Is not this he who sat
and begged?” This man was not
an anonymous unknown from a different section of
Chronology: The man “came
back seeing”--as if “coming back to Jesus” is under discussion (verse 7). He summarizes to these “neighbors” what Jesus
had done in verse 11 and in verse 12 we are informed that Jesus was
elsewhere. Hence this section seems to
describe what happened a bit later after he had returned to his own
neighborhood.
Sidebar: The “critical text” substitutes “beggar” for the word “blind,” but the fact that they recognized that his physical condition had dramatically changed is shown by their recognizing him with amazement (verse 9)--implying a visually dramatic change in how he appeared and acted. This is followed by their referring to how that previously he had not been able to see (verse 10), i.e., as having been blind. “Blind” and “begging” normally went hand-in-hand. Not synomyns but close.
9:9 Some said, “This is
he.” Others said, “He
is like him.” He said, “I am he.” Some were immediately confident it
was him. Others, realizing that the
impossible had happened, were equally convinced it had to be a look alike: It “couldn’t” happen; therefore it
“hadn’t.” “The
circumstance of having received his sight would give him an air of spirit and
cheerfulness, which would render him something unlike what he was before, and
might occasion a little doubt to those who were not well acquainted with him.”
— Doddridge. (Benson Commentary)
Sidebar: “Note the
gradual development of faith in the man’s soul, and compare it with that of the
Samaritan woman (see . . . John
The First Interrogation of the Healed Man by the Pharisees
(John
16 Then some of the
Pharisees began to say, “This man is not from God, because he does not observe
the Sabbath.” But others said, “How can
a man who is a sinner perform such miraculous signs?” Thus there was a division among them. 1 7 So again they asked the
man who used to be blind, “What do you say about him, since he caused you to
see?” “He is a prophet,” the man
replied. --New English Translation (for comparison)
Sidebar: “There were
seven miracles of mercy wrought on the Sabbath:
1. Withered hand (Matthew 12:9); 2. Demoniac at
Sidebar: The nature of Jesus’ “sin” in surviving
ancient rabbinic interpretation: “Nor can any doubt arise that Jesus had violated the
rabbinical rules of the Sabbath, though his act had been in perfect harmony
with the spirit and even letter of the Mosaic Law. The making of clay with the spittle and the
sand was an infringement of the rule ('Shabbath,'
24:3). It was curiously laid down in one
of the vexatious interpretations (preserved in Jerusalem Gemara
on 'Shabbath,' 14) that while ‘wine could
by way of remedy be applied to the eyelid, on the ground that this might be
treated as washing, it was sinful to apply it to the inside of the eye’ (Edersheim). And it
was positively forbidden (in the same Gemara) to
apply saliva to the eyelid, because this would be the application of a
remedy. All medicinal appliances, unless
in cases of danger to life or limb, were likewise forbidden. Consequently, the Lord had broken with the
traditional glosses on the Law in more ways than one.” (Pulpit Commentary)
Sidebar: Who were the dissenters? “If Nicodemus
and Joseph of Arimathea, both members of the sanhedrin were now present, they
would naturally distinguish themselves on this occasion; and Gamaliel too, on the principles he afterward avowed (Acts
Although he does not mention it--perhaps doesn’t even realize it--his rabbinic listeners would automatically have grasped that that identification automatically solves any question of the propriety of acting on the Sabbath. “Prophets, as divinely sent men, are even more authoritative than learned rabbis. If Jesus has broken through some of these restrictions by which they have ‘placed a hedge about the Law,’ surely he had a prophetic right to do it. The healing marks a Divine commission, and the healed man owned and freely confessed to so much as this: ‘He is a Prophet.’ [The great medieval rabbinic scholar] Maimonides (quoted by Dr. Farrar) shows that the idea was current that a prophet might, on his own ipse dixit, alter or relax even the Sabbath law, and that then the people were at liberty to obey him.” (Pulpit Commentary)
Sidebar
on the nature of a “prophet:” “It is important to note, that even in the language of
the ordinary people, the word ‘prophet’ did not mean simply a predictor of
events in the future, but one who was [present] as the representative of
God. He was not only or chiefly a
‘fore-teller,’ but a ‘forth-teller,’ declaring God’s truth, revealing His will
and character, bearing the witness of divine works; but as the future is ever
present to the divine counsels, prophecy, in the narrower sense, may be part of
the work of the true prophet [as well].”
(Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers)
The Interrogation
of the Parents of the Formerly Blind Man (John 9:18-23): 18 Now the Jewish religious leaders refused to believe that he had really
been blind and had gained his sight until at last they summoned the parents of
the man who had become able to see. 19 They asked the parents, “Is this your son, whom
you say was born blind? Then how does he
now see?”
20 So his parents
replied, “We know that this is our son and that he was born blind. 21 But we do not know how he is now able to see, nor do we know who caused
him to see. Ask him, he is a mature
adult. He will speak for himself.”
22 (His parents said
these things because they were afraid of the Jewish religious leaders. For the Jewish leaders had already agreed
that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Christ would be put out of the
synagogue. 23 For this reason his
parents said, “He is a mature adult, ask him.”) --New English Translation (for comparison)
A standard modern criticism of the miracles of Jesus is that His miracles weren’t investigated. Here they were--by those who vehemently wanted a way to discredit the doer. Yes many ancients were gullible, just like many people of today. (Don’t think so? Look at the array of strange conspiracy theories of an incredibly wide variety that are kept floating around!)
Yet there were also those then and today who wanted to find out the objective truth. Not that strange malady of 21st century thought, “my truth,” but objective reality (or, at least, the closest one can come to it), “the truth.” Those existed in major numbers back then as well.
However a
large number were also so prejudiced that they were determined not to admit the
genuineness of a miracle from someone whose teachings they disliked. Period. Hence, upon at least some occasions, they did
carefully investigate specific healings with the knowing and conscious intention
of discrediting them. And that is
what we have here: An investigation for
the purpose of proving it didn’t and couldn’t have happened. It was never more than misrepresentation and
distortion. Even so their best effort to
discredit the event isn’t going to work out so well.
Fascinatingly
the son’s own evaluation (so far) was simply, “He is a prophet” (verse
17). But his parents are clearly afraid
of even going that far. They were
fearful that any words of praise would be dangerous--not to mention any
that might ultimately lead to the conclusion “that He was Christ” as well.
The Second
Interrogation of the Healed Man by the Pharisees (John
26 Then they said to him,
“What did he do to you? How did he cause
you to see?” 27 He answered, “I told
you already and you didn’t listen. Why
do you want to hear it again? You people don’t want to become his disciples
too, do you?”
28 They heaped insults on
him, saying, “You are his disciple! We
are disciples of Moses! 29 We know that God has
spoken to Moses! We do not know where
this man comes from!”
30 The man replied, “This
is a remarkable thing, that you don’t know where he comes from, and yet he
caused me to see! 31 We know that God
doesn’t listen to sinners, but if anyone is devout and does his will, God
listens to him. 32 Never before has
anyone heard of someone causing a man born blind to see. 33 If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”
34 They replied, “You
were born completely in sinfulness, and yet you presume to teach us?” So they threw him out.
--New English
Translation (for comparison)
Their wording conveniently overlooks the fact that the parents had confirmed that he had been born blind. By not even alluding to it, they might convince this man--who was not present during the rabbinic inquisition of his parents--that they had said something negative about him. Now he needs to be honest with them about what really happened; give God the glory by telling the real truth about what had occurred.
“Give God
the glory” is used in this sense in Joshua 7:19: “My son, I beg
you, give glory to the Lord God of Israel, and make confession to
Him, and tell me now what you have done; do not hide it from
me.”
Then again
they may not have had anything specific in mind, but were casting about
desperately in the hope that in repeating his story he might say something that
could be twisted into an “inconsistency” with what he had said earlier. Or revealing “something
else that Jesus had said or done,” which they could try to use against the
Lord. They needed a “fig leaf” to
hide their prejudice behind and this unlearned “layman” is not helping them
find it.
Sidebar on “reviled:” “The verb
means to reproach or scold in a loud and abusive manner. Calvin, on 1 Corinthians 4:12 (‘being
reviled we bless’), remarks: "Λοιδορία
is a harsher railing, which not only rebukes a man, but also sharply bites him,
and stamps him with open contumely [= insult].
