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?
Assuredly we shall. And, therefore, let us proceed to judge ourselves
first, and at once. _We_ have listened to impostors,--have we not?
_We_ have been beguiled by men who we thought were to give us life,
and really took life from us. Well, but was there nothing in us which
refused to hear these teachers,--to follow these guides? Was there no
inward protest against them? Where some strong external evidence, some
evil fruits in ourselves, showed that a pernicious juice had issued
from the tree, did we not feel that we might have known it
before--that if we had been true to the light which was shining into
us, we should have known it? And, even when the enchantment was
strongest upon us, was there no crying for another guide,--no bleating
after a better shepherd? Here, then, is the confirmation of our Lord's
sentence; we need go no further to understand what He means. Something
in us did follow the strange voice, but the _sheep_--the true man in
us--did not. That could make no answer to the counterfeit voice; that
detected the thief in the shepherd's dress; that was certain that
there must be one who had a right to command, and whom it could obey.
I say again, this sheep is the '_true man in us_.' Each of us in
himself knows that it is; we may know it also by the echo which the
history of our race makes to the witness in our consciences. Why have
the oppressors of mankind been so short-lived? How is it that, though
there may be a succession of lies, each lie wears itself out in a
generation,--in much less than a generation? How is it that what seems
for a while the weakest possible testimony against it waxes stronger
and louder, till at last the world gives into it, and the lie and the
liar are indignantly trampled underfoot? How is it, but because the
spirit of humanity does not and cannot hear the voices of those who
break into the fold by the wrong way? How is it, but because all their
temporary power is only derived from the tones of the true Shepherd,
which they are able to mimic? How is it, but because they bear
witness, by their reign and by their downfal, that they do not rule
the earth, and that He does?
Yes, brethren, '_He who comes, that His sheep might have life, and
that they might have it more abundantly_,' does not teach us to talk
of ourselves as His sheep, and of other men as having no part in Him.
This is the teaching of robbers and destroyers,--of those who would
sever us from our kind,--of those who would persuade us that it is a
privilege to have a selfish, separate life,--to have selfish, separate
rewards. This selfish, separate life is what Christ promises to save
us from. The wide, free pastures into which He would lead us, are
those upon which we can only graze, because we are portions of a
flock; the fold into which He would bring us is for those whom He has
redeemed from their separate errings and strayings to rest together in
Him. We cannot, therefore, make a more deadly misapplication of this
discourse, than when we turn it into an excuse for drawing lines of
separation between those for whom Christ has died. While we draw
_these_ lines, we never shall discover the deep line in ourselves
between that which can only follow the Deliverer, and that which can
only follow the destroyer.
'_I am the good Shepherd: the good shepherd giveth His life for the
sheep. But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the
sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and
fleeth: and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep. The
hireling fleeth, because he is an hireling, and careth not for the
sheep._'
You will say, 'The image is changed. Christ was the wicket-gate; but
now He has become the person who passes through that gate.' Yes, and
if you have followed the course of the thought; if you have seen why
He is described as the door through which shepherd and sheep must
enter in,--why the shepherds of Israel are reproved when they will not
pass through that door,--you will see the necessity of the double
image. You will feel that He whom all shepherds are bound to
acknowledge, if they would have the sheep hear them, must be Himself,
in the highest sense, _the_ Shepherd. And the test that He is this
Shepherd, explains the perpetual worth and significance of the other
symbol. '_He gives His life for the sheep._' The false shepherds wish
to find out a way for themselves, which is not the way that the sheep
take. They do not like the thought of stooping--beings of another and
higher race as they are--to the conditions of these silly creatures.
_He_ identifies Himself with them. They have to die. _He_ dies. That
is the first and obvious view of the sentence; and it is the one to
which we come back at last, as the deepest and most wonderful of all.
But before we can take it in its full force, we must recal the old
sentence, '_In Him was life_;' and the other which He has just
uttered, '_I am come that they might have life more abundantly_.' The
property of death is, that it is solitary and incommunicable; the
property of life is, that it must be communicated,--that from him in
whom it dwells most it must be poured forth most. He in whom the
source of life is, from whom all the streams of it have issued, comes
into the world to encounter death, which appears to have got the
mastery,--to claim them whom He has created capable of life, for life.
