The Theology of the Shepherd

Theology Matters and the Need for Constant Reformation

I want to invite you to take out your bibles and turn with me to John chapter 10 and hold your place there at verse 11. John chapter 10 and we're going to be looking at verses 11 to 21 today. Several years ago we adopted sort of an unofficial motto here at Sovereign Grace and that unofficial motto was theology matters.

Theology matters. And there was a time in the history of this church where it was necessary to spend a lot of time in bringing some correction and I'm trying to find the right word to say, to simply expand our understanding of theology and I would say the first several years of my ministry here was in my own growth, sharing that growth with the church and seeing the church grow in its understanding of theology.

And that's where that motto came from. Theology matters because it's important. Theology is the study of God, knowing who God is, understanding who this God is we say that we worship and so there was necessity in diving deep and looking at theological truths and even fighting for and contending for those truths and there have been some battles that have been waged in our own church over these truths.

Some battles that were hard fought and I'm thankful for those of you who stood beside me during those battles. But what often happens, and this is true anywhere, is that once the battles are won and once the peace sets in, sometimes along with that peace comes a feeling of complacency.

Well, we got it right so now we can relax. Well I want to say this, number one, we don't have everything right because as a church we should always be seeking to ensure that what we're teaching is true and if we need to be corrected to be corrected.

But also we should never tire of going back and reminding ourselves of the important truths that are the foundation of what we believe. And so as I was thinking about what I wanted to preach from this text, certainly I'm going to exposit the text and explain what's being said in the text, I also want to share with you that what we find in John chapter 10 is one of the most dense and I would say robust sections of theology in all of the Bible.

From Analogy to Theology in John 10

It comes to us in an analogy, I mentioned this two weeks ago, I said Jesus is giving us an analogy but in that analogy we find theology. And so what we're going to see today is we're going to see how we move from analogy to theology but let me warn you, do not think that because these are theological concepts and sometimes heady concepts that they are somehow not applicable.

These things are important, these things are necessary, these things are the things that so many people do not understand, do not even seek to understand and because of that we wind up with a church in America where the vast majority of the people would proclaim that they believe the Bible but they don't know what the Bible teaches.

You see for a long time churches taught Bible stories but they didn't teach the theology behind the stories. You can know Abraham went to Canaan, you can know the story of the promises to Abraham but if you don't understand the theology of covenant and what God has done through that covenant from Abraham to Christ then you don't understand the Bible.

You can know who David is, you can know who Isaiah is, you can know who Jeremiah is but if all you know are the stories and you don't understand the theology that undergirds those stories, the theologies that those stories teach then you really don't know the Bible.

Years ago there was a man I knew, his church was hiring a youth pastor and they brought the man in. He was very charismatic, looked great, sounded great, engaged with the children great. There was a wonderful joy that they had found their new youth pastor and then it became very evident through his teaching that this man did not believe in the Trinity, that this man had a heretical understanding of who Jesus is, what God is and how God has described himself.

And so one of the parents of the children went to the pastor and said listen I understand you like this guy but what he is teaching our children is not what the Bible says and the pastor says yeah but he really is popular and the kids really like him so he's not going anywhere.

You understand why that's a problem? You understand why theology matters and why we need to continue to seek to be biblical in our theology, correct in what we teach? There is a Latin phrase that came out of the Reformation, Semper Reformanda.

Semper Reformanda, you probably are familiar with the Marine Corps motto of Semper Fidelis. Semper Fidelis means always faithful. Well Semper Reformanda means always reforming. Meaning you always take what you teach back to the scriptures and always seek to find your theology and your truth from what the Bible says.

Semper Reformanda, always reforming. So this morning we're going to actually see how in this section of scripture there are actually six things Jesus teaches about. I'm going to give these to you before we even read the text, not that I want you to read anything into the text and I don't at all expect that I'm going to get through all of this today.

But we're going to get through as much as we can. Six things Jesus teaches in our verses for today. Number one he teaches vicarious atonement also known as substitutionary atonement. Number two he teaches particular redemption, sometimes called limited atonement.