Hence λοιδορεῖν
is to wound a man as with an accursed sting." (Vincent’s Word Studies)
This fits
well with the beginning of their assertion:
“We know that God spoke to Moses.” Hence Moses’ teaching came “from God.” The identity of who
it was that Jesus’ teaching came from was what left them mystified. Alternatively, who had commissioned Him
to go out and preach? Or did either
actually do so? They had no problem with
attributing Jesus’ exorcisms to the power of the Devil (Matthew
Hence only
the prayer of the sincere and faithful “worshiper” of God was accepted (= “He
hears him”). So how could Jesus have
healed him born blind if He had been living in rejection of God and His will? However you might define what Jesus “was,” He
had to be more than a brazen “sinner!”
Even a man who was untutored--because of blindness if nothing else--knew
that much.
Although the accusation of being “born in sins” carries the connotation that he had been born blind because of sins in the past, whose (parental or even that of the child--cf. verse 2) is left unspecified. And to them, it probably didn’t matter. They simply wanted to avoid doing any more thinking about the testimony he had given. If you can’t refute, then you can always choose to stubbornly ignore the evidence--and insult the one who has provided it.
Sidebar on
“cast him out:” “This probably does not mean ‘excommunication’ [= formal casting him out
of the Jewish people]. (1) The expression is too vague. (2)
There could not well have been time to get a sentence of excommunication
passed. (3) The man had not incurred the threatened
penalty; he had not ‘confessed that He was Christ’ (John
Jesus Seeks Out the Interrogated
Man (John
37 Jesus told him, “You
have seen him; he is the one speaking with you.” [38 He said, “Lord, I
believe,” and he worshiped him. 39 Jesus said,] “For
judgment I have come into this world, so that those who do not see may gain
their sight, and the ones who see may become blind.”
40 Some of the Pharisees
who were with him heard this and asked him, “We are not blind too, are we?” 41 Jesus replied, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin, but
now because you claim that you can see, your guilt remains.” --New English Translation (for comparison)
Sidebar: Jesus normally uses the expression “Son of
Man” rather than “Son of God” in this gospel--the latter usage, however, is
found in John 10:36 and 11:4. Advocates
of the “critical text” substitute the first one here in their translations. If “Son of Man” be accepted, it is hard to
avoid the conclusion that it must carry far more “conceptual freight” than
referring to any normal human being. At
the bare minimum it would surely have been regarded by him as
confirmation that Jesus was, as he himself had told his interrogators, “a
prophet” (verse 17).
Furthermore--clearly in some special since of the expression--that he
was also “from God” in having and using supernatural powers (verse 33).
Sidebar: “The precise
form of word for ‘judgment’ occurs nowhere else in this Gospel. It signifies not the act of
judging (John 5:22; 5:24; 5:27; 5:30) but its result,
a ‘sentence’ or ‘decision’ (Matthew 7:2; Mark 12:40; Romans 2:2-3,
&c.), Christ came not to judge, but to save (John 3:17, 8:15); but
judgment was the inevitable result of His coming, for those who rejected Him
passed sentence on themselves (John 3:19).”
(
Sidebar: The apostle Paul warns Christians against a
variant of this: There were those who
loudly insisted that “you
yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, an instructor of the foolish”
and yet did not apply the truth they knew to their own lives. They even engaged in rationalizing away the
most obvious evils, causing outsiders to reject God’s will because of their
brazen hypocrisy (Romans
Chapter Ten
Jesus Describes Himself As the Shepherd Controlling
Admission and Departure from God's “Sheepfold” (John 10:1-10): 1 “I tell you the solemn truth, the one who does not enter the sheepfold
by the door, but climbs in some other way, is a thief and a robber. 2 The one who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. 3 The doorkeeper opens the door for him, and the sheep hear his
voice. He calls his own sheep by name
and leads them out.
4 “When he has brought
all his own sheep out, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because
they recognize his voice. 5 They will never follow
a stranger, but will run away from him, because they do not recognize the
stranger’s voice.” 6 Jesus told them this
parable, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.
7 So Jesus said again,
“I tell you the solemn truth, I am the door for the sheep. 8 All who came before me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not
listen to them. 9 I am the door. If
anyone enters through me, he will be saved, and will come in and go out, and
find pasture. 10 The thief comes only
to steal and kill and destroy; I have come so that they may have life, and may
have it abundantly. --New English
Translation (for comparison)
10:1 “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who does not enter
the sheepfold by the door, but climbs up some other way, the same is a thief
and a robber. Jesus next illustrates
their blindness to their sin (
Sidebar: The comparison of God’s people to a group of
harmless sheep was nothing new: The
example we would be most acquainted with are the famous words beginning Psalms
23: “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall
not want. He makes me to lie down
in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of
righteousness for His name’s sake” (verses 1-3). But this is far from the only text on the
theme. For example Isaiah 40:11: “He will feed His flock like a shepherd; He will
gather the lambs with His arm, and carry them in His bosom, and gently
lead those who are with young.” Ezekiel
34:31: “ ‘You
are My flock, the flock of My pasture; you are men, and I am your God,’
says the Lord God.” The Messiah--the
Messianic new David--would play this role of shepherd as Ezekiel 37:24
prophecies: “David My
servant shall be king over them, and they shall all have one
shepherd; they shall also walk in My judgments
and observe My statutes, and do them.”
