The Sheep Know Their Shepherd

John 10 and the Shepherd’s Voice

We continue this evening with our study in John chapter 10, the gospel of John chapter 10. It seemed appropriate to do this even on the night of the Lord's Supper because the subject is definitely consistent with the celebration of the supper.

It's not like we're trying to make a text out of the book of Judges fit in with with the Lord's Supper. The discussion in John chapter 10 is turning to the centrality of the work of Christ in salvation, so it fits very well.

So we will be in John chapter 10 and we looked at verses through verse 26 this morning, and we will pick up with verse 27 this evening, but to once again make sure that we understand the context, remember from this morning that Jesus is walking in the portico of Solomon.

The Jews literally surround him and they say, how long will you keep us in suspense? Tell us plainly. Are you the Messiah? And we noted this morning that this was a political statement, that this was an attempt to get Jesus to make a statement that would allow the Jews to make a move against him with the Roman authorities.

Jesus' response, understanding this, points to their unbelief and the fact that the works that he has been showing them, they testify as to who he is and they testify that he has been sent by the Father.

And then Jesus had said in verse 26, but you are not believing because you are not of my sheep. And we concluded by a consideration of the reality of what that means, that it is a reversal of the standard understanding that most people have today, and that is that the sheep choose the shepherd rather than the shepherd choosing the sheep, and that this would have been a laughable understanding in the day and age in which these words were written, but we don't live in that day today.

And so many people are able to, through their traditions, change the order and hence change the actual meaning of the text itself. In verse 27, Jesus moves on to speak of his sheep. He says that his sheep hear his voice.

He knows them and they follow him. So there is an assertion, once again, this is what connects this portion with what came before at the beginning of chapter 10, and Jesus' discussion of the sheep there.

He once again emphasizes the fact that the reason that his disciples are who they are is because of the personal relationship that exists between the good shepherd and the sheep, and there is this hearing of his voice.

And I'm not going to repeat what we have discussed before in this matter. I'll just simply remind you and remind all of us that I think it is important to recognize that a believing Christian hears the voice of Christ and follows him.

And we hear that voice of Christ in the scriptures, in what has been given to us. Jesus identified the scriptures in Matthew chapter 22 as God's speaking. He held men accountable for what God had said to them, even when quoting from scripture that had been given 1 ,400 years earlier.

And so there is this very important spiritual aspect. I have obviously met, for example, atheists who knew the Bible backwards and forwards. I have met people who have read the Bible multiple times and may even know the original languages and may, on a certain level, know more about the Bible than most believing Christians.

But what is missing, of course, is the spiritual component. It's one thing to know. I remember years ago, this one atheist was on the Tom Likas show. I don't know if any of you even remember Tom Likas.

You have to have a little bit of the snow on the chin or the roof or falling off the roof or something, whatever, to remember Tom Likas. But I was on Tom's show, I don't know, at least a dozen times on various subjects.

And they had an atheist on once and it was really, really interesting because almost as a matter of fact, just sort of as a passing thing, the atheist said, well, you know, I've never really understood most Christians because anybody giving the Bible a fair reading knows that it teaches what people call Calvinism today.

I mean, it's just obvious. How can you miss that? And I'm sitting there going, yay? I'm not sure if I want to say yay to the atheist, you know, but yeah, he got it right. You know, it's pretty obvious.

But there was no, obviously, you can have all the knowledge up here, but they say it's 18 inches between there and the heart. And the sheep of Christ, they hear, and it's not just a hearing that goes in one ear and back out the other, they hear his voice.

The voice of Christ speaking and that's the voice of authority. And I've said before, when I see someone who calls himself a Christian and yet is interested in questioning the voice of Christ in Scripture, it's not comfortable believing that Christ was who he said he was and therefore what he says is truthful and authoritative.

Very troubling to me because it seems to me that the teaching that Jesus himself gave is that his sheep hear his voice. And there is this reciprocal knowledge between the sheep and the shepherd. And then there is obedience.

