In this message we shall consider more symbols of the believers found in the New Testament.
John 10 speaks of the believers as sheep. Both the Jewish and the Gentile believers are sheep with Christ as their Shepherd.
First, the sheep are the Jewish believers who came out of the sheepfold of Judaism through Christ as the door (vv. 2-4, 7-9). The sheepfold in John 10 signifies the law and also Judaism, the religion of the law. Before Christ came, God put His chosen people under the custody of the law. The law was the fold where God’s people as the sheep were kept and protected temporarily until the pasture, the permanent place for the sheep, was ready. Christ is the pasture, the permanent place for God’s people to stay. Before Christ came, God prepared the law as the sheepfold to keep and confine His chosen people temporarily. However, the Jewish religion utilized the law to form Judaism, which then became the sheepfold.
John 10 reveals that Christ is the door through which God’s people leave the fold and come to the pasture. God no longer intends to keep His chosen people in the fold of the law. Rather, He wants them to come out of the law into Christ. Now, during the New Testament age, God intends to bring His people out of the law through Christ as the door. Christ has come, and the pasture is ready. There is no need for the sheep to be confined any longer in the custody of the Judaic law. They must be released from the fold of the law to enjoy the riches of the pasture. Christ is the door through which His believers may come out of any kind of fold and come into Him as the pasture.
Second, the sheep in John 10 are the Gentile believers, who were brought in by Christ to be one flock (the church) with the Jewish believers. Verse 16 says, “I have other sheep which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they shall hear My voice, and there shall be one flock, one shepherd.” Here the Lord Jesus reveals that besides the Jewish believers as His sheep kept under the ward of the law He has other sheep which are not of the Jewish fold, which are God’s chosen people among the Gentiles and which He must bring in. When this word was spoken by the Lord Jesus, it was a prophecy. This prophecy was fulfilled in Acts when Peter went to preach the gospel to the household of Cornelius, who were Gentiles (Acts 10), and when Paul went to preach the gospel to the Gentile world (Acts 13). Through the preaching of the gospel to the Gentiles, many were saved unto the Lord out of different tongues, and they all became the Lord’s sheep.
The Lord Jesus first called and brought His Jewish believers out of the fold of the Jewish religion, and after Pentecost He saved and brought many Gentile believers out of the Gentile world to make them all, both the Jewish believers and the Gentile believers, one flock under Himself as the one Shepherd. This one flock is the one, universal church, the one Body of Christ (Eph. 2:14-16; 3:6), brought forth by life, which the Lord imparted into us through His death and resurrection. The one flock no longer belongs to the Jewish fold or to the Gentile world, but stands by itself as the church of God set apart from the Jews and the Gentiles (1 Cor. 10:32). The one flock is very different in nature from a fold. As our Shepherd, Christ has brought us into the flock, where we are in the pasture enjoying Him as our life and life supply.
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