So Jesus again said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep (John 10:7).
“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep” (John 10:11).
“I am the good shepherd; and I know My sheep, and am known by My own” (John 10:14).
We find in John 10:1-21 a passage often called the Good Shepherd Discourse. In this passage, two “I Am” statements are located (John 10:7, 11, and 14). We are told in verse 6 that Jesus used a “figure of speech” in this discourse. Jesus often used various figures of speech to make His teachings clear and easily understandable to His target audience.
Those familiar with Scripture know His many “parables” found in the synoptic gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. A parable is an extended simile that is used to make an explicit comparison between an ordinary person, thing, or action in the world with a truth in the realm of the kingdom of God. The parables often begin with the statement, “The kingdom of heaven is like.” But there are no parables in the gospel of John. In this passage, Jesus is using an “allegory.”
In Scripture, an allegory is a metaphorical language that uses a word or phrase denoting one kind of object or idea in place of another, making an analogy between the two in order to teach truth in the realm of the kingdom of God. This literary technique suggests an implied similarity or parallelism in relations to suggest a likeness or analogy between them. This literary style is an extended metaphor that includes a double metaphor in this particular passage, which is why there are two “I Am” statements instead of one.
Jesus centers this allegory or extended metaphor around the sheep, the shepherds, and the sheepfold of His time. Jesus’ immediate audience would have understood the characters used metaphorically. This would make the teachings of Jesus, which would have been new to them, easier to understand. Even today, most students of the Bible are familiar with many of the objects mentioned in the Good Shepherd Discourse, but maybe we should clarify the sheepfold, which may not be universally understood.
THE SHEEPFOLD
In the day of Jesus’ ministry, the common practice of shepherds was that each shepherd watched over his flock during the daytime as the sheep grazed. At nightfall, all the shepherds herded their flocks into a community holding pen to protect the sheep from injury and theft by predators and thieves. This kind of enclosure is called a “sheepfold” and protects all the flocks grazed in the pastures nearby. This pen could be properly accessed by a door (or gate) which was usually not a constructed door or gate but was an opening in the wall where a shepherd would be located to control access to the sheepfold. So, the shepherd was the door of the sheepfold.
The next morning, the shepherds would come to the door and be admitted by the gatekeeper or doorkeeper, and each shepherd would call to his sheep, which would recognize their shepherd’s voice and then exit the door following their shepherd. Each shepherd, in turn, collected his flock from the sheepfold in this way.
These sheepfolds consisted of a fold enclosed by a stone wall or rail fence; ordinarily, the fold had no roof. Sheepfolds were properly entered by the door, but they could be entered by climbing over the wall or fence to surreptitiously harm or steal the sheep.
THE GOOD SHEPHERD DISCOURSE
The Good Shepherd Discourse found in John 10:1-21 contains two “I Am” statements. The first is “I am the door of the sheep” (John 10:7), and the second is “I am the good shepherd” (John 10:11, 14). Jesus used the “door” metaphor to symbolize Himself in v. 7, and He switched to the “good shepherd” metaphor in vv. 11 and 14.
In this allegory, the door and the good shepherd (shepherd in v. 2) metaphorically represent Jesus, the sheep represent Jews and Gentiles, the sheep of this fold (v. 16) refers to the Jewish people, and the term other sheep (v. 16) represents the Gentiles. This fold represents Israel (Judaism), and the other fold (v. 16) represents the Gentile world. The flock represents Jew and Gentile believers, and the thieves and robbers represent the false teachers, false prophets, scribes and Pharisees, the Jewish leaders, and anyone who would lead His church away from the Gospel message and the Word of God.
Jesus spoke this figurative lesson to the Jews, but they failed to understand the comparisons made. They had no idea whom the thieves and robbers symbolized. The Jewish leaders were so smug in their knowledge, which they considered unquestionable, that they could not grasp that the thieves and robbers were, in fact, the Jewish leaders themselves. Neither did they see Jesus as the Son of God, the Messiah, and thus, they could not see that the door and the good shepherd represented Jesus Himself.