I don't know how else you can understand the term to follow here. They follow me. There is obedience. There is submission. There is not the standing up and considering oneself the equal of one's Lord.

I know, again, we live in a Western society where there is equality and we have our rights and, you know, all the rest of this kind of stuff. But in this day and age, the idea of the sheep following the shepherd, there would have been no thought to think about.

Isn't it wonderful the choice that that sheep has made to follow after the shepherd. That's not where the emphasis would have been. Knowing sheep, the idea of even talking about sheep, making choices, would not ever enter into anyone's thought pattern.

And so when it says that they follow me, there is not only an implicit recognition of who he is and a submission to him, there is an obedience to his commands. When he says go this way, his sheep go that way.

They don't call a council and say, well, what do you think about this sheep? The rest of the flock, shall we do this? No, there's nothing like that there. And so in light of the unbelief of the Jewish leaders who claim to be followers of God, in contrast to their unbelief, because they are not of his sheep, you have this description which echoes what was said earlier concerning the sheep.

They hear his voice, they know him, and he knows them, and they follow after him. And as a result, not because they are fulfilling some kind of conditions or sacraments, or whatever else it might be, this is just a description.

These aren't additions that the sheep make that somehow allow the shepherd to be their shepherd. I hate to even have to emphasize these things, but part of my job is dealing with the constant bent towards synergism, the idea of, you know, we all know the term synergism, the two forces, man's power and God's power together make salvation possible, versus monergism, God saves.

Salvation is of the Lord, as Jonah said. Not just made possible by the Lord, but it actually is accomplished by the Lord. I have to deal with synergists every day, and it is amazing the effort that they will put out to attempt to read into the text of Scripture the abilities of man.

And so I see these things, and that's why I comment on them. But the description of the sheep as hearing his voice, and being known, and knowing, and following, Jesus says, and I give to them eternal life, and they shall never perish, and no one is able to snatch, to grab them out of my hand.

Now, again, we all know the text. We, many of us, have memorized this text. But let's try to lay aside our traditions and hear, once again, what Jesus is saying. I give to them eternal life. I give to them eternal life.

This is a gracious, free gift. This is what Christ gives to his sheep. Now, stop right there. We all, because of many of the conflicts that we're involved with, because you're sitting in a relatively small church this evening.

You could have been in a really big church this evening, if big churches still had Sunday evening services, anyways. But this morning, I guess, you could have been in a really big church, and you could have had a big choir, and an orchestra, and everything going on.

But you're not there. And why aren't you there? I was there once. Many of you were, too. Now you're here. Why? Well, because we have these certain beliefs. We're convinced and convicted of certain truths, especially in regards to God's power in the matter of salvation, and how he saves.

And because of that, it is natural, though sometimes dangerous, for us to think about the text always in light of the conflicts that are ours. I get it. And sometimes those texts directly are addressing that.

But sometimes, because they are directly addressing that, we might bypass other things that they're actually saying to sort of get to the juicy part. But I want you to think with me for just a moment.

In just a few verses, you know that the Jews are going to pick up stones to stone Jesus. So obviously, there is something in his words that is going to immediately suggest to his audience that he is blaspheming.

That he is making a claim, quite literally, to deity. Well, what is that? Well, most people say, well, yeah, it's verse 30. I and the Father, we are one. And you couldn't say that without, I mean, no prophet of old would have ever said, I and the Father, we are one.

So this is a claim to deity, and therefore the Jews pick up stones to stone him. Well, I and the Father, we are one, definitely is an incredibly strong statement. But it is the context in which it is placed, and not only gives it its meaning as to what the nature of that oneness is, but also explains why the Jews were understanding this as a blasphemous statement.

And that blasphemy begins here in verse 28. Because no prophet, no mere man, could ever make the statement, and I give to them eternal life. You must understand that so much of the evidence of the deity of Christ is found in texts like this, that sometimes we just look over, because we're already convinced the deity of Christ.

