The Shepherd Knows His Sheep

The Shepherd Lays Down His Life and Takes It Up Again

Coming death, but also His resurrection, and He emphasizes there something that takes His life, lays it down of His own accord. It is His choice to do this. He has authority to lay it down, and He has authority to take it up again.

This commandment He has received from His Father, once again the unity of the Father and the Son together in the accomplishment of salvation, which is about to be the key emphasis of verse 30 of the most famous verses in the Gospel of John, when Jesus says, I and the Father, we are one.

Division Among the Jews Over Jesus’ Claims

Those are words uttered in the context of their oneness ingrained about salvation. So, the Lord has presented these truths to the people, and I don't know about you, but if they didn't understand the first five verses, then I'm not overly surprised that they, likewise, did not understand what came after this, because you will notice that a schism, literally, a division, arose amongst the Jews because of these words, verse 19.

Therefore, many of them were saying, concerning Jesus, that He's demonized. He has a demon, and He's insane. Why do you listen to Him? And yet others were saying, seemingly the smaller group, the words of one who is demonized.

The Jews Demand a Plain Answer About the Messiah

But we see in these affirmation of the Gospel, take His life again, when Jesus preaches concerning what God does seem to me to be a response, and we don't necessarily see that in our English translations, because frequently this word is translated as to listen, to hear, sometimes to understand, and if the translation we're using uses a number of different words, we don't see what John's actually doing.

Literally, what they ask is the word John. 100 of our people say, we sing alike, and Jerusalem is one of the groups, and they said to Him, will you keep us in suspense? It literally says, our souls.

Some argue that it should be translated, how long will you torture us? Will you keep us in suspense? If you are Pachistos, the Christ, the Messiah, Hamashiach, then tell us plainly and openly. ...situation, fulfillment of Old Testament Scriptures, they just want a straight statement directly to the nearest centurion with, and say, remember the last Messiah guy we had, and you had to bring in troops from outside, and chase him around the wilderness, and you had battles, and soldiers died, and et cetera, et cetera.

Well, guess what? Right in the temple is a guy who just claimed to be the Messiah. And they don't have to worry about the Romans caring about Old Testament prophecy, or anything the Old Testament has to say, or what Jesus means by Messiah, or how He understands the word, irrelevant to the Romans.

Jesus Speaks Purposefully About Salvation for His People

Say the word purposefully. Same way here. Social issues. Very same people. The sepulchers see this, prophesy that Jesus is going to die for the people. Not purposefully prophesy, but God's going to use them that way.

And what's their response to seeing this text? He has just said, no, bring salvation to the people. ...occasion. I can't tell you how many times you use this text, and then some along says, well look at the context.

That's not what Jesus is talking about. He's talking about salvation. Their eternal life. Anyone who's saying, provide them with salvation. We first see it in the text. Jesus is saying it's perfect. Consider these words.