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

by Frederick Denison Maurice

But it is added, and 'am known of mine.' I am sure we should fix our minds upon those words which express His knowledge before we come to these, else they will either drive us to despair, or lead us to great presumption. When we have done this, we may say that the highest knowledge of Christ which any, the holiest, man, has attained,—that which we attribute to an à Kempis or to a Leighton,—is what is meant for the sheep of Christ,—their proper characteristic. But having said this, we should also say that every apprehension, which any man struggling with ever so much of evil, ever so much overcome by it, has of a higher and better life, of a Divine Teacher and Reprover, is part of this knowledge,—is in kind like theirs. We should say that to be absolutely without this knowledge is a dreadful possibility, which is threatening every one of us,—which those who are most occupied with divine mysteries must often feel to be near to themselves—but which is a reprobate condition, one into which we have no right to suppose that any person has sunk, so long as he has any perception of that which is good and true,—any, the faintest, desire to lay hold of it. Truly, the voice of him who was a liar and murderer from the beginning is speaking to us and in us all,—is tempting us all down into death. But the voice of the true Shepherd is also speaking to us, inviting us, claiming us as His sheep. And there is not one who has not at times heard that voice,—who has not been sure that he had a right to follow it, and that no man or devil had a right to say, 'Thou art not His; thou hast not a claim on Him; and He does not desire thee to follow Him.'

Brethren, if shepherds and sheep made more of an effort to understand each other,—if the shepherds were more sure that they could enter into all that is drawing the sheep astray, because the same evil is in themselves,—if the sheep thought that they might give the shepherds credit for knowing all that is worst in them, not as judges, but as fellow-sinners and fellow-sufferers,—we should each and all of us have more communion with the Chief Shepherd. Those who guide would be driven, by the sense of their own ignorance and coldness, to seek for light and warmth from Him; those who are guided would feel that the pastor on earth did not intercept their communication with the heavenly Pastor, but existed to show them what He is, and how near He is to them. All has gone wrong in ourselves from our losing this fellowship with each other,—from our forgetting that the Highest of all was the lowest of all,—that He proved His right to rule us by becoming one of us, and one with us.

And yet there is a deeper error still at the root of our selfishness and want of sympathy. We do not confess the ground of Christ's own sympathy, of His own sacrifice. He declares to us here that His knowledge of the sheep, and the knowledge which the sheep have of Him, rests upon the Father's knowledge of Him and His knowledge of the Father. He has been telling us the same thing in previous discourses. This union of the Father with the Son,—this dependence of the Son upon the Father,—has been the mystery which the whole Gospel has been discovering to us. Those words, in which He tells us that this relation is at the basis of our relation to Him and to each other,—of all our social and spiritual sympathies,—do but carry us one step further in the revelation. Those words, in which He tells us that He lays down His life for the sheep, because He is one with His Father, do but bring out more fully that love of the Father, of which His life and death were testimonies; a love to which He yielded Himself in simple obedience, when He gave the greatest proof He could give of love to the sheep.

This is the answer to the question which was asked before, whether duty to God is not as good and powerful a motive as love to man? Yes, brethren, a more powerful motive, a deeper and safer ground to stand upon, if we accept what our Lord says here. He boasts of no love to man as dwelling in Himself,—it is all derived from His Father. He merely submits to His will, merely fulfils it. And because that will is a will of absolute love, the mere submission to it,—the mere consenting that it should be accomplished upon Him and in Him,—involved the most perfect love to men,—the most entire communion with them,—the dying for them. He says this expressly in the 17th and 18th verses, though there is one interposed between them and that which I last quoted, which it would be shameful indeed to pass over. 'And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd. Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.'