He teaches the Gentile inclusion in the new covenant. That is a huge theological truth and it's found in this text. He teaches his own death and resurrection. He teaches his authority in that death and resurrection and he teaches something we call the antithesis.

If you're unfamiliar with that phrase, the doctrine of the antithesis is that in the world there are only two types of people. Those who believe in Christ, those who are in Christ and those who are not.

There is no third category. You are either in or you are out. There is thesis and antithesis. That is the doctrine of the antithesis and we find that in this passage as well. So I don't know how long it's going to take, but I know how long I'm going to take and that's as long as it does take.

Jesus the Good Shepherd Lays Down His Life

So let's stand up and let's read and then we'll walk through the text and we'll learn. Beginning at verse 11, Jesus says, I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees.

And the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he's a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me. Just as the Father knows me and I know the Father and I lay down my life for the sheep.

And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also and they also will listen. They will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. For this reason the Father loves me because I lay down my life that I may take it up again.

No one takes it from me, but I lay it down on my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father. There was again a division among the Jews because of these words.

Many of them said, he has a demon and is insane. Why listen to him? Others said, these are not the words of one who is oppressed by a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind? Father in heaven, we thank you for your word and we ask even now, Lord, that you would by your mercy and grace be with us as we study.

I pray that you would keep me from error. I pray that you would open the hearts of your people to the truth. And I pray, Lord, that those who are not yet your people by confession, repentance and faith, Lord, that they might by the preaching of the word, hear it, believe and be saved.

Father, I have concern every time I preach the word. Fear and trepidation and standing behind your pulpit and preaching your text. And Lord, the fear is that I would preach something that would be wrong.

For Lord, your word says not all should be teachers, for teachers will be judged with a stricter judgment. So as I submit myself to you in the preaching of your word and submit myself before these people, presenting the word to them, I pray, Lord, that you would watch over, protect and provide by your spirit what you would have your people to hear.

And I pray, oh God, that your mercy would overflow us as we study. That we would see Christ the good shepherd and that we would recognize that he has in fact laid down his life for those who believe. We pray this in Jesus name, amen.

False Shepherds, Thieves, and the Abundant Life

A few weeks ago, we began looking at John chapter 10 and I made the statement that this particular chapter is part of the chapter that came before. Chapter nine is the story of the man born blind. At the end of chapter nine, we have Jesus having an interaction with the Pharisees, which leads to Jesus then speaking about the subject of a true shepherd and a thief and a robber.

He says that at the beginning of this chapter. He says that a shepherd comes through the door and calls the sheep. And the sheep hear his voice, they know who he is. But if you don't come through the door, you're a thief and a robber.

And as I've stated over the last two weeks, but I want to remind you, Jesus is here speaking specifically of the false teachers of Israel. They are the thieves and the robbers. When Jesus says the thief came to steal, kill and destroy, he's speaking not of the devil, even though the devil would fall into that category because the devil did come to steal, kill and destroy.

But in that particular context, he's not speaking of the devil specifically. He's speaking of false teachers, the danger of men who look good, who sound good, who are interesting, who compel us to listen to them by the words that they use and the persuasion of their argument.

And yet at the same time, they are dangerous men. They come to steal, to kill and destroy. They are selfish. They are self-motivated. They are not shepherds. They are thieves and robbers. These are dangerous men.

Jesus said the thief comes to steal, kill and destroy, but I come that you may have life and have it abundantly. That was our last message from last week. We said the abundant life first is spiritual life.

It's the life that Christ gives us. We were dead in our trespasses and sins. The Holy Spirit comes. He gives us new life and we have life in Christ. That's the life that comes from Jesus. And it's life that lasts forever.

As I said last week, there's not much more abundant than eternity. And so when he says he came to give life and give life abundantly, it's a life that never ends. But also it's a joyful life because it's a life that has Christ at its center.

It's not just life that is lived, but it's life that's lived in him. The Apostle Paul says, I have been crucified with Christ and yet I live. But yet not I, but Christ who liveth in me. And the life I now live, I live by faith in the son of God who gave himself for me.

