The Gospel of St. John: A Series of Discourses. / New Edition

by Frederick Denison Maurice

'And Jesus said, For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind. And some of the Pharisees which were with Him heard these words, and said unto Him, Are we blind also? Jesus said unto them, If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth.'

These Pharisees may have fallen in by chance with Jesus and His disciples as they walked down the mount, or may have come expressly to catch Him in His words. They must have heard that He had spoken of blind leaders of the blind. They knew, at all events, that His strongest language had been directed against them,—the guides of the people,—those to whom the humble Israelites turned for light and teaching. The question, 'Are we blind also?' may have been asked in recollection of these former passages between them, or in mere scorn that a Galilæan who had learnt no letters should presume to judge them. The answer struck at the principle of the Pharisaic character. 'Alas! if you only felt that you were as blind as any of those whom you are professing to teach and show the right way, there would be no complaint to make of you. You would turn to the Source of light; you would allow the light that lighteth every man to illuminate you. "But now ye say, We see." You are satisfied with the light that is in yourselves. You think that you have a light that does not belong to these poor wretches who know not the law. "Therefore your sin remaineth." You stumble, and you cause those whom you guide to stumble.'

If this conversation took place at eventide, on the slope of the hill, no spectacle (as the traveller to whom I have referred remarks) would be more likely to meet the eyes of our Lord and these Pharisees than that of a flock of sheep, gathered from the different pastures in which they had been wandering, and entering, one by one, through a little wicket-gate into their resting-place for the night,—the shepherd, as was and is the custom in that country, going through it before them, and leading them in. There may have been a pause after the words on which I have just commented,—then Jesus may have said, pointing to the sheepfold: 'Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. But he that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the porter openeth; and the sheep hear his voice: and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out. And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him: for they know his voice. And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him: for they know not the voice of strangers.' As if He had said, 'Look there; see how that shepherd is behaving. The sheep are not going through one door, and he through another. Of any one who took another nearer way you would say at once, not, "He is doing so because he is a man and is wiser than the sheep," but simply, "He is not the shepherd; the sheep do not belong to him; he is come to steal them, and to kill them." The sign of the shepherd—that which the porter at the gate owns at once—is, that he goes with the sheep. But it is not only the porter that makes this distinction. The sheep know their own shepherd as well as he does. They do not in the least confound his voice with those of other men. Whether he is, as now, leading them in for the night, or leading them out in the morning, still it is the same. He knows each of them; each of them knows him. He leads them because he does not stand aloof from them.'

'This parable,' says St. John, 'Jesus spake to them: but they understood not what things they were which He spake unto them.' They did not feel the application of it; they did not see what shepherds and sheepfolds had to do with them. They could hardly have given a greater proof how little they understood the things which were written in the books they prized most,—how their worship of the divine letter had destroyed all commerce between their minds and the realities which it is setting forth. For is not the Old Testament, from first to last, a book about shepherds? Was not Abraham a shepherd,—Moses a shepherd,—David a shepherd? Is not the shepherd of sheep, throughout, connected with the Shepherd of men? That name belongs to Greek poetry as much as to Hebrew; it is found as often in Homer as in Isaiah; it is the most universal and human of all emblems. But the Hebrew seers are the great and consistent expounders of it; they carry it from the lowest ground to the highest. 'The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want,' is the song of the individual Israelite. 'He shall feed His flock like a shepherd: He shall gather His lambs in His arms, and carry them in His bosom; and shall gently lead those that are with young,' contains the highest vision which the Prophet could see of the Divine care over his nation. And no applications of this language are so numerous as those which are directed against 'the shepherds of Israel who feed themselves, and will not feed the flock.'

These passages might have occurred to those who knew them so well as the Pharisees. But they were divine texts merely,—they never connected themselves with the sheep and the shepherds that wandered over the hills in their day. The sheep would sell for so much in the market; the shepherds were hired for so much by the day or the week. There was no other measure of their worth. Clever teachers might, perhaps, resort to them occasionally for rhetorical illustrations. Secular and vulgar things might be converted, as the phrase is, to the service of religion. But it would always be felt that they were in themselves secular and vulgar things. God had nothing to do with them till they had been reclaimed. Thus the faith that all creation is divine,—that all occupations are divine,—that God has written His mind and purpose both upon the natural and the civil order of the world, had disappeared. Men no longer walked the earth as a holy place, filled with the presence of their Lord God; it had become utterly separated from Him,—sold and sacrificed to Mammon. Then came the Son of Man, interpreting the world which He had made, and which knew Him not; drawing forth out of it treasures new and old; deciphering the hieroglyphics which wise men had perceived in every rock and cave, in every tree, and in every grain of sand; showing that in Himself was to be found the solution of that sphynx-riddle by which all ages had been tormented.

