John 10:1 Commentary and Bible Study

Here we are looking at John’s only parable - not strictly a parable, but an allegory. It follows immediately after the events of chapter nine, the Feast of tabernacles, six months before the crucifixion of Christ. The man born blind has received his sight. As the result of his loyalty to Christ, he has been cast out of the Temple and out of the synagogue, excommunicated by the scribes and the Pharisees, the Sanhedrin council. I rather think that Christ has the man born blind right there, as a witness, as a great symbol as it were. He has been cast out, but Christ has found him and identified him. ‘Truly, truly’ – this is the denunciation of the ones who cast out the man born blind.The parable teaches the new Messianic order, the new church. The time of reformation has come. The ancient Jewish church is to be changed because Gentiles are to be saved, and Jews and Gentiles are to be gathered into one sheepfold. They are now to be together, elect Jews, elect Gentiles in the international church of Jesus Christ which will thrive and grow until he comes again. It will not have a priesthood; there will be one shepherd. All the congregation of the new church will have the Scriptures and the New Testament Scriptures, the voice of Christ to guide them, and they will be under him.Now we’re told that in those days the sheepfolds may have had stone walls of ten to twelve feet high. They were very strong and it was to guard against those who would try to get in and steal the sheep. The door was the authorised entrance for the one who would be the true authorised shepherd of the sheep. Christ is saying ‘I am the good shepherd, I am the Messiah, I am the One authorised and appointed to lead the children of God and to gather them into the true church of Messiah.’ What is this authorised entrance, this door? Of course, it’s the promises of a Messiah. Who is the one who is to go through that door and to collect the sheep? The one who fulfils the promises: the Messiah, promised throughout the chapters of the Old Testament to be God incarnate, to be a sin-bearer, the one who with great tenderness and sympathy would save the souls of men and women, who would suffer and die and make an atonement for sinners and take their punishment for them. The false shepherds like the scribes and Pharisees climbed into the sheepfold ‘some other way’, an unauthorised way by a religion of works and ceremonies of their own devising. The clergy of those days, the leaders of the Jewish church had not entered by the door, that is, by Christ. Even in Old Testament times the only way into the church truly was by way of Messiah. When those leaders made their sacrifices, there was no true repentance and faith. They did not see the sacrifices as a figure of the great descendant who would come and somehow take away sin. They were not trusting in Messiah, but they climbed up over the stone wall of the sheepfold some other way. They trusted in their birth as Jews, or in their meticulous keeping of the ceremonies of the Old Testament order, or in their office as scribes, as priests. ‘The same is a thief and a robber’, stealing the sheep. They just wanted to rule the people. They just wanted to live off them. They wanted to gain an income and to hold office, to be admired, and to be special, to direct and rule the people. The Greek word translated ‘robber’ points to a more violent form of thief, and how accurate that was. They had made several attempts already to take Christ and to take him under arrest to destroy him, to stone him.