10:2 But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. It is not the role of the sheep to control the gate; it is the role of the appointed shepherd. Through their traditions they had arrogated to themselves the role of shepherd when it was not actually their’s. However well intended their doing so, didn’t actually change the reality that it was not their fundamental function to lead but to obey. In inventing their varied traditions, they landed up giving new laws--grafted on as more or less “interpretations” of the written Law--and they considered them obligatory to follow in order to fully obey the Divine code. By playing this role they had promoted themselves--without Divine sanction--from faithful sheep to decision making shepherd.
Sidebar on
the possibility that this illustration may have been prompted by what could be
seen in the distance: “Neander, Godet, and Watkins think
it possible that the whole imagery may have been borrowed from the eye. The shepherds towards evening were probably
gathering their scattered flocks, according to Oriental custom, into their
well-known enclosures, and Jesus with his audience might have seen them doing
it if they gazed out from the courts of the temple over the neighboring hills.
. . . There is no absolute need that the
customary and well-known habit of the country-side should have been visible at
the moment. The abundantly attested
practice furnished to his hearers all needful corroboration.” (Pulpit Commentary)
10:3 To him the doorkeeper opens,
and the sheep hear his voice; and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them
out. The gatekeeper gladly opens it because his own role is a limited
one and the shepherd carries the weight of over-all responsibility. The sheep then follow the shepherd’s voice
since he knows the name of every single one.
Applied in a supernatural context, that would require that the shepherd
have omniscience: You can’t hide whether
you are really a “sheep of God.”
He always knows whether you belong to Him through loyalty and obedience
or whether it is actually directed to someone or something else.
10:4 And when he brings out his own sheep, he goes before them; and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. Those sheep he owns follows him not only because he knows their names but also because they recognize his voice. In other words they are familiar with him--just as so many were familiar with Jesus having heard His teaching time and again during His ministry. Today we are familiar with Him through His word and we “follow His voice” by obeying the teaching He gave both personally and through the apostles.
“Nothing is here said of ‘lost sheep’ or of ‘goats;’
these are all the ‘ideal sheep’ of the flock, individuals who recognize the
voice of the true Leader, and discriminate their own shepherd from all others,
whether pretenders to their affections or destroyers of their lives--wolves or
butchers, thieves or robbers.” (Pulpit
Commentary)
10:5 Yet they will by no means follow a stranger, but will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.” Anyone unknown to them they will not follow because they do not recognize him as having the right voice. The spiritual point so far is the loyalty of the sheep to their shepherd Jesus. They won’t follow people like the Pharisees because they recognize that they are not hearing the “voice” (name / authority / teaching) of Jesus. What the pretenders have to say and demand simply does not match up with the standard of truth they have been provided through the Lord. Nor should we today follow anyone who substitutes some other standard of authority.
Sidebar on
the reason for the flight among physical sheep:
“A strange word is a source of alarm to
them. With the known tone of the
shepherd’s voice they have learnt to associate protection, guidance, food. His voice recalls these associations. A stranger’s voice is something unknown, and
therefore feared.” (Ellicott’s
Commentary for English Readers)
10:6 Jesus used this
illustration, but they did not understand the things which He spoke to them. His Pharisee listeners simply did
not comprehend what He was talking about.
While attempting to decide what the application was intended to be, they
had to be suspicious that it carried negative implications for themselves as well.
They were quite right. . . .
10:7 Then Jesus said to them again, “Most assuredly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. He attempts to give them insight into what He is talking about by stressing that he Himself was the “door” by which to gain access to the sheep. This can be taken in one of two ways. (1) It is only through Him that one can enter into the flock to have legitimate authority and influence over God’s sheep (cf. John 14:6: “I am the way,” i.e., the only way). This would be a blow at the Pharisees’ opposition; opposing Jesus they had no legitimate claims to authority at all. Similarly the apostles only had authority due to their loyalty to the Lord. (2) He is the “door” in the sense that He is the shepherd who has the authority to order the gate opened to let in or take out--the one who has control over the admissions and leavings. Hence whether you are genuinely part of God’s people is exclusively His decision.