Our translators have carelessly substituted fold for flock in the last clause of the first of these verses. But most readers, I think, have of themselves restored the true reading, and perceived that the Gentiles were not to be brought into the Jewish fold, but to form one flock with the Jews after the temporary enclosure of their fold had been broken down. Perhaps they have been more puzzled to understand why what we describe as the calling in of the Gentiles should be spoken of in connexion with Christ's laying down His life. The second, modern theology represents as an event necessary for the salvation of individual men; the first, as an event connected with the outward economy of the world. And so, modern theology is out of harmony with the language of the Scriptures to which it appeals. For that represents the death of Christ as the uniting power which breaks down the barrier between man and man,—as the deliverance of each man from the selfishness which sets him apart from his fellows, and apart from His Father in heaven. If it is this, it is surely nothing strange to speak of the union of the two different classes into which the world was divided as the mighty effect of the death of Christ. If it is this, the calling in of the Gentiles belongs not to outward history, but to the most inward and spiritual part of God's dispensation. The recognition of Christ's other sheep as His sheep,—the acknowledgment of the heathen as having been always His, no less than those who had been called out to be a blessing to all the families of the earth,—was the mightiest witness that the Brother and Lord of man had met the wolf who was destroying the fold, had redeemed all from death by sharing their death.

It was the witness, too, of that other profound truth which the 17th verse announces, that there was a Man in whom the Father was perfectly satisfied, and that the ground of His satisfaction was that this Man entirely loved men—entirely gave Himself up for men. He could be satisfied with nothing less than this; for nothing less than this was the expression of His own mind and will. In no act of less love than this could His love declare itself. The thought is so wonderful, the mystery is so deep, that men have shrunk from it as incredible, and have invented any reason to account for Christ's death but that which He gives Himself. That an entirely voluntary act should be yet the fulfilment of a commandment,—that the highest power of giving away life and taking it should be realized in the most perfect obedience; this idea clashes so much with our natural pride and self-glorification, that we would rather think Christ died because He was not one with the Father,—that it was not the Father's love that was satisfied, but His wrath and fury,—than accept a statement which shows us that His thoughts are not as our thoughts or His ways as our ways; that He is not made after our image, though He would have us conformed to His. But seeing that all our morality, all our relations to one another, depend upon the question, what He is and what He has made us to be, we must ask for strength to cast away the schemes and theories of man's devising, and to receive simply, as little children, the teaching of Him who is the brightness of the Father's glory, our Brother and our Judge.

'There was a division therefore again among the Jews for these sayings. And many of them said, He hath a devil, and is mad; why hear ye Him? Others said, These are not the words of him that hath a devil. Can a devil open the eyes of the blind?'

I do not know whether the Jews who held these different opinions were the Pharisees to whom He originally spoke, or whether His sayings were reported to those who were gathered at the feast of Dedication. The opinions themselves are exactly what one would expect that such sayings would call forth. 'How can you listen to a madman, a demoniac, who says that He shall lay down His life and take it again,—who denounces our teachers, and calls Himself the good Shepherd?' This is the language of the respectable citizen of Jerusalem, the representative of the feeling of the Jewish religious world. 'But do we not want a Shepherd who shall guide us to something better? Are we satisfied with our present state? May not He who can give sight to the blind be the Light of men, as He says that He is?' These would be the cautious suggestions of those in whom some cravings had been awakened, which the teachers of the day could not stifle.

We may suppose that the former party would press this argument upon the others; 'But if He is the Christ, why has He not courage to call Himself by that name? Why does He adopt these phrases, "Shepherd," "Light of the world," "Son of Man," which we do not understand, instead of that with which we are familiar, the purport of which we know?' Of some such suggestion the question in the following verses may have been the fruit: 'And it was at Jerusalem the feast of the dedication, and it was winter. And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon's porch. Then came the Jews round about Him, and said unto Him, How long dost thou make us to doubt? If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly.' The demand seemed most reasonable, 'Tell us plainly.' What an honest sound there is in those words! What can be better than plain speaking? Why should He who denounced all lies have shrunk from it? The question is not a new one. To have said, 'I am the Christ,' would have been to deceive them, unless He showed them what the Christ was, unless He made them understand that He was in nearly all respects unlike the Christ they had imagined for themselves. 'May we not then, after His example, avoid direct answers? May we not use expressions which people call ambiguous?' Yes, if the answers we give are more perilous to ourselves than those we avoid, as His were; if the expressions that are called ambiguous bring the hearers more face to face with facts, than those which are called straight. This is our Lord's example. Let all who dare follow it.

'Jesus answered them, I told you, and ye believed not: the works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me. But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. I and my Father are one.'