And it's not specifically stating Jesus is God, or something like that, and our minds are focused on other things. There's so much of the evidence of the deity of Christ that is centered around the descriptions of what Jesus does, or the things that Jesus says, that if we were just to take a step back and go, what if Jesus wasn't God?

Would it have been appropriate for whatever you think Jesus was, to say these things? Very rarely do we as Christians ask the person that we're talking to, well, who do you think Jesus was? Give me a coherent, cohesive understanding.

So do you think he was just a religious teacher? So would a, just a religious teacher, if I was standing up here, and I said, I will give to you eternal life, well, hopefully, most of you would look at me just a little bit askance, because I cannot command eternal life.

That is something that only God can do. Now, it's one thing to say, I can show you the way where you can obtain eternal life, and point away from yourself. That's not what Jesus says. He says, and I will give to them eternal life.

So here is where the quote-unquote blasphemy begins, unless Jesus is exactly who John said he was, the prologue of John, the one who had eternally existed in the presence of the Father, etc., etc. So once we've already tracked that, that's why we don't necessarily see in verse 28 really what's beginning here, and that is the statement on the Jesus' part that's going to lead to the picking up of stones, and I give to them life eternal.

Now, there are many people who, you could go online, and if you look up eternal life and New Testament in, in the Oracle of all human knowledge called Google, which I really wish had been named something that sounds a little bit more like the Oracle of all human knowledge than Google, but there you go.

If you were to look that up, you will find article, after article, after article arguing that eternal life doesn't actually mean eternal life. It just simply means life of a, of a long duration, and there are people who will say, well, there really wasn't actually a word for eternity in Hebrew, you see, and so if that was the way that people were thinking, yes, okay, you know, life of the ages in Greek, yeah, okay, it could mean eternal, but, but we got to leave it in the, in the Hebrew context, and there's just so many arguments that are, that are put out there, and the issue is, is not really extension as far as amount of time is concerned.

It's a kind of life. It's a, it's a nature of life. It's a life that transcends this mere human existence that we have now. It is something that we can, we actually, according to the Gospel of John, John chapter 5, we already possess.

We have passed out of death into life, as Jesus is teaching in John chapter 5. If you believe in him, you already possess eternal life. It is a, it is a kind in nature of life that is on a different plane.

It's not something that is possessed by the natural man who loves this world, and the things this world, and never looks beyond just what's in this world. Jesus can give this. He has the power and authority to be able to give eternal life.

That had been explained all the way back in John chapter 5, and has been explicated a number of times since then. I give to them eternal life. Well, what does that mean? Well, in this case, the emphasis is upon the fact that they shall never perish, and there are short ways of saying that, and there are long ways of saying that, and in John here, it's the long way of saying that.

In other words, there is an emphasis. Not only is there a double negative, which in Greek does not create a positive, it creates an even stronger statement, but added to that, forever, they shall never perish forever.

You, if you really want to emphasize the fact that the sheep will not perish. I don't know how you could state it any more strongly than Jesus states it here in John chapter 10 verse 28. So, the positive statement is they are given eternal life, and then the negative reality that is then stated is they shall never perish.

It is not possible. It cannot enter into the realm of possibility that one of Christ's sheep would perish, and no one is able to snatch them out of my hand. And so, here is an assertion that there is, you know, this is really what's expanded upon by Paul in Romans chapter 8, when he talks about height and depth and length and breadth, and nothing will ever separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus.

No one is able to grasp, to grab, to snatch them from his hand. It is not a possibility. Now, it's amazing to me, in light of the beauty of the promise that is given here. A promise that you may recall when we talked about the earlier part of this chapter, I mentioned to you certain synergistic individuals whose tradition and theology requires them to ransack the scriptures to try to find some way of finding a place where Jesus fails to save one, someone that he wants to save.

To affirm their view of free will, they have to be able to find some way where Jesus fails to save someone for whom he died. What a what a frighteningly depressing task it is to be constantly looking through scripture to try to find someplace where Jesus is a failure.

