Christ knows everything about the believer and still loves the believer.
John 10:12 "He who is a hireling, and not a shepherd, who is not the owner of the sheep, beholds the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep, and flees, and the wolf snatches them, and scatters them.
/A hireling is a hired hand who would never have as much desire for the sheep as the owner.\
The word used here is only used twice in the NT, both in gospels and it refers to any hired laborer and does not reference any particular skill.
It would not be abnormal for a shepherd to hire help and as we all know there are good workers and bad.
The reference here is definitely to the Pharisees and religious leaders of Israel who were supposed to be doing the job of teaching the word of God to the people while carrying out the temple rituals and sacrifices and they were doing a terrible job.
/The point here is that religion doesn’t care about people, but rather only desires to use them, and when they can’t use them anymore they flee from them.\
In this case, the wolf is Rome who 40 years from this time is going to descend upon Jerusalem and wipe it out.
The legend of the foundation of Rome states that the twins Romulus and Remus were taken from their father (either the god Mars or Hercules) and cast into the Tiber River where they were rescued by a she wolf who nursed them until they were found and restored to their proper birthright. They argue over where to build their new city, over which Romulus prevails and names the city after himself – Rome. The wolf is the symbol of the founding of Rome.
The hirelings flee, but Christ will not. And interestingly enough, the one world order that is organized during the Tribulation is the restoration of the Roman Empire as prophesied by Daniel, which conducts war against the Jews yet again, but in that time their Shepherd returns at the Second Coming and destroys all enemies of true Israel.
The good Shepherd does not desert His sheep. At this time in the gospel the client nation Israel must be destroyed because of their rejection of the Shepherd so that the church can be intercalated.
It must be emphasized that the Jews did this to themselves. They rejected Christ, they even rejected the laws of divine establishment and they brought ruin upon themselves.
Religion was using terrible policies that were bringing destruction to Jerusalem and in 70 A.D. that destruction came. And at that time the Pharisees were no where to be found. They fled the city and left the sheep on their own. This is what religion does.
John 10:12 "He who is a hireling, and not a shepherd, who is not the owner of the sheep, beholds the wolf coming, and leaves [deserts] the sheep, and flees, and the wolf snatches them [captures with violence], and scatters them.
/Out of the 2 million that were living in Jerusalem in 70 A.D. it is estimated that around 97,000 survived and were forced into slavery, which would spread them all over the world.\
That means less than 5% survived. The siege of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. was the worst in all human history.
Yet amazingly God has preserved a remnant of them though they are now scattered all over the globe. Israel remains under the 5th cycle of discipline until the second advent of Christ. The Israel nation that exists now is not a client nation, but the restored nation will show God to fulfill His unconditional covenants.
The Pharisees don’t care about the people.
John 10:13 "He flees because he is a hireling, and is not concerned about the sheep.
This shows that the religious leaders of Israel were indifferent to the fate they had brought upon the people. Their policies destroyed the nation.
There is a key principle here.
/When religion becomes the state or when religion influences the state so that the policies of religion become administrative policies the state destroys itself.\
So between 30 AD and 70 AD, a period of some 40 years, this is exactly what happened. The reason there is no concern for the sheep is because eventually all religious organizations are ecumenical or international in their thinking, and internationalism destroys national definition. [religion in politics making the world a better place]
When you destroy national definition you destroy freedom and when you destroy freedom everything goes.
In verse 14 the Lord begins the second shepherd discourse.
John 10:14 "I am the good shepherd; and I know My own, and My own know Me,
“I am” is again the present active of the verbeimi, ‘I keep on being the good shepherd, I always will be the good shepherd, there never will be a time when I am not the good shepherd.’
The word good is kalos, and again it means the beautiful shepherd who is the God-Man, Jesus Christ in hypostatic union.
Jesus Christ was perfect and beautiful in His humanity and, of course, He was perfect and beautiful in His deity.
/“and I know (my own)” – ginosko – ‘to know,’ but it means to know from the experience of observation, study, and also to know from the experience of falling in love with someone.\
Ginosko becomes an interesting verb in this respect. If the object of ginosko is Bible doctrine then it means to come to know by gradual learning.
It is used in this respect many times in the word of God and in the Gospel of John.
But here the object is not doctrine, but a person. He says that, “I know my own”, literally, “I know the mine.”
With Christ as the subject and the believer who belongs to Christ as the object this cannot be interpreted as Christ coming to know you who belong to Him because He has known you since eternity past and He is not waiting for any revelation of you.
It is a present active indicative which means He keeps on knowing His own from eternity past, when you were saved, in time, and in eternity.