What is life for the Christian? Life for the Christian is Christ. He is our life. He is our motivation. He is our king and captain. He is our good shepherd. And that leads us to our verse, our verses for today.

The Seven I Am Statements and Christ as the Shepherd

Jesus mixes metaphors in this discourse. First, he identifies himself as the door of the sheep. And he distinguishes between the shepherd and the door. He says the shepherd goes into the door and he takes the sheep out to the pastures.

Some people have made the connection and said, well, there were times when the shepherd himself would lay at the door and become the door of the sheep. And that could be the analogy that Jesus is using.

Certainly that is possible. But in any either way, he has moved now from saying he's the door to saying he is the shepherd. He says, I am the good shepherd. This is one of several times in John's gospel that Jesus uses, I am.

And then he places some kind of picture or some kind of visual image there at that point for us to understand who he is and what he has done. There are seven great I am statements in the gospel of John.

And this is the fourth of those seven statements. We have already seen Jesus say, I am the bread of life. John 6 and 35. He has already said, I am the light of the world. John 8 and verse 12. He has already said, I am the door of the sheep.

That was John 10 and verse 7. And now he says, I am the good shepherd. And as we've noted in the last few weeks, shepherd was not a metaphor that Jesus was creating for this particular engagement. This was not a metaphor that he established here.

But the shepherd and sheep metaphor is one that runs throughout the entire Bible. It goes all the way back to Genesis. It goes all the way through Revelation. God identifies himself as the shepherd. He identifies his people as the sheep.

And Jesus, of course, as the son of God, God in the flesh, God incarnate is, of course, the good shepherd. And notice he says, I am the good shepherd. He uses the definite article indicating there is no other shepherd like him.

That is not to say that he does not establish under shepherds. The Bible is clear. God does establish under shepherds. In fact, the word pastor is Latin for shepherd comes from the Latin, and it means a shepherd.

And you say, well, is that wrong? Some people don't think that you should use that word. In fact, in some churches, the word pastor is not used. It's more preferable to use the term brother for a minister.

And that's fine because we are all brothers in the Lord Jesus Christ. And there is no spiritual position of greater importance in regard to the idea that a pastor somehow has something in the kingdom and other people are unimportant and the only pastors are important or something like that.

Paul tells us that's not true. He says that the ear can't say to the eye, I have no need of you. The hand can't say to the foot, I have no need of you. If you are using your giftedness in the body of Christ, then we all have a place and a purpose in the kingdom.

So the idea of calling someone a pastor is not for the purpose of establishing for that person some type of spiritual upliftedness. It's simply to say, this is what you're doing because the actual title for a pastor or an elder is, there's two Greek words.

There's presbyteros and episkopos. Episkopos means overseer. It's usually the one that is translated bishop in scripture. And then there's presbyteros, which is translated elder in scripture. And both of those are used interchangeably for the same office.

It's not that you have bishops and elders, but they're both the same office. But when you go to 1 Peter chapter 5, Peter identifies himself as an elder. Did you know that? That Peter actually identifies himself as an elder?

He says, I exhort the elders among you as a fellow elder and witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed. Shepherd, listen to what he says. This is Peter speaking to the elders.

He says, I'm exhorting you as elders and I'm exhorting you as a fellow elder. Shepherd the flock of God that is among you. So we see in this passage, the elders are called to pastor. They are called to shepherd.

But we recognize that we are under shepherds to the good shepherd. In fact, Peter goes on to say we have a chief shepherd who is the Lord Jesus Christ. So using the term pastor, using the term shepherd for the leader or leaders of a church is not wrong or bad, but we have to identify there.

The church only has one head and that head is not Keith Foskey or Mike Collier or Andy Montoro or anybody else. The head of the church is Jesus Christ. The chief shepherd of the church is Jesus Christ.

And the goal of the church should be to submit to the Lord Jesus Christ who gives us his will through his word, which is taught and applied through the preaching and teaching of the scripture and then is lived out in the lives of his people.