But even His parables might be turned to an evil use. It might be supposed that we can only reach the kingdom of heaven through the forms of earth; that they are not the likenesses of the invisible substances, but that the invisible substances are the likenesses of them. This danger is of such continual recurrence, it belongs so essentially to the idolatrous nature which is in us all, that it must have exhibited itself in the Christian Church before St. John wrote. Long allegories—which seem invented rather to hide the truth from common eyes than to bring it forth that it might be a possession for the wayfarer—began to be produced immediately after the apostolical age, if not within it. Nothing like them is to be found in this Gospel. Those parts of our Lord's teaching in which the parable was not used are brought into most prominence. Yet the parable is justified; all His acts are shown to be signs. And a proverb (παροιμία) is introduced here and there, which enables us to understand in what the worth of these natural likenesses consists, and how much the divine art which draws out the spiritual truth that is latent in them differs from the elaborate artifice of the allegorizer.

'Then said Jesus unto them again, Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep. All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers: but the sheep did not hear them. I am the door; by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture. The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.'

The formal interpreter of parables would at once decide, that the most important object in the picture which is presented to the eye, must represent Christ the Son of Man. The supposition is a natural one; perhaps it may ultimately prove to be true. But our Lord's first words seem to confute it. His conversation with the Pharisees leads Him to speak of the gate through which both the sheep and the shepherd enter into the fold, before He speaks of the shepherd. And that gate, He says, is Himself. All kings, prophets, priests, teachers, had brought light and life into the minds of men,—had served to bind men into one,—just so far as they had confessed a light and life from which theirs was derived, just so far as they had identified themselves with the people. And all that had come claiming to be the sources of life and light,—to have an independent authority,—to have a right to rule, because they were in themselves stronger, or wiser, or better than others, had been thieves and robbers, the tyrants and destroyers of the earth. There is no commentary on history, the history of the whole world, ancient and modern, so grand as this,—so perfectly able to abide the test of facts. Every prophet, and monarch, and priest of the Jews brought strength and freedom into his land, while he was the witness of an invisible Prophet, and Monarch, and Priest higher than himself, living then, one day to be made manifest. Every prophet, monarch, and priest was the cause of superstition, idolatry, and slavery to his land, when he exalted himself,—when he strove to prove that he had some rights of his own which were not conferred on him for the sake of his race,—which were not conferred that he might be a witness of the glory belonging to his race.

If we read Pagan history and literature by the light of Scripture, we should find abundance of proofs that the maxim is equally true and satisfactory with reference to them; that every Greek or Roman patriot and sage, whom we ought to love, and whom only a heartless, atheistical religion can hinder us from loving, did good and was good, so far as he did not seek his own glory,—so far as he did not attribute his wisdom and power to himself,—so far as he was in communion, amidst whatever confusions, with the Light that lighteneth every man; and that every oppressor and invader of freedom, whose character it is our duty to hate, was so because he came in his own name, claiming to be a king, a Christ, a god. With tenfold momentum do the words bear upon the ages since the incarnation, and declare to every priest, pope, emperor, philosopher, and master of a sect or school,—'In so far as thou hast assumed to be the Son of Man,—in so far as thou hast set thyself to be something when thou art nothing,—in so far as thou hast claimed to have light, which has not come from the Fountain of light,—and power, which is not imparted by the righteous Power,—so far thou hast been a thief and a robber, caring for nothing but to steal, and to kill, and to destroy.'

But if in this sense it is true now, and has been true always, that Christ is the only Door through which any man enters, whose designs towards human beings are good and not murderous; can it be equally true that 'the sheep did not hear' the voices of false prophets, of usurping tyrants, who climbed up some other way? How then have they prevailed so mightily? Dare we say that no true men have given heed to them? Dare we judge all that have yielded to impostors,—all that have welcomed them as deliverers? Shall we not certainly be judged if we do?