For humans relationships take time, you have to get to know the person and if you’re around the person long enough to get to know them and possibly fall in love with them.
But a finite person is not the subject, Christ is, therefore this verb does not mean to come to know His own, but to love His own fully knowing everything about them.
Sometimes ginosko is study, sometimes it is love. It depends on the object. And since Christ is the subject then it refers to the instant and constant love He has for the sheep that were given to Him – His own sheep that belong to Him that He knows everything about.
/Ginosko here is a love knowing all the facts. He loves us with an infinite love, knowing every mistake that we would ever make, knowing every failure. His love depends on who and what He is, not who and what we are.\
John 10:14 "I am the good shepherd; and I know My own, and My own know Me,
The word sheep is not here, except by implication – “I keep on being the good shepherd.”
Now the reciprocation is that, “My own know me,” which is ginosko again and again the object is a person and not a thing. The object is the Shepherd so again it refers to a love with thorough knowledge.
However, this time the subject is the believer, the sheep who has not known Christ from eternity past, and does not possess much knowledge of Christ at salvation.
So in this case it refers to a love that comes from accumulated knowledge of the Savior.
So an important principle emerges here:
/Christ loves the believer while fully knowing everything about the believer and that love never grows or diminishes. The believer loves Christ more and more as he learns more doctrine.\
Christ’s love for us is immutable while our love for Him is progressive and both types of love are based on knowing something.
Christ knows that every believer was given to Him as a gift from eternity past and He also knows that every one of them possess His righteousness.
The believer knows Christ as the Savior at the moment of salvation and may love Him in a limited way at that point, but the believer’s love for Christ grows as more knowledge of Christ is accumulated in the soul.
/This means that not every believer loves Christ even though Christ loves every believer. Reciprocal love to Christ depends on accumulation of doctrine in the soul.\
[example: Lord’s supper, which we will celebrate Sunday]
This ginosko from the believer and directed towards Christ is also in the active voice which means the believer has to make the decision to store up doctrine in his own soul.
/In other words, if you don’t know Bible doctrine you don’t love God.\
Now, our Lord loves us while knowing everything about us. With all that knowledge about us we are called sheep.
Characteristics of the word ‘sheep’
/1. A sheep cannot guide himself. Our Shepherd, the Lord Jesus Christ, provides guidance for us. We have no clue as to what is the divine viewpoint or the divine will as we go through time, so He has provided us with Bible doctrine.\
/2. A sheep cannot cleanse himself. Our Shepherd provides for us rebound. He has provided cleansing from sin, the basis for getting back into fellowship.\
/3. A sheep is helpless when injured. A shepherd has to provide for every problem, for every pressure, for every disaster for the sheep. Our Shepherd provides for us, again through Bible doctrine, the basis whereby we can meet any disaster in life.\
/4. A sheep is defenceless, apart from the shepherd. Our Shepherd has provided a wall of fire for us – Zechariah 2:5.\
/5. A sheep cannot find water. Our Shepherd has provided for us water, the water of life; and He has provided for us food.\
/6. A sheep is easily frightened. Our Shepherd, the Lord Jesus Christ, provides Bible doctrine for us in time of disaster.\
/7. A sheep’s production does not belong to the sheep. By this is meant that a sheep has wool. The sheep grows wool but is doesn’t belong to it. The sheep’s wool is analogous to divine good.\
Divine good doesn’t belong to us; it is the production of Bible doctrine and the filling of the Spirit. Our divine good, as it were, is sheared off, and that is the last that we see it until eternity.
This means that we should not be living in past victories. You’ve had victories in the past? Great! But that was yesterday and this is today.
In fact, the KOD know that we are weak when we think we are strong. After a great victory in the spiritual life we have a tendency to get puffed up and in arrogance become weak. It is when we are weak that the KOD revs up its attack.
/Yesterday’s victories are shorn off like the wool of the sheep and will not be seen again until the Bema Seat Judgement. Focus on today’s victories.\
Wool is sheared and the sheep is thin again, just like hanging on to yesterday’s victories will leave us puffed up, so shearing them will make room for more victories.
So our Shepherd provides the basis for our production of divine good.
John 10:14 "I am the good shepherd; and I know [love with full knowledge of them] My own, and My own know Me [will do the same with enough doctrine],
/Every believer does not love God. They are the recipients of His love but they don’t love Him. The only way that we can love God is to know Him, and you have to know Bible doctrine.\
Doctrine was daily the Lord’s delight, in eternity past as well as in time. Be careful and buy the days. I recently talked to a believer who shared with me that they went far away from doctrine for years. That began with one day when doctrine wasn’t that important.
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