Today’s Inspiration – J is for Jesus
I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me, even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep.
John 10:14-15
The knowledge of His sheep here spoken of is more than the mere knowing by name: it is a knowledge corresponding to the Father’s knowledge of Him;—i.e. entire, perfect, all-comprehensive: and their knowledge of Him corresponds to His of the Father,—i.e. is intimate, direct, and personal: both being bound together by holy and inseparable Love. Beware of rendering [the former clause of] John 10:15 as in E. V. as an independent sentence, ‘As my Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father:’ it is merely the sequel to John 10:14, and should stand, as the Father knoweth me and I know the Father.
ὑπὲρ τ. προβ.] for those my sheep—not, for all; that, however true, is not the point brought out here: the Lord lays down His life strictly and properly, and in the depths of the Divine counsel, for those who are His sheep.
Source: excerpt from StudyLight.org
Like a good shepherd, Christ KNOWS all His believing people. Their names, their families, their dwelling-places, their circumstances, their private history, their experience, their trials–with all these things Jesus is perfectly acquainted. There is not a thing about the least and lowest of them with which He is not familiar. The children of this world may not know Christians, and may count their lives folly; but the Good Shepherd knows them thoroughly, and, wonderful to say, though He knows them, does not despise them.
Like a Good Shepherd, Christ LAYS DOWN HIS LIFE for the sheep. He did it once for all, when He was crucified for them. When He saw that nothing could deliver them from hell and the devil, but His blood, He willingly made His soul an offering for their sins. The merit of that death He is now presenting before the Father’s throne. The sheep are saved for evermore, because the Good Shepherd died for them. This is indeed a love that passes knowledge! “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13.)
Let us only take heed that this office of Christ is not set before us in vain. It will profit us nothing at the last day that Jesus was a Shepherd, if during our lifetime, we never heard His voice and followed Him. If we love life, let us join His flock without delay. Except we do this, we shall be found at the left hand in the day of judgment, and lost for evermore.
These verses show us, lastly, that when Christ died, He died of His own voluntary free will. He uses a remarkable expression to teach this–“I lay down my life that I might take it again. No man takes 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.”
The point before us is of no small importance. We must never suppose for a moment that our Lord had no power to prevent His sufferings, and that He was delivered up to His enemies and crucified because He could not help it. Nothing could be further from the truth than such an idea. The treachery of Judas, the armed band of priests’ servants, the enmity of Scribes and Pharisees, the injustice of Pontius Pilate, the crude hands of Roman soldiers, the scourge, the nails, and the spear–all these could not have harmed a hair of our Lord’s head, unless He had allowed them. Well might He say those remarkable words, “Do you think that I cannot now pray to my Father, and He shall presently give Me more than twelve legions of angels? But how, then, shall the Scripture be fulfilled?” (Matt. 26:53.)
The plain truth is, that our Lord submitted to death of His own free will, because He knew that His death was the only way of making atonement for man’s sins. He poured out His soul unto death with all the desire of His heart, because He had determined to pay our debt to God, and redeem us from hell. For the joy set before Him He willingly endured the cross, and laid down His life, in order that we, through His death, might have eternal life. His death was not the death of a martyr, who sinks at last overwhelmed by enemies, but the death of a triumphant conqueror, who knows that even in dying he wins for himself and his people a kingdom and a crown of glory.
Let us lean back our souls on these mighty truths, and be thankful. A willing Savior, a loving Savior, a Savior who came specially into the world to bring life to man, is just the Savior that we need. If we hear His voice, repent and believe, He is our own.
Source: excerpt from J.C. Ryle : Expository Thoughts On John – JOHN 10:10-18
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