But how can He give life? How can He overcome death? He must _give up_
life. He must die. The highest life is the life that sacrifices
itself. All older shepherds had shown that it was. For their country
and their brethren they had poured out their life; _that_ men had
received as the proof that they were from God,--that they were
quickened by Him. The good Shepherd, the Shepherd of shepherds,
justifies the belief. He shows that they had done what they did by
inspiration from Him. He shows that, in this instance also,--in this
instance especially,--they were receiving of His fulness, and grace
for grace. The Word takes flesh and blood, because the children are
partakers of flesh and blood. The Shepherd dies, because the sheep
die.
Thus, the doctrine which He has been preaching to the Pharisees is
brought out in all its power. They claimed to be shepherds of the
people, because they were above them,--because they did not share
their weakness and blindness. His claim to be the Shepherd of the
people was, that He would not be above them; that He would bear what
they bore, and sink as low as they had sunk. And this not from some
great effort,--in virtue of some arrangement,--but because He had the
most intimate and original sympathy with them, because they had always
been His, and because He had made Himself one with them in all things.
This is the contrast which He draws between the good shepherd and the
hireling. The one shepherd does his work because he looks to be paid
for it. He feels altogether aloof from his sheep. He regards them as
beings of a different nature from his own. He is to be very great and
condescending to them. He is to fold them carefully at night,--to do
all needful services for them by day; not because he cares for them,
but because he has sold his work for so much, and he may lose his
wages if he commits any serious oversight. And this motive serves him
well enough till some great danger threatens the sheep, till the wolf
breaks into the fold. Then the hireling feels rightly that life is
more precious than money; it is wiser to lose his pay than to run the
risk of being devoured.
From whom do these hireling shepherds expect their wages? I do not
think it signifies much whether they expect them from man or from
God,--in this world or in another. The temper is the same; the result
which our Lord prophesies must be the same. For he who does his work
in hope of getting a reward hereafter for what he has done, will, in
general, regard God as an uncertain, capricious Being, whom it is very
hard to please, who may punish as well as reward. Therefore he will
pause before he will risk death for the sake of his work. Death may
bring him into the presence of the Being whom he dreads. Death may
surprise him before he has done all that he ought to have done. If
there is nothing better in us than this expectation, we shall never
throw away ourselves as soldiers do on the battle-field; we shall,
perhaps, give ourselves credit for being better and holier than they
are, because we do not.
But are we not to serve the sheep from a sense of duty to God? Are we
only to serve them from certain feelings of affection for them? Let us
hear what our Lord tells us of Himself, then we shall know better what
we are to be.
'_I am the good Shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine. As
the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down my
life for the sheep._'
There are heights and depths in these verses which no man may look
into; but the principle which is declared in them is needful for the
daily practice of life, profound as it is. Christ declares that He
knows His sheep. He opposes this knowledge to the motives and feelings
of the hireling. Let us think of _these_. _We_ can describe them to
you; for, brethren, which of us may not say,--should not say,--in
dust and ashes: 'They have been mine. I have felt cold and estranged
from those I was seeking to guide; out of communion with their fears,
their sorrows, their doubts, their temptations; ready to reprove the
rich for being rich, and the poor for being poor, the tradesman for
his basenesses, the lawyer for his; ready to condemn all the sins
which I had no mind to commit; but not knowing them individually, not
bearing their burdens, not feeling them as my own. And, therefore,
when the wolf has come, which is always ready to divide the flock,--to
rend them from each other,--to take away the life that should unite
them,--I have not been ready to encounter him. How much less should I
have been ready if he had come in the form of some terrible
persecution, scattering them hither and thither!' We know the
hireling's mind all too well; that we do not learn from report. And
oh! that we might understand something of that other mind which is
opposed to it,--of that which is expressed in the words, '_I know my
sheep, and am known of mine_!' If you would think rightly of the Son
of Man, think of the Person who knows thoroughly everything that each
one of you is feeling, and cannot utter to others or to
himself,--every temptation from riches, from poverty, from solitude,
from society, from gifts of intellect, from the want of them, from the
gladness of the spirit, from the barrenness and dreariness of it, from
the warmth of affection and from the drying up of affection, from the
anguish of doubt and the dulness of indifference, from the whirlwind
of passion and the calm which succeeds it, from the vile thoughts
which spring out of fleshly appetites and indulgences, from the
darker, more terrible, suggestions which are presented to the inner
will. Believe that He knows all these, that He knows _you_. And then
believe this also, that all He knows is through intense, inmost
sympathy, not with the evil that is assaulting you, but with you who
are assaulted by it. Believe that knowledge, in this the Scriptural
sense of it,--the human as well as the divine sense of it,--is
absolutely inseparable from sympathy.
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.