Well, there are a lot of people like that out there. And just this past month, you may recall that some of you may have seen the debate that I did in Atlanta, Georgia, before the G3 conference with a Roman Catholic by the name of Trent Horn, on whether you can lose your salvation.

And I thought it was a, I thought it accomplished exactly what I wanted it to accomplish, in that I, my main goal in that was for non-Roman Catholics to see how synergistic Roman Catholic preaching and proclamation is, and that if you are a non-Roman Catholic, you sound just like them.

I mean, it's a good time of, this is a good year to be doing that. It is the 500th anniversary of the beginning of the Reformation. It would be nice to remind folks that many people who call themselves Protestants today are actually much more closely aligned with Rome on the issue of the nature of grace and faith than they are with Luther when he wrote, On the Bondage of the Will, or Calvin, or whatever.

And that's exactly what was accomplished in that, in that debate. And in the aftermath of that, in conversations with people, I had a number of people say what I've heard, you know, it's not the first time I've ridden in this rodeo, shall we say, but heard this many times before, but thankfully, even after all these decades, it is still shocking for me to hear people, when this verse was cited to them, say, well, yes, no one can snatch us from his hand, but we can certainly jump out of our own free will.

And I, when I hear, I don't know what you think when you hear something like that. At first, there's a, there's a sense of frustration. And sometimes that's as far as people get. It's just, I'm just like, I could talk to you ever again, and that's it.

But there should be, hopefully, after you get past the frustration, there should be a level of almost pity. Not condescending pity, but why would you want a Savior who says, I give to them eternal life, and they shall never perish, unless they choose to do so.

It's clearly his intention to save his sheep. When you bring John chapter 6 into this, he is fulfilling the very will of the Father. What's the will of the Father for the Son, that of all that he's given to me, lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day.

And we heard in the debate, by the way, that, well, that may be the Father's will for the Son, but you know, the Father doesn't want anyone to commit murder, too, and yet people commit murder. So it's more of a wish.

It's not really the will that the Son can actually fulfill. That's what happens when you don't have a system that is truly biblical in its understanding. But the fact is, if you jump out, you lose eternal life, and Jesus says, I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish.

So if there's some way for Jesus to fail in this, it's not just, and no one so snatch them out of my hand, well, that would include you for that matter. The statement is very clear. Anyone would have understood exactly what was being said.

The idea of free will sheep who could jump out of the shepherd's hand just would not have crossed anyone's mind, but that's what you get in today's world. So leaving aside the traditional understandings that have crept in, you can see why a text like this has been understood in a very thoroughly monergistic sense.

That is, it seems that Jesus is claiming here to have the ability to not only give eternal life, but to bring those to whom he gives eternal life into the heavenly kingdom, and it's not a doubtful affair.

It's not a, well, I'm going to do my best affair. This is something that Christ can actually accomplish. He is powerful to save, and even though there may be those who try to snatch these individuals from his hand, this is an impossibility.

No one is able to snatch them out of my hand. But he doesn't leave it just there, because again, in light of John chapter 5, in light of the theme that began there of the perfect unity of the Father and the Son, once you have this tremendous claim on the part of the Son, I give eternal life.

They shall never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. It seems rather natural, but what's going to be the next statement? The Father, he is greater than all, and he has given them to me. He's greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of my Father's hand.

The Father who's given them to me, he's greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of my Father's hand. And so, here you have an assertion that if you're in the hand of the Son, you are likewise in the hand of the Father.

I mean, the assertion that he's greater than all makes perfect sense. And then, this same concept, going all the way back to John chapter 6, about the Father having the right to give, let's just be honest, this is where the real objection is in a part of most people.

If you were introduced to the gospel in such a context that it was not the Father's right to give you, but it was your right to give yourself, you know, you've heard it from this pulpit more than one time, what you win them with is what you win them to.