That is how the church is supposed to function under the good shepherd. He says, I am the good shepherd. The word good there reminds us of Jesus's recognition of who he is. There was a time when Jesus had a rich young ruler come to him and said, good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?

Do you remember what Jesus said to him? He says, why do you call me good? There's none good except God. And some people have taken that to think that Jesus did not consider himself good. In fact, there are many people who believe Jesus was a sinner.

We call those people heretics because Jesus was not a sinner. Jesus did not sin. When that young man came to Jesus and he said, good teacher, and Jesus corrected him, Jesus was not saying that he wasn't good.

What he was saying was that young man did not understand goodness. Because when that young man fell at his feet and said, good teacher, Jesus said, why do you call me good? Why do you do that? And then you learn in the very next statement, Jesus says, because the man says, what should I do to inherit eternal life?

And he says, you know the commandments, do not lie, do not steal, do these things. And he says, all those things I've done from my youth, which means what? He thought he was good too. The reason why he was so willing to go around using the word good for Jesus is because he felt like he was also good.

Human Sinfulness and Christ’s Perfect Righteousness

You see, one of the problems we have is we think we're good. In fact, the most deadly thing in our world today is the idea that somehow our goodness is what makes us right with God. If you are relying upon your own goodness, when you face the Lord at judgment, you will find out that your goodness is not enough.

The Bible tells us that all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags when compared to the goodness of God. Even the most virtuous among us cannot claim to be without sin. Derek Thomas, a pastor and teacher with Ligonier Ministries.

I saw a video of him this week. He's a he's an older man, a man I've respected for years. He's a good teacher, and he has an accent which makes him sound smarter than all the rest of us. It's one of those nice English or European accents.

And Derek Thomas said this in a Q &A. He said, if you could see if you could see what goes on in my mind, you wouldn't want me to be your pastor. He said, if you knew the struggles that I have with my own thought life, like the things I think about, he says, he said, the honest to goodness truth, if you could see into my mind, it would appall you.

As we've said before, if you could take just your thoughts and put them on a screen and show them to people for a whole day. Wouldn't you be mortified and shamed? And yet when people are asked, they go about and proclaim their own goodness.

I am a good person and I'm going to make it to heaven based upon my goodness. No, you are not good. There is none good. No, not one. There is none who understands. There is none who seeks after God. All have gone astray, everyone to his own way.

This is the picture scripture gives to us. But there is one who is good. There is one who, though tempted in every way, was without sin. There is one who never sinned in thought, word, or deed for 33 years.

There is one who came into this world perfect and never once had his perfection stained. And God made him who knew no sin become sin for us. That we could become the righteousness of God in him. So when he says, I am the good shepherd, think of the weight that he's saying just in the word good.

He is unlike us in this very important respect. Not just that he's unlike us because he's the shepherd, but he's unlike us because he's good. Jesus says, I am the good shepherd. And then in the very next breath, he explains why he is good.

He says, I'm the good shepherd. And the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. In a minute, I want to break down the theology of vicarious substitution in that passage. But before we do, I want you to see what he goes on to say.

The Wolf, the Hireling, and Faithful Shepherding

And I want us to just notice what he compares himself to. He says, I am the good shepherd. I lay down my life for the sheep. Excuse me, the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. But then he says, as he who is a hired hand and not a shepherd who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming, leaves the sheep, and flees.

And the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he's a hired hand and he cares nothing for the sheep. Okay, so we have a new introduction of metaphors. Remember I said last time that we were studying, I think it was two weeks ago, we were looking at the metaphor.

We had the porter who was the gatekeeper. And we had the thief who came over to rob. And we had the shepherd. And we had the door. Everything has a meaning. And while we don't want to press analogies too far, we do want to have an idea of what is being said here.

What is the picture that Jesus is giving us in this verse? Jesus identifies himself as the shepherd and he introduces the wolf. The wolf is the danger to the sheep. These were the animals that were constantly imperiling the sheep.

