3. To him the porter openeth. In the higher sense, the porter is not the Scriptures, nor Christ Himself, but the Holy Ghost. To the true pastor of souls the Holy Ghost “openeth,” by giving him grace to teach and govern rightly, and by moving the hearts of the faithful to listen to and profit by his teaching.
And leadeth them out. It is an obvious and familiar principle that in explaining metaphorical language, we are not to expect resemblance in all points between the two things which are implicitly compared. If we say Patrick is a lion, we mean that he has courage or strength; but we do not mean that he has four legs. Similarly, though the Church is compared to a sheepfold, it does not follow that because the sheep had to be led outside the fold in order to find pasture, that therefore the faithful must be led outside the Church before they can obtain the spiritual food of their souls. No, the Church is a fold which has its pastures within itself; and what Christ here declares is that a good pastor does for the faithful what the shepherd does for the sheep when he leads them forth; namely, he [pg 179] provides them with proper nourishment.
| 4. Et cum proprias oves emiserit, ante eas vadit: et oves illum sequuntur, quia sciunt vocem eius. | 4. And when he hath let out his own sheep, he goeth before them: and the sheep follow him, because they know his voice. |
4. A good pastor not only puts before his people the sound doctrine of faith, and the right line of duty, but he also goes before them, guiding and directing them by his example, and is rewarded by their obedience, for “the sheep follow him,” and tread in his footsteps.
| 5. Alienum autem non sequuntur, sed fugiunt ab eo: quia non noverunt vocem alienorum. | 5. But a stranger they follow not, but fly from him, because they know not the voice of strangers. |
5. The true reading is μη ἀκολουθήσουσιν ἀλλὰ φεύξονται, (will not follow, but will fly), the sense, however, being the same. As the sheep followed their own shepherd every morning from the fold to their pasture, and would follow no stranger, so faithful Christians take their spiritual nourishment from, and are obedient to, only the true pastor.
| 6. Hoc proverbium dixit eis Iesus. Illi autem non cognoverunt quid loqueretur eis. | 6. This proverb Jesus spoke to them. But they understood not what he spoke to them. |
6. Proverb. The Greek word (παροιμίαν) suggests the notion of a saying that is deep and mysterious and not merely metaphorical. See John xvi. [25], [29].
| 7. Dixit ergo eis iterum Iesus: Amen, amen dico vobis, quia ego sum ostium ovium. | 7. Jesus therefore said to them again: Amen, amen, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. |
7. Jesus therefore said to them again; i.e., because they did not understand, He explains. As we have said already, we take the door here to be the same as in verse 1, and the reference in both cases to be to Christ. Here, however, Christ is spoken of as the door through which the sheep, there as the door through which the shepherd, entered. But this need create no difficulty, for as we explained in our preliminary remarks on verse 1, there was only one door on the ordinary sheepfold, and through it both sheep and shepherd entered.