And if you win them with a gospel that includes within it the implicit nod to the sovereignty of man and the limitation of God, it's not overly surprising that if you then try to introduce biblical teaching that contradicts that, there's going to be resistance.

And very often, that's exactly what takes place. But here, the Father, and we will see this discussion of the Father's being greater than all repeated in John chapter 14, verse 28, where again, the term that's used here is not a denial of the equality of the Father, Son, and the Spirit, and the participation in the Godhead.

That's not even in view here. What is in view is the roles that each one takes in the economy of salvation. The Father did not become incarnate. It was the Son that became incarnate. And the Father is the one who has the right to give or not to give, to give or not to give.

And in John chapter 6, he gives a particular people to the Son, and the Son's task is to save all of them, and the Son is able to do so. Here, you see the unity of the Father and the Son in the salvation of God's people.

He has given these people to the Son. He is greater than all, and no one is able, the exact same term, the exact same phrase that was used in John 6, verse 44, when it said, No one is able to come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.

Here, no one is able to snatch out of the Father's hand. No one has that power. No one has that capacity. And so implicitly, the statement is being made here, God's people are in the hand of the Father and the Son.

There is a sense in which there is a transfer. He's given them to me. But really, it's more like this, one hand within the other, rather than a simple transfer or something like that. It's not like we ever leave the Father's hand.

It is that we are given lovingly into the Savior's hand, and united with him in a special and unique way. And so, you have the double assertion that not only does the Son say, they shall never perish, they have eternal life, no one can snatch them out of my hand.

And even more so, no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand who has given them to me. And once again, it's important to see the consistency in the themes of the Gospel of John, the idea of being given.

Now here, very plainly, it's the sheep that are given. Being given results in eternal life. Being given results in not perishing for all time. Results in not being able to be snatched out of the Father's hand, the Son's hand.

These are all descriptions of the elect people of God that the Father has the sovereign right to give into the care of the Son, and the Son as their perfect Savior brings about their perfect redemption.

And so, we come to verse 30 to conclude this evening, I and the Father are one. Now, very briefly, though I've addressed this many, many times before, it's good, it's always good to have a reminder. When I translate this, I say, I and the Father, we are one.

Why? Because the verb in the original language is plural. Now, why don't most translations do it? Because it's awkward. You don't normally don't repeat the number of the verb in the translation. I do for one simple reason, and that is the abuse of this text by those who deny the doctrine of the Trinity, and specifically by a group known as Oneness Pentecostals, or the Jesus Only movement.

And some of you know, I've done a number of debates with Jesus Only representatives, not many, but a few. One in Brisbane, Australia, a number of years ago, you may have seen. And this is one of their key texts.

See, I and the Father, I am, they will actually understand, I am the Father. I am the Father. And so, when you encounter someone who thinks that Jesus is the Father and the Son, and you're to baptize only in Jesus' name, and not in the name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, because that's just all one person, etc., etc., you're probably dealing with someone who is a Oneness Pentecostal, and they do not believe that there are three divine persons.

They confuse the Father, Son, and the Spirit together with one another. And so, even in this verse, given the plural verb, Jesus is not saying, I am the Father. What is he saying in context? Now, there's also another got to be honest about this, there's also another abuse of this text, done by Orthodox Christians.

And that is, you will find this verse cited in lists of verses that just without explanation, well, here you have the ontological oneness of the Father and the Son and sharing the divine being. Well, I certainly believe that the Father and the Son share the one being that is God in incompleteness.

Not one-third, each one fully shares that divine being. This is the historic doctrine of the Trinity. But you simply have to be honest and say, while that's true, what Jesus is actually talking about is something else.

Now, by extension, you can then get there, but you've got to be very careful. There are sharp Jehovah's Witnesses out there. They're just waiting for you to make a mistake in citing a text like this without putting it as proper context.

In the immediate context, what Jesus is saying is, I and the Father are one in the salvation of God's people. They're in my hand, they're in the Father's hand, I and the Father are one in bringing about the salvation of God's people.