Either way He is the central religious authority in regard to those seeking to have leadership over God’s people--not them. Without His opening the gate for them, they will never be able to enter into the “flock of God’s faithful” or have legitimate influence over it--their pious indignation notwithstanding. He is the only genuine authority figure present.
Sidebar: Up until this point we would think that
Jesus’ role in this spiritual illustration is that of the good shepherd. Indeed He explicitly calls Himself that in
verse 11. So either He is playing two
distinct roles in this story (leading us to interpretation one) or in this
verse He is simply the one in full control of the “door” (leading to the
second approach).
10:8 All who ever came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. Those who came before and claimed to be controlling the door to acceptance for God’s flock were actually “thieves and robbers”--their genuine authority was nonexistent; whatever authority they had was gained by stealing it from where it actually was (in God’s law).
And this continued to be true even as Jesus spoke: note the present tense “are” rather than the past tense “were.” By and large the sheep refused to “hear” and follow them. In one sense the Pharisees were very popular, but as a percentage of the population a tiny one. By the very extreme to which they developed their religious traditions, they effectively kept most people from embracing their practices. (Respect them for their religiosity, quite possibly; but consider themselves of their number was a quite different matter.)
As to those
who “came before Me,” the allusion would be to those
of a similar mentality. And they
certainly existed. For example Ezekiel
rebukes contemporary religious leaders with the words “Son of man, prophesy against
the shepherds of
10:9 I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find
pasture. In order to enter
God’s flock in this day and ago, one must enter via the
“door” Jesus has provided and none other.
Therein will be found salvation and a permanent place
of refuge and nourishment (“pasture”).
“Go[ing] in and out” is language to connote
having the respected status of being free to enter and leave (and return) at
one’s leisure (Deuteronomy 28:6; 31:2).
The imagery of “the door” conveys the same idea of an entranceway
conveyed by “gate” in Matthew 7:13-14.
In
contrast, Jesus had an entirely different attitude toward God’s flock. He was only interested in them having “life”
and having it “more abundantly.” He got
nothing out of it beyond the pleasure of serving God; they got everything. “This life is
through Him given to men abundantly, overflowingly. We are reminded of the Shepherd-King’s Psalm
singing of the ‘green pastures,’ and ‘waters of rest,’ and ‘prepared table,’
and ‘overflowing cup;’ and carrying all this into the region of the spiritual
life we come again to the opening words of this Gospel, ‘And of His fullness
did we all receive, and grace for grace’ . . . ‘grace and truth came by Jesus
Christ’ (John 1:16-17).” (Ellicott’s
Commentary for English Readers)
Sidebar: The language of “steal,” “kill,” and
“destroy” may sound harsh language to describe Jesus’ Pharisaic foes, but
remember that these are the people who argued that it was utterly impossible
for Him to actually perform any miracle since He was transparently “a sinner”
(9:24) . . . labeled Him demon possessed (8:48, 52) . . . and attempted to
stone Him to death within the sacred precincts of the Temple itself.
Jesus Is Also the Good Shepherd Who Will Even Voluntarily
Die for His Flock (John
14 “I am the good
shepherd. I know my own and my own know
me— 15 just as the Father
knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. 16 I have other sheep that do not come from this sheepfold. I must bring them too, and they will listen
to my voice, so that there will be one flock and one shepherd.
17 “This is why the
Father loves me—because I lay down my life, so that I may take it back again. 18 No one takes it away from me, but I lay it down of my own free
will. I have the authority to lay it
down, and I have the authority to take it back again. This commandment I received from my Father.”
--New English
Translation (for comparison)
Sidebar on
“good shepherd:” “The word translated ‘good’ cannot he adequately translated: it means
‘beautiful, noble, good,’ as opposed to ‘foul, mean, wicked.’ It sums up the chief attributes of ideal
perfection.” (
10:12 But a hireling, he who is not the shepherd, one who does
not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees; and the
wolf catches the sheep and scatters them.
