The good shepherd and the gate: 'I and the Father are one'

The Gospel of John names no author. It says that the disciple whom Jesus loved bore witness and wrote these things (21:24), and from the second century this disciple has been identified as John the son of Zebedee, a view held by D. A. Carson and others. Richard Bauckham argues for John the Elder, another eyewitness, and others for a Johannine community that shaped the book. The usual date is about AD 85 to 95. The purpose is stated in 20:31, that readers might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and have life in his name. Chapter 10 is the center of that argument: here the leaders ask outright whether he is the Christ, and he answers with his deeds and with his oneness with the Father.

The image of the shepherd is rare in the Synoptic Gospels as a self-description, though Matthew 18:12-14 and Luke 15:3-7 tell the parable of the lost sheep, and Mark 14:27 quotes Zechariah 13:7 about striking the shepherd. John's Gospel contains no Synoptic-style parables; the picture-story in 10:1-5 is called a 'figure of speech' (paroimia), and it is explained rather than left open. How the four Gospels relate is debated. The most common view is that Mark came first and that Matthew and Luke used it along with a sayings source, and that John worked independently. Some scholars think he knew the Synoptics.

The chapter has two settings.

• The first is the same conversation as chapter 9, with Jesus speaking to the Pharisees who had expelled the healed man.
• The second is two months or so later, at the Feast of Dedication (Hebrew Hanukkah), in winter (10:22). This feast was kept in memory of the cleansing and rededication of the temple in 164 BC by Judas Maccabeus after Antiochus IV Epiphanes had desecrated it. It is not one of the feasts of Leviticus 23. Jesus walks in Solomon's Colonnade, a covered walk on the east side of the temple courts. The feast's memory of a purified temple and of the rulers who failed it may sharpen the shepherd theme, though John does not say so.

The Old Testament background is the picture of Israel's leaders as shepherds who have failed. Ezekiel 34 is the key text: the LORD condemns the shepherds who feed themselves, and promises to seek his scattered flock himself and to set over it one shepherd, his servant David.

John 10 must be read with chapter 9 in view. 'Truly, truly' in 10:1 opens a speech directed at the Pharisees who threw the man out (9:34, 40-41), so the thieves and the hired hand are not a general picture of religious leaders in every age, but of the leaders who have just treated a blind man in this way. That context also explains the abrupt change of subject: the question of who sees and who is blind becomes the question of who leads and who feeds.

The passage mixes two kinds of language. Verses 1-5 are a figurative story that the hearers do not follow (verse 6). Verses 7-18 are the interpretation, with two 'I am' sayings. The images shift between them. In verses 1-5 the shepherd enters by the gate, in 7-10 Jesus is the gate, and in 11-18 he is the shepherd. These are not contradictions. A figure of speech in Scripture is allowed to turn on one point at a time. The gate is the way of entry and security; the shepherd is the one who knows, leads and dies.

Verses 22-39 are a debate and should be read as one. The leaders ask for plain speech. Jesus says that he has already spoken and that his works testify, and that they do not believe because they are not his sheep. The argument from Psalm 82 in verses 34-36 is rabbinic in form: if the lesser applies, the greater applies too. Its purpose is to show that the charge of blasphemy fails even on the leaders' own terms, and then to point to the works.

Verses 1–6

Whoever does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in another way is a thief and a robber. The shepherd enters by the gate, the gatekeeper opens, and 'the sheep listen for his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.' In the ancient East, flocks from several households were often kept in one enclosure overnight, and each shepherd's voice was known to his own. The shepherd walks ahead, and the sheep follow because they know his voice; they flee from a stranger. John observes that the hearers did not understand.

Verses 7–10

Jesus now says, 'I am the gate for the sheep.' All who came before him were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen. This cannot mean Moses and the prophets, whom Jesus elsewhere honors (5:46), but those who set themselves up as leaders and used the flock for their own ends. The gate is the way of salvation: anyone who enters through him 'will be saved. He will come in and go out and find pasture.' The phrase 'come in and go out' is an Old Testament idiom for secure daily life (Deuteronomy 28:6; Numbers 27:17). Psalm 118:20 speaks of the gate of the LORD through which the righteous enter. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. Jesus comes 'that they may have life, and have it in all its fullness.'