That is the immediate context. I mean, when the preceding two verses are all talking about the sheep not perishing and no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand or my hand and so on and so forth, and yet there's clearly a distinction being made between the Father and the Son.

The point is that they together are one in bringing about the salvation of God's people. Now, that's the exegetical context. We can derive from that what prophet, what mere prophet could ever say the things that Jesus said in this text?

Could Moses have said, I and Yahweh are one in the salvation of God's people? Of course not. No sinful human being could ever make this kind of a statement. So there is the extended meaning in light of the Gospel of John that these words only make sense in light of the deity of Christ.

But we need to be very, very careful. The immediate application of John 10 .30 is not some in-depth discussion of the sharing of the one being of God by the Father and the Son. You can get there, but you need to lay the foundation first.

And the initial thing is to be honest with the text. And the text is speaking about the oneness of the Father and the Son in the salvation of God's people. If no one can snatch them out of the Son's hand and no one can snatch them out of the Father's hand, then there has to be a unity in purpose in the Father's hand and the Son's hand.

The Father can't be doing one thing and the Son something else. There has to be a perfect unity in the accomplishing of the salvation of those people. Different roles. It's not the Son who is up in heaven looking down upon the cross.

It's not the Father who has become incarnate. But what you do have is the unity of the Father and the Son in bringing about the salvation of God's people. So, in conclusion, how is this consistent then with what we do this evening?

Well, we look at the Lord's Supper and we look at what it is, again, we are called to be doing in this supper. We are being called to remember the work of Jesus Christ. We're being called to consider the price that has been paid.

And who gathers around this table? Well, the sheep. The sheep gather to be fed by the shepherd. The sheep come hearing the voice of the shepherd and obeying the voice of the shepherd. It's the shepherd's command, do this in remembrance of me.

Who is to come? For whom is this table? This table isn't for non-sheep. This table isn't for the rebellious. This table is not for those who would reject Christ's claims upon their life. This table is for the sheep that hear, that believe, that know, that follow.

That's the description that has been given of them here in John chapter 10. And that is the celebration. What are we celebrating? We're not celebrating the mere provision of salvation. We're looking at the the broken body, the shed blood, the actual accomplishment of salvation, which allows Jesus to make the statement, I give to them eternal life.

The only way he can do that is because he has actually accomplished the will that the Father has given to him. We are not remembering a mere theoretical act of salvation that we somehow actualized by our goodness or by our faith.

We are looking to the one who actually accomplished what he said he would accomplish upon Calvary's tree. Those high words in John chapter 10 are going to result in a very strong reaction, and necessarily so.

But for us this evening, before we consider the opposition that men gave to our Lord and Savior for making the claims that he did, before we have to consider that the next time that we approach this text, this evening we can stop here and simply rejoice in what our Lord and Savior has said.

No one can snatch you out of the Father's hand. In the darkest night, in the most difficult situation, betrayed by friends, abandoned by everyone that you think was in your life as the closest people to you, no one can snatch you out of Christ's hand.

No one can snatch you out of the Father's hand. You shall never perish. You feel like you're perishing, but you have the promise of Christ. They shall never perish in the most dark and difficult time.

These are words the people of God have held to, and we hold to them this evening. We rejoice in them this evening. Let's pray together. Our gracious Heavenly Father, indeed, as we consider these words, may we rejoice in the promise of our Savior that the Father and the Son are one and bring about the salvation of God's people.

No disunity. No disharmony. Not one working for one end and another for another end. There is perfect harmony in the Godhead and bring about this wonderful thing known as redemption. And we rejoice in that this evening because we are the undeserving recipients of the grace that overflows from that beautiful thing called redemption.

Lord, as once again, we handle the elements, we pray, we think, we consider, may you remind us of the great cost. Remind us of the eternal covenant that results in our ability to be here this evening and to partake in this supper.

May we be truly in awe and reverence of your power and your glory, your love and your mercy, your grace toward us in Christ Jesus. We thank you for it and pray in Christ's name. Amen.