Reflecting on the goodness of The Good Shepherd

One of the hallmarks of St. John's Gospel is what has become lovingly known as the seven 'I am' statements of Jesus: "I am the bread of life" (Jn. 6.35); "I am the light of the world" (Jn. 8.12); "I am the door" (Jn. 10.9); "I am the good shepherd" (Jn. 10.11, 10.14); "I am the resurrection and the life" (Jn. 11.25-26); "I am the way, the truth, and the life" (Jn. 14.6); "I am the true vine" (Jn. 15.1, 15.4-5).

By each of these seven statements, Jesus reveals His inaugurated fulfillment of Messianic prophecy—unabashedly equating Himself with God, the promised Messiah, and the faithful firstborn son of God, a role typified by both Adam and Israel, but fulfilled in Christ.

Jesus's revelation of Himself through these statements is profound, and best understood through surveying the whole scope of redemptive history, as revealed through the Scriptures.

Below stands a humble attempt to do just that by reflecting on Christ's revelation that He is the Good Shepherd, the tender caretaker of our souls, who—in boundless love—laid down His life for us, His sheep.

The Good Shepherd is good because He sets His flock apart

The Good Shepherd does not leave His sheep to wander. In fact, as we know from Luke 15, the Good Shepherd leaves the 99 for the one.

But once we have been saved from our wandering, the Good Shepherd sets His sheep apart, hemming them in with his hedge of protection and provision. And this is a particularly glorious blessing of the New Covenant, because just as we are set apart by Christ, the LORD set Israel apart; but, the Israelites did not have shepherds who could keep them from wandering as Christ keeps us (Jn. 6.39).

Unlike our Good Shepherd, many of Israel's shepherds themselves wandered. And, as went the king, so too went the people. That is, until their violations against the Covenant became so egregious that the LORD declared Israel to no longer be His set-apart people (Ho. 1:9).^[1]

But hear this Christian, Christ—the Good Shepherd—has purchased us with His blood. We are and forever more will be His people, set apart by His grace for His glory.

The coming of this Shepherd, the one who would be perfectly faithful to God, was foreshadowed during the time of Israel. In Nu. 27.17, Moses asks the LORD to set His people apart by placing them under the care of a shepherd who would “lead them out and bring them in, that the congregation of the Lord may not be like sheep which have no shepherd.”

And now He has come, and set He has set us, His sheep, apart with His blood. We are eternally secure under His protective hand.

The Good Shepherd is good because He protects His flock

Earlier in John 10, Jesus teaches that “all who ever came before Me are thieves and robbers”. What is He saying? Those who had been appointed to shepherd the people of God—the religious elite—had sacrificed their sheep for their own gain, rather than sacrificing themselves to protect their sheep. They were bad shepherds. Christ, the Good Shepherd, sacrificed Himself to protect His sheep.

But what does the Good Shepherd protect His flock from?

In short, the enemies of the Kingdom; but, who are those enemies?

First and foremost, “the dragon, that ancient serpent who is the devil” (Rv. 20.2) and his demons.

Secondly, rebels against the Kingdom of Heaven, or as Paul describes them, “children of wrath” (Ep. 2.3) He protects His sheep from sheep that are not his own. And for those that are, He protects them from themselves—from remaining scoffers whose mocking voices can be heard at the foot of the cross.

Thirdly, finally, “The last enemy that will be destroyed is death.” (1 Cr. 15.26) The Good Shepherd protects His flock from death itself. We see this clearly when Jesus continues His revelation of Himself as the Good Shepherd in response to challenges by the Pharisees in Jn. 10:28: “And I give them [His sheep] eternal life, and they shall never perish…”

The Good Shepherd is good because He feeds His flock

Earlier in Jn. 10 we see that Jesus—in revealing Himself to be the greater Joshua who leads God’s chosen people into the true promised land (and true, everlasting, eschatological^[2] rest)—makes it clear that His fold “will go in and out and find pasture” (Jn. 10.9). What is pasture to a sheep? It's provision, sustenance, in some ways life itself.

The Good Shepher's faithful leading of His flock to pasture reflects another of Jesus’s seven ”I am” statements in the Gospel of John, where Jesus reveals Himself to be the Bread of Life (Jn 6.35). The Good Shepherd is good because His flock is always fed. Even in "the valley of the shadow of death" (Ps 23.4) Christ's beloved dine at His table (Ps. 23.5).

The Good Shepherd is good because He is known by His sheep

It seems self-evident that a shepherd would be known by His sheep, but the shepherds of Israel (like many of the religious elite today, sadly) were not really known by their congregants. Rather than living out their calling to humbly lead the people of God in the worship of God, they became preoccupied with maintaining an image of righteousness before men—which, as Isaiah testified, is “like filthy rags” (Is. 64.6)^[3].

Unlike those bad shepherds, Christ’s righteousness is not for show. Unlike the Pharisees' carefully crafted image of piety, Christ doesn't feign holiness—He is in fact “the brightness of His [the Father's] glory, the express image” of the invisible God (He. 1.3).