In contrast to His own loyalty to God’s will, a mere hired
hand takes one look at an approaching wolf and runs in the other direction,
permitting the flock to be killed and scattered. This shepherd will be steadfast to
duty in spite of the personal danger that is heading His way. Like the prototype of the
Messiah (i.e., David) did in protecting his father’s flock from attack (1
Samuel
Sidebar: The “wolf” represents the unscrupulous foes
of Christ’s sheep--ultimately, Satan of course, but in the most immediate sense
any earthly individuals(s) who seek to do spiritual harm out of malignity or
their own twisted religious beliefs. “The wolf is the natural enemy of the sheep, and the
fit emblem of all evil persons, who are the natural enemies of the sheep of
Christ’s fold. He spake of ‘false
prophets’ as ‘ravening wolves’ (Matthew
The “reunion” (so to speak) of Jew and Samaritan was a startling idea in itself, but the longer term goal was actually far broader than even that and encompassed the Gentile world as well. Of the Gentile city of Corinth Jesus assured the apostle Paul, “Do not be afraid, but speak, and do not keep silent; for I am with you, and no one will attack you to hurt you; for I have many people in this city” (Acts 18:9-10).
God
had told the ancient prophet Micah of how “many nations shall come” and serve
God and how the Divine “law shall go forth” out of
Jesus’ Foes Are Horrified at His Teaching (John
Furthermore, how in the world could a
demon possessed person possibly heal the blind?
Or, for that matter, want to?
Jesus Refuses to
Tell His Foes Whether He Is the Messiah Because He Had Already Provided the
Answer--At Least Clearly Implied It (John 10:22-30): 22 Then came the feast of the Dedication in Jerusalem. 23 It was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple area in Solomon’s
Portico. 24 The Jewish leaders
surrounded him and asked, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are
the Christ, tell us plainly.”
25 Jesus replied, “I told
you and you do not believe. The deeds I do in my Father’s name testify about
me. 26 But you refuse to
believe because you are not my sheep. 27 My sheep listen to my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.
28 “I give them eternal
life, and they will never perish; no one will snatch them from my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one can
snatch them from my Father’s hand. 30 The Father and I are one.” --New English
Translation (for comparison)
Since this festival took place well into winter, one could count on the weather tending to be rather chilly or outright cold.
Ellicott’s
Commentary for English Readers suggests the conflicting thoughts that are
likely going through the minds of more restrained members of the group: “The words exactly express what was
probably the real state of fluctuation in which many of these Jews then were. They do not in the true sense ‘believe’ (John
10:25-26), and they soon pass to the other extreme of seeking to stone Him
(John 10:31); but in many of them the last miracle, and the words accompanying
it, had left a conviction that He was more than human, and not possessed by a
demon. . . . Two months have passed
away, not, we may believe, without many an earnest thought and much anxious
weighing of evidence concerning Him. And
now the Feast of Dedication has come, and what thoughts have come with it? It is the Feast of Lights, and He had
declared Himself the Light of the world.
It is the Feast of Freedom, telling how the Maccabees
had freed their nation from the tyranny of Antiochus Epiphanes,
and He has declared that ‘If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free
indeed’ (John
“Here the verb is in the
present, ‘I give (am now giving) them.’ ” (Ellicott’s Commentary for English
Readers) “Not ‘will give.’ Here as in John
10:29 My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than
all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father’s
hand. Their perseverance was
possible because God had “given them to Me” through
their obedient faith. This vast
reservoir of unlimited power assured their protection against them being stolen
away in any manner. The necessary
implication is clear as well: Any
attempt to do so will not only anger Me (Jesus) but
also the One you count as your heavenly Father as well.
The “one”
can be read as one in purpose and such like and other passages in this gospel
refer, for example, to their complete and total unity in regard to both behavior
(5:19) and what has been spoken to humankind (12:50). But this interpretation of “one” hardly does
full justice to the present text: “This word confutes Arius, proving the unity of nature in God. Never did any prophet before, from the
beginning of the world, use any one expression of himself which could possibly
be so interpreted, as this and other expressions were, by all that heard our
Lord speak. Indeed, His hearers were
provoked to such a degree by what He now said, that they took up stones, and
were going to kill Him outright, imagining that He had spoken blasphemy.” (Benson Commentary) And unless His essence of nature was truly identical
with the Father would not their accusation of blasphemy be quite reasonable?