Verses 11–18

'I am the good shepherd.' The Greek word for good (kalos) means fine, true, the shepherd who is what a shepherd ought to be. 'The good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.' The hired hand runs when he sees the wolf, since the sheep are not his own. Jesus, by contrast, knows his sheep and is known by them, 'just as the Father knows Me and I know the Father.' The relation of shepherd and sheep mirrors that of the Father and the Son. He has 'other sheep that are not of this fold' and must bring them in too, 'one flock and one shepherd.' Most interpreters take the other sheep to be Gentiles (compare 11:52; 12:20-21; Isaiah 56:8). Four times he speaks of laying down his life (10:11, 15, 17, 18), and the Father loves him for it. He does so freely: 'No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of My own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again.' The charge came from the Father.

Verses 19–21

The result is division again. Some say he is demon-possessed and insane. Others say that these are not the words of a demoniac, and ask whether a demon can open the eyes of the blind.

Verses 22–30

At the Feast of Dedication, in winter, the Jews gather round him in Solomon's Colonnade and demand that he tell them plainly if he is the Christ. He says he already told them, and his works testify; they do not believe because they are not his sheep. 'My sheep listen to My voice; I know them, and they follow Me.' He gives them eternal life, they will never perish, and no one can snatch them out of his hand or out of the Father's hand. Then: 'I and the Father are one.' The Greek is neuter, 'one thing' and not 'one person', and it speaks of a oneness of power and being. Augustine drew the line that is still cited: 'one' refutes those who say there is no distinction between Father and Son, and 'are' refutes those who say they are not one.

Verses 31–39

The hearers take up stones. Jesus asks which of his good works they stone him for. They say it is for blasphemy, because he, a man, makes himself God. He replies from the Law: Psalm 82:6 says, 'I have said you are gods.' If those to whom the word of God came were called gods, and Scripture cannot be broken, how can they say that the one whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world blasphemes when he says he is the Son of God? The psalm addresses Israel's judges (or, in the view of some modern scholars, the members of a heavenly council), and Jesus' argument works on either view. He then appeals to the works. 'Believe the works themselves, so that you may know and understand that the Father is in Me, and I am in the Father.' They try again to seize him, and he escapes.

Verses 40–42

He goes across the Jordan to where John first baptized. Many come to him and say that John did no sign, but everything John said about this man was true. Many believe.

The chapter holds three doctrines together.

• The first is the work of Christ. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The preposition 'on behalf of' (hyper) is used in verses 11 and 15, and the death is for the sheep, and it is also voluntary and part of the Father's charge. The cross is neither an accident nor an act of force against an unwilling victim.
• The second is the security of Christ's people: they hear, follow, receive eternal life, and cannot be snatched from his hand or the Father's.
• The third is the unity of the Father and the Son, who share one power.

The chapter also states the doctrine of the church. There is one flock and one shepherd, drawn from Jew and Gentile alike. That fulfills the promise of Ezekiel 37:22-24, where the divided kingdoms are made one under a single king, David. Paul's teaching of one new humanity in Christ (Ephesians 2:14-18) elaborates this.

The chapter deals as well with the Old Testament doctrine of the shepherd. The LORD is Israel's shepherd (Psalm 23:1; 80:1; Isaiah 40:11), and he appoints under-shepherds. Peter later charges the elders to shepherd God's flock and names Christ as the chief shepherd (1 Peter 5:1-4), and Hebrews calls him the great shepherd (Hebrews 13:20).

This is fulfillment of promise. Through Ezekiel, God condemned Israel's selfish shepherds and promised to seek his sheep himself and to set over them one shepherd, his servant David (Ezekiel 34:11-12, 23). Jesus steps into both roles at once: the LORD who shepherds (Psalm 23:1) and the one shepherd of the line of David. The Gospels elsewhere speak of his compassion for the crowds as sheep without a shepherd (Mark 6:34) and quote Zechariah 13:7, the striking of the shepherd, of his own coming death (Mark 14:27). Micah 5:2-4 also speaks of a ruler who will shepherd his flock in the strength of the LORD.

What sets him apart from every earlier shepherd is that he dies for the flock by his own choice and rises again (10:17-18). The prophets promised a shepherd who would rescue and gather; none said that the shepherd would die and rise. John 2:19-21 had hinted that Jesus would raise the temple of his body; here he says plainly that he will take up his life again, by the Father's charge.

The 'I am' sayings, the claim of one power with the Father (10:30), and the answer that the Father is in him and he in the Father (10:38) lead into the later words of John 14:9-10. Augustine and others used 10:30 against Arius, who denied that the Son is God, and against Sabellius, who denied that he is distinct from the Father.