Christ is The Good Shepherd because He makes Himself known—truly known—to His beloved. He reveals Himself to them, acquaints them with His tender voice, and leads them with His gentle hand. The Good Shepherd loves His sheep. He handles them with care. He makes Himself known to them, and in doing so reveals ever-greater glimpses of his glorious goodness until it can be fully gazed upon in the age to come. (Re. 5.13)

The Good Shepherd is good because He does not leave His sheep to the care of hirelings

No sheep has been saved through the care of a mere man, but only and ever through the personal care of the Good Shepherd Himself. Hirelings (false teachers, spiritual charlatans, abusers, oppressors, and the like) care not for their sheep, keeping them for as long as they prove useful and then dispensing of them when favorable.

But the Good Shepherd cares for His Sheep with the love with which the Father loves Him. Unlike hirelings who serve themselves, the Good Shepherd serves His sheep.

The Good Shepherd is good because He lets no one snatch His sheep

One of the most striking themes of John’s Gospel is his emphasis on Jesus’s teaching that the Father gives the beloved into the Son’s hand (Jn. 3.35, 6.37, 6.39, 10.29, 13.3, 17.2, 17.6, 17.9, 17.11) and that the Son will not lose any of them, but raise them up on the last day (Jn. 6.40).

One such teaching comes from Jesus’s revelation of Himself as the Good Shepherd in 10.29, where He makes clear that “no one is able to snatch them [His sheep] out of My Father’s hand.” The Good Shepherd gives assurance to His sheep that they are, and forevermore will be, His.

The Good Shepherd is good because His sheep hear His voice and follow

What a glorious blessing that the sheep, not to their own credit but to the credit of the LORD^[4], hear the voice of the Good Shepherd and follow! We know that the Good Shepherd is faithful to lead them in and out and to give them pasture, but what ensures that they follow His leading? The goodness of the Good Shepherd.

Because He is the author and perfecter of their faith, the Good Shepherd’s sheep will follow His voice because His voice has been revealed to them. It’s a gift of grace that they know His voice and can follow where He leads.

Unlike other sheep, the Good Shepherd’s sheep are not left to seek out their own way, or to find their own pastures, but are given the gift of hearing (Jn. 3.29, 4.42, 5.24-25, 6.45, 8.47, 9.31, 10.3, 10.16, 10.27, 18.21, 18.37) that they might follow the Good Shepherd’s voice as He leads them “beside still waters” (Ps. 23).

The Good Shepherd is good because He lays down His life for His sheep

If the goodness of the Good Shepherd can be thought of as the facets of a diamond, the largest of those facets—the table—is this: that He lays down His life for His sheep (Jn. 10.11, 10.17-18). Nothing more clearly reveals the goodness of the Good Shepherd than His laying down His life for His sheep!

The hirelings flee and leave their sheep to be scattered by the wolves (Jn. 10.12), but the Good Shepherd offers—of His own volition—His life to protect His sheep from the wolves before He eviscerates them once and for all on the day of judgment (Re. 20.14, 21.18).

The Good Shepherd is good because He holds the authority to take back His life (and, therein, secure eternal life for His sheep)

Not only does the Good Shepherd lay down his life for His sheep, but He has the power to take it back—securing through His own resurrection, the resurrection of all His sheep (Jn. 10.28).

The Good Shepherd leads His sheep not just to a good pasture, but the good pasture, where “there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away” (Re. 21.4).

The Sheep of the Good Shepherd’s fold shall never perish, because He has overcome perishing itself, and He shares His victory with His sheep (Jn. 16:33).

And, The Good Shepherd is good because He brings together one flock under one Shepherd

As He revealed to Nicodemus under the cloak of night, the Good Shepherd came to save, and not just those of the house of Israel, but of the whole world! The Good Shepherd revealed His voice “first to the Jew, then to the Gentile” (Ro. 1.16). We are products of grace to know the voice of the Good Shepherd and to be brought into His fold—the one fold ferried by the one Good Shepherd into the age to come.

The Father has not revealed multiple shepherds, nor does He keep multiple flocks (Jn. 10.16)But He has revealed Himself in the one Good Shepherd who keeps one flock “to the praise of His glorious grace which He has freely given us in the Beloved One” (Ep. 1.6).

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1. To be clear, the shortcomings of Israel's human shepherds and the waywardness of the nation and its ultimate corporate dismissal by God through the prophets in no way jeopardizes the salvation of the Old Testament elect. Men and who women who clung to faith in the promise of the Messiah are being kept the by Good Shepherd just as we are. (Ro. 4:1-3) ↩︎

2. For a more-robustly Biblical-Theological definition of what constitutes something as being eschatological in nature see Part II of G.K. Beale's Union with the Resurrected Christ (2023); otherwise, having eschatological properties can be thought of as relating to the final judgment and the indefinite state that will be consummated following the final judgment. ↩︎

3. Paul highlights the filthiness of human righteousness by contrasting it with the righteousness of Christ that is imputed to us by faith in Ph. 3:8-9: "What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith ↩︎

4. English transliteration of the tetragrammaton (or Hebrew theonym) יהוה (eng. equivalent, YHWH) used throughout the Old Testament to signify the name of the LORD in writing. ↩︎