GOOD NEWS FROM ST. JOHN
Meditations in the Gospel of St. John
St. John 10:1-6
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THE first half of John 10 is concerned with the wonderful teaching of Jesus concerning himself, where he speaks of himself as the Good Shepherd. In the main, Jesus is speaking of himself as the Shepherd, and of his work of ministering to the sheep, but in verses 7-10 he digresses slightly to speak of himself as the door, and of how we become members of his flock. This can be a little confusing at first, but once we see what is happening, things fall into place. In this meditation we are looking at verses 1-6 where Jesus opens this teaching concerning himself as the Shepherd.

The thrust of what Jesus is saying centres around the fact that the religious teachers and leaders of the day were not true shepherds, and so led people astray. They pretended to be true shepherds, and even thought they were true shepherds but really they were like thieves and robbers who seek to enter God’s kingdom in a wrong way. This is teaching of Jesus which is always relevant, because in every age, there have been false leaders and teachers, or we could say false shepherds. Where ever in the church the ones teaching are departing from the true doctrine of Christ, they become thieves and robbers who by their false teaching are stealing the sheep from the true Shepherd and from the safety of the one true fold.

The grand truth here is that Jesus is the centre and heart and core of true Christianity. Where he is not the centre, then Christianity has become corrupted. When we say that Jesus must be the centre, we mean that Christ must be first and last, and the only direction of faith. We also mean that faith directed at Jesus must include both faith in his person - who he is as God and man; and his work - that he is our sin bearer, substitute and representative before God. In a word faith in Jesus must be faith in him as he truly is, as revealed in the Bible. Any teaching which corrupts this revelation, that teaching comes from thieves and robbers in the church. Christ is the only Saviour, and faith must be in him alone.

There is always the fear that the true believer will be corrupted by false teaching. The words of Jesus here are so comforting. He says the sheep listen to him. Those who are true believers will listen to Jesus (v.3), and they will never follow strangers because the strangers voice is not recognised (v.5). There may be times when true believers may be seduced for a little while by false teaching, but this will not be for long, and soon they will know the falsehood and turn away from that false teaching. Or again where there is false teaching, the true believer sees only the truth mixed with the rest, and simply ignores the error.

This is very comforting. The true believer - Christ’s sheep - fear to wander away or to be led astray. How comforting it is that Jesus tells us that to go astray is not finally possible. It is another way of expressing the truth that the Shepherd will never lose any of his sheep, and will not allow them to go astray. We are in the Shepherd’s care.

How wonderful this is. We believe in Jesus, and Jesus becomes our Shepherd, and he will never let us go from him. There is a wonderful intimate relationship given here by Jesus concerning the sheep in their relationship with the Shepherd.

The Sheep listen to Jesus. True believers seek every day and all the time to be near Jesus and to be listening to his voice. This is why prayer and study and meditation in the Bible are so important. We must be listening and hearing Jesus, because our life depends on it. But further this listening also includes the wonderful fact that we can hear Jesus in his Word and through prayer. Many can read the Bible and it means little and Jesus is not heard there, so they do not really understand its message. When we are the sheep of Jesus, we hear his voice - the Bible is interpreted truly to us through the Holy Spirit. We grow in understanding, and though we don’t know everything and never will in this life, yet what we do know is the truth and the voice of Jesus.

Then Jesus tells us how he leads his sheep in the way they should go (v.3b), and how he goes before his sheep and so guides them in safe paths and to where nourishment may be found. The truth is that once we belong to Jesus, we are never without Jesus as our guide and shepherd. Like the eastern shepherd of old, he lives with his sheep, looks after them, defends them, feeds them, and cares for them, every day and all the time.

The Christian life is not always easy. Indeed sometimes it can be very difficult. Temptations come. Trials often surround us. However, Jesus is always with us, and as our Shepherd he is caring for us that we may be safe, until he brings us to the grand and final fold in heaven.

We may sum up this wonderful picture by saying that there is a love relationship between the believer and Jesus. Jesus, our shepherd, loves us his sheep with a deep, deep love. We have come to love the shepherd, and he is the centre of our lives, the one we adore.