The symbolic meaning of a metaphorical object in the sphere of the kingdom is sometimes not provided by Jesus, as in the door, fold, sheep, shepherd, and flock in the present allegory. In the sphere of the enemies of the kingdom, the symbolic meaning of the thieves and robbers, strangers, and hired hands in the present allegory are easily determined by considering the historical context of the allegory, but this may not always be the case for certain objects.
When interpreting allegories, not every object in the allegory must be given a parallel in the kingdom sphere or in the sphere of the enemies of the kingdom.
We cannot determine a kingdom of heaven parallel with certainty regarding the gatekeeper. This term seems to be included only to complete the allegory since there were gatekeepers connected with the sheepfold, but the gatekeeper does not have an obvious parallel in the kingdom realm. Nevertheless, some commentators assign corresponding kingdom parallels to gatekeeper such as the Holy Spirit. However, we think this somewhat forced interpretation could lead to a misinterpretation of Jesus’ teaching in this allegory.
In closing this section, the symbolism of the door and the shepherd should be clarified. In this discourse, Jesus has Himself as the door and the shepherd that enters the door. How can this be? One might consider this idea that one person, Jesus, is two different things to be an ungrammatical blunder that violates logic. How can one person be two different things at once? Indeed, this is a solecism[1] that amounts to a reductio ad absurdum.[2] However, the door and the shepherd represent one person, which is neither of these two literary miscues.
This so-called mixed metaphor does not cause a problem. When we go back to the construction of a sheepfold, we see that the opening in the wall of the sheepfold that was the place of the door was not a wooden door. The door of the sheepfold was the shepherd who often lay within the opening to control entry into and exit from the sheepfold. So, in the symbol, the shepherd WAS the door. Likewise, the metaphorical symbol and Jesus are both the door and the shepherd.
I AM THE DOOR OF THE SHEEP
A door leads both in and out. The shepherd controls access in both directions. Jesus is the door through which Jew and Gentile enter the world (John 1:1-4), the metaphorical sheepfold. He is the door to the sheep (Jew and Gentile) for every true shepherd. Jesus is the door of all sheep for access into the sheepfold and all true sheep (believers) to the blessings of salvation.
Jesus is the creator and sustainer of life itself. Only through Christ can people exist in the world. Jesus Christ is the door through which all believers must pass to receive salvation when they leave this world to enter the green pasture of heaven. There is no other way. Jesus is the only way out of the bondage of the depravity of the soul. He is the only door to eternal life.
Jesus is the door of security that keeps out the robbers and thieves. He is also the door of passage into the kingdom of God and the blessings of salvation, and He is the door of communication to His church. Moreover, He is the door through which His ministers and preachers of the Gospel gain access to His flock, the church.
I AM THE GOOD SHEPHERD
God is referred to as like a shepherd in the Old Testament (Is. 40:11). Elsewhere in the New Testament, Christ is referred to as the great shepherd (Heb. 13:20), the chief Shepherd (1 Pet. 5:4), and the Shepherd and Overseer of your soul (1 Pet. 2:25).
Jesus is the good shepherd. He shepherds his flock, the church of all true believers. In stark contrast to the false shepherds, Jesus came to lead His own to the blessings of salvation. He knows each by name; they know Him and respond only to His voice.
As the good shepherd, Jesus came to save the Jews from the false teaching of Judaism, and He saved the Gentiles from the depravity of paganism. Once His own are brought out of bondage to the world and into the light of Christ, they follow Him on the path to salvation. They follow Him willingly and will listen only to Him.
Jesus alone is the good shepherd who lays down His life for His sheep and for His sheep only. A shepherd may risk his life to protect his sheep, but Jesus is more than that. He voluntarily dies to pay the ransom in order to save His own. Jesus’ atonement was limited to those whom the Father gave Him, the elect, the children of God, true believers.
[1] Solecism: an ungrammatical combination of words which deviates from the proper or acceptable logic or norm.
[2] Reductio ad absurdum: a Latin term that refers to the method of disproving an argument by showing that it leads to an absurd consequence when taken to its logical conclusion. A statement is defeated by showing that in cannot logically be as stated.