They had the desire to come and feast on the sheep, to destroy the sheep, to eat the sheep. The most dangerous thing that could happen was if a wolf got mixed in with the sheep and went unnoticed. This is why we're told in other places that we should be careful of wolves in sheep's clothing.

Because the wolf is like we saw with the thief. He comes to steal. He comes to kill. He comes to destroy. That's who the wolf is in this passage. The wolf is the dangerous person. But we're also introduced to another character here.

In the King James, he is called the hireling. And I like that term because it gives you at least... To me, I'll tell you this, when I hear the word hireling, it sounds bad. I've had people call me a hireling because a hireling is a person who only does what he does because he gets paid.

He's a hired hand. He's not an owner of anything. I've been told, well, you are a minister and you earn your living doing ministry. Therefore, you are a hireling. That is not true. And I'm not just defending myself, but the Bible is very clear that those who make their living from the gospel should make their...

Or those whose living is the gospel should make their living from the gospel. And so there is no lack of virtue in a person who is a professional minister. Now, I don't like the word professional, but you know what I mean by that.

A person who does this as their vocation. That's the better word. A vocational minister. Many ministers don't have churches that can support them. And those ministers, we often call the term is bivocational.

Bivocational means he has to have another job to support his family, but he also does ministry at the church. And you know, the vast majority of pastors in America are bivocational because they simply cannot afford to live on what the church can provide.

And those guys are my heroes. And I talk to them a lot. In fact, I try to encourage them as much as I can. This church has always been such a blessing to me in providing for my needs and the needs of my family that I am so grateful for that.

And when I see a man whose church is either too small or unable to provide for those needs, I know that's a tough life to have to work, you know, 40, 50 hours a week, plus do all the other things that go along with ministry.

So I give utmost respect to those men. But to say that a person who is paid for ministry as a highling is not what this text is referring to. For one, the person in view here is the person who does not care for the sheep.

If you notice, you go back and read the text. He says the one who sees the sheep, the wolf coming and he leaves and flees and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he's a hireling.

He flees because he doesn't care about the sheep. That's what a hireling is. And I can tell you there are many men out there who are that very thing. There are many men out there who do not care for the sheep.

They're in big churches and they're in little churches. They have well-known ministries and they have obscure and unknown ministries. But there are many men out there who just don't care about the sheep.

They use the pulpit as a place to promote their own, their own self, their own ideas, their own wishes, their own wills, their own popularity, all kinds of things. And those men do exist. But before we try to make a current application, who is the, who is in view here?

Again, this is where the metaphors change, because the metaphor about false teachers in Israel was the thief. And that's the, you would think it's the wolf. And it could be a mixing of metaphors here, because certainly those men are wolves, but they're also hirelings.

They're doing it under the wrong motivation. One thing is certain about the Pharisees, they did not love God's sheep. They didn't love God's sheep. How do we know that? Because one of God's sheep was given sight.

And instead of rejoicing by that man being given sight, they excommunicated him from the synagogue. That is not a shepherd. That is a hireling. That's a man who has no love for the sheep. And so that's the picture that Jesus gives us in this text.

Penal Substitutionary Atonement and Justification

He says, there's the wolf, there's the sheep. But then he goes again in verse 14. He says, I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the father knows me. And I know the father and I laid down my life for the sheep.

So between verses 11 and verse 15, we have twice that Jesus Christ uses this phrase, lay down his life for the sheep. He says at first in verse 11, the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. And then in verse 14, he says, I know my own, my own know me.

I'm sorry, verse 15, he says, just as the father knows me. And I know the father and I laid down my life for the sheep. Now, before we get to verse 16, which I actually don't think we're probably going to make it to today.

I want to just focus in on the first two points of theology that I mentioned earlier, because they're both found right here in these few verses. The first thing we see here is the concept of vicarious atonement.

Vicarious atonement means substitutionary. Vicarious means to be in the place of someone else. If I say, hey, I want you to go and be vicarious for me or be in my place, be my substitute. In fact, did you know that that's where the term vicar comes from?