His Critics Want to Stone Him to Death Because He Claims
“Oneness” With the Heavenly Father, But He Refutes Their Complaints From Both
Scripture and From the Evidence of His Repeated Miracles (John 10:31-42): 31 The Jewish leaders picked up rocks again to stone him to death. 32 Jesus said to them, “I have shown you many good deeds from the Father.
For which one of them are you going to stone me?” 33 The Jewish leaders replied, “We are not going to stone you for a good
deed but for blasphemy, because you, a man, are claiming to be God.
34 Jesus answered, “Is it
not written in your law, ‘I said, you are gods’? 35 If those people to whom the word of God came were called ‘gods’ (and the
scripture cannot be broken), 36 do you say about the
one whom the Father set apart and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’
because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’?
37 “If I do not perform
the deeds of my Father, do not believe me. 38 But if I do them, even if you do not believe me, believe the deeds, so
that you may come to know and understand that I am in the Father and the Father
is in me.” 39 Then they attempted
again to seize him, but he escaped their clutches.
40 Jesus went back across
the
--New English
Translation (for comparison)
The
blasphemer was, indeed, supposed to be stoned to death (Leviticus
24:10-16). This was during the years of
wandering in the wilderness and the instruction was that the individual was to
be taken outside their camp city and punished. Yet here the “pious” defenders of the
Law proposed to do it not only within
Sidebar: However would they have stoned Him for
His miracles as well if they had thought public opinion would have tolerated
it? The available evidence suggests they
would have: In the previous chapter we
read of the charge that “this Man is not from
God, because He does not keep the Sabbath” (
These earlier ancients are called “gods” because they are administering law on Jehovah’s behalf. They are earthly agents for God. They are acting with Divine authority as if God--which required humility and justice in dealing with anyone who came before them. And, of course, Jesus’ authority exceeded all of theirs (Matthew 28:18: “all authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth”).
Sidebar: Although strictly speaking “the Law” refers
to the Torah, the term could fairly be applied to all of God’s
revelations since they were equally obligatory.
In Romans 3:10-20 Paul quotes from several Psalms as part of “the law”
as well as Proverbs
And this was not a matter of oral tradition, this was something solidly rooted in the Scriptures and that “word of God” could never “be broken” in authority and reliability. (Unlike their traditions that were subject to change and modification, the inspired written writings forever remained the same.)
Sidebar on
“cannot be broken:” “Literally, ‘cannot be undone’ or ‘unloosed.’ The same word is rendered ‘unloose’ (John
At the very minimum, He was using their kind of reasoning to expose their folly and the hypocrisy of acting against Him. They had no problem with this kind of language being applied to themselves or their contemporaries, but indignation at Jesus using it to defend Himself. In effect, Jesus is tackling them on their own “ball field” of playing with technicalities--and they clearly lose.
On the other hand, the words carry far more conceptual freight when speaking of Jesus than it could any earthly governmental or religious judge. At best they are mere reflections of God’s nature; in contrast Jesus is identical with it. Of them the language could only be used in a loose sense; in Jesus’ case it would be quite literal. So in the final analysis the usage rises far above “hanging the fool with his own rope”--though I suspect Jesus may have had a smile on His face when He made the argument--to presenting a startling application that was uniquely true of Himself in the Divine plan of things.
10:37 If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me; He challenged them to judge on the
basis of the actions they had seen or heard reported by credible
witnesses: If He had not performed the
kind of “works” (= miracles) His Father alone could empower Him to accomplish,
then they should feel justified in rejecting Him: “ought not [to believe]; not merely
have no need” (Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges). However the evidence argued for their
genuineness and that should make credible His claim to be more than just an
ordinary mortal. They have the
evidence. Isn’t it about time that they
admit the conclusions it properly leads to?
Sidebar: This wasn’t the first time such an arrest had
been attempted: John
Sidebar on
the miracles: “This is indirect evidence of the genuineness of the miracles recorded
of Christ. It is urged that if Jesus had
wrought no miracles, they would very possibly have been attributed to Him after
His death. Let us grant this [for
discussion]; and at the same time it must be granted that the same holds good
to a very great extent of the Baptist.
The enthusiasm which he awakened, as a Prophet appearing after a weary
interval of four centuries, was immense.
Miracles would have been eagerly believed of him, the second Elijah, and
would be likely enough to be attributed to him.
But more than half a century after his death we have one of his own disciples quite incidentally telling us that ‘John
did no miracle’; and there is no rival
tradition to the contrary. All traditions
concur in attributing miracles to Jesus.”
(