The term vicar, which is used for the Pope, he is called the vicar of Christ. Vicar is short for vicarious. Vicarious means one who stands in the place of. The Pope is believed to be the head of the church in the world, the visible representation of Christ in the world, literally the vicar of Christ.

He is called Pontifex Maximus, the great bridge builder, the one who makes the bridge between God and man. He is called vicar of Christ, one who stands in the place of Christ. He is called Holy Father.

He literally robs the Trinity of its titles, of his title. The title that are belonging only to the Lord are given to the Pope. And so we see this term lays down his life for the sheep. It is a vicarious atonement.

It is an atonement in the place of others. One thing that we know for certain, with all of the debates that happen about why did Christ die and what did the atonement accomplish and for what was the atonement, one thing that cannot ever be gotten away from is this, Christ died for sinners.

And the word for there means that he literally died in our place. He lays down his life for the sheep. The image that Jesus is giving is you have the wolf coming and you have the sheep there who are unable to defend themselves.

And the shepherd steps in to battle the wolf. And in doing so, he gives himself completely to death in the destruction of the wolf so that he can protect the sheep. Jesus Christ is in that moment our wall of protection.

We deserve to die. We deserve the punishment of God in death. So not only do we deserve death, but we deserve eternal punishment from God. Jesus Christ steps into history as the shepherd of the sheep.

And he stands between us and our death. He stands between us and our punishment. And he takes it on himself. In theological terms, we call this penal substitutionary atonement. Penal substitutionary atonement means a penalty has been paid by a substitute and thereby reconciliation has come.

The term atonement means to be reconciled. You all probably have heard me say this before, but we always have new folks and visitors. So I always wanted to remind you that the word atone is actually the bringing together of two words.

And those words are to be at one. Because when you are alienated from someone, when you are separated from someone, you are not at one with that person. But when reconciliation comes, when reconciliation comes, it takes the two who were separated and brings them back together to be at one with one another.

You were separated from God because of your sin. The Bible tells us that we were the enemies of God. It says we were at enmity with God. That means to be at war with God. That's who we were before Christ.

And I will tell you, if you are not in Christ today, that is who you are. This is one of the dangers in the modern idea of good theology is it goes around telling everybody, you're good and your life's fine.

You just need to add Jesus to add a better life. No, Jesus is not about giving you a better life. Jesus is about giving you life from the dead. He's not about giving you a life of affluence and promotions and riches and all of those things.

He's about taking you who deserve the punishment of God and giving you life, real life, because he took your death. He lays down his life for the sheep. He lays down his life in vicarious substitutionary atonement.

You may hear, especially if you spend any time online, listening to theological discussion and debate, you may hear people say that penal substitutionary atonement is not true. In fact, there is a very common discussion that happens online because penal substitutionary atonement is denied by Eastern Orthodoxy.

It's not completely denied by Roman Catholicism, but they have a different understanding of it. But you'll hear people say that in the first thousand years of the church, there was not a doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement.

That's not exactly true, but it is true that it was better articulated by Anselm with his vicarious atonement view, and then later was more specifically articulated in the Reformation through Luther and Calvin and others.

So the specific articulation of penal substitutionary atonement does have some historical discussion and debate about the use of that term. But what no one discusses in debates, because everyone has to accept it, is that Jesus died for sinners.

He laid down his life for the sheep. And so the issue becomes an issue of what does that mean? What does it mean that he laid down his life for the sheep? The Apostle Paul tells us what it means. In Romans, he tells us that we're all sinners, and God is righteous, and that leads to a problem.

If God is righteous and you are unrighteous, how is that righteous God going to receive you in your unrighteousness? He's not. The only way God's going to receive you is if you are declared righteous.

And the only way you can be declared righteous is not by your good works, because no righteousness that you do is ever going to fix any of your bad works. No goodness can ever erase one sin. Just like if you stood before a judge and the judge says, you've committed this crime, and you say, yeah, but I did a lot of other good things before I committed the crime.